Women in venture capital

[3][4] In addition to finding that women make up the majority of early technology adopters,[5] Harvard Business School Professor Paul Gompers has stated that female venture capitalists consistently perform as well as males at large firms that have more than one woman.

Another is Elephant in the Valley, a survey aiming to expose discrimination started by several women in business including Tracy Vassallo, a former partner of the same firm.

For comparison, a UC Davis study focusing on large public companies in California found 49.5% with at least one female board seat.

In a follow-up Newsweek article, Nina Burleigh asked "Where were all these offended people when women like Heidi Roizen published accounts of having a venture capitalist stick her hand in his pants under a table while a deal was being discussed?

[16] Regarding the shortage of women in the industry, some venture capitalists have called this a contributing factor to similar gender disparity seen in a wider range of Silicon Valley companies.

[18] Industry scholar Vivek Wadhwa has proposed that another contributing factor is a lack of parental encouragement to study science and engineering.

[19] He has also cited a lack of women role models and noted that most famous tech leaders like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Mark Zuckerberg are men.

Subsequent commentary in USA Today pointed out that "women are underrepresented in Silicon Valley — from giant companies to start-ups to venture capital firms.

"[25] In October of that year, Bloomberg reported that Apple, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft attended the 20th annual Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing conference to recruit and potentially hire female engineers and technology experts.

[29] Nevertheless, the case, which had wide press coverage, resulted in major advances in consciousness of gender discrimination on the part of venture capital and technology firms and their women employees.