With the Google Memo in circulation and multiple sexual discrimination lawsuits piling up throughout Silicon Valley, the industry that prides itself on disrupting the status quo has had one heck of a hard time fixing it’s own cultural problems. Race- and gender-based inequality have long plagued tech, weeding out underrepresented talent at every phase — from recruitment and hiring to retention and promotion.
The Kapor Center’s 2017 Tech Leavers study surveyed roughly 2,000 employees in tech, in an attempt to uncover the factors driving this lack of diversity and contributing to turnover. 40% of respondents said unfairness or mistreatment played a major role in their decision to leave their company, 1 in 10 women experienced unwanted sexual attention, while LGBT employees were most likely to be bullied and/or experience public humiliation.
“Experiencing and observing unfairness was a significant predictor of leaving due to unfairness, and the more bullying experienced, the shorter the length of time that employees remained at their previous company”. Women, underrepresented groups of color, and the LGBTQ community have each described the work culture as “toxic”, and are not afraid to voluntarily walk away from an environment that is not truly representative of their values.
For the third year in a row, Kapor Capital is excited to bring together some of the most innovative thinkers in People Ops Technology — a field that CNN.com refers to as “the sexy new startup sector that’s disrupting HR.” Entrepreneurs must become the catalysts for change that close these opportunity gaps in tech.
On December 7, 2017, we’ll host our 3rd annual People Ops Tech Competition in Oakland, CA. POT seeks to transition from the human-decision elements of recruiting to a data-driven science model, enabling hiring managers to conduct a more accurate, and transparent assessment of skills during the hiring process.
The competition will highlight 10 ventures that will have the chance to pitch their for-profit startups to a curated group of investors and judges, who have a track record in People Ops Tech, for $50,000 in prizes. This will be followed by a demo and showcase.
We are currently recruiting entrepreneurs from across the U.S. that are mitigating bias in every aspect of how people are hired and treated as tech employees, such as:
- Leveraging machine learning/AI/data science to find the best candidates often overlooked by recruiters and decrease bias in every aspect of employment
- Creating pathways to careers for individuals outside of the traditional recruitment pipeline
- Offering career coaching and/or mentoring for underrepresented talent to better navigate path to executive leadership
Eligible enterprises must be either pre-seed or seed stage ventures with an established Minimum Viable Product (MVP), and have less than $2M in revenue or raised funding. Apply now to compete, and join us to reinvent the future of tech.