For the past four years, large Silicon Valley tech firms have published their diversity data, revealing stark racial and gender disparities despite growing recognition of the many benefits of increased company diversity for innovation and performance.
Galvanized by national politics, Oakland gets out the vote
Down the street on Broadway, staffers from the Kapor Center for Social Impact, a non-profit focused on increasing diversity in the tech industry, had set up a booth offering churros and lemonade for people who voted. Two employees manned the station all day, taking shifts and helping passersby find their polling station. The center has never done something like this …
Latinx Tech Summit Wraps Up
It’s no secret the Latino community is underrepresented in the tech industry, but a first of its kind summit in Oakland is aiming to change that. The Kapor Center in Oakland organized the Latinx in Tech summit. Nearly 300 people showed up from around the country to meet fellow web designers, investors, and entrepreneurs. Organizers say the goal was to …
Startups Pitch Ways to fight Workplace Bias, Harassment and Discrimination
Before attending Harvard Business School, Rahkeem Morris once was a high school dropout in a single-parent household in Albany, New York. He worked three part-time jobs, including at a Taco Bell, to support himself and his family.
Black VC’s are Transforming Tech
Would it surprise you to know that there are more than 100 black venture capitalists or that this nationwide ecosystem is growing?
Create culture of inclusion if you want true workplace diversity
All employers and employees must take responsibility for creating a safe and inclusive environment, instead of placing the task of calling out culturally destructive behavior on the shoulders of minorities.
As harassment scandal reaches tech industry, start-ups look for ways to check bad behavior
Venture capitalists have long had god-like status in the tech industry. Founders venerate them because they need their money. Limited partners eagerly throw billions of dollars their way, enamored by their outsized investment returns.
How to Finally Fix the Gender Gap in VC
In this Part II of a two-part series, we identify systemic problems with the current institutions that fund venture capital (VC) groups and propose how to change this archaic system. This builds off of Part I where we discussed the gender disparities in venture capital, and how solving for those issues creates great financial opportunities for investors, as well as assuring our …
We’ve Got the ’70s-Style Rage. Now We Need the ’70s-Style Feminist Social Analysis.
Amid the present flood of accusations of sexual harassment and abuse, there’s been a strange scarcity of broader social critique. We are accumulating copious evidence of wrongdoing, without looking deeper for a diagnosis
The Tech Industry’s Gender Discrimination Problem
One day in 2013, AJ Vandermeyden drove to Tesla’s corporate headquarters, in Palo Alto, California, sat down on a bench outside the main entrance, and waited, in the hope of spotting someone who looked like a company employee. Vandermeyden, who was thirty years old, had been working as a pharmaceutical sales representative since shortly after college, but she wanted a …
Here’s the Real Reason Tech Companies Fail to Hire More Minorities
Apple’s new diversity report, out last week, highlighted a sad fact: Underrepresented minorities employed at the company grew from just 19% in 2014 to 23% in 2017. While the tech giant claims that 50% of its new hires in the US this year were from historically underrepresented groups in tech, the meager results mirror the industry at large.
Why Discrimination in Venture Capital Runs Deep
This week, venture capitalist Steve Jurvetson left his own firm, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, amid allegations of inappropriate conduct that led to an internal investigation. The company said he left by mutual agreement. This has happened before at other firms. Ellen Pao is a venture capitalist who sued well-known firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers for gender discrimination in 2012. She …