Jason Mendelson, Foundry Group: Women & Venture

• What percentage of women startups do you get pitches for?  And what percentage have you funded?

• Cindy Gallop, Founder of IfWeRanTheWorld, said in a  recent Faster Times interview : ‘VCs fund in their own image: white, male. The cycle is self-perpetuating, so (predominantly male) VCs have a preconceived notion in their heads of what they think constitutes the kind of entrepreneur to back. John Doerr apparently said, ‘If you’re a white, under 30, tech geek with no social life and a Harvard/Stanford dropout, line up for VC money.’ He didn’t say ‘male,’ but he might as well have. If it had been a 17-year-old Russian girl who came up with ChatRoulette would there have been as much interest in funding whatever she might do next?’  What is your take on this Jason, & if this is happening how can women startups find an opening in this culture?  I understand within your firm this doesn’t happen, but obviously it’s happening outside of Boulder?

It’s hard because I will say that I’m happily separated from a lot of that, being out here.  I also think that an early stage investor may have it differently.  Let’s look at it a couple of different ways.  Let’s look at it 1) Geography 2) Stage of Investment 3) Let’s really try to address your question.

1. I think geography, when you’re in a 2nd tier market like we are, it would absolutely be insane to look in the mirror & say that’s who I’m going to fund.  Because if you’re going to start the best companies, you need to be a mercenary & invest in the best people.  It doesn’t matter what race, color, creed, nationality, sexual orientation, sex, it doesn’t matter!  And we’ve funded plenty of companies that fit all of these different diversity buckets.  It’s really a question of what your pool is?  Here in Boulder we have a lot of white people running around the place!  It’s not the most culturally diverse, I think it’s more diverse on a sex basis between people in the system.  I think that things like TechStars & NCWIT really helped to build that.
2. The other thing as far as early stage investor is that you’re really basing your idea on somebody who has an extraordinary idea; to whom you feel committed that is a good person that can run this.  But you’re not necessarily looking for the person who has run 5 or 6 companies, right.  If I was a late stage investor there maybe a bias towards somebody who looked like me because we’ve invested in a whole bunch of CEOs who can run this.  I don’t even know because we don’t play that game.  But the really early stuff you just invest in the best ideas with the best people & you are blind to that, I think.
3. I’ll go back to that the pool of candidates is less than I think anybody would want. If you look at the original computer scientists they were all men & we are still dealing with that legacy.  Frankly we are seeing a great influx of Asian cultures coming into computer science as well.  They’re making huge gains!  And they’re are programs like the Carnegie Mellon Computer Science Program that’s run out of the EA Campus in Silicon Valley .  More than the majority of the people that were in the class last year, I went & guest lectured were from Asian backgrounds.  But there were a lot of women & that was good.  In fact one of our companies hired one of them recently in San Francisco.  And one other thing to address the 17 year old dropouts comment that was made, it seems cute & its laughable.  But I don’t think anyone could seriously take that as the real blueprint for how to succeed with venture.  And as far as ChatRoulette goes, I have absolutely zero kudos for it, so I couldn’t be less excited about it.