In February 2017, Susan Fowler wrote a Blog post While working as an engineer at Uber, she faced severe sexual harassment. She never expected that millions of people would read her post or care that her boss proposed to her for sex.
Fowler helped catalyze tech’s MeToo movement, which has led to several DEI commitments, including hiring and investing in more women and leading startups, and raising salaries for women and BIPOC employees. Closing the gap etc.
Six years later, we have little progress to prove that you can’t get a return on investment on performative alliances.
Why Performance DEI Has Failed
Latest data from State of Women in Tech and Startups Report The nonprofit Women in Tech, which I founded, shows that 42% of women working in tech have experienced harassment. Additionally, 70% of female founders told us that they have been treated differently when raising funds for their startup because of their gender.
As tech companies and VCs head into 2024 to reveal business goals, it’s important to understand why DEI has failed. DEI has historically been seen as a project, and projects have deadlines. It has never been recognized as essential to fostering true unity and building truly inclusive practices into the DNA of companies, startups, and funds that empower underrepresented voices, drive innovation do, and promote a culture of integrity.
In 2020, DEI job listings grew 123 percent After the Black Lives Matter protests, more funding and hiring for blacks began. However, the investment was sofa cushion change. According to The Black Tech Project The research, which looked at investments from several companies such as Apple, Alphabet/Google, and Meta, each managed to return their DEI financial investment in profit within one to six days. In 2023, the economy faces uncertainty, DEI budgets were first cut.and many DEI Positions were cut..
As Gen Z, most of all An ethnically diverse race Enters the workforce, the bogus alliances used to bury DEI issues are deeply troubling. In fact, a Monster survey found 83% of Gen Z candidates said a company’s commitment to diversity and inclusion is important when choosing an employer..
Hiring DEI officers, setting up comprehensive sites, and excessive funding that is never deployed will not move the needle – the real capital will. However, there are $80 trillion under management in the U.S. (representing money managed by pension funds, family offices, foundations and endowments), according to a Night Diversity of Asset Managers The study found 98.6% of that money was held by white men. This is not a mere coincidence. 2% of VC funding goes to women-led startups.and less than 0.4% goes to companies founded by black women.
This lack of progress is consistent with the Women’s Tech study. We found that 65% of founders reported that they would be more likely to receive funding if they were male or had a co-founder who was male. 47 percent of black women say they have been harassed. Overall, 40% of female founders say they’ve experienced harassment, a decrease of just 4% since 2017. And 50% of women who have been sexually harassed say they have been offered sex in exchange for funding or support.
Will new legislation and laws help make Big Tech and VC more inclusive?
Even with data Startups and companies with diverse leadership generate higher ROI., we’re not moving the needle. I spoke with Christian F. Nunes, president of National Now.
“The key to change is accountability. Tech companies (and VCs) must stick to their inclusion promises to women. Otherwise, where’s the incentive to follow through? If women’s voices aren’t being heard and It doesn’t matter if the process isn’t being implemented,” Nunes said.
A new one California law will now require diversity reporting. For venture capital and private equity firms. Yinka Faleti, a partner at Ascend Venture Capital, told me that “I suspect some VC firms are not even tracking this data for themselves in any systematic way. This law will change that. By doing so, I hope that this law will be a catalyst to encourage greater diversity among the founding teams of VC portfolio companies,” said Faleti, who also previously served as executive director of Forward Through Ferguson.
Will there be more states next? Massachusetts Home And The Senate The Fair Investment Practices Act is under consideration. Encourage more investment in startups with diverse leadership and extend workplace sexual harassment and gender discrimination protections to venture capital and investor relations.
Women in tech are tired of being overlooked in favor of allied theater. As MLNP’s Cindy Gallup puts it, “Are you the type of investor/company that supports women and underrepresented people in tech, or are you the type that writes checks?”
Alison Cupin, founder of Women Who Tech, co-founder of the Red Campaign, and a GP at the W Fund, leads grassroots movements to promote diversity in the tech and startup sectors. She is an active investor in women-led and BIPOC startups. The National Organization for Women is a Red Campaign partner.
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