How the VC Pitch Process Is Failing Female Entrepreneurs by Kamal Hassan, Monisha Varadan, and Claudia Zeisberger

TL;DR - The pitch is highly biased for men and against women.

Helpfulness - 5

Topic Tags - Women in VC, pitching, bias, incentives

Questions answered:

Summary:

People are biased to favor male CEO pitchers over female CEO pitchers. Male and Female CEOs also get asked different questions when pitching. Males get asked “promotion questions” while Females are asked “prevention questions”.
The confidence gender gap is an effect still being debated about.
Sometimes female CEOs have a male pitcher, but this backfires because VC wants to see the person in charge.
Pitches are for the VC to get “up-close-and-personal” with the founder, but this presents bias and might not be necessary when most the decision is based on numbers and data.
- The VC firms that do vetting with only numbers report investing in more females by EIGHT TIMES.
- These firms are not attempting to empower female CEO, only make profits.
Ditching the pitch will empower women and lead to more profits for VC firms.

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Confidence gender gap