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| So, I'm not the only woman to despair about institutional sexism in tech | So, I'm not the only woman to despair about institutional sexism in tech |
| (5 days later) | |
| I have never had a more interesting discussion in a posh loo. On a voluptuous day-bed and plush armchairs, I was sitting with several formidable women, all despairing about the sexist curation of one of European technology’s most influential events. | |
| This is the 10th Founders Forum London, something like the Davos of tech but set in the home counties. It was launched 10 years ago by Brent Hoberman – investor, co-founder of lastminute.com and non-executive director of the Guardian Media Group – with fellow investor Jonathan Goodwin. The venue is exclusive, the clientele elite and the networking first-class. It bills itself as the premium event in the tech calendar this side of the Atlantic, and tugs on contacts across business, government and royalty to pull it off. | This is the 10th Founders Forum London, something like the Davos of tech but set in the home counties. It was launched 10 years ago by Brent Hoberman – investor, co-founder of lastminute.com and non-executive director of the Guardian Media Group – with fellow investor Jonathan Goodwin. The venue is exclusive, the clientele elite and the networking first-class. It bills itself as the premium event in the tech calendar this side of the Atlantic, and tugs on contacts across business, government and royalty to pull it off. |
| This year, there were more than 68 men speaking at the event, and four women. | This year, there were more than 68 men speaking at the event, and four women. |
| This year, there were more than 68 men speaking at the event, and four women | This year, there were more than 68 men speaking at the event, and four women |
| The women included TV presenter Davina McCall and psychotherapist Esther Perel, while the third, Claire Burge, was moderating rather than speaking. And the fourth – who joined us in the ladies – was Carina Namih, a ferociously talented entrepreneur whose startup is modifying DNA. Maybe Carina is the only woman in the tech world deserving of a platform at Founders Forum, or maybe it was because her pushy (male) mentor made the case for her on a panel about how technology is transforming healthcare. Four more women were invited but could not attend, we are told. As one founder remarked, even with the under-representation of women in the wider tech industry, it takes some effort to only put four on a stage. | |
| The future of work, financial technology, connected home, internet of things, wearables, the interface of design and tech, innovation, artificial intelligence – all male-only panels. When I pointed this out, another delegate on Twitter told me off for “trolling”, the digital equivalent of David Cameron’s “Calm down, dear”. One of the female founders who was there was told her outfit made her look like a French maid. Two male executives I spoke to didn’t want to rock the boat by complaining about the lack of female talent. Five female founders I spoke to said they can’t talk about it for fear of losing their funding. Tweets tend to flatter the event, the venue, the flying car in the garden. No one wanted to speak on record, lest they lose their invite to the next event. | The future of work, financial technology, connected home, internet of things, wearables, the interface of design and tech, innovation, artificial intelligence – all male-only panels. When I pointed this out, another delegate on Twitter told me off for “trolling”, the digital equivalent of David Cameron’s “Calm down, dear”. One of the female founders who was there was told her outfit made her look like a French maid. Two male executives I spoke to didn’t want to rock the boat by complaining about the lack of female talent. Five female founders I spoke to said they can’t talk about it for fear of losing their funding. Tweets tend to flatter the event, the venue, the flying car in the garden. No one wanted to speak on record, lest they lose their invite to the next event. |
| We converged in the toilets. London Mayoral candidate Tessa Jowell, lastminute.com’s other co-founder Martha Lane Fox, TomTom founder Corinne Vigreux, Unruly Media co-founder Sarah Wood, Clue co-founder Ida Tin and baby, and the brilliant Carina Namih. All agreed that we knew dozens of powerful, inspiring, successful women who battle every day against homophily; an establishment and a status quo that recruits, invests and listens to men just like them. As former HP CEO and presidential candidate Carly Fiorina pointed out recently, the 50 biggest public firms in the US have more CEOs called John than women; companies headed by men account for 98% of all tech industry venture capital. | We converged in the toilets. London Mayoral candidate Tessa Jowell, lastminute.com’s other co-founder Martha Lane Fox, TomTom founder Corinne Vigreux, Unruly Media co-founder Sarah Wood, Clue co-founder Ida Tin and baby, and the brilliant Carina Namih. All agreed that we knew dozens of powerful, inspiring, successful women who battle every day against homophily; an establishment and a status quo that recruits, invests and listens to men just like them. As former HP CEO and presidential candidate Carly Fiorina pointed out recently, the 50 biggest public firms in the US have more CEOs called John than women; companies headed by men account for 98% of all tech industry venture capital. |
| In the lunch queue, Hoberman challenged me to suggest suitable female founders. Every suggestion he dismissed as not the right scale, too much of a clone or with a story we’ve heard before. Isn’t it good leadership to look outside the usual circles to encourage new talent? Their businesses just aren’t there. Haven’t we heard from Eric Schmidt before? He pulls in the crowds. Good old Eric, with the same lines he’s been doing for more than a decade on behalf of Google, a company that hardly needs the airtime. And which, incidentally, made a big effort at its own Zeitgeist event to give prominence to new female talent. | In the lunch queue, Hoberman challenged me to suggest suitable female founders. Every suggestion he dismissed as not the right scale, too much of a clone or with a story we’ve heard before. Isn’t it good leadership to look outside the usual circles to encourage new talent? Their businesses just aren’t there. Haven’t we heard from Eric Schmidt before? He pulls in the crowds. Good old Eric, with the same lines he’s been doing for more than a decade on behalf of Google, a company that hardly needs the airtime. And which, incidentally, made a big effort at its own Zeitgeist event to give prominence to new female talent. |
| To be invited to Founders, entrepreneurs need to have started a business valued at at least $500m, or meet another criteria judged at their discretion including “being a disruptive global startup” or a “rising star”. Hoberman says: “Our teams vet 30,000 startup founders. We get suggestions from top founders, VCs and do actually bias to women but not to a level that looks wrong. | To be invited to Founders, entrepreneurs need to have started a business valued at at least $500m, or meet another criteria judged at their discretion including “being a disruptive global startup” or a “rising star”. Hoberman says: “Our teams vet 30,000 startup founders. We get suggestions from top founders, VCs and do actually bias to women but not to a level that looks wrong. |
| “Our event shines a light on the innovators, the breakthrough founders and I have a bias against clones. We need Europe to have breakthrough companies that get there first and hence have global potential. Eric Schmidt and Reid Hoffman want to come to see those sort of companies. The industry is more male than female. We know that and yes - we should all think of constructive ways to help.” | “Our event shines a light on the innovators, the breakthrough founders and I have a bias against clones. We need Europe to have breakthrough companies that get there first and hence have global potential. Eric Schmidt and Reid Hoffman want to come to see those sort of companies. The industry is more male than female. We know that and yes - we should all think of constructive ways to help.” |
| The problem with this event is that its own criteria reinforce hierarchies that make it even harder for women, which says more about the UK, the establishment and the finance sector than it does the wider tech industry. While every other high-profile tech event has attempted to improve the diversity of its speakers – 40% of the speakers at the Europas were female; 35% at Vanity Fair’s Digital Summit – the suggestion is that when it comes to the serious discussion, elite networking and the big money, it has to be all about men. Founders stated that 20% of its attendees this year were female, so why weren’t 20% of its speakers? | The problem with this event is that its own criteria reinforce hierarchies that make it even harder for women, which says more about the UK, the establishment and the finance sector than it does the wider tech industry. While every other high-profile tech event has attempted to improve the diversity of its speakers – 40% of the speakers at the Europas were female; 35% at Vanity Fair’s Digital Summit – the suggestion is that when it comes to the serious discussion, elite networking and the big money, it has to be all about men. Founders stated that 20% of its attendees this year were female, so why weren’t 20% of its speakers? |
| Last year Ed Vaizey spoke, this year the US ambassador hosted an event. No 10 held receptions for handpicked Founders delegates, and Hoberman serves on the government’s Digital Economy Council. Perhaps the event doesn’t have to care about diversity; it is unapologetically pro-power and pro-money, and that hierarchy of power and money belongs to men. This is how real power still operates in the UK: deliberate decisions that actively make women feel second-rate, the power of old-school boys’ club. | Last year Ed Vaizey spoke, this year the US ambassador hosted an event. No 10 held receptions for handpicked Founders delegates, and Hoberman serves on the government’s Digital Economy Council. Perhaps the event doesn’t have to care about diversity; it is unapologetically pro-power and pro-money, and that hierarchy of power and money belongs to men. This is how real power still operates in the UK: deliberate decisions that actively make women feel second-rate, the power of old-school boys’ club. |
| In the US, companies headed by men account for 98% of all tech industry venture capital | In the US, companies headed by men account for 98% of all tech industry venture capital |
| Two hours later and a world apart, I’m helping judge the Apps for Good awards in a hot sweaty conservatory at the Barbican with 60 energetic and talented teenagers. More than half the teenagers are female, young women not just coding the apps but project managing, designing, pitching and marketing – all the requisite skills for a young startup. | Two hours later and a world apart, I’m helping judge the Apps for Good awards in a hot sweaty conservatory at the Barbican with 60 energetic and talented teenagers. More than half the teenagers are female, young women not just coding the apps but project managing, designing, pitching and marketing – all the requisite skills for a young startup. |
| Hoberman told me the problem of under-representation of women has to be fixed from the grassroots. I saw the grassroots at Apps for Good, and they are coming on beautifully. But if they hit a ceiling when they try and get their business off the ground, if there are no visible female entrepreneurs, no strong female voices in the technology sector and no female investors to inspire and support them, what then? | Hoberman told me the problem of under-representation of women has to be fixed from the grassroots. I saw the grassroots at Apps for Good, and they are coming on beautifully. But if they hit a ceiling when they try and get their business off the ground, if there are no visible female entrepreneurs, no strong female voices in the technology sector and no female investors to inspire and support them, what then? |
| It is the responsibility of everyone: teachers and campaigners working tirelessly at the grassroots; politicians pushing for better STEM education and better technology education and skills; the media to track down and give voice to female talent; female entrepreneurs and investors who have to fight even harder to break through and need to make themselves heard; and to the establishment, which has to recognise that diverse businesses make better products, more money and better represent the future of our fabulously talented nation of engineers, designers and technologists. | It is the responsibility of everyone: teachers and campaigners working tirelessly at the grassroots; politicians pushing for better STEM education and better technology education and skills; the media to track down and give voice to female talent; female entrepreneurs and investors who have to fight even harder to break through and need to make themselves heard; and to the establishment, which has to recognise that diverse businesses make better products, more money and better represent the future of our fabulously talented nation of engineers, designers and technologists. |
| If not, the only thing the UK will do better than Silicon valley is institutional sexism. | If not, the only thing the UK will do better than Silicon valley is institutional sexism. |
| • This article was amended on 29 June 2015. An earlier version incorrectly described Carina Namih as a scientist |