Introduction

Sister, Where Art Thou?

Women. Over half of the earth's population, and creators of life for the whole of it. They are our mothers, wives, daughters, and colleagues. Women account for 85 percent of all spending, arguably the expression of true power. And yet, if you survey the landscape of founders who've created the most successful tech companies of recent years-all males. Zuckerberg, Dorsey, Cheskey, Kalanick, Spiegel: captains of Facebook, Twitter, Airbnb, Uber, Snapchat. Revolutionary founders who have created massively valuable companies that affect billions. It clearly appears to be the sport of men.

Is it just a coincidence that there are so few women at the top? Only 24 female CEOs lead America's Fortune 500. And in tech, female-founded companies are only 3 percent of all startups funded by venture capitalists. Are we to believe that women simply don't create great things? Or should we finally acknowledge that we operate in an unfair system where the path for women in business, leadership, and entrepreneurship is much, much harder. As an angel investor in startup companies I routinely hear amazing pitches from female entrepreneurs. In 2015, I pledged to only invest in tech startups with at least one female cofounder. Yet, in 2017, women are still not getting funded or promoted at the same rate as men, and the refrain from every female entrepreneur is consistent: women are pushing a larger rock up a steeper hill.

Women's lack of power and broader success in technology is simply a microcosm of what's happening in the larger world. Over the years, I've heard a myriad of excuses. It's a pipeline problem. Women aren't good at tech. They just don't think that way. They're too cautious. They aren't risk takers. Of course, that's a bunch of hogwash. Women aren't given equal leadership opportunities. Often, female leaders aren't given the same support their male peers receive to ensure success. But it doesn't have to be that way. We can and must do better.

And the whole "pipeline problem" is an all-too-convenient excuse. First, more than half of all college graduates today are women. In the fields of law and medicine, women outnumber men and yet represent just a fraction of the partners and chair positions compared to men. Within STEM degrees in particular, the percentage of female graduates has been steadily approaching 50 percent over the past two decades. Furthermore, the Small Business Administration has estimated that 7.8 million U.S. businesses have been started and are owned by women, representing a stunning 44 percent increase since the 1990s and at twice the growth rate of male-owned businesses. This is a heartening statistic that testifies to women's strength, vision, and leadership abilities.1

I strongly assert that if your company or your team has very few women in the workforce, and few women in positions of leadership, then you are part of the problem I am inviting you to solve.

And what is that problem exactly? The first problem lies in the fact that men in positions of power (venture, boardrooms, C-suites, management) may not be acknowledging that a problem actually exists. Some believe we live in a meritocracy. "See? There are no women leaders at my company because so few have earned it!" And many acknowledge there is a problem, but just don't know what to do.

I believe that we must all take responsibility for our role in this situation. All of us. That includes the men in power who don't recognize the problem or take concrete actions to solve it. It includes a few women who likewise refuse to see how they might harbor their own unconscious biases against other women. It includes everyone at every level, in the tech industry and in all industries, who still sees women's lack of power and opportunity as a problem with their innate abilities rather than the result of conscious/unconscious bias and cultural and institutional barriers.

The goal of this book is to provide managers, CEOs, board members, and business owners a blueprint to attract, recruit, hire, and build a sustainable gender-balanced workforce at all levels. It's not only the right thing to do, it's the smart thing to do.

1. You will learn how to create a gender-balanced team, workforce, or company.
2. You will become fully informed on all issues of gender equity, gaining a holistic view based on recent gender communication research, latest recruitment practices, history of gender legislation to date and how it impacts industry, as well as firsthand insights drawn from individuals' making current headlines on gender issues.
3. You will become a better leader, helming a gender-balanced workforce that creates better products, increasing profitability, improving retention, and reducing costs. Learning how to create a gender-balanced workforce by reading this book is simply great for the bottom line.
4. With women driving about 85 percent of all purchasing decisions in the United States, it's critical for companies to give women a greater seat at the table when it comes to every aspect of their operations. And, as we'll discuss, your business will improve markedly with more women on staff and in power.

What Do I Know about Women?

Of course, the next obvious question is, "Why me?" Why is a 50-year-old male entrepreneur and CEO penning a book about women? When I became the first person to sell two tech companies to Google (I was more lucky than good), I saw how my own gender-balanced teams of men and women outperformed other companies. One of those companies, Picnik.com, was a photo-editing service that captured more than 60 million unique users a month at its peak. I assert Picnik's success was the direct result of our near 50-50 female-male team composition. The gender balance contributed to the "special sauce" and collaborative environment that birthed a beautifully executed product that resonated at scale. Bottom line: in my experience, when women and men work together as equals the products and services they create are simply much better.

Today the tech industry does not look like America, and that has a significant influence on the types of products and services that get created. When the lived experience of underrepresented communities is omitted from the product development cycle, the usefulness of the technology becomes biased towards one group. -The Kapor Capital Founders' Commitment

GeekWire.com, a technology news site that I financed and cofounded with two much more brilliant partners in 2009, grew to millions in page views a month and more than 10 tentpole events annually in just its third year (we're now in our seventh), exactly because great care was taken to write technology stories that are relevant to everyone (not just male tech employees) and to make each of our events highly female friendly. Our intent was to "do tech differently." It is no surprise that our events are routinely remarked upon as the most gender inclusive in tech with industry high percentages of female speakers and attendees.

When women are present, great things happen. Recent research conducted by Credit Suisse indicates that shares of companies in which women make up more than 33 percent of senior management roles had a higher average annualized return (25.6 percent vs. 22 percent) than companies with only 25 percent female managers. The Peterson Institute of International Economics reports in a 2016 study that having at least 30 percent of women in leadership positions, or the C-suite, adds another 6 percent to net profit margin. Even more astounding, data from Quontopian, a trading platform based on crowdsourced algorithms, shows that the 80 female CEOs they followed during a 12-year study (2002-2014) produced equity returns 226 percent better than the S&P 500. All in all, the research shows that teams and management exhibiting greater gender balance outperform more homogeneous ones.

It's Personal

Another reason I'm writing this book is much more personal. As a child born out of wedlock in the 1960s, I witnessed the struggles of my immigrant single mother trying to juggle raising a child, hold a full-time job, and earn the respect of her male colleagues. Ultimately, she felt she was failing me. When I was 3 years old, one of my few early memories is watching my mother's face disappear from the backseat of a NYC Yellow Cab. She sent me to Hong Kong to live with my maternal grandparents and strangers that I had never met.

"It was the most difficult decision of my life and I have to live with that pain for every day of my life," my mother recently shared. I try not to discuss the past with her in part because what lives and breathes in the unspoken absence of time between us still holds a great deal of power and sorrow.

Born in Hong Kong in 1938 as the oldest of five children, my mother Helena left home at the age of 17 for London seeking to create a better future for herself. This was an extremely bold life choice for a teenage girl at that time. She made that decision because she knew that a Chinese girl in the twentieth century exists to first serve her parents and later, a husband. She experienced and understood the great disadvantage that many Asian women experience as a result of gender. She says that despite being the oldest child, her youngest brother enjoyed...