Can you fundraise in Silicon Valley while pregnant?

84 点作者 drpp大约 9 年前

19 条评论

xiphias大约 9 年前

I thought that money raising is for people who put all their effort into making a fast-growing company and need money to make the growth even faster. It's about choosing not having a life in return for the possibility for creating a big company.I have no problem with that person being a male or female. But I can't imagine any person (mom or dad) being able to put 15 hours a day to a company with the baby after the baby is born. That's the first thing the article should deal with.

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akud大约 9 年前

In my experience, people tend to seriously underestimate the amount of work a baby takes, and the strain it adds to relationships, work life, and emotional health. I certainly did.I think it's reasonable for investors to wonder if a person's commitment won't change when they have a baby. I would advise the authors that they really can't forsee what their priorities will be like when the baby comes. It sounds trite, but a baby changes your whole life. It will add an incredible amount of stress that will probably make you reevaluate your priorities.If I were an investor, I would hold off until they had the baby, and it was at least a few months old. Then both the founders could really know how committed they still were to the company.[edit: grammar]

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wolfgke大约 9 年前

Can you fundraise if you openly say that you have a time-intensive hobby that you will under no circumstances give up for working on your company?Thanks to modern contraceptive methods getting pregnant is a choice. The same as doing a time-intense hobby. If you would not finance someone who openly says that he/she will not give up his/her time-intense hobby for the company, isn't this the same as not financing people who are pregnant?

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mmcclure大约 9 年前

> But just because they aren’t asking, it doesn’t mean the pregnancy isn’t foremost in their minds. It is almost worse left unaddressed.> On a call last month, a male investor finally raised the issue of pregnancy> After the call with the investor who questioned whether her pregnancy would affect her ability to close the round, Na’ama was stirred. She told me that this is the first time she felt what it is like to be a woman, rather than a person, in her interactions with investors.This feels like it might be a reason (although I'm sure there are others) that investors don't bring it up. You talk about being uncomfortable with people not bringing it up, then someone does (in a way that didn't seem inappropriate based on what you wrote, but I could be misreading), and then it makes you uncomfortable that they asked. It feels like there's really no way to win from the investor side.Na'ama sounds like she handled the question really well, which seems like a big win for her in an investor's eyes (at least the good ones). From your perspective, if she's got a great answer to the question, wouldn't you want an investor that asks you how this major, life changing event is going to affect your team? For the sake of conversation (since this is being had in other threads) let's assume that said investor would also ask a man that question if they knew his partner was about to have a child.

ksenzee大约 9 年前

As someone who has personally been pregnant (several times!) let me assure you that when you see a pregnant woman, you have no idea whatsoever whether she is feeling- well- ill- overwhelmed- confident- anything elsebecause every pregnancy is different, and every woman is different, and every family is different. You cannot safely assume anything about a pregnant woman. So her pregnancy can't help you reliably judge whether she can handle being CEO.For that matter, you can't safely assume a woman is pregnant even if it seems obvious. I knew a woman with an abdominal tumor who kept getting asked when the baby was due.

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tryitnow大约 9 年前

Really people? Remove the fact that she's pregnant from the picture, instead focus on the fact that she's unlikely to be highly involved in the company for approximately 6 to nine months regardless of the reason. Sometimes that happens to founders. Then evaluate the investment opportunity conditioned on this.That could be fine. Or not. I may evaluate the company as simply having a temporarily inactive co-founder. That's hardly uncommon. Not ideal, but if everything else is in place (remaining team can meet or exceed expectations) then, sure I'd invest.And no, I don't expect founders to put in 15 hours days as a rule. That means you're hardly getting adequate sleep and will end up making moronic decisions. That's frankly idiotic. I don't care how much you work. Focus on the metrics that matter. Some startups require 10+ days, some don't. Some require greater time commitments in some periods and less in other periods.There's so much rigid thinking in the comments about this story.Learn to focus on the most relevant aspects of the problem. Namely, a major life event is coming up - is there a reasonable plan in place to handle it? If yes, then proceed to follow your usual path of analyzing an investment.It's funny how men get so irrational when faced with a woman's pregnancy.I would say this though. It's incumbent on the founders to initiate this discussion. Just like it's important for an employee who is expecting to take significant time off to put in a request well in advance.tldr; I don't care if you're planning to take two months off to go surfing or to have a kid. Just let me know how you plan to handle that and I'll evaluate your company on its merits.

rsmsky1大约 9 年前

This is a serious question as a woman who has never been pregnant and perhaps not that knowledgable about pregnancies. Doesn't giving birth render you incapacitated for a certain period of time even if everything goes well and there's no guarantee after giving birth things will return to normal. Even in cases where one's life isn't at risk, there's a high risk of postpartum depression, etc. It seems very unfair to me that women have to deal with such things. I hope one day women won't need to have periods without taking any additional health risks and also that it will be easier for women to have surrogate baby carriers.Another serious question is wouldn't a nursery at work be disruptive if there is a lot of crying, etc. or how will it be set up so as not to bother people who are working.

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eob大约 9 年前

I asked this question of the Boston VC community as a soon-to-be father, and the resounding advice was: "wait until the baby is at least a few months old"There are a lot of logical reasons for this that you already know, so I'll just vouch for the emotional one, which is a style of thinking that's going to become more prominent in you as soon as you hold your child. I'm really glad I waited. Unless fundraising now is life-or-death for your company, I think you'll both be really glad if you wait, too.

drpp大约 9 年前

I wrote an article about how my co-founder is pregnant and raising funding for our company, Sourcery. Investors are hesitant to bring up the issue in conversation for fear of coming off as an insensitive brute who questions a women's commitment to her company, but this is an important issue to address upfront. I try to lay out how we are preparing for this moment together.

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mgrennan大约 9 年前

This is a great question. It forces the greater question: Can you "Be Dedicated" and be more than one thing. Silicon valley seems to believe:You can't be a CEO and pregnant.You can't be a lead programmer and old (> 30).You can't love both Linux and Windows.You can't be Democrat and vote for a Republican.How did we become so decided.

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zxcvvcxz大约 9 年前

The better question is: should you?It's bad from the child: stress on the mother can be transferred to the development of the child.It's bad for the investor: this founder won't be able to dedicate the requisite amount of time to the venture as another unpregnant founder would.

xchip大约 9 年前

Any stress the mother suffers will be passed down to the baby..."There are some data to show that higher chronic stressors in women and poor coping skills to deal with those stressors may be associated with lower birth weight and with delivering earlier," says Ann Borders, MD, MPH, MSc. She is an OB/GYN in the obstetrics and gynecology department, Division of Maternal-Fetal Medicine, at Evanston Hospital, NorthShore University HealthSystem. (source <a href="http://www.webmd.com/baby/features/stress-marks" rel="nofollow">http://www.webmd.com/baby/features/stress-marks</a>)

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jstoiko大约 9 年前

If you have the "balls" to fundraise despite the fact that it shows you're pregnant, isn't that a good sign?

mboer大约 9 年前

This is a thread of generalizations heaped upon already heavily beleaguered minorities, given that most people who suffer from these generalizations are women and trans men.Here are some links, to pieces regarding people who have had kids and startups, really the only people who're qualified to comment on the subject, and you can choose to educate yourselves (or, you know, not):<a href="http://www.californiababy.com/meet-jessica.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.californiababy.com/meet-jessica.html</a><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/10/business/nurturing-a-baby-and-a-start-up-business.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/10/business/nurturing-a-baby-...</a><a href="http://mamalode.com/story/detail/an-interview-with-michelle-vick-co-founder-of-the-baby-box-co" rel="nofollow">http://mamalode.com/story/detail/an-interview-with-michelle-...</a><a href="http://fortune.com/2015/06/22/founder-startup-hidden-pregnancy/" rel="nofollow">http://fortune.com/2015/06/22/founder-startup-hidden-pregnan...</a><a href="http://thenextweb.com/insider/2016/02/05/tinsel-founder-aniyia-williams-on-building-a-hardware-startup-from-scratch-while-pregnant/#gref" rel="nofollow">http://thenextweb.com/insider/2016/02/05/tinsel-founder-aniy...</a>This is your bonus piece: <a href="http://madamenoire.com/599068/pregnant-woman-finishes-psych-exam-during-active-labor/" rel="nofollow">http://madamenoire.com/599068/pregnant-woman-finishes-psych-...</a>Finally, I'm going share a story about my friend from grad school who wrote her thesis while 7-9 months pregnant, landed a tenure track faculty position in the physics department of the university where she teaches straight out of grad school, gave birth, returned to successfully defend her thesis, and she currently has 2 incredible children and a 25-person lab. Her partner is a very talented chef. So, you know, two demanding careers.I honestly don't even know what else to say, other than suggest that a better more fruitful question would be, "What can be done to help technical founders who are pregnant and/or have families?"

NTDF9大约 9 年前

I recently discussed this with my girlfriend. I can only conclude that there are 2 sides to the story, let's call them 2 truths:Truth 1: No individual (regardless of sex) can run a startup as a CEO if they are incapacitated somehowTruth 2: Individuals (regardless of sex) need to prioritize. NOBODY can have it all.With that in mind, women need to understand that: 1. They will be incapacitated if they get pregnant 2. They need to choose if they want to be CEO or a nurturing mother. Both cannot happen concurrently because the woman will be overwhelmed and do worse in both roles.It is also unfair on both the child and investors to give only half of yourself. So choose one.This also applies to men. A man cannot go become a CEO if he's broke and needs to feed his family. Go get a job and get rid of immediate concerns first so that you can give your best to both your family and investors.

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dluan大约 9 年前

Kudos to Naama! Would love to see some data eventually for interactions, to at least try to have a quantitative side to this too. Would be really interesting and could help guide other founders in a similar position.

melindajb大约 9 年前

This thinking in this thread is the reason women are leaving tech in droves.

odinduty大约 9 年前

The question is not whether you can fundraise, the question is whether you are physically and mentally fit during and after the birth to run a company with the level of stress, anxiety, etc. it will mean and the huge amount of time you will have to dedicate to it.

chumbucket大约 9 年前

This thread is what it would be like if "The Vagina Monologues" were performed by an all-male cast in front of an all-male audience.