Author: PUI-WING TAM / Source: New York Times
SAN FRANCISCO — When Trevor McFedries set out last year to raise money for Brud, his robotics and artificial intelligence start-up, he found himself in many meetings with “a ton of white guy” venture capitalists.
So Mr. McFedries, who is black, and his co-founder, Sara DeCou, a Latino woman, added a condition for investors: The pair would accept money only from venture firms that had a woman or a person of color in a position to write them a check.
“It was counterintuitive for us to raise money from a bunch of white guys who want to extract all the value from the world,” said Mr. McFedries, who eventually collected several million dollars from firms that met the condition. “We’re interested in reshaping the way that tech looks.”
Mr. McFedries is one of more than 400 tech entrepreneurs and chief executives who have now banded together, in a loose coalition known as Founders for Change, to pressure the venture capital industry to diversify its ranks. The group includes Dropbox’s chief executive, Drew Houston; Logan Green and John Zimmer of Lyft; Airbnb’s chief executive, Brian Chesky; and founders of public companies such as Katrina Lake of Stitch Fix.
On Tuesday, in a statement underlining the importance of diversity in the tech industry, the tech executives said the racial and gender makeup of a venture capital firm would be “an important consideration” when they were raising money:
The entrepreneurs’ public statement is unusual.
In Silicon Valley’s start-up ecosystem, founders and investors have generally maintained a delicate power equilibrium. Venture capitalists strive to get into the hottest start-ups, aiming for a big payoff when those companies go public or are sold. Entrepreneurs, in turn, take money and guidance from the investors to help their start-ups grow and flourish.But a new generation of entrepreneurs is ready to upset that balance. Spurred on by the #MeToo movement and fed up after several Silicon Valley scandals last year revealed how investors had abused their power with female start-up founders, these entrepreneurs have become impatient for change in the industry.
“It’s pretty obvious the venture industry is not where it needs to be” in diversity, said Jack Conte, chief executive of Patreon, a San Francisco start-up that runs…
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