A Summer Search for the Female Funnel to Success
Follow me @ZoeWeintraub
“I hopped off the plane at LAX…” and before I really felt like I had made a touchdown in the U.S. I was on the road to Northern California, to the land of opportunity, to the center of technology, and to work for the summer as a dedicated sales intern for a start up in Palo Alto. I am a rising senior at the University of Southern California studying International Relations, Digital Studies and Entrepreneurship. After spending a semester abroad in a country that is arguably technologically backwards — with the upwards of maybe two Apple stores in the country’s biggest city, Paris — I was headed to the world’s capital of innovation; polar opposites to say the least.
I decided about two months ago to take a summer internship with the payments platform and Y Combinator start up company called WePay. I didn’t know too much about their story or even the basis of their company. My interest was born after I read an article on TechCrunch about their effort to bring transparency to online giving and donations. I went through a Skype interview process spanning the transatlantic time zone and eventually was offered a summer position. As a So Cal native, “the Valley” has always been the picture image of Going Green, starts ups, social media expansion, cleaner air, and maybe even the birthplace of the Birkenstock. But as I became more engrossed in school and exposed to the endless possibilities that this Tech Era brought, I knew “the Valley” was also the place I wanted to be.
It never struck me as odd when that the majority of the people I knew who were working at start ups were guys — it just suggested the summer would bring hard work and sports bar filled weekends. It was not until I arrived at WePay on my first Monday that I noticed the reason that the majority of my friends working up here for the summer were male because there were just so few girls working in these tech start up companies to begin with. I can say that it was a little strange to be one of only two female interns in an internship class of about thirteen or fourteen, but then again that was an observation that came and went with the first day impressions. It was not until @Sofakimou (my co-blogger) and I were asked our opinion on writing a blog on the female perspective did I realize it was not just an office-wide phenomenon.
It has been referred to as the “Gender Gap in Tech” with projections that women only represent 25% of the overall work force in the tech industry. The three explanatory variables include culture, education, and the office atmosphere itself. I tend to classify myself as a women’s activist and at times a modern day feminist but somehow these statistics weren’t as alarming as I expected. They didn’t invoke disgust or anger, and I wasn’t motivated to take to the streets or rather take to ‘the twitter’ and vocalize this injustice. Instead I was motivated. I was excited to be given the opportunity to dive into the modern equivalent of a Think Tank, a tech start-up. I realized instead that the fact that I was a young women would only work to my advantage because my perspective was the the under represented and the minority voice.
At the close of our first week we were fortunate enough to have Peter Bell, partner at Highland Capital and Board member to WePay, speak to us about making the most out of our opportunity this summer. He discussed sales as a career-defining opportunity and the way in which an idea can be transformed into greatness because of the person behind it rather than the business proposal. He also spoke specifically on the subject of women in ‘the Valley’ as remaining a rather stagnant population in the workforce ever since he first moved out here in the Eighties. His hypothesis was simple, there was just no formula and no traditional route for women to funnel to success. In a sense each female CEO or leader of a tech based company is seen as the exception, not the rule. So if that means each exception is redefining the space for women in this industry why wouldn’t college graduates want to be a part of that change?
Week 1 down, and 9 more weeks to tap into fairly uncharted territory. Not only do Sofia and I have the challenge of our specific work environment, but we have the challenge of examining those untapped opportunities for women in this industry. As long as the passion is there for a career or an internship in this field then why should the gender card even have a place at the table? I’d love to hear your thoughts.
The other evening I was fortunate enough to attend a meeting to find out a little bit about something I know absolutely nothing about. I was excited to hear from some local experts and learn some new nuggets of information on a topic that is brand new to me: Private equity, namely angel investing. Being party to some conversations between my dad and great-uncle on stock portfolios at a very young age, I’ve always been interested in investing. However, curiosity about stocks, mutual funds and iShares are one thing; a quest for knowledge on private equity and angel investing is quite another. These are things that Keiretsu Forum is best at. So, I thought it helpful to share with both our local audience, here in Silicon Valley, and for those launching their first start ups abroad as well, those salient points and tidbits learned.
