only 15 of the fortune 500 company isn't
only 28 of the fortune 1000 are run by
women and women start only three percent
of businesses in America so why joining
us vivek wadhwa visiting scholar UC
Berkeley as well as a tech columnist for
Business Week and TechCrunch and jon
rettinger blogger with TechnoBuffalo
vivec you brought this to my attention
this is amazing one percent of high-tech
firms founded by women three percent of
a firm this is this is shocking it is a
big problem in America and I've been
researching it systematically and my
conclusion is that the deck is stacked
against women and they're being
discouraged from entering
entrepreneurship or rising in the tech
world tell me they almost no sitio is
chief technology officer for women yet
women are as smart as men are I would
argue the more creative and they're more
sensible in the way that grow their
businesses John do you think we have a
real problem here I'm clearly the
numbers speak for themselves but I think
there's a big difference in saying women
have not and women cannot have not imply
something that's happened in the past
cannot is sort of forward thinking there
are a lot of percentage of women now
that have female role models that are
really high level positions I'm from
California and I can't go a few minutes
without seeing Meg Whitman on television
former CEO of ebay we have Carly Fiorina
the former CEO of HP there are no role
models for women to have to make
themselves more established in the
technology field where's that didn't
exist years ago so you have ways you can
model yourself for success alright Vivec
let's throw this out there what some
people you know may not feel comfortable
saying but they may think and they may
think that women are not entrepreneurs
because women are more risk averse and
men stereotypically some people think
this Oro women in the ears when you'd be
an entrepreneur they're going to go have
children and therefore they're not going
to have the time to be an entrepreneur
what do you say to people who may think
that even though they may not be willing
to verbalize it yeah parent is that if
you look at the data then the prosperous
proportion of women founded companies
getting venture capitalist declined
dramatically over the last decade the
number of women entering computer
science in the schools has gone down
from thirty-seven percent to about
eighteen or nineteen percent
you know decreases look at all the data
maybe you have a couple of successes but
they are far far fewer than they should
be we should have fifty percent of our
tech entrepreneurs being women it that's
just the way it should be not to one
percent there's a big discrepancy here
so what why is that why the drop the
vaca mean is there something true to the
questions that I raised is that is there
a truth to it I mean you know I I heard
one very high-profile woman in the tech
industry and I'm not going to say who
she was but she said you know a lot of
women they sort of assumed their careers
gonna go a certain way and before they
even get married and have children they
sort of take themselves out of the
running for some of these things yeah
everything starts it with mum and dad
that they discourage that their
daughters from becoming scientists and
engineers because of the male things and
then when they enter the workforce when
they reach a certain level they start
feeling discrimination that they don't
readily enter the executive ranks they
get discouraged and leave the workforce
and then when they do enter the tech was
there alone I mean I was at the Anita
Borg Institute conference in Atlanta a
couple of weeks ago they were two
thousand young women there and they were
so energized interacting with each other
and seeing that hey they are more like
us so a lot of systemic problems and
when they raise venture capital I've
heard many women tell me that the lease
is awesome what's going to happen if
they have kids how does the husband feel
about them being here and so a lot of
problems here if I can step in for just
a minute and with all due respect I take
a bit of umbrage was saying that parents
aren't letting their kids that they can
be entrepreneurs so that they can go
into business society is changing very
quickly and that sort of same argument
has been made in different forms the
crowds you know that american history in
all history with different subjects as
the as recipient of those parents are
giving their kids at least in my opinion
as good a shot as anywhere else
personally I'm finishing up my MBA
thirty-one percent of my classmates our
are women and those are women that want
to be head to company some of them are
already had two companies so whether or
not that was true in the past I don't
think that it's true now and society as
a whole is changing and becoming much
more proactive in nurturing the women's
both made them or reactive the back I
have to say though I was in the Middle
East recently and and and thirty-one
percent would be abysmal in terms of the
percent appointment in any sort
math science MBA program it's it's
60-plus percent right women also
performing better than men are or equal
to men in math and science they entering
the schools they over-represented in in
biology and many other fields however
when it comes to entrepreneurship which
we will be talking about in the tech
world they know where they found the
numbers speak for themselves i mean 1%
may come on what's wrong over here so
that's what the problem is that the
systematic bias against women and the
deck is stacked against them we have to
start by recognizing that the problem is
then we fix it as long as we could keep
denying it windows we're gonna have you
both back this is a fascinating topic we
all all three of us and I know a lot of
viewers watching care a lot about and
have a lot to say about it so please let
us know what you think viewers street
signs at CNBC com and John and vivec
thanks we'll see you soon next
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