First, we wanted to contribute to the discussion around the poor state of diversity in the tech industry by zeroing in on the profiles of the decision-makers.
Second, we wanted to rank firms based on their ethnic and gender diversity as well as the age of people on their investment teams. We named the rankings 'The Future List' because we believe diversity and age will bear on how well these firms will perform in the future as the talent pool of entrepreneurs grows more diverse.
Here's two excerpts that stuck with me:
- Less than one percent of senior VCs involved in investment decision are Black—four of 546 people. And only 1.3% are Hispanic.
- Of course, it’s easy for a two-partner firm to score very high or low on the ranking. More interesting, perhaps are the rankings of the bigger firms. Y Combinator, for instance, scored top in overall diversity among firms with more than 10 people on its investment team. Its 11-person senior investment team includes four Asian men, a black man and a white woman. A16Z, in contrast, which scored second lowest on big firms, has a single woman and Asian man on its 16-member team. The other 14 are all white men.
Read more in the Information.
Thanks, +Deepa Talwar
