Founders at Work

Lately I've been re-reading Founders at Work and absolutely loving it even more the second time around because it vividly tells the stories of startups' early days from Gmail (Paul Buchheit) to Research in Motion (Mike Lazaridis) to Flickr where cofounder Caterina Fake (pictured) talks about what it was like for her when she got started and in particular, some of the challenges she had to deal with as a female entrepreneur -- like this one.

Livingston: What kinds of challenges have you faced as a female technology startup founder?

Fake: There is a lot of institutionalized sexism working against women in business and I think that people aren't even aware that it's there. One example happened when we went down to Silicon Valley to meet with a venture capital fir. After the meeting, the VC spoke to someone associated with our company and said to him, "Tell Stewart not to bring his wife to VC meetings." Which was shocking to me, and Stewart was furious about this as well. He let everybody know. "Caterina is not 'my wife.' She is instrumental o the success of this company. Her contributions have been equal to mine."

It takes a lot of nerve for women to face up this assumption -- and the assumption is everywhere, even in some of the most surprising places -- that they don't measure up, that they're not good or tough enough. Twice as much will be expected of them. I hear this from women again and again in business: they have to be twice as prepared as men.

This happens to me all the time: I go to meetings and I've stayed up late preparing my presentation and I've got all my papers in order and know exactly what I'll be talking about and I come to the meeting and a bunch of guys show up and say, "Hey, so what's this meeting about?" They haven't done any of the preparation or work.

Livingston: Do women bring any advantages to a startup?

Fake: I was talking to another entrepreneur, Judy MacDonald Johnston, and she said that women are much more passionate about their businesses. They're doing it less for the money and more because they love it. There's something about that that really rings true to me. Women are able to put their hearts and souls ito it in a way that many men cannot -- or rather, are not known for doing.

Do you agree or disagree with Caterina's remarks?