The lack of diversity issue in Silicon Valley touches all aspects of the industry — entrepreneurship, big tech company demographics and venture capital. While tech companies have been a bit more deliberate about fostering diversity and inclusion in the last few years — and have made a small bit of progress — the venture capital industry is still sorely lacking in that area.
Just one percent of venture capitalists are Latinx and only three percent are black. White people, unsurprisingly, make up 70 percent of the venture capital industry, according to a recent analysis by Richard Kerby, a partner at Equal Ventures. Compared to Kerby’s 2016 analysis, women now make up 18 percent of the VC industry versus just 11 percent then. At an intersectional level, black and Latinx women make up zero percent of the venture capital industry.
570 partners. Only 1 Latinx woman and only 2 Black women. (Corrected an earlier mistake I made). https://t.co/YKcTebApG4
— Ellen K. Pao (@ekp) July 30, 2018
Meanwhile, 40 percent of VCs went to either Stanford or Harvard.
“Just TWO schools!,” Kerby wrote on Medium. “Why is that? Everyone wants to work with those they are most similar to, and education, gender, and race are attributes that allow people to find similarities in others.”
He added, “With 82% of the industry being male, nearly 60% of the industry being white male, and 40% of the industry coming from just two academic institutions, it is no wonder that this industry feels so insular and less of meritocracy but more of a mirrortocracy.”
So, in addition to a lack of racial and gender diversity, there’s also a lack of cognitive diversity. Be sure to head over to Kerby’s Medium post to learn more.