5 Feet of Fury

‘The job of annoying people is actually a good fit for me.’

“Aspy” Penelope Trunk more or less lives my life, except with everything different:

Last week I wrote a post for BNET about how diversity is bad at the beginning of a startup. I did not think this was particularly controversial topic because I am talking, in this article, about a very short period in a very specific type of company: the time between the seed round and the A round of a startup.  Those companies are mostly founded by men, and men would increase their company’s chances of survival by not partnering with a women.

Really, this is not news: Diversity is bad for small companies.

I published this research four years ago, with not much fanfare. But now, when I apply the research to a specific type of company, I get killed in feminist diatribes on blogs like Jezebel and Built in Chicago.

But so what? I think I’m right. And I think I’m right that most women don’t even want to be a part of the founding team of those startups because those companies are high-risk ventures that ruin your personal life. (…)

And guess what? Tons of men and women told me I was wrong.

But I did not get one criticism from one woman who is CEO of a venture-funded startup while she has young kids at home.