Why we need a more balanced approach to entrepreneurship
By Dil Khosa
Call it the fourth wave of feminism. Call it #LeanIn. Or call it #EqualityCantWait.
The fact is that there are still not enough women where important decisions are made when it comes to the world of business and entrepreneurship.
Women consistently score higher than men in key leadership qualities. Yet we don’t see them go up the corporate ladder enough to hold leadership positions. This is also known as the broken rung on the corporate ladder. And anecdotal evidence shows that when we do, it is at great personal expense.
Personally, I had a rude awakening to this inequality when I left the comforts of tertiary education. Equal opportunity and space, unfortunately, stop there. Huge biases exist in the ‘real world’ of work and entrepreneurship, where patriarchal systems continue to dominate. Time and time again, we hear similar stories about this.
Looking further away at the Silicon Valley ecosystem, you notice some of its effects reaching home. Over the last few years, we have seen the disintegration of business ethics, kindness, and human-ness in tech startup ecosystems.
One only has to read the story of Elizabeth Holmes, yes she is a woman. Yes, she lied and played the game only too familiar to most Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, and yes she got caught.
Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes to stand trial in 2020
When you read her story, you will see that she emulated, to the degree of her clothing, her idol — Steve Jobs. So my question is, while we have to commend the great entrepreneurs of the last 3 decades who built billion-dollar companies — Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, PayPal mafia — do we really want to IDOLISE them? Are our entrepreneurs modelling this system and those founders too closely? Are they doomed to fail in today’s world where up-and-coming consumers have had enough of capitalism and patriarchy?
I don’t know. They are human after all. However, the world is changing. From health pandemics to social injustice pandemics. The old way of running startups won’t work going forward.
I do believe that there need to be more feminine systems at play in entrepreneurship today. A feminine economy is arguably one that can form the basis of a new way of starting companies. If New Zealand wants to be at the forefront of the global knowledge economy and grow its GDP, then we need to involve the other half of our population — women.
Proposal for the Feminine Economy
In addition, our diverse populations & historically excluded founders are missing in the face of New Zealand entrepreneurship. There is a high underrepresentation of this in New Zealand. I have hope though, as this year I have seen more women and underrepresented entrepreneurs take a stand and make a leap into entrepreneurship.
One thing is for sure, after all my experiences in tech startups, I am here to support underrepresented, overlooked, and underestimated founders. Manzana in particular is an ally in helping create space for diversity and inclusion in our startup ecosystem.
