This is me at five years old, shortly before jumping into this beautifully still pool of water. I soon find out the hard way that this pool is completely empty because the ice-cold water is near freezing and literally takes my breath away. Even though I already know how to swim, I can't get up to the water's surface, no matter how hard I try. That's the last thing I remember trying to do before blacking out. Turns out, the lifeguard on duty had been chatting with two girls when I jumped in, and I was soon underwater, so he couldn't actually see or hear me struggle. I was eventually saved by a girl walking near the pool who happened to look down and see me. The next thing I know, I'm getting mouth-to-mouth and being rushed to the hospital to determine the extent of my brain loss. If I had been flailing at the water's surface, the lifeguard would have noticed and come to save me. I share this near-death experience because it illustrates how dangerous things are when they're just beneath the surface.
这是我5岁的时候, 正准备跳进这美丽而平静的水潭。 我很快就痛苦地发现, 这个水池完全是空的, 因为池里的水快结冰了, 几乎让我无法呼吸。 即便我已经知道如何游泳, 但不管我怎么努力尝试, 都无法到达水面。 那是在我晕倒前 记得的最后一个事情。 原来,当我跳进去的 时候,当值救生员 在跟两位女孩聊天, 并且我很快就沉入水中, 所以他无法看到或听到我的挣扎。 我最终被在泳池旁 散步的一位女孩解救, 她碰巧低头看到了我。 接下来我只记得, 有人给我做了人工呼吸, 并快速把我送去医院, 以确定我的大脑是否受到损伤。 如果我一直在水面挣扎, 救生员可能会很快注意到并来救我。 我分享这个濒死体验,是因为它反映了 隐藏在表面之下的事物是多么的危险。
Today, I study implicit gender bias in start-ups, which I consider to be far more insidious than mere overt bias for this very same reason. When we see or hear an investor behaving inappropriately towards an entrepreneur, we're aware of the problem and at least have a chance to do something about it. But what if there are subtle differences in the interactions between investors and entrepreneurs that can affect their outcomes, differences that we're not conscious of, that we can't directly see or hear?
今天,我致力于研究 初创企业中的隐性性别偏见, 基于相似的理由,我认为这会比 公开的偏见更阴险。 当我们看到或听到一位投资人 对一个创业者做出了不当言行, 我们注意到了问题所在, 并且至少有机会去做点什么。 但如果投资者和创业者之间的交流 存在会影响最终结果, 而且是我们没有意识到, 无法直接看到或者听到的细微差别, 会怎样呢?
Before studying start-ups at Columbia Business School, I spent five years running and raising money for my own start-up. I remember constantly racing around to meet with prospective investors while trying to manage my actual business. At one point I joked that I had reluctantly pitched each and every family member, friend, colleague, angel investor and VC this side of the Mississippi. Well, in the process of speaking to all these investors, I noticed something interesting was happening. I was getting asked a very different set of questions than my male cofounder. I got asked just about everything that could go wrong with the venture to induce investor losses, while my male cofounder was asked about our venture's home run potential to maximize investor gains, essentially everything that could go right with the venture. He got asked how many new customers we were going to bring on, while I got asked how we were going to hang on to the ones we already had. Well, as the CEO of the company, I found this to be rather odd. In fact, I felt like I was taking crazy pills. But I eventually rationalized it by thinking, maybe this has to do with how I'm presenting myself, or it's something simply unique to my start-up.
在哥伦比亚商学院研究初创企业前, 我花了5年时间运作 自己的公司和募集资金。 我记得总是跑来跑去 见各种潜在的投资人, 一边尝试着管理我的生意。 我曾一度开玩笑说我不情愿地向 每一个亲人,朋友,同事,天使投资人 和密西西比这边的风险投资人推销。 在跟所有这些投资人的交谈中, 我注意到一些有趣的事情。 我会比我的男性合伙人多问到 一些非常不同的问题。 我被问到了几乎所有 可能会让项目出错 导致投资人损失的问题, 而我的男性合伙人被问到的则是 我们企业的自主经营潜力, 如何使投资者收益最大化, 基本都是那些符合 投资公司利益的问题。 他被问到我们打算发展多少新客户, 而我被问到我们打算如何 留住我们已有的客户。 作为公司的CEO, 我发现这点相当奇怪。 事实上,我感到有些抓狂。 但我最终想办法把它合理化了, 也许这与我自我介绍的方式有关, 或者这只是我的创业公司独有的问题。
Well, years later I made the difficult decision to leave my start-up so I could pursue a lifelong dream of getting my PhD. It was at Columbia that I learned about a social psychological theory originated by Professor Tory Higgins called "regulatory focus," which differentiates between two distinct motivational orientations of promotion and prevention. A promotion focus is concerned with gains and emphasizes hopes, accomplishments and advancement needs, while a prevention focus is concerned with losses and emphasizes safety, responsibility and security needs. Since the best-case scenario for a prevention focus is to simply maintain the status quo, this has us treading water just to stay afloat, while a promotion focus instead has us swimming in the right direction. It's just a matter of how far we can advance.
几年后,我做了个艰难的决定, 离开了我的初创公司, 这样我就能追求我的 终生梦想——拿到博士学位。 在哥伦比亚大学,我学到了一种 由托利•希金斯教授提出的 名为“调节焦点理论”的社会心理学理论, 它区分了促进和防御 这两种截然不同的动机取向。 促进焦点专注于收益 和强调理想,成就和进步需求, 而防御焦点专注于损失 并强调保险、责任和安全需求。 因为防御焦点的最佳方案是 保持现状, 有点像我们踩水只是为了浮在水面上, 而促进焦点却是为了 让我们朝正确的方向游去。 这只是我们能走多远的问题。
Well, I had my very own eureka moment when it dawned on me that this concept of promotion sounded a lot like the questions posed to my male cofounder, while prevention resembled those questions asked of me. As an entrepreneurship scholar, I started digging into the research on start-up financing and discovered there's an enormous gap between the amount of funds that male and female founders raise. Although women found 38 percent of US companies, they only get two percent of the venture funding. I got to thinking: what if this funding gap is not due to any fundamental difference in the businesses started by men and women? What if women get less funding than men due to a simple difference in the questions that they get asked? After all, when it comes to venture funding, entrepreneurs need to convince investors of their start-up's home run potential. It's not enough to merely demonstrate you're not going to lose your investors' money. So it makes sense that women would be getting less funding than men if they're engaging in prevention as opposed to promotion-oriented dialogues.
当看到这个理论时我灵光一闪, 促进焦点的概念 听起来很像向我的 男性合伙人提出的问题, 而防御焦点代表了问我的那些问题。 作为一位创业者学者, 我开始深入研究创业融资问题, 并发现在男性和女性创始人的 融资数额上存在巨大的鸿沟。 虽然女性创建了38%的美国公司, 她们只拿到2%的投资基金。 我于是就想: 如果这种资金落差不是 因为任何男人和女人 所成立公司的根本差异导致的呢? 如果女性比男性得到更少的融资 是因为被询问的问题 不一样所导致的呢? 毕竟涉及到企业融资时, 企业需要说服投资人相信 他们公司的自主经营潜力。 仅仅证明你 不会让投资人亏钱是不够的。 所以如果女性进行的是一场防御焦点 而非促进焦点的对话, 她们拿到的钱 比男性少就说得过去了,
Well, I got the chance to test this hypothesis on companies with similar quality and funding needs across all years at the funding competition known as TechCrunch Disrupt Startup Battlefield has run in New York City since its inception in 2010. TechCrunch is widely regarded as the ideal place for start-ups to launch, with participants including start-ups that have since become household names, like Dropbox, Fitbit and Mint, presenting to some of the world's most prominent VCs. Well, despite the comparability of companies in my sample, male-led start-ups went on to raise five times as much funding as the female-led ones. This made me especially curious to see what's driving this gender disparity.
在纽约市举办的 自2010年设立的 名为TechCrunch Disrupt Startup battle 的融资竞赛中, 我找机会从有相似品质 和融资需求的公司身上 验证了这一假设。 TechCrunch被广泛认为是 启动创业公司的理想场合, 参加者包括后来家喻户晓的创业公司, 如Dropbox, Fitbit和Mint, 向世界顶尖风险投资机构展示自己。 尽管这些公司样本有可比性问题, 但男性主导的创业公司 融资的金额仍然是 女性主导的5倍之多。 这让我尤其好奇想弄清是什么 导致了这个性别差异。
Well, it took a while, but I got my hands on all the videos of both the pitches and the Q and A sessions from TechCrunch, and I had them transcribed. I first analyzed the transcripts by loading a dictionary of regulatory-focused terms into the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count software called LIWC. This LIWC software generated the frequencies of promotion and prevention words in the transcribed text. As a second method, I had each of the questions and answers manually coded by the Tory Higgins Research Lab at Columbia. Regardless of the topic at hand, an intention can be framed in promotion or prevention. Let's take that topic of customers I mentioned briefly earlier. A promotion-coded question sounds like, "How many new customers do you plan to acquire this year?" while a prevention-coded one sounds like, "How do you plan to retain your existing customers?" During the same time, I also gathered background information on the start-ups and entrepreneurs that can affect their funding outcomes, like the start-up's age, quality and funding needs and the entrepreneur's past experience, so I could use these data points as controls in my analysis.
这花了点时间, 但我找到了来自TechCrunch的 所有的演示和问答环节的视频, 并把它们转录成文本。 我首先通过一个名为 LIWC的语言查询和字数统计软件中 加载一个调节定向的 术语词典来分析这些文本。 LIWC软件统计了 转录文本中促进和防御的频次。 第二种方法是, 我的每一个问题和答案 都是由哥伦比亚大学的 托利·希金斯研究实验室手工编写的。 不管手头的话题是什么, 意图都可以在促进或防御中被框定。 让我们以前面简要提到的 客户这个话题为例。 促进类的问题大多是这样, “你今年打算获取多少新用户?” 而预防类的问题多是, “你打算如何留住你现有的用户?” 与此同时, 我也收集了 对创业公司和创业者来说可能 会影响他们融资的背景信息, 如创业公司的年限,质量和资金需求 以及创业的历史经验, 这样我就可以在分析中使用 这些数据点作为对照。
Well, the very first thing that I found is that there's no difference in the way entrepreneurs present their companies. In other words, both male and female entrepreneurs use similar degrees of promotion and prevention language in their actual pitches. So having ruled out this difference on the entrepreneur's side, I then moved on to the investor's side, analyzing the six minutes of Q&A sessions that entrepreneurs engaged in with the VCs after pitching. When examining the nearly 2,000 questions and corresponding answers in these exchanges, both of my methods showed significant support for the fact that male entrepreneurs get asked promotion questions and female entrepreneurs get asked prevention questions. In fact, a whopping 67 percent of the questions posed to male entrepreneurs were promotion-focused, while 66 percent of those posed to female entrepreneurs were prevention-focused. What's especially interesting is that I expected female VCs to behave similarly to male VCs.
我首先发现的是 他们的创业宣讲的方式并无差异。 换句话说,男性和女性创业者 在他们的实际宣讲环节中 所使用的促进和预防语言 处于同类水平。 所以排除了创业者一方的差异后, 我又转到到投资者这边, 分析了创业者展示环节后的 风险投资者参与的6分钟问答环节。 当浏览了将近2千个问题 和这些交流中给出的相应答案时, 我的方法都显示出了显著支撑 男性创业者会被问促进焦点类问题, 而女性创业者会被问 防御焦点类问题的事实。 事实上,高达67%抛给 男性创业者的问题是促进焦点的问题, 而有66%抛给女性创业者的 问题是防御焦点的问题。 尤其有趣的是, 我期待女性风投者的行为 与男性风投者类似。
Given its prevalence in the popular media and the venture-funding literature, I expected the birds-of-a-feather theory of homophily to hold here, meaning that male VCs would favor male entrepreneurs with promotion questions and female VCs would do the same for female entrepreneurs. But instead, all VCs displayed the same implicit gender bias manifested in the regulatory focus of the questions they posed to male versus female candidates. So female VCs asked male entrepreneurs promotion questions and then turned around and asked female entrepreneurs prevention questions just like the male VCs did.
鉴于它在大众媒体和 风险投资文献中的流行程度, 我期待一丘之貉的同质性 偏好理论在这里成立, 这意味着男性风投者会在促进问题上 偏向男性创业者, 而女性风投者会对 女性创业者做类似的事情。 但相反,所有的风投者都 展示了同样的隐性性别偏见, 这反映在他们针对男性和女性创业者 提出的问题的调节焦点上。 也就是说,女性风投者 会问男性创业者促进问题, 然后转过来问女性创业者防御问题, 就跟男性风投者一样。
So given the fact that both male and female VCs are displaying this implicit gender bias, what effect, if any, does this have on start-up funding outcomes? My research shows it has a significant effect. The regulatory focus of investor questions not only predicted how well the start-ups would perform at the TechCrunch Disrupt competitions but also how much funding the start-ups went on to raise in the open market. Those start-ups who were asked predominantly promotion questions went on to raise seven times as much funding as those asked prevention questions. But I didn't stop there. I then moved on to analyze entrepreneurs' responses to those questions, and I found that entrepreneurs are apt to respond in kind to the questions they get, meaning a promotion question begets a promotion response and a prevention question begets a prevention response. Now, this might make intuitive sense to all of us here, but it has some unfortunate consequences in this context of venture funding. So what ends up happening is that a male entrepreneur gets asked a promotion question, granting him the luxury to reinforce his association with the favorable domain of gains by responding in kind, while a female entrepreneur gets asked a prevention question and inadvertently aggravates her association with the unfavorable domain of losses by doing so. These responses then trigger venture capitalists' subsequent biased questions, and the questions and answers collectively fuel a cycle of bias that merely perpetuates the gender disparity. Pretty depressing stuff, right?
所以考虑到男性和女性风投 都展示出了这种隐性性别偏见, 这对创业融资的结果 有什么潜在影响吗? 我的研究揭示了显著的影响。 投资者的调节焦点问题 不仅可以预测出创业公司在 TechCrunch Disrupt竞赛中的表现, 而且也能预测出创业公司在 公开市场能得到多少资金。 那些主要被问到促进问题的创业者, 其融资金额是被问到防御问题的 创业者的7倍之多。 但我并没有止步于此。 我随后转而分析创业者 对这些问题的回应, 我发现创业者会对他们得到的问题 做出对应的回应, 意思是促进的问题会得到促进的答复, 而预防的问题会得到预防的回应。 我们可能都对此有直观的理解, 但在风险投资的背景下, 它会带来一些不幸的后果。 所以最后, 男性创业者被问到促进问题, 给了他这种“奢侈”,从而得以增强其 处于可以获得实物回报的 有利位置的联想, 而女性创业者被问到预防问题, 无形中加重了她会 亏损的不利境地的联想。 这些回答会引发风险投资家 随后提出的带偏见的问题, 这些问题和答案共同 助长了偏见的循环, 只会使性别偏见永远存在下去。 非常令人沮丧,对吧?
Well, fortunately, there's a silver lining to my findings. Those plucky entrepreneurs who managed to switch focus by responding to prevention questions with promotion answers went on to raise 14 times more funding than those who responded to prevention questions with prevention answers.
幸运的是,我的发现还有一线希望。 那些成功地用促进答案回应防御问题 从而扭转关注点的勇敢创业者 融资的金额要比 用防御答案回应防御问题的 创业者高14倍。
So what this means is that if you're asked a question about defending your start-up's market share, you'd be better served to frame your response around the size and growth potential of the overall pie as opposed to how you merely plan to protect your sliver of that pie. So if I get asked this question, I would say, "We're playing in such a large and fast-growing market that's bound to attract new entrants. We plan to take increasing share in this market by leveraging our start-up's unique assets." I've thus subtly redirected this dialogue into the favorable domain of gains.
所以这就意味着假如你被问到了 捍卫你初创公司市场份额的问题, 你最好根据整个市场蛋糕的大小 和增长潜力来设计您的回应, 而非表现出只打算 保护自己那一小块蛋糕。 所以如果我被问到这个问题, 我会说, “我们处在一个庞大 且快速增长的市场, 肯定会吸引新的进入者。 我们打算利用我们企业的独特资产 去增长这个市场的份额。” 这样一来,我就巧妙地将这一对话 重新引入了对我有利的领域。
Now, these results are quite compelling among start-ups that launched at TechCrunch but field data can merely tell us that there's a correlational relationship between regulatory focus and funding. So I sought to see whether this difference in regulatory focus can actually cause funding outcomes by running a controlled experiment on both angel investors and ordinary people. Simulating the TechCrunch Disrupt environment, I had participants listen to four six-minute audio files of 10 question-and-answer exchanges that were manipulated for promotion and prevention language, and then asked them to allocate a sum of funding to each venture as they saw fit.
这些结果在TechCrunch上启动的 初创企业中相当有说服力, 但实地数据只能告诉我们调节定向 和融资之间存在相关关系。 因此,我试图通过对天使投资者 和普通人进行对照实验, 看看调节定向的这种差异 是否真的导致不同的融资结果。 通过模拟TechCrunch Disrupt的环境, 我参与倾听了4个包括10个问答的 6分钟音频, 这些问题包含促进和预防用语, 然后让他们按认为合适的方式 为每个企业分配资金。
Well, my experimental results reinforced my findings from the field. Those scenarios where entrepreneurs were asked promotion questions received twice the funding allocations of those where entrepreneurs were asked prevention questions. What's especially promising is the fact that those scenarios where entrepreneurs switched as opposed to matched focus when they received prevention questions received significantly more funding from both sets of participants.
我的实验结果印证了我实地的发现。 那些被问到促进问题场景的创业者 募集到的资金是 被问预防问题者的两倍。 尤其有前景的是 那些接收到预防问题 但成功将问题进行转变的创业者 从两边的参与者中拿到了更多的资金。
So to my female entrepreneurs out there, here are a couple simple things you could do. The first is to recognize the question you're being asked. Are you getting a prevention question? If this is the case, answer the question at hand by all means, but merely frame your response in promotion in an effort to garner higher amounts of funding for your start-ups.
女企业家们, 这是几点你能做的事情。 首先是认可你被问到的问题。 你是不是被问到了预防问题? 如果是这种情况,务必回答手头的问题, 但你要用促进的方式回答, 从而给你的初创公司争取更多的资金。
The unfortunate reality, though, is that both men and women evaluating start-ups display the same implicit gender bias in their questioning, inadvertently favoring male entrepreneurs over female ones. So to my investors out there, I would offer that you have an opportunity here to approach Q&A sessions more even-handedly, not just so that you could do the right thing, but so that you can improve the quality of your decision making. By flashing the same light on every start-up's potential for gains and losses, you enable all deserving start-ups to shine and you maximize returns in the process.
虽然,很遗憾, 男性和女性评估初创公司时 在他们的问题中展示了 同样的隐性性别偏见, 无意中偏爱男性创业者 多于女性创业者。 说给我的投资者们, 我会向你们建议,你们有机会 去更公平地对待问答环节, 你不仅仅能做正确的事情, 还可以提升你决策的质量。 用同样的眼光看待每一个初创企业 盈利和亏损的潜力, 你让所有值得的创业者脱颖而出, 并在这个过程中获得最大的回报。
Today, I get to be that girl walking by the pool, sounding the alarm that something is going on beneath the surface. Together, we have the power to break this cycle of implicit gender bias in start-up funding. Let's give the most promising start-ups, regardless of whether they're led by men or women, a fighting chance to grow and thrive.
今天,我要成为那个在泳池旁边 散步的女孩, 对表面之下 发生的事情发出警报。 我们齐心协力,就能打破创业募资中 隐性性别偏见的循环。 让我们给最有前途的初创企业 一个成长和成功的机会, 无论它们是由男性还是女性领导的。
Thank you.
谢谢。
(Applause)
(鼓掌)