In recent years, several venture capital firms in Silicon Valley have made public strides to become more diverse after decades of being predominantly led by white men. But Freada Kapor Klein, a venture capitalist who has advocated for diversity in tech since the 1980s, isn’t impressed by their progress.
“Writ large, flunk,” she said on the latest episode of Recode Decode. “Failing grade.”
Kapor Klein spoke with Recode’s Teddy Schleifer about why well-intentioned initiatives such as All Raise have not yet had an impact. If the tech industry is going to reflect the diversity of the whole country, she explained, hiring more white women isn’t good enough.
“If what we do is count the number of women partners, and if those women partners are white and Asian and went to the same schools and grew up in the same zip codes and now live in the same zip codes as their male partners, that doesn’t get me very far on diversity,” Kapor Klein said. “Every single day I am…
