Good morning, Broadsheet readers! Allison Baum Gates is a general partner at the early-stage venture capital fund Semper Virens and the author of the new book Breaking Into Venture: An Outsider Turned Venture Capitalist Shares How to Take Risks, Create Power, and Build Life-Changing Wealth. In this excerpt, she shares how her own experience being underestimated as a female investor has led her to sometimes overlook drawbacks in female-founded startups—an honest perspective she hopes we can all learn from.
- Overlooked and underestimated. In my early days as a venture capitalist, the glaring gender imbalance in venture—93% of venture dollars are still controlled by men—meant I was constantly flooded by both subtle and not-so-subtle negative messages about my capability as an investor.
