This 'sad' advice a male VC just gave to women in tech couldn't be more wrong

The good news is that a male venture capitalist thinks he has an innovative new solution to solve the gender gap in tech. The bad news is that it involves women pretending that they are men.

In a column in the Wall Street Journal, John Greathouse of Rincon Venture Partners outlined his belief that women will get more opportunities in tech if they “create an online presence that obscures their gender.” Bizarrely equating hiring practices in tech to blind orchestra auditions, Greathouse suggested that women do things like only use their first initial and eliminate photos on both Twitter and LinkedIn. Rather than call on tech companies to overcome the unconscious bias that can too easily be baked into hiring practices, Greathouse thinks women should solve the problem themselves by hiding who they really are. 

“[The column] made me really mad.” said Angela Dalton, a managing director at Guggenheim. “It’s wrong on so many levels. It perpetuates the trap that women fall into that if I put my head down and just work, I will get noticed… Success is competency, yes, but it’s also personality and warmth.”

I sat down with Dalton as well as three other female investors for a panel discussion today at TAP, a tech conference in New York. The topic of our chat was the future of mobile investing, but with the industry abuzz with disbelief about the column, our conversation inevitably changed direction. [Greathouse did not respond to an email I sent him requesting comment. In a tweet, he apologized for the column.]

Heidi Roizen, an operating partner at DFJ, said that when she started in venture capital, she was routinely the only woman in the room. After becoming aware of the gender bias that pervades the tech industry, Roizen decided to give her two children gender-neutral names. That way when they applied to jobs later in life, the recruiter wouldn’t know if they were male or female.

“This is sad, but it is also true,” said Roizen. “Yes we need to change things, but we need to recognize the reality for what it is.”

Nimi Katragadda, a principal at BoxGroup, agreed with Roizen that you can’t ignore the problem, but said that hiding your identity entirely to overcome bias was “asinine’ advice.

“Why should you hide your identity because the person on the other end of the table is backwards?” she said. “You are making the problem worse that way.”

The fact that all the investors on stage for my panel were women was not an accident. In fact, the conference organizers were trying to combat the gender gap in tech by doing the exact opposite of what Greathouse suggested. After having a difficult time recruiting female speakers for last year’s conference -- a problem that plagues most tech events -- the organizers intentionally set out with the goal of having more than 50% female speakers. Highlighting female voices was the conference’s way of signaling to leaders in the room that diversity in leadership roles should be a priority.

“We know that companies that have diverse teams do better,” said Susanne Greenfield, a Director at Priceline Group. “But there is this unconscious bias. People want to hire and promote people who are similar to them. You have to do something to fight that bias.”

As a LinkedIn editor, I regularly work with thought leaders in tech who share their insights on our publishing platform. Rather than encourage female writers to mask their identity and experiences, I suggest they own it. In order to combat the misguided notion that the tech industry is only comprised of male leaders, women must share their expertise on social networks so that audiences hear a diverse set of perspectives. To get more women interested in pursuing careers in technology, current female leaders must continue to strive to be seen, rather than hide like Greathouse suggests.

“It was the stupidest article I have seen in a long time,” Greycroft Partner Ellie Wheeler said bluntly. “It was generally the worst advice I have ever seen.” 

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