When Susan Fowler’s 2017 blog post shined a light on Uber’s raucous culture, outlining rampant harassment and sexism, a debate erupted. What role do the deep-pocketed investors behind the company, those who allowed it to scale to monstrous proportions, have in developing and nurturing its culture? Entrepreneurs and venture capitalists themselves wondered aloud, how involved should a venture fund be in early-stage recruiting processes and ensuring a safe environment for employees? If a culture is bad, unsafe, damaging, is it the VC’s fault?
Late-stage venture funds, for the most part, miss the opportunity to deeply impact their portfolio companies’ cultures. When they invest, typically large sums of capital in companies with hundreds of employees and multiple offices, the company’s culture is formed and, as Uber and others have proven, rebuilding culture a decade in is no easy challenge. Early-stage funds, however, the people that write the very first check in startups, have a front-row seat to decisions crucial to defining how a company operates and treats its employees in the long term. These people, if they care to, have the power to help determine key hires and establish company values, norms and behaviors from the get-go.
This week, San Francisco-based early-stage fund True Ventures hired its first-ever vice president of culture, a move that suggests VCs are taking concrete steps toward further involving themselves in the company-building process from a D&I and hiring perspective. Madeline Kolbe Saltzman joins the firm, which raised $635 million across two new funds last year, from Handshake, where she was the VP of people and talent.
“There’s a responsibility to guide the company and the founder to being the best they can be, and that involves paying attention to who you’re hiring and how people are being treated,” Saltzman tells TechCrunch. “If we can come in and establish inclusive norms, my hope is that our companies will scale inclusively as well.”
Most venture capitalists are in regular communication with active investments. Early-stage investors, particularly, are very involved with building businesses, facilitating hires and scaling. But as they seek to decrease cash-burn or find product-market fit, VCs are not often very concerned with issues of diversity and inclusion, something that’s became increasingly important as companies are finally being held accountable for the diversity of their workforces.
That’s where roles like Saltzman’s could come in. If VCs are serious about holding their CEOs to higher standards, allocating room in the budget for a culture expert could be the next step forward in a quickly changing industry.
We can come in and establish inclusive norms.Madeline Kolbe Saltzman, True Ventures
In 2012, Andreessen Horowitz co-founder Ben Horowitz wrote, “The world is full of bankrupt companies with world-class cultures. Culture does not make a company.” But in 2019, culture has become more important — arguably the most important thing a startup has to offer. Why? Because there are more startups than ever — more opportunities available to great employees seeking a positive, inclusive environment. Why join a harmful boys club when you could be part of a diverse team aligned on the same mission?
True Ventures VP of Culture Madeline Kolbe Saltzman
The VP of culture role is different from a VP of talent, in theory. Saltzman will partner with True portfolio companies, which has included Peloton, Blue Bottle Coffee and Fitbit, to “create more intentional cultures” and “more equitable places of belonging and inclusion for people of all backgrounds.” She will not focus solely on hiring but also on issues of salary, community and company policies.
“I would like to approach the VP of culture role with more of a holistic lens,” Saltzman said. “It doesn’t apply just to talent; talent can be quite transactional. We are focused on creating better places to work.”
“If the company has an open office floor plan, I’d ask, is there a mother’s room?,” she added, citing examples of questions she might ask a startup. “Is there a maternity leave policy? Is there bereavement leave?”
Increasingly, we’re seeing a number of innovative roles crop up at venture capital funds as an onslaught of new firms makes deal-making more competitive. Some firms are stepping up their content and brand strategy as a means to attract top entrepreneurs, hiring for roles like content & brand manager or director of platform. Just as a culture can be a deciding factor for a potential candidate to join a startup, resources like tips on building an inclusive workforce can sway an entrepreneur into choosing a fund, like True Ventures, as its lead investor in a competitive round.
It’s certainly not essential to hire for roles like VP or head of culture to enact change. Many firms take it upon themselves to account for D&I initiates, hosting workshops, phone calls and coffee meetings with employees and founders. Brianne Kimmel, who runs a micro fund dedicated to funding enterprise startups, recently told TechCrunch she meets with every new female hire of her portfolio companies. Though it’s “increasingly non-scalable,” she admitted, it’s part of a greater effort to ensure her companies are thoughtful about D&I from the beginning: “Because I have a very focused fund, it’s about maintaining this community and ensuring that people feel like their voices are heard,” she said.
Whether a dedicated role like Saltzman’s will truly make any impact is up for debate. Perhaps partners striking the deals should be the ones to have these conversations with their own portfolio CEOs; then again, culture experts posses the tools to navigate these often difficult conversations more smoothly and efficiently. Certainly any effort to hold startups more accountable in a world in which most companies are still led by white men is welcomed.
“I am really passionate about creating a better tech industry than the one that I experienced,” adds Saltzman, who’s had stints at Google, Tumblr and Cadre prior to joining Handshake in 2016. “I imagine there are better ways to impact more people at scale and I am excited about the opportunity to help teams create better cultures early.”
The future of diversity and inclusion in tech
