The problem of implicit bias
The best person for a position should fill that position, whether a man or a woman. But in the world of startups, there is something called "implicit bias. Because often, a lack of diversity is not a conscious choice, but comes almost naturally. Unconsciously and unintentionally. After all, there are more men working in this world than women. And male investment managers search their own network, full of men, for a suitable member for the supervisory board of the startups they invest in. Or a man gives input to a job posting for the management team, which is therefore full of "masculine" terms that appeal to men. As a result, fewer women automatically respond to a job posting. And that vacancy is then posted in the company's own network. Exactly: a network with mainly men.
Diversity in startups pays off
While diversity in startups can actually be very good. A study by the Center for Collective Intelligence at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that the more women on a decision-making team, the better the outcomes of those decisions. The suspicion is that this is because women have a better understanding of the different perspectives involved in a decision. Making diversity negotiable should reverse the effect of bias so that more objective decisions can be made.
