Ellen Pao, Laura Gómez and bethanye McKinney Blount

@ekp · ex-reddit

@neeeharika We're building a community where people can share their experiences and recommendations. If you are at a startup or VC firm, you can apply for our Startup Include and VC Include programs to work on implementing our recommendations. Please sign up here to join: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/...

Christie Pitts

@imchristiepitts · Ventures Development, Verizon Ventures

How can VCs influence existing portfolio companies to design for inclusivity? What small changes can VCs make to improve their outcomes in investment, networking and hiring?

7 share tweet・a year ago

@ekp · ex-reddit

@imchristiepitts We believe building diverse firms and measuring portfolio diversity can help. We've asked VCs to include diversity metrics in their portfolio reporting requirements. Here's where: http://projectinclude.org/leadin....

Christie Pitts

@imchristiepitts · Ventures Development, Verizon Ventures

@ekp thanks! We are making efforts at my VC firm that are forward looking - but we have 50+ historical investments and countless past projects to consider. Like other VCs, we make follow on investments in our existing portfolio. Open to all thoughts of how to improve the entire ecosystem, not just new investments. PS - Thank you so much for participating in this chat and launching Project Include! 🙌🙌🙌

6 share tweet・a year ago

Charles Kunene

@charles_kunene · Co-founder & Product Designer @Obaa

Any ideas on how to change the discourse around diversity + inclusion so companies/founders/VC's acknowledge the role that bias plays when evaluating potential investments & hires?

@ekp · ex-reddit

@charles_kunene We've tried to round up relevant research and stories in Medium and Model View Culture at projectinclude.org. We're also having conversations, both publicly and privately. Sharing materials, having multiple people share their views, and calling out questionable behavior all make a difference.

1 share tweet・a year ago

Kate Rose

@katerosebee · POps @ Elevate

HR managers find themselves often "assigned" responsibility for diversity and inclusion initiatives. Do you have any advice to help HR and People Ops teams invite in CEOs, founders and other exec leadership to share ownership of those priorities?

@bethanye · CEO, Cathy Labs

@katerosebee Such a great question! Project Include strongly feels that commitment to diversity and inclusion should come from the very top of a company - the CEO/founder level. One way to help have this conversation with CEOs/founders/other execs is to start with our recommendations about implementing culture (http://projectinclude.org/implem...) to help give them an outside perspective on why this is so important. Another way to help structure the conversation is by grounding it in metrics about the state of your organization. The metrics we cover on projectinclude.org (http://projectinclude.org/measur...) are a good starting point.

Kevin Renfrow

@renfrowk

In your about page, it states that your recommendation for a 'real solution' includes that "companies should improve opportunities for all employees, including all underrepresented groups (gender, race, class, age, religion, disability, education, sexual orientation, and others)." There are also many instances where you stress the importance of gender diversity. According to your 'Team' page, it appears that your team is composed entirely of females (or at least all descriptions use pronouns she/her). Do you have plans to include males and people with other gender identities on your team? If not, how do you reconcile this apparent contradiction?

@bethanye · CEO, Cathy Labs

@renfrowk Hi, Kevin. Thank you for asking this - great question! Project Include came together initially from our shared extended networks. Once we had the core group that we are today, we struggled with this exact question. We had to balance our desire to have more gender diversity on the team against the difficulties of coordinating the process of researching, building, and publishing our recommendations. We were incredibly fortunate to have the support and contributions of people outside the core team, including people who identify as non-binary and male. We also directly solicited feedback throughout the process from people who are not cis women. Project Include is going to grow and change over time, and I absolutely expect as we do, the core team will include people with different gender identities.

5 share tweet・a year ago

Emily Hodgins

@ems_hodge · Community and Marketing, Product Hunt

What advice would you each give to someone looking to get into tech but is afraid they might be marginalised due to their sex, race, skin colour, background?

@ekp · ex-reddit

@ems_hodge I loved how Project Include teammate @ericajoy said it yesterday: “I would say that this culture may seem daunting but you CAN come here and you CAN succeed and you CAN achieve anything that anyone in this industry can — you’re probably better at it because you had to work harder to prove yourself. Come into this, don’t be shy about it, speak up for yourself and take what’s yours.”

4 share tweet・a year ago

EricaJoy

@ericajoy · Slack Technologies, Inc.

@ekp @ems_hodge ✊🏾

upvote share tweet・a year ago

Stella Tran

@stella · Associate, Just Business

A lot of my female friends describe operating in this environment feeling like "death by a thousand paper cuts". How do you all practice self-care? Any strategies on the top of your head for staying strong? And big thanks Ellen, bethanye, and Laura for doing this AMA!

laura i. gómez

@laura · Founder, Atipica

@stella It Lately, the Project Include "squad" has helped me heal a lot :). My friends and other women have been there for me as well. Thank you, amigas! <3 Furthermore, I am big proponent of mindfulness and seeking strength from others - especially allies. Maintaining positivity has kept me strong, even when these microagressions hurt and get the best of me.

4 share tweet・a year ago

Corey Hubbard

@corey_hubbard · Founder - DreamHighr

Hello Ellen, Bethanye, and Laura, I want to thank you all for taking our questions 2day. So, would Project Include work with a startup building an app that assists hiring managers with their diversity hiring practices?

@bethanye · CEO, Cathy Labs

@corey_hubbard Hi! We haven't planned to build an app or collaborate on building an app for hiring managers. At Project Include, we focus on the entire employee lifecycle, which includes the hiring process but doesn't end there. We have a list of some useful resources for hiring managers here: http://projectinclude.org/employ... and we're adding to that list as new products are brought to our attention.

Corey Hubbard

@corey_hubbard · Founder - DreamHighr

@bethanye ! thanks a bunch and I sent an email through Project Includes website😀

Emily Hodgins

@ems_hodge · Community and Marketing, Product Hunt

Hi Ellen, Laura and bethanye thanks so much for being here today! If everyone working in the tech industry could do just one small thing to improve diversity within the industry, what would it be?

laura i. gómez

@laura · Founder, Atipica

@ems_hodge Personally, I'd like diversity advocates and allies to understand and include intersectionality in their conversations.

@ekp · ex-reddit

@ems_hodge We believe that the CEO has to drive from the top down. Things that everyone can do to help are to point out problems when they come up early and to let people know when things aren't working. Share your stories and your experiences to help others understand and hopefully empathize. Sometimes it takes hearing something 10 times before someone will change, so even if it doesn't seem like you're making a difference, you probably are.