Interview
a16z Podcast | Holy Non Sequiturs, Batman: What Disruption Theory Is ... and Isn't
- Expectations for the Board List project include its transition from a current beta phase (under three months old) to a scalable, curated marketplace for private company boards (Series B and beyond), with a future roadmap to extend utility to nonprofit and public sectors once the tech industry focus is addressed.
- Strategic plans involve publishing specific criteria for endorsing members and candidates in the near future to ensure transparency and clarify the community is not a closed club, alongside a structure that currently prohibits self-nomination but anticipates future lanes for self-submission alongside endorsements.
- Predicted market conditions highlight that the vast majority of current female entrepreneurs are white or Asian with very low Hispanic, Latino, and African-American representation, while the narrative on tech diversity over the last 18 to 24 months is seen as warranted but less dire than press portrayals.
- Risk assessments and opportunity analyses describe private company board seats as relatively low-risk and high-opportunity, particularly with short-term commitments (e.g., one year), contrasting them favorably against the risks of executive hiring and noting that the bias in Silicon Valley remains toward positive possibility.
- Projected outcomes for the initiative include catalyzing a movement through a series of national salons (starting on East and West Coasts) to challenge CEOs and VCs regarding the use of common shares for independent board seats, with expectations that success in these experiences will drive rapid industry-wide movement.
- Data expectations indicate that while about 25% of boards currently have female representation, this figure is likely biased and potentially lower for independent seats at Series B, with a specific view that the supply of talent is not the constraint but rather the demand side in private boards.
- Structural expectations dictate that the Board List will combine male and female networks to move away from "women for women" efforts, attract board demand through high-quality vetted talent, and generate net new independent board positions rather than reallocating existing seats.
- Historical patterns identified in the data suggest that leading professions of fathers were often CEO, engineer, or entrepreneur, while mothers were most often teachers, influencing the expectation that 12% of women surveyed expressed hesitation regarding entrepreneurship due to fit for their daughters rather than gender issues.
- The outlook anticipates the Board List functioning as a startup-like product and community that operates as an online social network, leveraging proprietary data room access (including contributions from Silicon Valley Bank) to solve the diversity problem by allowing "one plus one to equal five."
- Future governance models will require all endorsers to be highly referenceable and able to take board calls for their nominees, ensuring the database serves founders with immediate access to amazing women leaders for open board searches while maintaining a highly curated group focused on company performance.