(Founder Stories) Foodspotting’s Soraya Darabi On Women In Tech

Let's face it, the tech industry is dominated by male geeks and alpha dog VCs. It's not easy being a female founder in that environment. But as Foodspotting co-founder Soraya Darabi tells Chris Dixon in Part II of her Founder Stories interview, "If you are smart and articulate and know your product, nobody can argue with that." And, she adds in the video above, "It’s probably a lot easier . . . now than it was ten years ago." Dixon thinks the problem is that VCs keep looking for the same patterns, They think the next Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg will be a young, male, alpha geek. He also notes that pitching your startup idea in the country-club atmosphere of many VC firms can be both intimidating and counterproductive. "I am not sure presenting well to 40 grumpy people correlates to building a great product," he quips.