1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Susan Mason of Aligned Partners (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: What you’re pointing out is the fact that even though people believe that entrepreneurship is about risk-taking, successful entrepreneurship is about calculated risk-taking and risk-mitigating.

Susan Mason: Absolutely. You have to decide what your objectives are – the risk versus the wealth equation. The early employees take the highest risk. You need to think carefully about as the company goes on, what are the risk impacts to those employees versus the later employees. We’ve been in a relatively high upturn here. That market will be changing. We go through the cycles. The economic cycle is coming up. Just understand the risk aspects of those economic cycles. You can have a fabulous company but in a down economic cycle, you’re just not going to realize that much cash on the outcome.

Sramana Mitra: We are absolutely going into a down economy. Within the next 12 to 18 months, we are going to enter a down economy phase for sure. Capital is going to dry up. Investors are going to behave differently. Investors behave in one way in the up economy and completely switch off in the down cycle. A lot of companies with potential are just going to die. If you put yourself on a venture timeline and a venture burn rate cycle, the likelihood of you dying is very high. If you die, you don’t succeed.

Susan Mason: That’s right. The mantra is never run out of money.

Sramana Mitra: I want to cover one topic before we finish. It’s a controversial topic. I am not popular in the industry for the position that I have on this topic, which is the whole women in entrepreneurship, women in technology, women in venture capital topic. Without saying anything more, I want to ask your high-level observations on this issue.

Susan Mason: It’s a complex issue. Interesting enough, our fund has no gender lens. We don’t care where entrepreneurs come from, what their background are, and what they look like. Interestingly enough, we have had the pick of the female Founder/CEO that we had not expected frankly. These are high-performing women. They built three to five companies and exited successfully, but didn’t really create genuine wealth themselves.

We have had our share of those kinds of entrepreneurs not because we purposely seek them out but because they’re looking for a receptive environment. It is hard for women to go into some venture groups but I think, in general, my philosophy is I would share your philosophy. No whining is allowed. I don’t know if you saw that Tom Hanks show on baseball. You got to get over it because your customer base is reflective of that, given that the C-level suite tends to be male. I guess I would veer more on your perspective of pick yourself and make it happen.

Sramana Mitra: I know you have an Electrical Engineering and Computer Science background. A lot of people are sensationalizing this women in technology entrepreneurship issue. They usually come from non-technology backgrounds. I was talking to one close friend of mine who shares the same perspective. Why are people who don’t have the background speaking for us? I don’t hear Diane Green whining and bitching about bias.

Susan Mason: Again, I think it’s a complex issue. I do think that there is some element of unconscious bias in the hiring and recruiting process. I think there are ways to address that. I don’t think it’s training. The only way to address that is through technology. In fact, we invest in a company called Unitive. This woman built a very successful company in the security space before starting Unitive. That company went from zero to a $300 million exit.

I think there is a way to address some of the unconscious bias that happens. This is a woman that has a Ph.D. in Math. I think the issue is how do we get more women into Electrical Engineering and Computer Science so that the pipeline is there and how do we help them to be successful in companies. That’s the focus item from our standpoint.

Sramana Mitra: There’s a third element which is people who get into Electrical Engineering and Computer Science stay-in. There is this other issue of talented and highly-trained women dropping out to have families.

Susan Mason: That is a tough one. That’s about that partnership with your life partner. It is a juggling act. I know that working moms have to juggle. If I look across our female entrepreneurs, I would say 80% of them have families. There is a way to do it. Fortunately, they’re very organized and directed. They just execute.

Sramana Mitra: Great. Thank you for your time.

This segment is part 4 in the series : 1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Susan Mason of Aligned Partners
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