Survey of 100 women tech entrepreneurs shows 84% not from STEM background, 67% perceived bias in workplace, mentorship from men key for most, more
Tech Women Choose Possibility — When I came to Silicon Valley 18 years ago, I stayed. — I found the place that fanned the flames … Tweets: @sukhindersingh and @sukhindersingh Tweets: Sukhinder Singh / @sukhindersingh : interesting stats 55% of women entrepreneurs in survey came from entrepreneurial families http://on.recode.net/1G6D3kW #choosepossibility Sukhinder Singh / @sukhindersingh : @cclayporter @kevaldesai some of data expected,some surprising, overall women founders bullish on starting companies http://on.recode.net/1G6D3kW
Context & Ripple Effects
Sukhinder Singh's 'Choose Possibility' survey of 100 women tech entrepreneurs pushes back on the standard pipeline story: 84% of the founders came from outside STEM, meaning the field is drawing women through entrepreneurship itself rather than through technical tracks, and 55% grew up in entrepreneurial families — suggesting exposure, not coursework, is the feeder. Yet 67% say they perceived bias at work, and male mentorship was decisive for most.
That tension — optimism about starting companies alongside persistent bias — is exactly what later data keeps confirming: a [[a:924681|2017 survey of 869 founders found 78% of women had faced or knew someone facing sexual harassment]], and by [[a:961240|2020, 44% of women founders reported harassment and half said they were told they'd raise more money as men]]. The 2016 study showing just [[a:868513|7% of top-100 VC firm partners are women and 10% of global venture funding went to startups with a woman founder]] frames what these founders are up against.
First-order effects
- The 84% non-STEM finding directly undermines the 'pipeline problem' argument some investors use to explain low women-founder funding rates — if most successful women entrepreneurs never came through STEM, technical pedigree can't be the gating factor.
- Women founders reading the survey get a counter-narrative: entry into tech entrepreneurship doesn't require a technical background, which matters for recruitment and for how accelerators and mentorship programs target candidates.
Second-order effects
- With male mentorship cited as key for most respondents, the burden falls on male-dominated VC firms and founder networks — the same institutions the 2016 partner-composition study showed are 93% male — to widen who gets sponsored, or risk missing deal flow.
- Competing survey publishers (Women Who Tech, Girls Who Code) keep quantifying bias with harder numbers over time, raising pressure on VCs and large tech employers to show measurable responses rather than mentorship rhetoric alone.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds across the 2015-to-2022 survey record, the structural constraint isn't technical training but access — family exposure to entrepreneurship and male sponsorship — pointing toward interventions aimed at networks and capital allocation rather than STEM education pipelines.
- A decade of consistent self-reported bias data gives regulators and limited partners a documented basis to push VC firms on partner diversity and fund-level disclosure, though whether disclosure changes allocation remains genuinely unresolved.
The trend: Survey after survey since 2015 documents that women enter tech entrepreneurship without STEM pedigrees and despite perceived bias, shifting the debate from fixing pipelines to fixing who controls capital and mentorship.