emily: while the me too movement has rocked the world of entertainment, media and politics, it got a head start in the tech industry. in early 2017, a young engineer named susan fowler published a scathing memo about sexual harassment at uber that kicked off reports about men behaving badly across silicon valley. the revelations lit a fire in the hearts of women in tech who had had enough. in 2018, a group of female venture capitalists banded together with the goal to change

the face of those investing in tech startups and the people who build them. it is the industry that's changing the world faster than any other, yet it is also one of the most dominated by men. joining me today on "studio 1.0," aileen lee, founder of cowboy ventures, kirsten green founding partner of forerunner ventures, and maha ibrahim, general partner and canaan ventures. ♪ emily: in april of 2018, you all were the cover of forbes magazine. this is space normally reserved for men, normally reserved for male billionaires, and this is the first time a group of women was on the cover. when you saw this, how did it make you feel? >> we were all in awe, months of work and frankly this point decades in the background conversations, and wondering

whether or not our industry was finally going to be as diverse as we all wanted it to be. so i would say that the first reaction we all felt was this level of awe that it was coming to the forefront. >> well said. emily: now aileen, it was about a year before that you wrote an email to 20-some female vc's and you had had enough. what was the spark that lit the fire that got you to do that? aileen: when you enter venture capital, you enter tech, after being fortunate enough to go to good high schools and selective colleges, there are as many women as men in your undergraduate class and you wind up in tech. you look around the table and there are really no women, no people of color. it is this bizarre other universe. i had been thinking about it. i know enough of these women. we are friends with each other. we all behind closed doors or over cocktails and after board

meetings are comparing notes about these kinds of issues. there is enough of us now. we all feel the same way. we are starting to collaborate with each other more. we should get together. i wrote this draft and kept it in my draft folder for a couple weeks or couple months. what if everyone is like, i don't want to do it. i don't know. one day i decided to hit send. emily: you get this email. what did you think? >> i think it was the right time with the right message. it felt like here is an opportunity to do something productive, right? i think everybody has a combination of outrage over what was happening, feeling exhausted and frustrated with the situation, and the original impetus was let's do something productive with it. emily: you are all competitors. you compete for deals. why collaborate with the competition? >> that is what makes it so special. by the way, the competition is nothing new in the venture industry. our male colleagues have been doing to as long as i have been in venture.

>> we are competitive, but we also have to be collaborative. that is something about the industry. very seldom do you see a company that goes from there first to from their round of funding to their exit opportunity with one firm. emily: how did you decide to make all raise a thing? there is the careers program, there are female founders office hours. you know have a conference. >> this did not happen overnight. we all knew each other fairly well. that is what made it so special. it was so authentic, so natural, and we all had this call to action by the virtue of what had been happening in our industry over the 2017 period that it was a point in time thing that when aileen pressed send, there was no saying no. emily: do you know of any woman who has gotten an opportunity or hired or a company that funding because all raise exist? >> many.

but also we get regular emails from women who have been doing office hours, never raised money before, or outside the technical echo system and they are not in the bay area, didn't go to stanford or harvard, don't know anyone growing up in tech. and they feel like an outsider. they say i feel like for the first time like people are looking out for me. literally we have gotten emails from women who said this changed my life. i feel like i can do this now. emily: that said, there is is activism. there is conversation and organizations like all raise. but when you look at the numbers, 30 new women partners were added since march 2018, but still only 10% of vc's in the united states are women. 73% of firms still don't have a female partner. >> i know. emily: is that progress? >> it's opportunity. >> yeah. >> that is what we are doing. it has been one year we have mobilized forces against that. i think 30 new female partners that have a community behind them to help them be better and

more successful in their new role. >> so in our industry, things move slowly. my firm is, and you know this, because you have interviewed all of us, we are a case study in what having female investors can mean for the number of females that actually receive capital. emily: right, canaan partners -- and you have been there for years. >> i have been there 19 years. we have 40% of our investment professionals are female. forerunner is larger than the percentage. and i would make a bet that my firm and forerunners and cowboy probably have a higher percentage of females being invested in than anybody in the industry, because we have females at the investing table. so what i would wait to see is how that number changes over the next five to 10 years, unfortunately, not over the next one to two. emily: there are those who do not think all raise will be as

-- not necessarily be as successful as you think. another investor is skeptical of the work you're doing, saying, "it will predictably fail." adding a single white woman partner is not going to change the vc firm." >> she is absolutely right. that is why all raise exists. we are a coalition of women supporting women. it is incredibly important that we have not one woman at the investing table, but two, three, four, and that not only are they in the door, but they stay in the door, and stay successful. >> it is also fair to be skeptical because there are examples of firms that are marketing they have women or hiring investment professionals and not supporting them, or saying i hired a woman, like check, done. high five, let's do what we were doing before. and that is not good. and it does not work. and we are on to that. emily: you hear a lot of things and a lot of things that happened behind the scenes. do you think that bad behavior has been rooted out in silicon valley? is it still happening?

>> i mean, bad behavior happens in life. it is like people. there are good people, better people. i mean, i think, i don't know it will get routed out in all kinds of places, but i think there is a light shone on it and there is a conversation acceptable to have a about it, and questions that are fair to ask or even expected to ask. emily: i get asked a lot, can these guys have a second act? some are writing books, raising money. they are the ceo of a startup. is that ok? is there room for redemption? >> i mean, i think we have to stay hopeful that people can change and that people can evolve. emily: that is a yes. >> i want people to be the best versions of themselves. and just because they found themselves at a time in their life where they have not lived up to that, i hope that does not mean they have to walk around for the rest of their lives not being the best version of themselves. >> i am really focused on giving people first chances.

there are a lot of people who have not been given first chances, and that is what we are trying to work on. >> yes. ♪ >> growing up in tech and in venture capital, when you are the only woman around the is not -- around the table is not easy, and experience a lot of things that by legal definitions are not legal. ♪

emily: let's talk about how you got your first chance. aileen, i want to start with you. aileen: i am a first-generation daughter of immigrants from china. i was fortunate that my grandparents and parents sacrificed a lot and emphasized education for my sister and myself, so we got into selective colleges. i eventually wound up, i did banking and worked at gap. kleiner perkins took a chance on me. they had hired all men in the past, generally people who went to stanford and worked in tech. and i was working at gap.

i have loved my job ever since. emily: view joined kleiner perkins as an associate partner. you worked closely with john doerr. it is interesting because kleiner is one of the more storied venture capital firms, but was also sued for gender discrimination by ellen pao. what was your experience at kleiner like? aileen: growing up in tech and venture capital when you are the only woman around the table is not easy. and you see and experience a lot of things that by legal definitions are not legal. and people choose to handle it in different ways. emily: ellen lost her case in court, but do you think she should have won? aileen: i was surprised she did not win on one of them. that is all i will say. emily: what made you decide to leave kleiner? i know you suggested investing in uber, and they were not interested at the time. there were moments where you had ideas and they did not listen. aileen: some good friends of my husband and mine are

entrepreneurs. they are always thinking about startups. they knew my firm and me and said, when we you leave to start your own firm? it had not crossed my mind i could do that. it had not crossed my mind that people would think they would still be my friends if i left kleiner perkins. >> wow. >> wow. >> oh wow. >> good thing you debunked that. aileen: i realized i had gotten a little too attached to it. and i had been there for 12 years. and then this whole new seed ecosystem was developing, which was more collaborative, a different pace and velocity of investing, and i also i would have a chance to really find my conviction and my gut. when you are at a big firm, even though you are a senior partner, there are a lot of big egos in the room, generally all venture firms, and you are gaming the system when you bring companies forward based on how you think they are going to be received.

it felt like coming back to the basics, really small, low overhead, meeting with companies, working with founders, and not having a lot of infrastructure what i wanted to do next. emily: you left and started your own seed fund. that was a big deal when you did that. aileen: i guess at the time i did not realize it was. >> we had a lot of conversations about starting a firm around that time. emily: this is the perfect segue, because you, kirsten, came from outside silicon valley. kirsten: when i got an email from aileen lee saying we should get together, it was like i got an email from a celebrity. i was so excited. [laughter] kirsten: it was validation to me about how important it was to have community in this business. emily: you started as an analyst. you are going to malls, trying to figure out foot traffic and what was happening in e-commerce. >> i was drawn to investing because i was interested in learning and i was comfortable with math and analytics.

that seemed like a good combination. finding unique investment ideas other people were not onto already is what hooked me in the business. emily: ironically, a company you both invested in, dollar shave club, a razor company that sold for $1 billion. >> high five. emily: maha, you have had check writing privileges from day one, correct? maha: that is correct. emily: you did not face a lot of these things in your own firm. maha: i didn't. i didn't know at the time, or for years, that it was unusual. i had always been, through high school, through college, my phd program, through working at a telecommunications startup, always been in the minority. so it was not anything that i thought was strange going into a venture firm and being the only female, right?

i was at a 1000-person startup with four female vps, of which i was one. that was just what i knew. i was acclimatized. emily: you have always looked at consumer and enterprise. maha: that is correct. so i started my career, and probably for the first eight or nine years only invested in infrastructure, data center and storage type deals. it was not until 10 years ago i did my first consumer investment, and that was not planned. it was a company that ended up being a consumer company over time. i would say i kind of waded into it inorganically. emily: you are all sort of unicorns in venture capital because of what you have accomplished. and aileen coined that term. i want to take a moment to recognize that because that term came from you. aileen: the analysis that underpinned it i equally if not

more proud of, because our industry historically has been very -- even though we manage so much money and create so much economic opportunity, there has been so little data and analysis historically of private companies, that i was interested in trying to do a truly accurate quantitative analysis of what these companies have in common and the trends. and some of the trends i thought were helpful for the entrepreneurial ecosystem. ♪ maha: the tariffs that our government has put in place are ruinous for our economy. ♪

emily: hundreds of billions of dollars have been wiped off the market caps of big tech companies in the last several months. and there is fear about a broader economic downturn and whether that will impact tech. is that impacting your strategies? aileen: it absolutely will. there are positives and negatives to what is happening.

one, on the negative side, the tariffs our government has put in place are in the long-term, and maybe this is my economist background speaking a little bit more, they are ruinous for our economy. they are ruinous for the global economy. and even when i look at our micro little world in silicon valley, when we think about prices going up, both for direct goods and the supplied goods, the components effectively, these are unnecessary price changes that the only beneficiary of that is, frankly, nobody who needs to have that money. i do believe the tariffs put in place are anti-capitalism, and will in the long-term negatively affect gdp around the world. emily: i wonder if some of these companies have also shot themselves in the foot.

if you look at a company like facebook, is the damage self-inflicted? >> i think the consumer response or sentiment around facebook, i guess one opportunity is it creates windows for new startups. because if there is a startup that will promise certain things around privacy or your data and you can share, and we have learned a lot about social media in the past five or 10 years -- this is part of the cycle of creation, destruction, or evolution in technology. you learn from the predecessors and then people come up with new products. emily: mark zuckerberg and sheryl sandberg have been scrutinized for their leadership. where do you think they went wrong? >> i mean it is pursuing dollars at any cost at the end of the day, right? they were willing to -- whether it is them or people under them, i have no idea. that is for you to figure out as journalists, but i think they were willing to sacrifice a lot

of their principles for the almighty dollar and share price. emily: sheryl sandberg, specifically, has been heavily criticized for whatever shortcomings she may have had. do you think that criticism has been fair, or do think that criticism has been disproportionate? >> i think in many sectors of society we are witnessing how women are treated and viewed in the public media than men are treated. emily: so you think she is getting criticized more because she is a woman? >> obviously, it is not binary. right? she is the chief business officer of the company, and there are a lot of business issues or business decisions and policy decisions that fall under her purview. but, i think if you look at politics in particular right now and how females in office are being viewed by the media or by the public versus men, there is clearly a double standard.

and i think the same is true in business. emily: where are the double standards? if elon musk can talk to the new york times and cry -- >> or smoke during an interview -- emily: can women do that? >> no. >> no. >> what you think? >> #fundingsecured. kirsten: it is not ok but we are on a continuum of integrating women into different roles and different businesses, and while we are on that path to that opportunity that we are held to a higher standard. emily: i wonder if we are doing this to our detriment of society, these companies. like marissa mayer, who was so picked apart. where is she now? aileen: there has to be an acknowledgment that we are not all uniform. that one woman does not equal the next does not equal the next. >> totally, right? >> we are all very different. our investment styles and personalities are different. that doesn't mean we can't come

together and produce something that is excellent and where we can succeed. in fact, that means we can come together and do great things. aileen: the other thing that i think has changed in the past year that i am excited about, we are seeing more men stand up and call these things out. i think it is exciting to see more men willing to stand up and say what they think about the issues. emily: there is talk about amazon needing regulation. are you concerned about regulation for tech? could that hurt? kirsten: when i think about it from a business perspective and a consumer perspective, i don't want to live in a world where there are five choices for everything. it is not enough. i do not think it will ultimately be good for us. if you go back to why the regulations exist, why do the antitrust laws exist, it is to protect the consumer, right? i think it is your definition of what has been protecting the consumer has been about price and access, so that is where we are running into interference

around how those companies, if they interfere with that, but i think maybe that needs to be re-explored, about what are the standards that govern the way we think about when a company is too big. emily: are you concerned because of the macroeconomic slowdown that funding could dry up? >> i am concerned about that. i believe that is why a lot of companies raised the capital they did in 2018. i think fear as opposed to greed was driving a lot of the large capital raises. people were feeling like this party has to end at some point in time. the problem is or the benefit is i don't really see the party ending. >> yeah. there is still a huge amount of cash in the system looking for returns. they are not getting it on the stock market. they are not getting it in emerging markets. >> it is fund flows. >> it is a macro fund flows issue. it will go towards high beta, high innovation, high potential return, and that is venture.

emily: you are on a lot of this -- lists these days the midas , list, how do you use that power? >> that is a great question. one thing is we made all raise happen. we decided to take some of that notoriety and influence and really direct it towards goals we feel like are worthwhile. >> 2018 was the year where i realized that we collectively have reached o.g. status in this industry. [laughter] it is scary. it is sad. >> let's own it. >> to that extent, i am trying to own it, and with that owning or power comes the responsibility, as far as i am concerned, to make sure that we are bettering this industry, that we are making sure we have a class of junior people in this industry that are doing the right things with our founders

and our companies, etc. >> there is still so much opportunity regardless the funding or economic environment. both -- and also, cowboy ventures is a start up. we are very small and early, so we have a lot to prove. i still have a lot to prove as a venture investor and a founder of a firm that i hope will last beyond me. yeah, and the opportunity we have, all of us, and many who are not here right now who are involved with all raise, that family and that community will grow much larger in 2019. it comes from such a good place. i am sure we will make mistakes. and we have not done everything perfectly, but it really comes from a place of checking any kind of personal agenda or self-help at the door and truly trying to create a better, more-inclusive tech environment where all kinds of people from different backgrounds have an opportunity to thrive, and that is super important to all of us.

>> all right. emily: aileen lee, kirsten green, maha ibrahim, thank you so much for joining us. >> thank you. ♪

scarlet: i am scarlet fu. this is "bloomberg etf iq," where we focus on the access, risks and rewards offered by exchange traded funds. ♪ scarlet: finding your footing. with signs the global economy is slowing, we examined the 2019 bull case for emerging markets and japan, along with u.s. small caps. quality first. our guest joins us to explain why the quality factor was custom-made for this late cycle equity rally. and pick of the litter. if there is one thing you can put your money on, it is