aileen lee, founder of cowboy ventures, kirsten green founding partner of forerunner ventures, and maha ibrahim, general partner at 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 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 yo