Oh, you white men of Silicon Valley.
It appears efforts to redress the lack of women and minorities in Silicon Valley, particularly in the ultra-clubby world of venture capital, still have a long way to go.
Exhibit A: Yesterday, John Doerr of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, fresh off a bruising and embarrassing lawsuit over his firm’s treatment of a former female partner, decided to make light of his new partners’ names.
Their names: Muzzammil Zaveri and Swati Mylavarapu.
So, a venture capitalist walks onto a Techcrunch Disrupt stage and says:
KPCB's John Doerr: "We have two new partners who are so diverse that I have a challenge pronouncing their names." #TCDisrupt
— Kim-Mai Cutler (@kimmaicutler) September 22, 2015
Get it?
Guess those sensitivity training sessions didn’t get the hoped-for ROI.
Probably getting some flak from his flak, Doerr apologized on Twitter:
@kimmaicutler Friends, my apologies. It was an unfortunate joke that was not funny. I have deep respect for my partners Swati and Muzzammil.
— John Doerr (@johndoerr) September 22, 2015
Pro user tip: Next time put a period before the @ so more people will see the tweet: .@kimmaicutler. We understand. Twitter is damn complicated.
In any case, KPCB has clearly hired two worthy new partners. Zaveri was doing investments in the U.S. for China-based Internet giant Tencent. Mylavarapu was at Square and had previously been with Google.org and focused on mobile in sub-Saharan Africa and India through.
A couple of strong additions for a firm with global investment ambitions. Just going to be a bit awkward at the next KPCB golf tournament.
Source: Wall Street Journal
