Fast Company

WHY I’M BETTING ON DIVERSITY

THE PHILANTHROPIST AND INVESTOR IS TACKLING SEXISM IN SILICON VALLEY.
With Pivotal Ventures, Gates is applying lessons learned from two decades of philanthropy to venture funding.

To change the world, it helps to get capital into the hands of people who have a different vision for it. A few years ago, I began quietly investing in “nontraditional” venture capital funds—“nontraditional,” of course, being industry parlance for a fund that isn’t completely overindexed on companies led by white men. With these investments I joined a growing community of funders who believe that worthwhile investment ideas are more evenly distributed among the population than the current flow of venture capital dollars would suggest.

My journey to Sand Hill Road began, of all places, on a beach in Tanzania. It was 1993,

You’re reading a preview, subscribe to read more.

More from Fast Company

Fast Company2 min readRobotics
Automating Dirty And Dangerous Work
THERE'S A long history of robots taking jobs that humans resent, resist, or outright fear. But a new crop of bots is tackling tasks that even machines might calculate to be out of their theoretical comfort zones. Gecko Robotics has been deploying its
Fast Company2 min readPopular Culture & Media Studies
Finding Your People
THE DESIRE TO FEEL SUPported, included, and in community with others, online or IRL, is universal. But many huge social media apps today seem more adept at making users feel on the outs—or worse. Algorithmic and content-moderation changes at X (forme
Fast Company1 min read
40 Day Week Global
THE NONPROFIT 4 DAY Week Global wants to create nothing less than a million new years of free time. The organization took the concept of a shortened week from fringe to main-stream last year, onboarding some 190 companies for trials of four-day weeks

Related Books & Audiobooks