“The Internet was supposed to be the great equalizer. . . . So why hasn’t our generation of women moved the needle?”
– Gina Bianchini, CEO of MightyBell, in a New York Times article about the legacy of Stanford University’s Class of 1994, whose graduation day was called “the day the web was born.” While chronicling the success stories from that year’s alumni, many of whom went on to become iconic figures in Silicon Valley, reporter Jodi Kantor explores the new gender gap it may have created. Despite a diverse student body and efforts by the school to “dismantle old gender and racial barriers,” it was the men of that class who succeeded the most in the tech world.
“Instead of narrowing gender gaps, the technology industry created vast new ones, according to interviews with dozens of members of the class and a broad array of Silicon Valley and Stanford figures,” Kantor writes. “We were sitting on an oil boom, and the fact is that the women played a support role instead of walking away with billion-dollar businesses,” Kamy Wicoff, Class of ’94 alum and founder of SheWrites, tells Kantor.
At top: A Stanford University student walks across campus in this 2012 file photo. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma)
