Ann Crady Weiss stands out from her fellow investors at True Ventures in one key way — she’s the first, and only, female partner in the firm’s 12-year history.
Weiss took on that historic role last year, making the leap from entrepreneur to investor after founding two startups. Now, Weiss is making it her mission to fund other women founders. Her efforts seem to be paying off — so far about 30 percent of companies in the firm’s newest fund have women founders. Globally, less than 17 percent of VC deals involve female founders, according to PitchBook Data.
“I know that women have been underserved,” Weiss said, “so I consider that a very significant opportunity to create an environment in which women are excited to start companies.”
Weiss sat down with this news organization to talk about recent sexual harassment allegations, unconscious biases she’s encountered, and why venture firms need women at the table.
Q What was it like moving to the other side of the table, transitioning from entrepreneur to investor?
A It’s been fantastic. I think I’m a better entrepreneur for seeing what goes on behind the scenes. Probably the biggest realization in the transition is to understand the risk tolerance that venture capitalists have. At least our firm in particular has. They really are swinging for the fences and they don’t sweat the small stuff.
Q What does it mean to you to be the first female investing partner on the team?
A I feel frankly really excited and super fortunate. I won’t pretend that my gender is not noteworthy. I got this job because I am a two-time founder of True-backed companies, and they think I’m smart and we connect as partners from a personality perspective. But I also got this opportunity because I’m a woman, and they recognize the problem that venture capital, and frankly that their firm in particular, had in not having that voice as an equal partner at the table.
Q What is it like being the only woman?
A I think when I started I definitely did notice it on a day-to-day basis. I’m a year and a half into it, so I don’t notice it so much anymore. But I do bring a unique perspective. Partly as a woman and partly as a current operator and CEO of a company. But I am certainly aware of my difference.
Q How does it come up?
A Something that happened recently, probably about six months ago, I was looking at a company that I thought was really interesting, and when I was explaining to one of my partners, who is a very seasoned, very knowledgeable — he’s an amazing investor — I was explaining to him that this company was kind of like a Stitch Fix for blah.
Stitch Fix was probably doing $800 million in top line sales, and he had never heard of them. And so that is such an interesting thing, to realize that he’s a human being and many of the companies that he hears of are either things that his friends send him as business opportunities or things that he happens upon in his daily life. And because he’s a dude, he just had never happened upon Stitch Fix.
I have tons of friends who have used Stitch Fix, and it’s something that we talk about at parties. So it really was a reminder that it really is an important and unique perspective, and I also have unique experiences by virtue of my gender.
Another example that’s more light-hearted: we were having a discussion about a company and another partner made an analogy to nail polish. He said, ‘I don’t think this is a good company because, think of nail polish, for example. You buy one bottle of nail polish, you don’t need more than one.’
And it was so hilarious, because he just had no idea that people generally have more than one bottle of nail polish.
Q Do you ever experience the darker side that sometimes comes with being a woman in tech? Such as sexual harassment or discrimination?
A I do not know that I have personally experienced straight-up sexism or harassment. But I have certainly seen things that are troublesome to me, that are not the result of any ill will, but rather a result of lack of exposure and unconscious bias.
Q There has been a flood of recent news stories highlighting problems of discrimination and sexual harassment in places like Uber, Binary Capital and 500 Startups. Where do you think this problem is coming from, and what can we do about it?
A I think it comes from people being fallible, people being uneducated about what’s OK and what’s not OK. I think it comes from human nature, and I don’t think we’re going to change human nature. But what I do think we’re going to do is we’re going to make people understand that they need to control their nature. There are punishments and consequences.
I am very grateful that we seem to be entering a period in which there are very clear delineations about what is acceptable behavior and what is not acceptable behavior.
Q It seems like there’s been a new push recently to crack down on that type of behavior. What do you think has changed?
A I think it’s probably a combination of women who are very brave and who incrementally have been getting more and more signs that the community is willing to support someone who makes this kind of accusation. Or is willing to at least hear somebody. Historically what’s happened has been when somebody makes this allegation, they have been attacked themselves.
What’s happened now is there is attention being paid, and people are listening, and consequences are happening. And I think that is making people feel empowered and brave to actually speak reality.
Ann Crady Weiss
Born: San Francisco, grew up in Mountain View and Palo Alto
Age: 46
Education: UC San Diego for undergrad, Georgetown for law school
Current residence: Palo Alto
Job title: Venture partner at True Ventures and co-founder of Hatch Baby, a startup that makes internet of things products for the nursery.
Family: Her husband, Dave Weiss, is also her co-founder at Hatch Baby. They have three children — a 14-year-old girl, 12 year-old-boy and 4 year-old-boy.
Past positions: Founder of Maya’s Mom, which sold to BabyCenter in 2007; director of new initiatives for Yahoo Autos from 2001 to 2006; also worked briefly as a corporate securities lawyer.
Five facts about Ann Crady Weiss
1. She’s from Palo Alto, and so are her father, grandmother and great-grandmother. “Too bad they didn’t buy a bunch of land!”
2. Weiss has never eaten a hamburger. She’s not a vegetarian, she just hates the texture of ground beef.
3. She still plays soccer.
4. Weiss had a dog with no eyes who lived to be 14. He was born with both eyes, but lost them one after the other to glaucoma.
5. Her mom is an immigrant from Bolivia who came to the U.S. when she was 13.
