Why are almost all successful entrepeneurs male?

"Girls expect and wait for help"... oh now that's a red rag to a bull to any girl who's grown up with constant sexual harassment. I can count on one hand the number of people who've offered me help in life and the list of barriers in my way has been huge.

You just cannot see the amount of privilege and support you have always had, while girls are taught from the start that they must always take the last place on the list. Men never do anything by themselves, they have the full back-up of the entire organisation of society.

"Any talented individuals will make their mark accordingly" what rubbish. Talent is a good start, but what really matters is who you know, whether you fit in, and luck.

I'm also interested in that claim that male entrepreneurs don't have families. Is that true d'you reckon? Or is it simply that they have wives in the background doing all the family work?

It is slightly more honest to say that they sacrifice family time. Yes, because they can. "Behind every successful man stands a woman", it used to be said, doing all the background work. Also it is socially acceptable, even expected, that men sacrifice their women and children to gain economic success. If women sacrifice their children similarly they get called all sorts of unpleasant names.

Women are always being told that they can't have it all, they have to choose between family and career, yet men never are, it is accepted that they can and usually will have it all. Just as a counter-claim.

Did you even read the thread before you weighed in, Legerdemain?

"girls" don't often start businesses, what with being busy at school and all. Isn't it telling that you picked that word?

And in terms of help, at least three posters upthread explain for you how it works that in fact if we're looking at who gets more help, then it seems that men do, particularly in terms of funding. But yeah, you crack on and make it the fault of individual women for being crap and too girly and weak to succeed, that's much easier and doesn't require you to think.

I walked out on a job to start up my own (successful if I do say so) business. No one helped me and I had children when I did that, so according to Legerdemain I must be a man as he clearly states I cannot as a woman have a family and succeed to a large degree.

Therefore, I am man who has given birth…. how does that work then…?

Or is that Legerderdemain is just plain wrong?

And also if females want to succeed in business to a large degree then they must realise they cannot have a family. Men must sacrifice family time in order to succeed, this is not sexism but a fact of time constraints. So choose what matters most to you. Men who want families (and interaction with them) must also choose more settled jobs

The reason males do better at this is because they know no one will help them, they have to do it all themselves therefore they take the risks and make the steps required. Girls expect and wait for help and approval from others which doesn't work in the business world. The solution, stop favouring girls from a young age, stop teaching them help will come which will create the drive and practicality requires to succeed and any talented individuals will make their mark accordingly, if not then they're simply not cut for it. Feminism is counter productive here.

HermioneWeasley wrote - "she never experienced sexism or discrimination""

That's the trouble with sexism, it's invisible, but only until you see it.

"a perfectly equal playing field apart from"

I agree with your "apart from" items. (very "What have the Romans ever done for us ...")

I heard a woman form "women on boards" say recently that she worked in the city and felt she never experienced sexism or discrimination. She then sat on a group giving investment decisions and heard men she'd previously worked with and respected making decisions along the lines of "we're not going to invest in her, she'll just go off and have a baby" and she couldn't believe it.

So yeah, a perfectly equal playing field apart from:

• boys generally being raised to be more confident, ask for what they want and take risks whereas girls tends to be raised not to make a fuss and put others first
• fewer role models for women than men
• overt discrimination in funding/investment
• women often getting messages about not being good at maths and technology (pretty fundamental in starting your own business)
• women running households, providing childcare, eldercare, neighbour care etc.

To summarise - it's because women are shit.

OP wrote - "even though women have exactly the same opportunites in the entrepenurial world" (his misspellings not mine)

This is not true.

"Entrepreneurs don’t have a special gene for risk—they come from families with money":
qz.com/455109/entrepreneurs-dont-have-a-special-gene-for-risk-they-come-from-families-with-money/

I am an entrepreneur, and have self-funded - occasionally we consider going for funding or venture capital but realise that having to tailor our presentation to a bunch of male, pale and stale suits would just not be fun. We've gone for slower growth and less noise, but very definitely more success.

Speaking for myself, although not an entrepreneur, I took far more risks when I was young and childless.
I went abroad for my PhD without a second thought, even before having a grant, went to and around Brazil and other places without a problem. Held on to a place I liked between actual jobs because I wanted to stay there. I wouldn't and didn't consider it since having children. Stability and providing for ds is more important now.

I like this thread, purely because from my own anecdotal evidence, coming from a creative path in life I have taken many big financial and personal risks. I have also travelled most of South East Asia "riskily" on my own.

At St Martins, the majority of people on my course were women. We have all set up our own businesses ranging from luxury supplier to design/make/sell, on sites like etsy.com or stallholding.

The few males on the course have all taken a far less risky route by getting a job at a brand or other person's company.

There is a greater range of successes amongst my female friends, but have to say most of the men I know are doing solidly "well" in life... Not sure how risk plays into that though.

Goady Fucker?

What does GF mean?!

Why are so few successful entrepreneurs girls?
The same reason so few of them are boys. Girls and boys are usually still in school there are however quite a few women who are successful entrepreneurs.

Yep, Hate that "men are more willing to take risk" nonsense. Have they tried pregnancy and childbirth? Have they tried taking on responsibility for another human being (or two or three) not knowing who that person is or what they will need over their lives? Try rolling the genetic dice inside your own body and then tell me women don't know about risk.

Also women basically absorb the risk that men are thus liberated to take. If you are primarily concerned with the welfare of your offspring you would take a less risky role - if you've outsourced that task to someone else (ie, your wife) you can run round the world looking at all sorts of crazy ideas because someone is at home keeping the children alive.

And "women have exactly the same opportunities in the entrepreneurial world"? No. They don't.

I vehemently disagree with the poster. There are a huge number of successful companies started by women. They may not just be as visible as the males in the industry. Thirst for media attention requires a degree of narcissism which men in general tend to be more susceptible to.

That article in Wired was informative, true and absolutely grim.

The other problem not covered in the article was that there are very very few women in charge of private equity funds that do stage investing, venture capital funds that do second stage investing or investment funds that eventually are the source of capital when a company floats on the stock market.

Women fund managers when they do exist are generally running very small funds so the amount of investible capital being run by women who I assume would look at a female entrepreneur at least on an equal footing to a male entrepreneur is very small indeed. I say assume because even women unwittingly discriminate against women because of conditioning.

I also think that 'pitching like a man' is something that investors expect because they are so used to hearing it. Men use styles of language that women dont. Women are often more balanced, pointing out risks as well as opportunity. Psychological tests of male and female City traders and hedge fund managers show time and again men are on average are prone to risky behaviour with big profits in good times and catastrophic losses in bad times.

Female traders show less stellar results in good times but avoid catastrophic losses. In financial market terms the women show better risk reward ratios in the long term - which is what long term investors should reward but in reality reward gambling type behaviour. See the financial crisis for an example of this phenomenon.

I strongly suspect if there was a study of male versus female entrepreneurs similar risk attitudes would be identified.

In the tech world, most angel investors are men and they give more investment to men. Take a look at Model View Culture for lots of interesting essays on diversity in tech and this article on Wired

Umm, justine?

Like Lweji said.

To become a successful entrepreneur sooner or later you generally have to be willing to gamble your children's home on little more than a whim.

I'd be fascinated to see stats on losses of a family home due to a business failure and the proportion of these where the business was owned by a man vs a woman.

Because most investors are male and pale - and it's psychologically easier to approach "people like you"

And if approached by a woman, they will comment on her image photo rather than pay any attention to her ideas?

Women are less reckless and less likely to gamble thousands of hard earned savings on a silly idea, mostly because they are thinking of the mouths they were left with to feed?

I would say that most entrepreneurs are male because it is their wives taking the lions share of the responsibility of bringing their children up.

Raisi g capital is far more difficult for women. The people who decide wbether or not to make loans or buy sbares in a company are almost always men. Men back other men. Its not about the quality of the idea.