Breaking the Gender Barrier: Vinita Gupta on Creating More
Women Technology Entrepreneurs
Technology is one realm where women
could break gender barriers and flourish as entrepreneurs, says Vinita Gupta, a
prominent Indian-American businesswoman in California's Silicon Valley. She is
best known as the first Indian-American woman to take a company public. Digital
Link Corp., a telecommunications products company she founded in 1985 in Palo
Alto, California, and ran as CEO, went public in 1994. She now sits on the
boards of the Palo Alto Medical Foundation, the Indian School of Business and
Maitri, a Silicon Valley nonprofit that assists women victims of domestic
violence. In an interview with India Knowledge@Wharton, Gupta identifies
social, cultural and psychological obstacles in both the United States and
India that prevent women from becoming entrepreneurs, and shares her insights
on what holds women back and what must change to unleash their potential.
Below is an edited transcript of the
conversation.
India Knowledge@Wharton: You are a well-known Indian American woman technology
entrepreneur in Silicon Valley and have funded other technology firms. In a
recent Bloomberg Businessweek article, you say lack of self-confidence,
motherhood and parental discouragement hold back aspiring women technology
entrepreneurs. Could you elaborate?
Vinita Gupta: When I consider why women don't pursue professional
careers, especially in the field of technology, I look at the drivers that help
them go and excel in professional fields. Also, who in the family is in the
driving seat, and what internal family battles women have to overcome before
they can even dream to be ambitious. It is also about expectations from a girl
as she is growing up, especially from her mother. I then look at social,
cultural and economic impediments; sometimes economic drivers become important
and women have to work. There are also biological factors that come into play,
like when a woman has a child. They come into play in different ways for a
woman than they do for a man. There are also a lot of psychological aspects
that influence what holds her back and what doesn't.
India Knowledge@Wharton: For aspiring women entrepreneurs, how does the setting in
the United States compare with that in India?
Gupta: There is a difference between what I understand of India
and my adopted country, which is the U.S. The U.S., as much as it is very
advanced in some ways, is far more traditional in putting women in traditional
roles. For example, there is a misconception in the U.S. that women are not as
good in math and science. I don't think that perception exists in India.
Also, traditional expectations are
that a woman would be a home-maker, in both countries. The school system in the
U.S. requires parental participation, and if both parents are working, it
becomes difficult. In the U.S., there is less social pressure on women to
adhere to any particular way. But somebody needs to take primary responsibility
for the children. And women become the primary responsibility-bearers.
India Knowledge@Wharton: How could a woman overcome or work around those barriers?
Gupta: If economic factors take over and a woman has to go to
work, she leaves behind all these notions -- that she has to participate in her
children's school education, and biological and psychological factors -- and
she pushes forward. In some cases, a woman's career takes a life of its own and
she becomes successful.
But women in India have the family
support structure to raise their children in a safe setting. On the other hand,
they could be held back culturally because of other expectations from the
extended family. In the U.S., the woman is in charge. But she doesn't have the
support structure of a family (as in India) and faces demands on herself. If
her husband is in a traveling job or in a very demanding job, she may feel she
could serve the family better by being a stay-at-home mom.
India Knowledge@Wharton: You have spoken about how pregnancy could hurt a woman
entrepreneur's opportunities, especially in dealings with banks or venture
capitalists (VCs). Does that hurt her chances of becoming successful as an
entrepreneur?
Gupta: My anecdotal answer is no. But do the VCs perceive that as
an issue? They absolutely do, and they have to perceive that as an issue.
However, in the U.S., a VC will also come across divorced men who may have
children from previous marriages and in some cases they become single fathers.
I am throwing that in to point out that it is not as black-and-white as it
might appear. I was on an entrepreneurship panel recently where I found myself
sitting next to a gentleman who was the father of my younger daughter's friend,
and he was divorced. It occurred to me that here I was, beating my chest saying
I brought up two daughters, ran a successful company, took it public and all
that stuff. And I know what he went through for a number of years. For a person
running a company going through a divorce, it takes away a few years from his
or her life.
India Knowledge@Wharton: As an investor, would you also consider a woman with
pregnancy as one with a higher risk?
Gupta: I wouldn't be telling the truth if I say I don't see that
as an obstacle. I do see that as an obstacle, but I recognize people who can
overcome that obstacle. Of the three companies I invested in earlier, one was
run by a woman entrepreneur. She was pregnant at the time I was a seed funder
for her company. We did okay --- not too well -- but that was because the
company was in the education space and the whole education industry faced
problems at the time. She is, however, very tenacious, and she later sold her
company.
India Knowledge@Wharton: Would Indian American women in the United States have a
better chance of succeeding as technology entrepreneurs compared to their
counterparts in India? After all, the United States, especially the Silicon
Valley, offers a deeper and well-developed network of venture capital firms and
access to angel investors.
Gupta: You are right. The chances of women becoming technology
entrepreneurs are higher in the U.S. than in India. Women in India are less of
risk-takers than women in the U.S. The reasons for that are differences in
thesocio-cultural settings and in the education systems. The education system
in the U.S. encourages higher risk-taking and innovative thinking. There are
very many ways to excel in the U.S. education system; it is not just about
memorizing and performing well in an exam. I hear that from entrepreneurs who
have a major part of their business in India, but grew up and had their
education here. They don't think many graduates from Indian technology
institutions have that culture of innovation.
India Knowledge@Wharton: Are there other factors that set apart women of Indian
origin in the United States?
Gupta: In some ways, women entrepreneurs of Indian origin are in
a stronger position than others. Why do I feel they are in a stronger position?
They are exceptional women in terms of ambitions. For them to come to this
country and even dream of becoming technology entrepreneurs, they must have a
lot of ambition. When a venture capitalist talks to a man or a woman, that ambition
pours out, no matter what language or what accent they have. They are the cream
of Indian talent. I have met those women -- from India, China and other
countries -- and they are truly exceptional. You can see they want to make a
difference and want to be somebody, and they've made it happen for themselves.
India Knowledge@Wharton: A similar drive must have helped you to become a
successful businesswoman. Could you tell us about your career?
Gupta: I was born in India, did my bachelor's in engineering in
1973 at the University of Roorkee (now the Indian Institute of
Technology-Roorkee). I then came to the U.S. for my post-graduate master's
education, to UCLA (the University of California, Los Angeles). I worked five
years with GTE in its telecom group and eight years at Nortel (then called Bell
Northern Research). I started Digital Link Corp. in 1985, where I was the CEO
for about 20 years. I took the company public in 1994, re-privatized it in 1999
and continued until 2005, when I decided to retire, although I was its largest
shareholder and continued as chairman. It needed more investment, there wasn't
a good enough team in place to take it to the next level, the customer base was
dwindling and we thought that closing it would be the best outcome. Eighteen
months ago, we did an orderly shutdown of the company and sold a small piece to
another company so that our customers were not affected. I would say I had a
very good run with Digital Link.
India Knowledge@Wharton: What is your role as a board member at the Palo Alto
Medical Foundation?
Gupta: I have been on the board of the Palo Alto Medical
Foundation for more than 10 years. It is a $2 billion organization that is part
of the Sutter Health System, the premier health care provider in Silicon Valley
or the entire region. It takes up about 30% of my bandwidth; for the past two
years ending 2010 I served as the chair of the foundation's community board of
trustees. The roots of that role go back to having a business sense; every
industry is somewhat different but at a business level the issues are very
common, such as dealing with competitive pressures. For example, right now the
health care industry is in turmoil. Costs are too high. Technology companies
face similar issues in a much more compressed time frame. The Palo Alto Medical
Foundation has benefited a lot in getting board members who are not from the
health care industry but from the fast-moving technology industry.
India Knowledge@Wharton: With the rise of India as an economic power, there will be
a higher focus on both technology and entrepreneurs. If the next economic boom
will be technology-led, how do you get more women to participate?
Gupta: Progress has to be made and will be made because the world
demands that. When we educate our children and they strive to get into the best
schools and colleges, it makes absolutely no sense from the standpoint of
society, for a family unit, or for a nation if half their population is
marginalized and is not participating at the highest level.
Change has come, but it is not
sufficient. We are somehow too slow to change our habits. I feel passionately
about this. The way we raise our girls is different from the way we raise our
boys. And it is different not because we want it to be different. It's
different because we are victims of our habits. Internally we know the boy has
to launch himself in the world, he has to be able to make a living and so on.
We have a different way in helping this boy grow up within the four walls of
the home. But we don't give a girl much freedom in thinking.
Every time a woman has to work full
time or launch herself as an entrepreneur, she has to home-craft a solution to
take care of her family at home. As a family unit we have to come up with
solutions. There has to be a more systematic approach, there have to be
resources that are available and affordable. Society needs to evolve in that
way -- and it will. This is true for both the U.S. and India.
India Knowledge@Wharton: If the technology space is gender-neutral, it should
afford women a greater chance to become entrepreneurs than any other industry.
Do you agree?
Gupta: I totally agree. Technology should be a great leveler. It
usually doesn't require physical work and it gives a woman entrepreneur a lot
of flexibility. Technology is a great place to be and women should dream of
that. They should know there is nothing that should hold them back. But it is
not gender-neutral, although it can be.
What many women don't realize is how
much fun it can be, and how the skill sets they learn in their engineering
education come into life in all aspects. They gain enormous critical and
analytical skill sets that make them better human beings in all respects. It is
a lot of fun, especially solving a problem if you are an engineer. The day you
come up with an elite solution to a problem or you innovate something, you are
in seventh heaven. Nobody can give you recognition as much as you can give
yourself. It is a tremendous high. When you take your company public, it gives
you a tremendous high because you have broken a barrier. I've always said that
for entrepreneurs, the highs are very high and the lows are very low. If you
have the personality and the aptitude to handle the highs and the lows, then
technology is the place to be.
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/india/article.cfm?articleid=4570
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