Tuesday, July 08, 2008

Lazy Rich VCs

Independent Street : Venture Capitalists: Not Working Long Hours, Not Making Many Deals: "Among the findings of a new survey of venture capitalists is this interesting nugget: Many VCs don’t work particularly long hours. At least right now, anyway.
Of those contacted in the survey, the majority (58%) worked a pretty tame diet (by tech and startup standards at least) of 41 to 60 hours a week. Less than a third clocked a more taxing 61 to 80 hours and merely 2% said they worked 81 to 100 hours. (And the latter group may be over-estimating.)"

Venture capital firms, not surprisingly, employ mostly white males. Of the survey respondents, 88% are white, 75% are male and 66% are white males. When the results are narrowed to exclude non-investment professional titles, the percentage of white people stays at 88% but the percentage of males increases to 86% and the percentage of white males increases to 77%.
However, the data suggests that more diversity may be on the way as the industry spreads globally. Younger venture capitalists, while still overwhelmingly white and male, are more likely to be female, Asian or born outside of the U.S. than older ones, according to the survey. Of the 179 respondents with less than five years of experience, 82% are white and 80% are U.S.-born, compared with 90% and 91%, respectively, for the 347 respondents with five or more years of experience. A sizeable 84% of non-white professionals are 44 years of age or younger, compared with 53% of those who are white."

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