She works hard for the money, so hard for it honey

March 7, 2007 6:18 PM

Are there any notable female tech entrepreneurs?

I was reading an article online today profiling women entrepreneurs, and every single one of them ran a jewelry/clothing/gourmet food design/importing/wholesale business. I was kind of miffed. But to be fair, this was an MSN link to Country Living. And in my defense, I didn't know it went to Country Living when I clicked on it. (I guess there isn't much defense for reading stuff off the MSN homepage, though.)

Then I thought about it some more - I couldn't think of any women mathematicians/scientists/engineers who have founded a successful tech company. But in my born-in-the-80s, womenfolk-can-do-it-all mind, I figure that surely they're out there. But who are they?

posted by universal_qlc to society & culture (25 comments total)

Esther Dyson founded ICANN, ran a tech consulting company, wrote the influential Release 1.0 and Release 2.0, and was one of the first investors in Flickr.
posted by mbrubeck at 6:27 PM on March 7, 2007

Oh, and of course Mena Trott, co-founder of Six Apart. (She co-founded it with her husband Ben, but it's my impression that Mena has been more of a public figure at Six Apart than he has.)
posted by mbrubeck at 6:29 PM on March 7, 2007

Not exactly what you're looking for but, Margaret C. Whitman is the CEO of ebay. She joined when it had only 30 employees.
posted by gauchodaspampas at 6:31 PM on March 7, 2007

Sandy Lerner, co-founder of Cisco systems?
posted by vacapinta at 6:32 PM on March 7, 2007

Oh sorry, just to clear:

I deeply admire the women already mentioned here, who have backgrounds in business, economics, and political science, but I was more specifically looking for women trained as scientists, engineers, or mathematicians who created and developed [not in a business or management sense] the technology that allowed them to found a company (i.e., not Carly Fiorina, who, as my undergraduate commencement speaker informed us that she was a liberal arts major, and did not study formally as an engineer or scientist).

Thanks! Sorry for the ambiguity.
posted by universal_qlc at 6:40 PM on March 7, 2007

From this list (via Bruce):

- Marissa MayerVice president for search products & user experience, Google.
- Shana FisherSenior vice president for strategy and M&A, IAC/InterActiveCorp.
- Jessica Livingston, Founder, Y Combinator.
posted by bru at 6:43 PM on March 7, 2007

Jackie Fewell founded and ran FatCow Web Hosting for five+ years before selling it to another company.

R. Marie Cox is behind SideJobTrack.

On preview: universal_qlc - it's my experience that very few entrepreneurs are trained as scientists, engineers or mathematicians.
posted by FlamingBore at 6:44 PM on March 7, 2007

Helen Greiner of iRobot! I'm going to be her when I grow up.

Also, Deborah Theobald of Vecna Technologies.
posted by olinerd at 6:53 PM on March 7, 2007

A note on bru's comment, Jessica Livingston doesn't have a technical background, just FYI...
posted by olinerd at 7:01 PM on March 7, 2007

Caterina Fake from Flickr.

Cisco was started husband and wife team.

There are probably crap loads that just aren't super crazy famous. Think about how many tech companies are out there.
posted by chunking express at 7:16 PM on March 7, 2007

How about Anousheh Ansari?
posted by cerebus19 at 7:16 PM on March 7, 2007

It's too young to be called a "successful company" (yet), but my friend Seema Patel is founder and CEO of Interbots. Her background is in physics and robotics.

I agree with FlamingBore: Even people with technical backgrounds tend to become business-oriented if they decide to be entrepreneurs. There are high-profile exceptions, but finance and management are very common (and useful) for people who run businesses.
posted by mbrubeck at 7:49 PM on March 7, 2007

Roberta Williams, creator of Sierra Online.
posted by Kirklander at 7:51 PM on March 7, 2007

The women founders / team of Meebo.
posted by banished at 8:20 PM on March 7, 2007

(Sandy Jen and Elaine Wherry are the women who founded Meebo along with Seth Sternberg.)
posted by banished at 8:23 PM on March 7, 2007

Five I know personally:

Djenana Campara, founder and CTO of Klocwork and KDM Analytics

Diane Greene, president and founder, VMware

Kim Polese, founder and CEO, Marimba and SpikeSource

Margo Seltzer, CTO and founder, Sleepycat Software

Cheryl Traverse - serial entrepreneur, most recently CEO of Xceedium

...and Fran Allen won the Turing Award last week.

Frankly, after twelve years in the industry, I'm getting pretty tired of having to make lists like these over. And over. And over. Look! Girls can think! Who would have thought it.
posted by rdc at 8:31 PM on March 7, 2007 [1 favorite]

Ann Winblad
posted by lsemel at 8:49 PM on March 7, 2007

There are a few in this article and an article about an entire company dedicated to helping woman owned startups here.

Perhaps the reason you're not seeing many out there is because quite a few of them are small businesses.

"and every single one of them ran a jewelry/clothing/gourmet food design/importing/wholesale business. I was kind of miffed."

I don't understand why you would be miffed about this. There's nothing wrong with such businesses at all. I doubt that you were insinuating it, but just because there isn't a big "who's who" of women-run tech companies certainly doesn't mean that women aren't everywhere in the tech industry. :)
posted by drstein at 8:58 PM on March 7, 2007

Here's a few more:

Pamela Meyer Lopker, founder/president of QAD

Carol Bartz, now executive chairman of Autodesk

Judy Estrin, Chairman of Packet Design
posted by mogget at 9:56 PM on March 7, 2007

Sandra L. Kurtzig, founder of software company ASK Group, was a sofware developer.
posted by Soda-Da at 10:06 PM on March 7, 2007

There is an organization which exists for exactly the type of women you describe, called Women In Technology International (WITI). A large number of the women that previous posters have mentioned are prominent members of WITI.
posted by melorama at 10:31 PM on March 7, 2007

Heidi Roizen - she's been involved with Apple, started several of her own tech companies, and is now a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley.
posted by DandyRandy at 9:30 AM on March 8, 2007

Tara Hunt, a community advocate and marketer, compiled a list of women entrepreneurs over here on her blog. She's based in San Francisco, so the list will probably reflect that and the large number of startups that have helped contribute to the bubble we're in cropped up. I don't always agree with what she says, but she is a pretty smart observer on some things, and she's written some interesting thoughts on women and technology on her blog.

Hope this list helps.
posted by rmm at 10:06 AM on March 8, 2007

Gina Bianchini is the co-founder of Ning, which is a tech startup that seems to be doing well. And, yep, Mena Trott -- I work for her.
posted by anildash at 12:09 AM on March 9, 2007

Thanks, everyone. I was just curious. Good to know who they are.
posted by universal_qlc at 5:40 PM on March 9, 2007