hiring a woman as an investing partner still makes headlines in silicon valley<u+2014>in 2016. sequoia announced its first last month , and many of the largest firms still have no female or nonwhite partners. now<u+2014>in a year in which the u.s. could elect hillary clinton as the first female president<u+2014>venture capitalists say diversity remains a low priority, according to a new survey. only 4% of those investors in the survey ranked diversity as one of their top concerns, citing economic conditions and portfolio-company revenue growth higher on the list, according to the linkedin report. in 2014, alphabet inc. <u+2019>s google published its first diversity report, prompting a flurry of technology companies to follow suit. in 2015, ellen pao <u+2019>s gender-discrimination case against kleiner perkins caufield byers proved to be a lightning rod in venture capital for a wider discussion about sexism on sand hill road. but 2016 seems to be the year that venture capitalists are more likely to tweet, <u+201c>i<u+2019>m with her<u+201d> than to create initiatives that would help them hire or invest in her. indeed 63% of the venture capitalists surveyed by linkedin say they<u+2019>re unaware of any official initiatives to increase the diversity among founders in their portfolio or employees. silicon valley has long prided itself on its breakneck pace of innovation and change. venture firms that began investing in computers in the 1970s are today pouring millions into frontier technologies like artificial intelligence, space travel, augmented reality and robotics. and yet the gender and racial makeup of venture capital<u+2019>s most prominent firms has barely budged. a recent survey from pitchbook data inc. shows women make up 6.3% of investment professionals with board seats at u.s. firms. venture capitalists told linkedin they believe close to 30% of the investment partners they hire in the next five years will be female and racially diverse. but as today<u+2019>s dismal diversity numbers show, the problem won<u+2019>t solve itself without action. almost half of the venture capitalists surveyed by linkedin say they faced a <u+201c>pipeline<u+201d> problem: too few startups they look to invest in have diverse founders. another 35% said they saw no obstacle at all, 7% said diverse founders don<u+2019>t seek them out as investors and 6% said diverse founders typically don<u+2019>t start the type of companies they traditionally invest in. in the list of obstacles preventing venture capitalists from investing in startups with racially diverse or female founders, they left out a big one: apathy. write to cat zakrzewski at cat.zakrzewski@wsj.com
zakrzewski<u+2019>s take: diversity ranks low among vc priorities - wsj
cat zakrzewski