We get the whole don’t beat a dead horse thing, but what if said horse is like one of those movie super villains who just keeps coming back from the dead that one last time?
That’s how we’re feeling about both billionaire money manager Ken Fisher and WeWork these days. Fine, neither was ever actually dead (well, $3.9 billion in lost investments and one dead IPO is not great) but both are badly, if not mortally, wounded and yet continue to rear their heads nearly daily.
“You heard their stories, now hear ours.” So reads the big headline in a full-page ad for Fisher Investments that ran in the Wall Street Journal featuring seven female employees who were asked to participate, e.g. clean up their male boss’ big mess. Fisher’s fund has been bleeding billions since his sexist remarks at a financial conference last month and is now trying to staunch the outflow with this campaign as well as with a website about women at Fisher Investments, which touts stats including that females make up 60 percent of executives. However, the five executives making the investment decisions for the firm — including Fisher — are all white men, as are all of the top execs who have full bios on the company website.
Similarly — and as we suspected — WeWork seems to be pulling the “talking the talk but not walking the walk” thing. The company quietly appointed a new board member last week and guess what? He’s male and white. So that’s eight men on their board, zero women. Unbelievable. This comes on the heels of a federal pregnancy discrimination claim filed by a former employee AND WeWork’s new chairman reassuring employees at an all-hands meeting — led by men — that gender diversity on the board and in other leadership positions was still a priority. Ha.
Before we get to the industry briefs, here are a few not-so-fun new stats to keep your feminism-in-the-workplace fires burning (h/t Axios): 13 percent of startup founders are female but women own just 7 percent of founder equity; 31 percent of all equity owners are women but women have just 6 percent of total startup equity; and women make up only 20 percent of equity holders worth $1 million and over.
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