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I have spent the better part of my adult life seeking an avenue for impact. I have tried my hand at affecting social, economic, and humanitarian change through a number of different platforms—from journalism to diplomacy to big tech. This drive is deeply personal; galvanized by events that predate my own birth, propelled by the serendipity of my upbringing and the very real possibility of where I might have ended up if not for hard work and some luck. It is an unusual and nonlinear path to venture, but each foray has only strengthened my conviction not only in technology for impact, but also in the transformational—and too often overlooked—power of intersectional entrepreneurs.
Growing up in the Bay Area may have contributed to my passion for technology and entrepreneurship, but it was less about my geography and more about the journeys of my forebears. My parents fled the violence and autocracy of Iraq to craft new lives and livelihoods, starting with a higher education. My father, a physician, came for his residency in psychiatry at Stanford; my mother, a dentist, joined him shortly thereafter. The qualities that contributed to my parents’ success are the grit, resilience, and drive of all immigrants. This is not just my bildungsroman; it’s the immigrant story of America.
As an investor, I find myself seeking out founders who embody the characteristics I admire so much in immigrants and their children. Propelled by the imitable work ethic of an underrepresented, underinvested underdog, these intersectional founders are the future of our economy; here’s why I’m betting on them to build the future.
They are mission-driven and gritty
While my goal as a venture capitalist is ultimately to invest in breakout businesses that will generate meaningful returns to our LPs—many of whom represent endowments, educational institutions, hospitals, and other philanthropic organizations—I believe a mission-driven entrepreneur is the type of founder who will do just that. The deep goal-orientation supports strong work ethic, recruiting skills, storytelling, and financing, among so many other entrepreneurial qualities.
For some, the mission can come from deeply personal experience. Amira Yahyaoui, the founder of Mos, started a civic tech company in San Francisco as a result of her experience as a human rights activist in Tunisia, exiled and stateless at the age of 17. Although she never had the chance to attend college herself, she has built a transformative company enabling access to financial aid for students across the country, seeking to “tear down all financial barriers to opportunity.”
Similarly, Reshma Saujani was motivated by her family’s experience as refugees from Uganda; she quit her career in finance and sought impact via a run for Congress. Ultimately, she went on to found the leading organization supporting another group of extremely under-represented, under-resourced underdogs: Girls Who Code. “As the daughter of refugees, I am committed to investing in diverse founders who have been counted out, who have had to build something from nothing through grit and bravery,” Saujani said to me. That determination, bravery, and tenacity represent the types of characteristics I value in founders and CEOs.
They embrace science and innovation
Immigrants are historically over-indexed in another category that represents an attractive trait in startup leaders: the breakthrough inventor. In fact, today, immigrants represent about 30% of patents filed in America—obtaining them at double the rate of homegrown Americans—and account for more than half of the founders of venture-backed unicorns.
Hungarian biochemist Katalin Karikó’s story comes to mind. She was at the forefront of mRNA vaccine breakthroughs in 1995, but failed to receive capital from VCs or through grants and was demoted in her role at the University of Pennsylvania. In 2021, her astounding impact is clear. Without Karikó’s research, the Covid vaccine produced by Pfizer and BioNTech would not exist.
And speaking of the Pfizer vaccine, the story of the Turkish-German husband-and-wife duo is also a good reminder of the work ethic and focus on science that has ultimately resulted in the leading vaccination that may be at least partially responsible for helping us all emerge from this devastating pandemic. As shared with the Washington Post, the couple are “the sort of people who don’t own a car and who took the morning off for their wedding day in 2002 before returning to the lab. Half a day was ‘sufficient.’”
Just as immigrant founders have been foundational to scientific breakthroughs in America, I believe the next generation of intersectional founders will continue to innovate and invent our future.
They know how to build bridges
Intersectional founders, by definition, know what it’s like to navigate between different cultures and languages; these skills in communication and adaptability are very helpful in the context of entrepreneurship. A CEO of a deep tech company, for example, needs to be able to effectively manage a team of highly technical engineers, pitch the business to financial investors, sell the product to commercial stakeholders, and more—all of which have different cultures, and require different vocabularies.
Intersectional founders are particularly well-positioned to traverse sectors. Dr. Rajaie Batniji, cofounder and Chief Health Officer of Collective Health, says his identity as a Palestinian-American, physician, political scientist and entrepreneur has been benefiicial in his role leading a health tech company. “I am often moving between very different contexts,” he says. “One moment, I’m a physician caring for a patient. Next, I’m working with our product teams, and then I’m speaking with the C-suite of major companies. It is similar to how I’ve been switching between—or better yet, combining cultures and approaches—my whole life, ever since I was an immigrant kid with more than one identity and language.” Dr. Batniji says he enjoys moving between, and bringing together, these different contexts.
Diversity is Good for Business
As a “Third Culture Kid” myself, who appreciates the nuance and influence of identity, I could opine about the sociological and philosophical reasons for investing in diverse founders. But it is actually the business case that informs my investment decisions. A recent proliferation of data has made a strong case for better ROIs when investing in women-founded startups. And increasingly, more studies are also uncovering the economic case for investing in ethnically and racially diverse teams, as well.
Kauffman Fellows recently published a study specifically comparing the venture financings of all-white versus diverse founding teams. While diverse teams still receive less funding than non-diverse teams on the whole, the research shows that diverse teams who do receive venture funds tend to outperform and out-raise across all rounds. They have also proven to return 30% more cash to investors. This data supports a Boston Consulting Group (BCG) report that unveiled higher revenue trends for diverse teams, and a McKinsey analysis of Boards of Directors, noting that companies with diverse boards are 43% more likely to experience greater profit.
I don’t exclusively seek out founders of a certain ethnicity, race, gender, or nationality. But I have found these entrepreneurial characteristics to be prominent among diverse founding teams and intersectional founders in particular, as well as the executives who seek out diversity on boards and cap tables. Ultimately, the case for investing in these types of founders is not an imperative grounded in charitable or noble motivations —it is good business. I am so confident that the next generation of breakthrough startups will look very different from this generation before—driven by mission, grounded in science, and symbolic of the intersectional and immigrant innovation that has historically powered America’s economy.
Deena Shakir is a Partner at Lux Capital, which she joined in 2019. Before that, she was a Partner at GV (formerly Google Ventures), a BD executive at Google leading new product development, and a Presidential Management Fellow at the U.S. Department of State. She invests in transformative technologies streamlining analog industries and improving lives and is particularly excited by contrarian entrepreneurs enabling human and population health, access, and equity.
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The signs and symptoms of burnout were already showing themselves on a daily basis by the time Paula Davis identified their cause.
It was 2009, and Davis was working as part of the in-house legal team for a large firm. After having panic attacks on a near daily basis for a year, and ending up in the emergency room twice, she decided to quit her job. “I didn’t understand at all what it was or what caused it,” she says.
Since then, Davis has dedicated herself to studying the signs and symptoms of burnout and teaching others how to avoid suffering the same fate, founding the Stress and Resilience Institute and authoring a book called Beating Burnout at Work. She believes there is a strong correlation between “psychological safety” and burnout prevention.
Psychological safety, a concept pioneered in the 1960s and then largely abandoned until the late 1990s, refers to an environment or relationship in which members aren’t afraid to speak up, be themselves, admit to their mistakes, or offer honest feedback.
“I used to leave ‘Paula’ in the car when I was a lawyer, and showed up as I thought a lawyer should be; I left my kindness and my zest and enthusiasm behind,” Davis says. “When we have to stop being who we are or change who we are or adapt to who we think we need to be—because we are looking to fit in—it shows we don’t feel like we belong, and it’s enormously wearing. It’s really exhausting to not be our whole selves.”
That exhaustion might only show itself in subtle ways at first, Davis says, but it compounds over time, and can eventually develop into larger problems, such as burnout. Davis adds that the biggest misconception about burnout is that the cause and solution are internal, and that it’s up to the individual to monitor, prevent, and work through independently.
“It’s become a self-help-ified individual problem, when in reality it’s more of a complex workplace-leader-team-culture issue,” she says. “That’s the lens that we need to start looking at it with, instead of thinking we can yoga our way out of it.”
Our Growing Understanding of Psychological Safety
Amy Edmondson, the Harvard Business School professor of leadership and management who is widely credited for the term’s renaissance in recent years, says our understanding of psychological safety has grown immensely in a relatively short period.
“There’s been more and more research put out there from different kinds of workplaces that show a relationship between psychological safety and other things like learning, or reporting mistakes, or innovation,” Edmondson says. “There is research that suggests it’s not about the challenge or the stress of your job that predicts burnout or leaving, it’s the absence of someone to talk to about the challenge or the stress.”
The other big change she’s observed in recent years is the growing understanding of psychological safety’s connection to diversity and inclusion. “Now that we have an even greater mandate to worry about diversity and inclusion in the workplace, a connection between that goal and a psychologically safe workplace has become an area for people to think about and study and work on,” she says.
A 2015 report coauthored by Edmondson, for example, suggests psychological safety can be an “antidote” for creating a workplace that benefits from a diversity of backgrounds, thoughts, and experiences.
Fostering a Psychologically Safe Work Environment
As our understanding of psychological safety grows so does our understanding of how it’s developed, nurtured, and scaled in the workplace.
“In particular, people in positions of power or supervision can and do create more psychological safety when they ask more questions, listen to the answers, and when they acknowledge their own shortcomings,” Edmondson says. “By shortcomings I don’t mean terrible failings, I mean saying ‘I’m not an expert on that; I’ll rely on your input there,’ or ‘I might have missed something; I’d like to hear from you.’”
Edmondson explains that these often-subtle invitations for candor and honesty breed a culture where employees feel comfortable bringing forward ideas, admitting to their mistakes, and providing honest feedback without fear of repercussion.
“Ordinary statements of opportunity for others to contribute makes a big difference; asking good questions makes a big difference; having a productive response to someone suggesting a crazy idea or admitting to a mistake makes a big difference,” she says. “These are micro-interpersonal interactions that by and large invite and don’t punish candor when it comes along.”
Psychological safety often also requires a degree of emotional intelligence on the part of the leader. Key attributes of emotional intelligence—including courage, curiosity, and self-awareness—are all important prerequisites, explains Laura Delizonna, a Stanford University instructor, speaker, author, and executive coach who specializes in helping teams foster psychological safety.
“Psychological safety is generally built in the gray zones,” she says. “It’s built in the moments where you mess up and you have to clean up your mess, in how you own that behavior, and in how you speak to your missteps. ”
Practices that Promote Psychological Safety
Delizonna explains that psychological safety can be built upon or broken down in just about any workplace interaction, but there are some specific policies and practices that can help foster a more psychologically safe working environment.
For example, she recommends hosting regularly scheduled town hall meetings where any member of the organization can pose any question or idea to upper management. Delizonna emphasizes that just hosting the meeting isn’t enough, adding that leaders need to demonstrate how they’re taking ideas, complaints, and suggestions seriously in order to encourage others to speak freely.
She also recommends instituting regular office hours, during which any member of the organization can book a few minutes of one-on-one time with senior leadership, and creating an anonymous suggestion box.
“Conduct pulse surveys asking questions on a frequent basis about aspects of psychological safety, like Do you feel like you can bring your ideas forward? Do you feel like you’re being heard? Do you feel safe bringing feedback to your boss or manager?” she says. “Getting frequent feedback can really increase the self-awareness of the leader and illuminate when and how psychological safety is being built, and when it’s being broken.”
Delizonna adds that psychological safety isn’t about being nice or polite, which is a common misunderstanding, but about being honest, transparent, and authentic. That mindset also extends to conflicts and difficult conversations, even terminations; it’s not about being kind, but about being constructive.
“Positive conflict is what differentiates a psychologically safe environment from a nice environment,” she says. “Some of the nicest environments are the least psychologically safe, but when you can engage in positive conflict and constructive feedback with care and candor—when people can say hard truths to each other—that’s when you really know you have a psychologically safe environment.”
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