This is a thread of generalizations heaped upon already heavily beleaguered minorities, given that most people who suffer from these generalizations are women and trans men.
Here are some links, to pieces regarding people who have had kids and startups, really the only people who're qualified to comment on the subject, and you can choose to educate yourselves (or, you know, not):
Finally, I'm going share a story about my friend from grad school who wrote her thesis while 7-9 months pregnant, landed a tenure track faculty position in the physics department of the university where she teaches straight out of grad school, gave birth, returned to successfully defend her thesis, and she currently has 2 incredible children and a 25-person lab. Her partner is a very talented chef. So, you know, two demanding careers.
I honestly don't even know what else to say, other than suggest that a better more fruitful question would be, "What can be done to help technical founders who are pregnant and/or have families?"
I'm with you on that, but I don't know if it's a question of enough/not enough seed-level funding.
I worry that there's an ever-increasing attempt being made to substitute in credentials for careful evaluation of actual ideas. I understand why relying heavily on pedigree is so attractive, but I wonder if startup failure rates would decrease and startups' overall quality would increase if that metric shifted.
Here's the thing. It's not a matter of whether Meredith Perry is smart or not by conventional standards and metrics, because ANY idea that hasn't been proven wrong is worth trying.
It's an interesting project for a student to try. Perry would learn loads getting her hands into a subject like ultrasound and learning about how to make the regulations in place to protect living organisms work with the engineering. This is an issue of scale. UBeam is doing a proof-of-concept experiment that should take about $10k (and that is very generous) to test and explore, not $10M, ffs.
That's where the beef is. Let's not look to personally assassinate Perry or her investors. What Danny wrote about was an issue that's endemic in today's investment world, where you can invest in whatever you want, and if convenience/consumer apps, devices, and their ilk are where you decide profit is, then have at it, but you're still limited by the laws of physics and how the technology you're working with interacts with living organisms.
(Because that's what we are. We are not disembodied heads.)
Here are some links, to pieces regarding people who have had kids and startups, really the only people who're qualified to comment on the subject, and you can choose to educate yourselves (or, you know, not):
http://www.californiababy.com/meet-jessica.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/10/business/nurturing-a-baby-...
http://mamalode.com/story/detail/an-interview-with-michelle-...
http://fortune.com/2015/06/22/founder-startup-hidden-pregnan...
http://thenextweb.com/insider/2016/02/05/tinsel-founder-aniy...
This is your bonus piece: http://madamenoire.com/599068/pregnant-woman-finishes-psych-...
Finally, I'm going share a story about my friend from grad school who wrote her thesis while 7-9 months pregnant, landed a tenure track faculty position in the physics department of the university where she teaches straight out of grad school, gave birth, returned to successfully defend her thesis, and she currently has 2 incredible children and a 25-person lab. Her partner is a very talented chef. So, you know, two demanding careers.
I honestly don't even know what else to say, other than suggest that a better more fruitful question would be, "What can be done to help technical founders who are pregnant and/or have families?"