Moms at tech start-ups say they can have it all
SAN FRANCISCO -- It's 7:50 a.m. Monday, and Julia and Kevin Hartz are managing the usual morning madness.
Their home in the shadow of the Golden Gate Bridge is a whir of activity. While Kevin makes breakfast, Julia feeds their 7-month-old daughter. Within minutes, they'll be taking their 4-year-old daughter to circus camp, then heading to the company they co-founded, online ticketing service Eventbrite. Julia's mom or a friend take over baby duties.
"Every week is a jigsaw puzzle, and a piece is missing under the couch," says Julia Hartz, who see parallels between growing a company and growing a family.
Julia knows a thing or two about multitasking. She answered work e-mails from her hospital bed when she had her first baby. With her second, born in late December, she hired Eventbrite employees and attended company meetings while caring for the infant.
It's mom-up for a growing number of female executives here in Silicon Valley and everywhere. Some 71% of women with children under age 18 either work or are looking for work, according to a U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics report in early 2011.
Yahoo's Marissa Mayer garnered worldwide headlines last month as the first pregnant incoming CEO of a Fortune 500 company. Millions of women, from the executive suite to middle management and among the rank-and-file, are juggling the vagaries of parenthood with the demanding grind of the business.
Tech moms, in particular, say they're navigating the double play of work and kids through super time efficiency. "It's the new norm," Hartz says. It's made possible, in some cases, by one or a combination of factors, including stay-at-home dads, a network of helpers, working long hours and utilizing technology.
Here in the Valley, especially, female technology executives with young children were rankled by a recent controversial story in TheAtlantic on the inability of working women to "have it all." At a USA TODAY roundtable of 14 tech moms held here on Aug. 6, many insisted that "having it all" is possible with the proper network of friends, a supportive partner, outsourcing and ruthless time management.
That belief is especially strong among women at early-stage start-ups, who are raising families and their companies at the same time. Many increasingly find themselves in a thriving ecosystem, where other women, including Mayer and Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, are funding their companies.
Adi Tatarko, co-founder of Houzz, a site for home remodeling and design, says it's important that women "stop trying to live" to men's standards. "We must realize that we are superheroes. We can do this all successfully."
Blazing a new trail
Despite gains by female tech executives under 40, they badly lag their peers in the broader economy.
Women hold 56% of professional jobs in the U.S. but account for 25% of information-technology positions and are founders of less than 8% of tech start-ups, says the National Center for Women & Information Technology.
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