‘This is Your Life in Silicon Valley’: Nomiku Founder CEO Lisa Fetterman on why Silicon Valley doesn’t care about female founders

Welcome to this week’s transcribed edition of This is Your Life in Silicon Valley. We’re running an experiment for Extra Crunch members that puts This is Your Life in Silicon Valley in words – so you can read from wherever you are.

This is your Life in Silicon Valley was originally started by Sunil Rajaraman and Jascha Kaykas-Wolff in 2018. Rajaraman is a serial entrepreneur and writer (Co-Founded Scripted.com, and is currently an EIR at Foundation Capital), Kaykas-Wolff is the current CMO at Mozilla and ran marketing at BitTorrent. Rajaraman and Kaykas-Wolff started the podcast after a series of blog posts that Sunil wrote for The Bold Italic went viral.

The goal of the podcast is to cover issues at the intersection of technology and culture – sharing a different perspective of life in the Bay Area. Their guests include entrepreneurs like Sam Lessin, journalists like Kara Swisher and Mike Isaac, politicians like Mayor Libby Schaaf and local business owners like David White of Flour + Water.

This week’s edition of This is Your Life in Silicon Valley features Lisa Fetterman – the Founder/CEO of Nomiku (a Y Combinator alum). Lisa talks extensively about why Silicon Valley does not care about female founders, and proposes a solution to the problem.

If you are interested in diving deep into the diversity problem in technology, this episode is for you.

For access to the full transcription, become a member of Extra Crunch. Learn more and try it for free. 

Rajaraman: Welcome to season three of This is Your Life in Silicon Valley. A podcast about the Bay Area, technology and culture. I’m your host Sunil Rajaraman and I’m joined by my co-host Jascha Kaykas-Wolff.

Kaykas-Wolff: So, now I got a straw poll for you. Are you ready?

Rajaraman: I’m ready.

Kaykas-Wolff: Actually, I don’t even know if straw poll’s the right word. But I got a question for you. Are we going to change our podcast music ever?

Rajaraman: I knew I was going to get criticized for that at some point. I’m on it.

Kaykas-Wolff: I wasn’t criticizing it. I was just asking. But I do have a very serious question. When you picture startup founder or just founder in your head, what do you picture?

Rajaraman: Oh, I picture Richard from HBO’s Silicon Valley. White dude wearing a hoodie.

Kaykas-Wolff: White dude wearing a hoodie. Why is that?

Rajaraman: That’s because that’s what we’ve grown accustomed to in pop culture.

Kaykas-Wolff: Well, we have somebody on the podcast today who’s pretty special.

Rajaraman: Lisa Fetterman is a female founder who invented a particular type of sous vide machine. Is that how I pronounce it, by the way?

Kaykas-Wolff: Sous vide.

Rajaraman: Sous vide. Gosh, I’m such a- [crosstalk 00:01:13]

Kaykas-Wolff: I probably just said it wrong.

Rajaraman: I just had Taco Bell and In-and-Out.

Kaykas-Wolff: I probably just said it wrong too. But here’s the thing. After today, when somebody says startup founder, Lisa’s going to be the picture that I have in my head.

Rajaraman: This is a really great interview and she is also an organization within the tech community for female founders. She has a very simple message on how to fix the gender diversity problem.

Kaykas-Wolff: It’s a great episode today. It covers a lot of ground. I think what I appreciate about Lisa’s approach most is that she’s unapologetically positive and supports the people that she cares about.

Rajaraman: Enjoy today’s episode.

Kaykas-Wolff: This is your life in Silicon Valley.

Fetterman: Thank you.

Kaykas-Wolff: Thanks for coming into this super hot little closet with the two of us.

Fetterman: It’s so freaking hot.

Kaykas-Wolff: I know. I refuse to take my jacket off. I’m just pouring sweat underneath this today.

Fetterman: It’s a look, babe.

Kaykas-Wolff: You just got to hold the look. Right?

Rajaraman: I think so.

Kaykas-Wolff: Sunil constantly gives me shit about what I’m wearing. But I won’t take the jacket off.

Rajaraman: See, I actually think, right now, the two of you should just do this podcast because there’s just this vibe that you two have co-hosted podcasts before or something. I don’t know. A past life.

Kaykas-Wolff: Where were you in a past life?

Fetterman: Where was I in a past life- That’s such a great question.

Kaykas-Wolff: Or who were you in a past life? What did you do in a past life? In your most recent past life, what did you do?

Fetterman: I definitely sold stuff.

Kaykas-Wolff: Yeah.

Fetterman: Either a newspaper or candies. I was out on the street just hustling. Panhandling. What it do, baby boo? $5.99 for this Pikachu. You know.

Kaykas-Wolff: You had a pretty recent past life if you were selling Pikachu stuff.

Fetterman: Yeah.

Kaykas-Wolff: Yeah. I get you. I think I was a monk in my last life. I think I lived really old I think I lived until in my 100s and I was just bitter at the world because all of my friends died and I’m now still trying to grapple with that in this lifetime.

Fetterman: Word.

Kaykas-Wolff: Right?

Fetterman: I was always an entrepreneur and lived fast, die young, sell the things.

Kaykas-Wolff: You sound like a San Francisco native. Did you grow up here?

Fetterman: I grew up in China and I came to the States when I was seven in ’94. I grew up in New York in Port Washington Island, which is heavily Jewish.

Kaykas-Wolff: Yeah.

Fetterman: I thought that all of America was Jewish. I learned a lot of Hebrew and now I’m married to Abraham Jacob Fetterman.

Kaykas-Wolff: What’s his Instagram handle?

Fetterman: Oh. Kalemageddon.

Kaykas-Wolff: Yeah. Kalemageddon. That’s a pretty good one. Growing up in New York and Long Island, which by the way, I have some family from Long Island, because that’s where it all happens. Long Beach Long Island though. Little different than Port Washington. Right?

Did you ever think as a seven-year-old who just moved to Long Island that you were going to move to San Francisco? Was it a part of a picture that you had in your head?

Fetterman: I always thought California was mystical and magical. It’s summer all the time which was a huge mistake when I first came to San Francisco. I came in shorts and a t-shirt and didn’t pack anything else. I was like, oh. But it’s supposed to be summer here.

Kaykas-Wolff: Was it the weather, really, that got you excited about coming to California? Was it the Bay Area? Did you think San Francisco is the spot or just California in general?

Fetterman: Okay, well, with California, San Francisco was the place for startups. I didn’t even know the word startup until somebody described it to me and San Francisco together.

I was like, “Hey. I think I might be a startup.” And they were like, “Well, then you need to go to San Francisco. Have you ever heard of YCombinator?” And all this. I’m like, “What?”

Rajaraman: Does Silicon Valley care about female founders?

Fetterman: No. Silicon Valley does not care about female founders. 38% of companies are run by women, lead by women, and only 2% got funding last year. That’s down from 3%. The [fuh 00:04:54]. I have a lot of male VC friends. I have a lot of friends in general. People think I’m cool. They love the vibe. They love the positivity and I love people.

Fetterman: I have a lot of male VC friends and whenever I talk to them about the subject and I say, “Hey, only 2% of female lead companies got funded, they counter with, “Lisa, well, first of all, that’s really off-putting to just bring gender into this conversation like that.”

How many women run companies? I rarely see a female lead company come into my board room. I’m like, “Dude!”

Rajaraman: Why? Tell us why. Why is this happening?

Fetterman: Because of unseen biases. It’s systemic. It’s absolutely systemic. People are not used to seeing women as leaders and, therefore, they can’t even imagine it. Silicon Valley is the place where you’re supposed to change the world. Where people have the biggest imaginations and the most creativity. That’s just not true. Silicon Valley is a magnification of the status quo.

Kaykas-Wolff: I had an interesting conversation. Sorry to jump on, Sunil. We actually have a jar that we keep in the corner whenever we talk over each other, we got to put a dollar in it. Just remember. One dollar for the show because I just talked over top of them.

Two weekends ago, I was hanging out with a couple of friends. My wife and I were. One of our friends is a woman founder who has been successful. Sold a couple different companies. We started having this conversation where I said, “Look, I’m a 40 plus-year-old white guy in Silicon Valley.”

Fetterman: You white.

Kaykas-Wolff: I believe- You’re like, “You’re very.” I believe that I’ve got bias. I am aware that I have bias so I want to try and do what I can to break out of that bias. Part of that is being aware of diversity in hiring.

She got on my case. She was like, “You are a part of the problem because you’re trying to hire women just for the sake of hiring women and minorities.” And that’s not necessarily what I was saying but it became such a heated discussion where I just kept going back to the, well, when we have a diverse population of people who are running companies, we make better decisions.

She didn’t buy it. Is there a way that we can help people understand that? Even women founders.

Fetterman: That’s internalized misogyny, babe. That’s okay. All women are queens. I may disagree with some women and if she’s got to say that- A lot of our careers are boosted by men. There is, obviously, this innate want to protect the people who raised you up. I respect that. Okay, babe. That’s internalized misogyny, babe.

Kaykas-Wolff: Can you, as a man, in Silicon Valley, tell that to a woman? Maybe that’s a stupid question. But can I say that’s internalized misogyny?

Fetterman: It depends on how close you are to her.

Kaykas-Wolff: Yeah.

Fetterman: I say if she wants to say something, I think what you can say when that conversation happens because my goal for 2019 is protect all women. Protect all sluts. Protect all female founders. Protect all bitches. That is my goal.

If I’m far apart with someone on an issue, I will just say, “Honey, we’re like- Name, Linda. I am sorry. I’ll just stop you right there because we’re too far apart on this issue to go ahead on it.” I’ll say, “I’ll listen to you. I’m happy to listen and here’s what I’m saying. I think we’re too far apart on this issue.”

Rajaraman: I want you to shock us with an actual story. I think, often times, we just talk at a high level about stats and stuff like that. What people really like is personalization and understanding how something hits home. Tell us a funding story about you or about another founder that you know that will really connect with our audience.

Fetterman: Oh. Okay. For founders that I know, I keep in the lock box.

Rajaraman: Yeah. You got to protect your sources.

Fetterman: Queen to queen. You tell me this thing. It’s thank you. It’s for my benefit. I go forward. I know it.

Rajaraman: But if I tell you something, is it in the lockbox?

Fetterman: If you tell me something on this podcast?

Rajaraman: Yeah. Well, not on the podcast. If I were to share something with you after. Would it be in the lockbox?

Fetterman: If you told me to. Yeah.

Rajaraman: Okay.

Fetterman: Absolutely.

Rajaraman: All right. Just setting the record straight.

Fetterman: Word. Word. I’ll tell you one of my funding stories. This is a doozy. I just came to San Francisco and I pitched hundreds upon hundreds of VCs and angels about Sous Vide. I invented the home Sous Vide immersion circulator in 2011.

Me and my husband, we went to the hardware store and we picked up a few things. We did a DIY open source kit. We traveled all across the United States to different maker spaces. OG. OG. Lived in China for two years next door to a factory to learn how to manufacture broth that manufactured to America. So, so painstaking. So OG.

Okay. One of my earliest, earliest investors when I got rejected from so many people, he was kind of like a knight in shining armor. He saw me at a conference where I was pitching hard. He was like, “You know what, Lisa? I’m going to put in some money. I’m going to put in $10K into your company.” At that time, $10K took us six months. I was like, “Thank you. I’m so happy.” He’s like, “I believe in you. I believe in Sous Vide.”

His name is Stephen Svajian. He became the CEO of Anova which was my largest rival. Then they sold to Electrolux for $250 million dollars. Before they did, he asked me, “You know what? You can buy my stock back if you’d like.” But I didn’t know what was happening.

So I bought stock back. I was so happy. I was like, “You’re a conflict of interest and everything. You’re trying to make it right. I see it. You should’ve just given it back to me.” And then he just sold the company. The first Anova was an exact replica of Nomiku. All their wording was exactly like Nomiku. I was just like, “Wow.”

He’s a white dude. He’s a white dude who’s been in startups for a long time. He saw an opportunity to make a life-changing amount of money. He was like, “Bye, bish.”

Kaykas-Wolff: What was the last conversation you had with him?

Fetterman: Oh. The last conversation I had with him, he asked me over to his house for dinner. I remember this quite vividly because it was so weird. I was heavily pregnant with my first kid and dinner was food from the Whole Foods hot bar.

He was like, “Hey, I want you to know I’m going to start working with Anova.” And then I said, “Whoa. That’s a huge conflict of interest. That’s not right.” And he got really kind of mad. He’s like, “No, man. You’re just saying that because you’re pregnant. The hormones are crazy.” No! Can you believe that? This is before me too. Everything.

Kaykas-Wolff: What would you, I guess, what do you think the repercussions should be for someone like that?

Fetterman: He acted in bad faith.

[Editor’s note: Svajian has published a post in response to this interview explaining his side of the story.]

Rajaraman: What’s the VC penalty box?

Fetterman: That’s the thing. You can say that this was just business and I do chalk it up as just business. This is just life. If you do that, you have to live with that. You wake up every day and you know you copy a true G and made some cash.

It’s not really about repercussions in my book. For me, it really gives me a nice chip on my shoulder. Every day, I wake up like, “Mmm. Smell the fresh revenge.” I want to make more money. I want to make a product that nobody can copy which is what lead to my ultimate product which is basically Nespresso for dinner. Nobody wants to follow me into that territory. Hardware and food? And software on top of that and you wrote two cookbooks? I just want to dominate.

Rajaraman: I love that. I love the competitive spirit. Tell us about, on a positive note, tell us five female founders that you’re really excited by that you would want everybody, all of our listeners, to know about and things that they’re working on.

It doesn’t have to be five. It could be three. Whatever. Whatever that number is.

The rest of this podcast is going to be this. I can name 50. I love Liz Curtis. She makes this thing which is basically like Rent the Runway but in a box for your table settings.

Fetterman: If you have a dinner party, you have the plates. You even have the straws for the cups. You have the candelabra. It’s all set. You just rent it and you put your dirty dishes back into the box. That’s eco-friendly. They reuse the box all the time and then that’s it. I can have friends over and I don’t have to stress about it. Liz Curtis, Table and Teaspoon, so freaking crazy good.

Then we’ve got Anne Halsall and Sara from Winnie. They make a platform where it makes it easy for parents to talk to each other and do childcare. Childcare is so freaking crazy. I’m not just talking about urban sitter stuff which is also amazing. Shout out to [Lynn 00:14:04]. But y’all know Lynn. Lynn funded to the teeth. Lynn is boss. Lynn rocks.

Rajaraman: I actually do know Lynn.

Fetterman: You know Lynn.

Rajaraman: She’s great.

Fetterman: Obvi. Obvi. Female founders have to be super honed, polished, charismatic. I don’t know. Sexy. In order to get even a blip of attention. There’s so many more.

Okay. I got to shout to out to… I have to look at my Facebook thing.

Rajaraman: Oh, yeah. No. You’re good. You can pull out your smartphone if you want. But while you’re pondering that, Jascha and I are doing the two mic thing where I’m going to owe him $20 by the end of this. But I’m actually really curious about this.

Diving in, I thought Jascha was kind of taking us down a really interesting thread. What are three things that every man, not just in Silicon Valley, but wherever, any industry, should stop doing immediately? Or start doing immediately.

Fetterman: Just listen to women, what they have to say to you. Another thing that they should start doing is back women. Gang, gang, gang. Like you would back a fellow bro. Back them. Give them the benefit of the doubt. Stop kicking the tires so hard. You kick the tires on any car, eventually, you’re going to freaking put a hole in that tire with your foot. Don’t do that.

Especially male VCs will see a woman lead company and think everything negative about that company. Whereas they don’t think about the possibilities. They’ll ask leading questions about what if this goes wrong? Ask questions about what if it goes right? That you would ask a male founder. Catch yourself. Don’t ever say to a female founder who has a female lead product, “Let me let my wife try this.” I think that that is incredibly demeaning unless your wife is a partner in the fund.

Fetterman: Look at their data. Do real market research. Yes, get the anecdotal evidence from your wife but don’t just say, “Oh. I got to have my wife look at this.” I think that’s totally whack.

Rajaraman: What about outside of VC? I’m curious about this because, whatever, there’s only a small subset of people who are VCs. Our audience is going to probably be mostly non-VCs. Just in general. Just day-to-day work Silicon Valley wherever.

Fetterman: Don’t ask women to do the hard work for you. Read a book, man. Read a book about feminism. Go on everydayfeminism.com. Tailor your media to learn about people of color and women and women of color. You’ve got to do the work. Don’t ask a woman to please sit down and tell me what I need to do.

Fetterman: This is fine. This is a podcast.

Kaykas-Wolff: I was like, “Wait.”

Fetterman: No, no, no. This is fine. But because people honestly don’t know. Shout out to Kanjun Qiu of Sourceress. Sourceress is freaking amazing. It’s such a crazy great AI company for sourcing your next candidate for the company. I think they do something where it makes the CEO have the ability to send out hundreds of emails to great potential candidates. Holla.

Rajaraman: All right. Jascha, I’ve got so much more I could do but I don’t want to owe too many in the dollar jar.

Kaykas-Wolff: Do you like San Francisco? You’re unbelievably positive.

Fetterman: Yeah.

Kaykas-Wolff: But do you like living here?

Fetterman: I love San Francisco, baby! My dream is to live here without the pain. I love it. The ocean, the Bay Bridge, the people, the spirit, the hustle. I love even the freaking dogs that are here. They’re so cute.

Kaykas-Wolff: We got Sunil hitting you up on the top five and top three list. Let me get my top three list in also.

Fetterman: Yeah.

Kaykas-Wolff: What are your top three wants, requirements, needs, have-to-haves from London Breed?

Fetterman: From London Breed?

Kaykas-Wolff: Yeah.

Fetterman: Word. Yes. We need to obvi, number one, take care of the homeless situation. That is a mental health crisis. We had a shelter for mental health in the 1970s that we closed for some reason. We know the reasons. A lot of us know the reasons. But we need mental health here in San Francisco.

Top three for her. Dang. Dang. We need to have subsidies for folks who want to make more things here in San Francisco.

Kaykas-Wolff: For people. Not for companies? Or for both?

Fetterman: For people and for companies. Anybody who has- This is startup mecha. Let’s just make it even more easier. People making physical objects here. That’s coming from me as a hardware person.

Kaykas-Wolff: Maybe-

Fetterman: One more is-

Kaykas-Wolff: Yeah. Give one more.

Fetterman: The last one is family leave is so important. I have two kids. A five-year-old, a two-year-old. I took two weeks maternity leave, painfully, for both of them. So bad. The placenta was still fresh, y’all. We need comprehensive support. We pay a [shiega 00:19:28] amount of taxes up in this B.

Rajaraman: You can swear.

Fetterman: Yeah. Okay. I’m trying not to swear for my kids because I do swear a lot.

Kaykas-Wolff: That’s very big of you. I have three kids and I curse a lot. Actually, our whole family curses a lot. It’s how we express ourselves.

Fetterman: That’s cute. It’s good if you can do it for emphasis. I like wearing for emphasis. I don’t like swearing out of control. Like when you stub your toe and you say, “Oh, fuck.” I’m just like, “You’re out of control man. Control yourself.”

Kaykas-Wolff: So we’re staring at a hardware device. This sitting right in front of us. Which I’m going to ask you to paint the picture of in just a moment. But before we navigate into there, can you talk about the restaurant scene in San Francisco? What do you like about what’s happening here right now? What do you not like about what’s happening right here? I know we’re jumping all over the place.

Fetterman: What I like about what’s happening here is that there is a lot of innovation in restaurants and a lot of creativity because we have a very well healed clientele. A.K.A. peeps be rich. So we can have a lot of room and people be patronizing restaurants and investing in restaurants.

Keep doing that. You’re going to lose all of your money and you should know that and it’s going to be great. You’re going to love losing every penny that you have that you invest in a restaurant. Keep doing it. It’s great for everybody. It’s great for the community. It’s great for art. Art is life.

What I hate about what’s going on in restaurants is that nobody can keep their doors open because rich people not be funding it as much. Rich people do it. And, plus, we can’t retain talent because Google, Airbnb, and all those folks are- How can you fight against, I don’t know, an $80K salary plus benefits for a chef? Holy shiz.

Also, restaurant culture is incredibly toxic. They talked about how toxic startup culture is and it truly is and very insidious because it’s all hidden underneath the surface. Restaurants, it’s incredibly explicit. As a female chef or a female worker in the restaurant, you will get the worst harassment of your life. It’s very bad.

Shout out to Ooshma Garg of Gobble. Gobble, the only capital efficient meal kit out there. It’s so amazing. The food tastes awesome. Shout out to Jessica Scorpio. Scorpy! I think she sold Get Around or bought a company for $300 mill. You go, queen. You go, queen.

Rajaraman: Tell us about the device now. What do we have sitting in front of us and what is this thing that you invented?

Fetterman: I invented the home sous vide immersion circulator. This is my latest product which is our third iteration of hardware. It has an RFID reader and we ship you the food with it. You weigh the food in front of the machine, it automatically recognizes it, you drop it in, in 30 minutes, you get a gourmet meal regardless of any dietary restriction you may have in your household.

Kaykas-Wolff: I’m not going to pretend like everybody that’s a listener understands all of what you just said. Can you break down what is a sous vide?

Fetterman: Of course. Before I do that, what this is, basically, is your own personal chef. You just drop food in. It’s a magical food cooker like Nespresso and Keurig. They don’t call their machines hyper hydraulic pod extraction. I don’t need to call it a sous vide immersion circulator. Just know you can tap and eat in 30 minutes. That’s it.

Sous vide is a precise temperature wave cooking that every single top chef in the world uses whether you’re Dominique Crenn, [Nomas, Saysan, Restaurant Meadowood 00:23:00], who all use my machines, you rely on it every single evening for beautiful, consistent results.

For example, steak cooked at 57 degrees Celsius. That’s when the fat and the collagen will melt into the muscle making each bite juicy, tender, and delicious. It’s edge to edge perfection. All you do is sear it a little bit and then muah. The action time is super low. You can leave it alone for hours and hours and hours and it physically cannot, scientifically cannot, overcook because it’s already at the perfect temperature.

Fetterman: The biggest technology ever for cooking was fire and ever since we discovered it, we’ve just been trying to control it. Now, we control heat to 0.1 Celsius and that’s absolutely revolutionary.

Rajaraman: I can tell that you’re very passionate about this which is good.

Fetterman: It is all I do.

Rajaraman: Did you go through YCombinator?

Fetterman: I did.

Rajaraman: what was that like? Tell us about your experience.

Fetterman: That was super fun and super, super intense. I went through it with my husband and co-founder, Abers, Abraham Jacob Fetterman. There was a table on the side in the front for solo founders and because we’re married, we felt like we were one. We identified most with the solo founders and their hustle.

It was super, super intense. People next to you used to work for the Treasury of the United States or they won all these hacking shiznitz or they got first place at MIT and AI. You’re like, “What the fudgey the whale?” And then you’re like, “Oh, I did this.”

And, yeah, I just got Forbes 30 under 30 when I joined and Sam Altman, who was leading at the time, got it as well. I was talking to him about it. I was like, “Congratulations on Forbes 30 under 30.” He was like, “Yeah. It’s bullshiz.” And then I was like, “Oh, I just got it too.” It was very humbling. All these impressive people around you and then it very motivating because you’re like, “I’m on your level. I’m on your level.”

Rajaraman: What do you want to do with this company? What’s your- I don’t know. Tell us what it looks like 10 years from now. Are you still doing this? Do you get acquired like your dissonant investor? What happens?

Fetterman: Oh. Well, what I see is us completely curing the emotional and physical toil of making dinner. When you look at the kitchen, the home kitchen and technology, women and now the primary caretaker of the house have always, always, always struggled mentally and physically with the kitchen. Every time that there has been a technology movement in the kitchen, it was always by accident and grass-roots lead.

For example, when the internet first came online, it would break every day. It broke every day not because of porn, not because of high traffic stock trading. It broke every day at 4:00 p.m. when women would log on and look for recipes for dinner. If Kim Kardashian’s ass had a recipe on it, it would have really broken the internet.

The home kitchen has been so thirsty for technology and everybody leading hardware and software efforts there has been lead by a man. That’s fine. Thank you for your interest. Thank you for your look. But your gaze is not correct.

When the men look at a kitchen, they’re like, “Well, there’s one OS to dominate the entire kitchen.” The people who actually use the home kitchen are like, “What the fuh are you talking about, dude?”

Rajaraman: You just swore.

Fetterman: Yeah. Oh. I say what the fuh.

Rajaraman: For emphasis.

Kaykas-Wolff: Oh. Okay.

Fetterman: Yeah. I could’ve finished it with a nice fudgey. Yes. But I remember when the Kindle first came out. I think the team thought, “Oh. It’s going to be the living room. It’s going to be the bedroom.” Overwhelmingly, the majority of use is in the kitchen. Because when you have your hands full of raw chicken and you need something, you don’t remember something, you just yell at your Alexa. Hey, Alexa. Blah, la-la-la-la.

Then, of course, that’s sexist in and of itself. You yell a woman’s name when you need some shit? Fuck you.

Rajaraman: There we go. We needed a good strong finish on the… There we go.

Kaykas-Wolff: You take technology to the kitchen in a way that makes people lives better. In a decade from now, what is that for you? What’s that mean for you?

Fetterman: That means peoples’ lives are better. If it means I get acquired, sick. Thanks, daddy. If it means that I IPO-ed, sick. Thanks, mommy. You know? I just don’t know. I’m hoping for a positive outcome financially for my existing investors who are freaking sweet and, hopefully, won’t copy my new thing.

But, ultimately, I just want the results for the end consumer. The peeps who use it. I don’t know how much of your life you’re losing by worrying about dinner. It sucks.

Rajaraman: So you also organize some of the largest groups of women in tech in the Bay Area. We talked a little bit about that before you joined the interview. What can you share with our broader audience about that? What kind of topics of discussion come up that everybody should know about and should take away from this after listening to this? What are the things that are discussed?

Fetterman: The things that are discussed in a lot of empowered or professional women’s groups is how the hell do we get funding? Number one topic. People always say, “Oh. This place is hot for startups.” Guess why it’s hot for startups? Because there’s money being doled out. That’s it. That’s literally it. People wring their hands all the time. How do we fix this problem with female founders? Fund them. That’s literally it. Shut up.

They’re like, “Oh, well, come to our dinner, Lisa, about female founders.” A huge VC group are like, “Please, come to our dinner.” I’m like, “How much did you spend on this dinner? Give it to a founder.” We’re going to do a task force for female founders. Great. great. Cool. cool. Funding is at 2% for female founders. The only thing that you need to do to fix this issue is to fund female founders. That’s literally it. Literally it.

Fetterman: Whatever’s hard about it, you can tell me, and that’s great if you need to get it off your chest, and then write a check.

Rajaraman: Strong.

Kaykas-Wolff: So where do we start? I get a yes.

Fetterman: Write checks.

Kaykas-Wolff: Write checks. Do you want VC firms to set targets to checks written to women? Is that a good first step?

Fetterman: Your target should be 100%.

Kaykas-Wolff: Okay.

Fetterman: 100%. They asked Ruth Bader Ginsburg when would there be enough women on the Supreme Court. 100%. 100%. Make sure that your fund’s quota for funding women is 100%. The Supreme Court used to be 100% men. Nobody batted their eyes about that. All our presidents, 100% men. Everybody’s like, “That’s chill and cool.”

When YCombinator first started, it was 100% men slash Jessica, one of the founders, but all the companies were 100% men. Nobody was like, “Okay. Maybe there’s something wrong with that.” Yeah, when something is 100% women, it all of a sudden becomes so radical. Why is that, dog? Look inside your own heart, dog. Read a book, dog. 100% women.

Rajaraman: What’s something that we should’ve asked you that we didn’t ask you today?

Kaykas-Wolff: That’s my favorite interview question.

Rajaraman: I know. I just figured I’d throw it in there.

Fetterman: That’s a great question.

Rajaraman: I love it. I’m just kind of going to pat myself on the back-

Fetterman: Yeah.

Rajaraman: For coming up with that right now.

Kaykas-Wolff: For being a stumper? I’m going to let you think about what and, while you’re thinking about that, we want to shift gears. We’re actually coming up close to end of the time.

Rajaraman: Yeah.

Kaykas-Wolff: I want to just keep going though. But I do want to ask you one question right away and then we can come back to the what question should we have asked you.

Kaykas-Wolff: On the networks that you spend your time, if you watch TV, read newspapers, read books, hang out on Twitter of Facebook, Instagram, wherever. Who are a couple of authors or interesting people or companies on those networks that you’d recommend our listeners go out and pay attention to?

Fetterman: Oh. There’s the Equity Collective that I really like. It’s run by Sarah B. This closet is so hot. I feel like I’m getting interrogated by the police.

Kaykas-Wolff: Yeah, maybe it’s because we have that spotlight pointed on you.

Fetterman: Oh, word. That also helps in the forgetting of the mind melt. But the Equity Collective is really cool for female founders raising. I also like-

Kaykas-Wolff: Are they on Twitter? Are they on Facebook?

Fetterman: Yeah.

Kaykas-Wolff: Where do you-

Fetterman: They’re on the [Fachebokeh 00:32:31].

Kaykas-Wolff: Okay.

Fetterman: They’re on Twitter. You can find Sarah in all the places. I like her a lot. Very, very useful. Great resource. You should join my secret club called the [Femps 00:32:47]. I’m one of the founding members. The founder is Stephanie Hughes. It is off the chain in there. Everything professional. We help each other. We rally around. It’s like a church group. Yo, you need some help? You need 20 bucks? Let’s go.

Rajaraman: That’s awesome. Did you think of an answer to my question?

Fetterman: What should you have asked me? I think one thing that’s interesting is if you were just… A question that I get asked a lot is if you were starting out today, what would you have changed? That’s always a hard question for me because sometimes the answer is I would change nothing because it led to what I’ve done today. Yay!

And then sometimes I think about what is the real answer? Because, obviously, if I have a prior knowledge of what’s up, I would do things very differently. First of all, I wouldn’t take a cheque from Stephen Svajian. I would’ve patted myself on the back and said-

This is the real answer. Okay. I found it in my head. The real answer is what I would do differently if I knew what I did today is that I would tell myself- If Lisa from the future could talk to past Lisa.

Fetterman: I would look her in the eye and say, “Lisa, you’re right. You’re right. Nobody knows what the future is. You’re building the future. If you can build it, it is literally the future. Just work really hard at building that future and that’s all you have to do. Don’t think about if you’re right or wrong because there’s no such thing and you are right. Surprise! I’m from the future. I know. Just work really, really hard. Don’t lose any freaking sleep on if this is going to work. If you make it work, it will work.”

Rajaraman: So, listeners, you have to replay this in a week, in two weeks, in three weeks, and then three years, and then 30 years. Lisa, this was awesome.

Fetterman: Thank you.

Rajaraman: Thanks for joining us.

Kaykas-Wolff: Thank you very much.

Fetterman: I am awesome.

Kaykas-Wolff: Well, I had to take a little bit of a break after that interview and start on dinner tonight. It’s cooking actually right next to us. We’re 15 minutes into dinner in the sous vide.

Rajaraman: So now I know how to pronounce sous vide, which is great. But if I were to go on a health food kick, I would definitely get one of her machines.

Kaykas-Wolff: I don’t think it’s health food, Sunil. I don’t think the sous vide is all about health food.

Rajaraman: Well, sous vide aside, I had a lot of interesting takeaways from today’s interview.

Kaykas-Wolff: What a fantastic discussion and, again, I just think of startup founder in a completely different light after having spent time with her. I wish we could bottle her up, maybe in a podcast, and share her with absolutely everybody in the Bay Area.

Rajaraman: Well, she definitely indicated what group to join. A Facebook group if you’re interested in following Lisa a little bit more in her career. I really liked her simple formula on how to fix the gender diversity problem.

Kaykas-Wolff: 100%. Speaking of 100%, if you enjoyed this podcast as much as Sunil and I enjoyed making this podcast, what we would appreciate is 100% going back to wherever you found us and rating us five stars. Leaving a comment as well. It helps people find this episode.

Rajaraman: Definitely. We appreciate your support and, as always, follow Jascha @kaykas. K-A-Y-K-A-S. Or myself at @subes01. S-U-B-E-S-zero-one. And we look forward to the next episode.