Melinda Gates says men still run the tech world,
Philanthropist says she sees little progress for women in business.
In the past 30 years, Melinda Gates has become one of the most influential women in the business and technology worlds, building her brand successfully in those male-dominated industries. Now, she’s trying to teach others how to do the same.
Speaking at a South by Southwest keynote Sunday, Gates talked about how women and minorities can have greater roles in business and tech, the challenges those groups still face, and how workers in tech and other industries can overcome them.
Gates was joined at the event by TaskRabbit CEO Stacy Brown-Philpot, Hearst Magazines chief content officer Joanna Coles and Nina Shaw, a prominent entertainment industry lawyer.
“The status quo ... is holding all of us back,” Gates told a packed ballroom at the Austin Convention Center. “We absolutely know there are more women in the workforce. But whether the workplace has changed for women? I will say marginally.”
In the 1980s and 1990s, Gates helped develop multimedia products at Microsoft before leaving the company to start her philanthropic foundation with her husband, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates.
Numerous studies show that women are often underrepresented and underpaid in the workforce across various industries. A study from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, for example, used workforce data from 2014 to report that at the top 75 Silicon Valley tech companies, women make up only 30 percent of the workforce.
While progress for women and minorities has been made in business, the gap is still too large, Melinda Gates said, reporting that she has seen less than 2 percent of venture capital funding flow to female entrepreneurs.
Gates said the problem is largely rooted in leaders at companies,