VC Ann Winblad on women in tech, sharing a hotel room with a stripper

Dino Vournas

Ann Winblad, cofounder at venture firm Hummer Winblad, will be honored by the VC Taskforce on Oct. 23 with its annual Innovation Catalyst Award.

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Cromwell Schubarth: Senior Technology Reporter- Silicon Valley Business Journal; Email | Twitter | Google+

Ann Winblad, who will be honored on Oct. 23 by the VC Taskforce, says women have come a long way in venture capital and tech since she started in the 1970s and 1980s.

In a conversation about being this year's Innovation Catalyst Award winner, Winblad recalled a tech conference in the early days.
The organizers told her that since she was the only woman speaker they were putting her up with one of the entertainers — who turned out to be a stripper.
"Let's put it this way, she wasn’t in the room much," Winblad told me. "That kind of stuff hopefully does not happen any more."

Winblad started her first software business, Open Systems, in 1976 and sold it for $15 million six years later. In 1989 she and John Hummer — who at one time played NBA basketball with the Seattle Supersonics — started Hummer Winblad Venture Partners in Emeryville with $35 million. Now they manage more than $1 billion in cumulative capital and have helped launch more than 100 software companies as a Series A round investor.

In the following Q&A, excerpted from a long conversation, Winblad talks about her decades in the software and venture industry and an early conversation with her friend, Microsoft founder Bill Gates.

She also talks about what she thinks needs to happen for women to become a larger force in tech and venture.
How does it feel to be called an Innovation Catalyst?
You know, it’s embarrassing to get these awards because it’s a team effort here, especially in Silicon Valley. That's what makes the Valley what it is. Everybody rows the oars together here.
People want you to accept these awards and every once in a while while you accept one. But I think the most important thing is the collaboration that makes it exciting to be here.