Earlier this week, Business Insider has published an article exposing the high-pressure work environment at the mental health unicorn Spring Health and singling out CEO and co-founder April Koh's apparent lack of leadership experience, as voiced by several current and former employees. Titled ‘April Koh built a $2 billion mental-health startup by age 29. Current and former employees say she led a fast-paced culture that created panic and fear.’, the article highlights the grievances of the (ex-) employees who have felt pressured to overwork, some of them on the verge of burnout. Fairly, it also details Koh's measures to deter the adverse effects of the fast growth pace on her team and the broader context of the burnout epidemic caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
But there is a clear bias in emphasizing her deficiencies and casting her in a negative light (see the headline image) - all in a click-bait manner. Mysteriously, there is little mention of her co-founder (who happens to be a man).
“As we've expanded, we've sometimes struggled to scale fast enough, which has created added pressure on the entire team. Because we're dealing with our users' mental health, our standards for our work are incredibly high, as they should be.
It makes me sad that some employees have been disappointed with their experience at Spring Health, and of course, I don't want people to feel that way. Where there are instances where we've failed or disappointed employees, those are moments for us to really reflect and determine how we can grow from that.
The mark of a good founder and a good startup CEO is how quickly they reinvent themselves I have tried my best to do that. I made mistakes. And I still make mistakes.”
- April Koh, CEO of Spring Health, in response to Business Insider
Business Insider’s headline image of the article
This is not a singular case. Since the publication of Shery Sandberg's bestselling book 'Lean In,' the popularization of the term '#girlboss’ (which infantilizes women in an attempt to make their leadership more palatable), and the Theranos and Elizabeth Holmes saga (the myth of the ‘female Steve Jobs’ gone bad), the media and public opinion have swung between glorifying and vilifying female leadership in business. Women at all levels of leadership are held to higher moral standards than their male peers. Yet, when they make mistakes or if their decisions and behaviors don't match the stereotypical caretaker role, they are attacked publicly and, in some cases, even pushed out from the companies they've founded (e.g. Away, Thinx). This happens in rarer instances for male founders, usually after lengthy lawsuits - and then, their exits include lucrative payouts (e.g., Uber's Trevor Kalanick, WeWork's Adam Neumann).
While acknowledging the heavy toll of high-growth startups on employees, many have expressed their support for Koh, who is a person of color and the youngest woman at the helm of a multibillion-dollar startup in the US.
Some have asked where the critiques against the normalization of toxic work environments led by men are, while others have pointed out that more constructive than singling out individuals would be to challenge the venture-backed startup culture at large.
What’s your take on this story? Is it time to retire the stereotypical ‘female leadership’ narratives? When will it become normal for women to be in positions of power? Should there be a broader conversation around the venture-backed startup culture and society’s expectations from business leaders, regardless of their gender?
FemWealth Favorites ❤️
💸 Germany’s first VC fund for female founders launches - Auxxo, co-founded by two of Germany’s best-known angel investors - Gesa Miczaika and Bettine Schmitz - is a new $15m fund to invest in pre-seed and seed-stage companies with at least one female co-founder. 60% of Auxxo’s investors are women, including several well-known female founders and VCs
“We are the inventor of the creator-commerce platform. We think that a creator should be able to offer someone a shopping experience that is competitive with every retail experience in the world.” - Amber Venz Box
“We had this growing awareness of the plastic waste in the industry. And the question that we started with was, how do you do beauty without single-use plastic? We didn't have a brand name, we didn't have a plan in terms of what the product would be yet, but that was the problem we wanted to understand. So we spent almost two years exploring different business opportunities with that problem in mind.” - Jayme Jenkins
🕌 Yemen: The woman saving a crumbling heritage - in a country torn by war, Harbia Al Himiary is the first woman to lead a team as part of the Unesco rehabilitation project in Sanaa’s Old City, a part of the capital inhabited for more than 2,500 years
“Women do not regularly join this field of work. I wanted to be unique in my profession, and join a field where I can break gender barriers.” - Harbia Al Himiary
🎾 Women’s Tennis Had to Stand Up to China - the WTA called for a comprehensive investigation into the sexual assault allegations brought by tennis player Peng Shuai against China’s former vice-premier Zhang Gaoli
🎧 Why the Highest Paying Jobs So Rarely Go to Women - Harvard economist and historian Claudia Goldin about “greedy” work of 'CEOs and high-powered professionals willing to live and breathe their jobs, on-call 24/7, ready to pick up and travel
“I've had a baby, I haven't given up my brain or capacity to do things and our politics and our policy making will be better by having more mums at the table.”- Stella Creasy
“As a society, we love to pat ourselves on the back for all the strides we’ve made toward female empowerment, but ruthlessly scrutinizing every pound lost or gained still appears to be our most cherished pastime.” - Michelle Konstantinovsky
“Promotion to the top involves a series of steps along a career ladder, often many steps. If there is a discrimination “tax” at each step, even if only a small one, those taxes can produce a discouraging effect.” - Tyler Cowen
Thank you for reading FemWealth! Have a lovely Sunday and an excellent week ahead!
