Kara Swisher

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Viral Video: Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg on “Why We Have So Few Women Leaders”

December 22, 2010 at 12:28 am PT

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Yesterday, BoomTown posted about how the five hottest Web 2.0 companies have no women on their board of directors.

In the middle of the report, I embedded a video from a recent speech Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg made at a women-focused TED event, which I thought spoke eloquently to the topic.

In fact, the social networking giant–as well as social gaming site Zynga, social buying site Groupon, geolocation site Foursquare and microblogging site Twitter–was one of the companies without any women on its board.

Including Sandberg, although she attends its meetings (but not its executive sessions).

Here’s her TED talk, which is well worth watching:

Tagged with: board, BoomTown, buying, digital, director, event, executive, Facebook, Foursquare, gaming, geolocation, Groupon, Internet, Kara Swisher, leader, meeting, Microsoft Bob, report, session, Sheryl Sandberg, social networking, speech, Talk, TED, topic, Twitter, video, viral, Web 2.0, women, Zynga

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  • http://twitter.com/CathyIconis Cathy Iconis, CPA

    Re: Don’t leave before you leave. I totally did that!! I knew I was going to leave my job when I had my daughter – so for the year leading up to that point – I stopped fighting for a raise or promotion. I completely regret that.

  • http://garyfales.com/ nevada trust

    WOW, this lecture is alarmingly superficial. What Sheryl truly fails to understand about women is their special connection to the land, the earth. Women are not naturally interested in getting to the top, women are not naturally interested in dominating others. That’s how men are.

    Why should women be encouraged to be aggressive, domineering and tech-oriented like men?

  • Anonymous

    @nevada trust: what a moronic comment you just made. I know plenty of women who are ambitious and aggressive and want to get to the top, but they don’t always know how to get there. Sheryl’s speech is great — full of good analysis of key challenges that women face and advice for how to overcome some of them.

  • Anonymous

    Speak for yourself, and leave your stereotypical ideas of gender roles and traits out of it, please. Also, “their special connection to the land, the earth?” Are you serious? Women are individuals. Some, believe it or not, are interested in “getting to the top” and are, by nature, “agressive” and “tech-oriented.” Likewise, some men are passive and more family-oriented. AND IT’S OKAY. Welcome to 2011.

  • Anonymous

    *aggressive.