women founders and CEOs including Liz Pearce of Liquid Planner and Kristen Hamilton of Koru “about what they’ve done to make their companies welcoming places.” Others he credits for influencing Glowforge’s decision include former MakerBot CEO Jenny Lawton, an investor and advisory board member, and the Foundry Group’s Brad Feld, who led Glowforge’s recent $9 million funding round and is on the board of directors at the National Center for Women and Information Technology. (That’s the organization that just recognized the UW’s computer science program for significantly boosting the share of degrees awarded to women.)
Glowforge announced the bounty this week. Last week, it took another step ahead of the pack in terms of inclusivity, publishing summaries of its insurance plans and surfacing additional relevant information that was “only burried in the fine print of the actual documents” on fertility treatments (covered for treating an underlying condition, but not in-vitro fertilization); bariatric surgery (covered for medical need); and gender reassignment surgery/transgender-related care (covered for medical need).
“It’s not just transgender men and women who face this challenge,” Shapiro writes in a blog post. “If you’re facing chronic illness, bariatric surgery, or mental health issues, you need to know if your job will cover your needs. The fine print on a health insurance plan could turn your dream job into a financial catastrophe. In some parts of the country, even benefits we here in Seattle take for granted (like the coverage of contraception) are at the whims of the plan or employer.
“It’s not fair to force candidates to disclose these deeply personal matters in the course of a job interview.”
Shapiro says prior to the bounty, Glowforge had 10 employees, three of whom were women—but none in positions directly related to making the company’s product. Only about 12 percent of Glowforge’s applicants were women. The company says it’s harder to estimate how many applications it received from people in other under-represented groups.
So is any of this working? The company has about a half-dozen current openings for roles including mechanical engineer and software development manager. Shapiro says, “we’ve had some really tremendous diverse candidates reach out to us. I don’t know yet if they were referred (we don’t ask that until after we extend a job offer), but a few mentioned that company culture was important, and that the [diversity bounty] program was in line with the values they were looking for.”
