The Power of the Purse: The Role of VC Funding in Closing the Tech Gender Gap

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Author: Julia Molo | UC Berkeley School of Law | J.D. Candidate 2020 | Posted: October 15th, 2018 | Download PDF.

Venture capital (VC) funds play a critical role in determining the tech leaders of tomorrow. As such, closing the “gender investment gap” is one of the most talked about issues in the tech industry. As are the benefits – and unrealized opportunities – that will come from closing the gap. Indeed, report after report has shown that businesses founded by women outperform their male-founded counterparts, growing faster and ultimately delivering higher revenue.

Nonetheless, a staggering gender investment gap persists.

Only 2% of VC funding went to women in 2017. Since 2013, the average male entrepreneur has raised more than four times the funding than his female counterpart. And the numbers are even worse for women of color – a mere .0006% of VC funding has gone to black female founders since 2009. (more…)

Kofi Annan’s Path to Corporate Sustainability

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Author: Lukas Herndl | UC Berkeley School of Law | LL.M. Candidate 2019 | Posted October 8th, 2018 | Download PDF.

Today, the idea of corporate sustainability is mainly associated with tech firms like Apple, Google and Salesforce, or with institutional investors like Blackrock or the Yale University endowment, which recently announced it would not invest in retailers that sell assault weapons. Far less focus has been on former Secretary-General of the United Nations and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Kofi Annan, who passed away on August 18. (more…)

The Fall of Shareholder Primacy and the Search for a Solution

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Author: Micaela Cervantes | UC Berkeley School of Law | J.D. Candidate 2020 | Posted October 3rd, 2018 | Download PDF.

The perception of a corporation’s role in society shifted after Milton Friedman established his shareholder primacy theory in 1970.[1] Friedman wrote that the corporation’s primary purpose is to maximize shareholder profits.[2] Although, Friedman’s theory prevailed for many years, it has recently received criticism from both lawyers and politicians.[3] Opponents of Friedman’s theory voice concern that shareholder primacy is not sustainable and has negative effects on the stakeholders and on the community.[4] In lieu of shareholder primacy, critics emphasize the need for stakeholder theory. Stakeholder theory states that “managing for stakeholders is about creating as much value as possible for stakeholders, without resorting to tradeoffs.”[5] Critics agree that shareholder primacy theory has lasting negative effects on society and that stakeholder theory is more sustainable. However, they disagree about the appropriate way to implement change through stakeholder theory. Some suggest a legislative solution and others suggest a private solution. (more…)

Making Corporations Great Again

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Elizabeth Warren’s Plan for Corporate Accountability and Reform

Author: Erin Lachaal | UC Berkeley School of Law | J.D. Candidate 2020 | Posted: September 8th, 2018 | Download PDF.

“I want to make sure we’ve got a set of rules that lets everybody who’s got a good, competitive idea get in the game,” Senator Elizabeth Warren said in a recent interview with Franklin Foer of The Atlantic.[1] She was discussing her recently proposed legislation that would fundamentally change how corporations in the United States are created and function day-to-day. She is aiming to return corporations back to what they once were: socially conscious entities looking to fill a supply gap in society’s needs.

Most people might describe corporations as inescapable. We are often unable to go more than a few minutes without some interaction with products from one of these large entities, but this was not always the case. The original purpose of a corporation was to allow the government a mechanism to outsource the building of fundamental public infrastructure that was necessary in a world of scarce capital and unpredictable public revenue.[2] (more…)

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