Dirkjan Hupkes is the founder of Women Disrupting Tech, a podcast that aims to change the narrative and increase the number of women in tech by providing a platform where their voices are heard and their achievements celebrated. In this interview, Dirkjan shares what motivated him to start the podcast, what it means to be a male ally, and where we are on the road toward gender equity in tech.
What motivated you to start Women Disrupting Tech?
In 2012, my girlfriend was diagnosed with gastric cancer. During the process of chemo, surgery, radiation and recovery, I started thinking: What if this happens to me? Later, I had a dream where I saw my funeral and the entire room was empty. That woke me up: I wanted to make an impact – but how, and what?
In 2018, I left my corporate job to start working for myself. I managed the social media for two female-founded startups in the medical space. This is when I learned that getting funding for female founders is more difficult than for male founders, something I had never realized. I started investigating and I ran into a statistic: only 2% of all tech startup funding worldwide goes to female-founded companies. This was what I wanted to make an impact on.
Around this time, I was thinking of starting a podcast, so I decided to combine the two: do the research around this issue while also interviewing people from that ecosystem. That’s how Women Disrupting Tech started. I launched it in 2022. By the time I’d made my 6th episode, I had my goal: to make myself obsolete by the end of 2032, by which I mean that inclusion in tech is no longer an issue, it’s just the way we live. It’s a big audacious goal. The idea is to make mixed team funding the norm, so if you have a startup and you don’t have a mixed team, then you have some explaining to do.
What are the issues around gender equity in tech, and what have you learned since you started hosting Women Disrupting Tech?
It’s a layered problem. Why are there fewer women starting a tech company than men? Firstly, there’s a pipeline issue in terms of education. If you look at the numbers, you see that far fewer women complete tech education.
We need more role models for women in tech: You can’t be what you can’t see.
One of the important factors I discovered during my interviews is that there’s a lack of role models. As the famous saying goes: “You can’t be what you can’t see”. That applies to women in tech. As long as women cannot see themselves being a professor at TU Delft or another technical university, as long as women can’t see themselves as a female founder because there are none or too few, as long as there are no role models in tech, then women won’t go there.
My view on gender equality has evolved thanks to the research I did for my podcast. Now more than ever, we must have a gender-equal world, which means that we get paid the same: equal pay for equal work, and women should have the same opportunities as men. The interesting thing is that everyone knows the business case for having diverse teams: they are more productive, they are more profitable.
I’m currently reading a book called The Patriarchs by Angela Saini. It’s about how men came to rule the world. In the early days, when mankind had just started evolving, men and women were basically doing the same things. Some women were good at raising children, but if women were good at fighting or hunting, they would go out hunting. It was a much more equal society. Over time men became the dominant gender. There is a famous saying in Dutch: “Wie schrijft die blijft” which translates to “Those who write, stay”. It was men getting the education and doing the writing, thus determining the story. Gender inequality has been built over thousands of years, so it’s not a construct that can be easily pushed aside or replaced by something else. That is going to take time.
What is your definition of a male ally, and how can men be effective allies?
This brings up another question that I still am chewing on, to be honest: Am I an ally, or am I just supporting women to achieve their goals? The difference being: Do women need help? Are they the weaker gender? Or do they just need someone to help them push?
Am I an ally, or am I just supporting women to achieve their goals?
I’m more of the opinion that you have to convert your own opportunities, I cannot do that for you. But I can provide some opportunities. I think that’s the role of an ally: to put people in a starting point where they can be successful. But it isn’t an ally’s job to do the work for them – that is something an ally cannot and should not be involved in. I think that’s one of the reasons we have a backlash against DEI – because of positive discrimination. People who are not positively discriminated end up feeling discriminated against, which is exactly what we don’t want.
A good ally listens to what people have to say and shares that perspective with others, and that’s basically what I’m trying to do through my podcast – sharing perspectives and promoting role models.
Also, you can’t find what you can’t see. Men don’t fund female-founded companies for the simple reason that they don’t know these startups are out there. Another way of being an ally is to connect people who can be useful to each other. For example, through my podcast and networking, I sometimes link startups with investors or people who can provide other things, like marketing. I was inspired by #Fundright Deep Tech – they created a publication called Fund Drive, which is a Rolodex for investors of startups whose founder teams or higher management are at least 35% women.
Another way to be a good ally is to attend women’s events. Firstly, you get to see how women are when they feel at ease. Secondly, you get to experience what it is like to be the only person in the room from a different gender. One thing I noticed in women-run events for women, is that they feel different. If I compare it to one of the other networking groups I go to, everyone knows everyone; they stand in a closed circle talking to each other. In women’s networking events, women stand in a position that is open for a third person to join the conversation. It’s more inclusive.
Have there been any specific moments where you had to challenge your own assumptions about gender?
About gender, not really. I worked at ING for 20 years, and for 10 years I had a female manager. It didn’t matter to me if my manager was a man or a woman. Most of the teams I worked with were pretty diverse, the overall department was close to 50-50. So in a sense, I didn’t have to challenge any gender biases.
But of course, I have other biases, and preferences. We all do. Sometimes we don’t even realize it because we’ve absorbed it from our culture. And that’s also why I think it will take quite a bit of time to get to gender equality; because it’s not just a matter of equal pay, it is about equal opportunities. It’s a matter of culture – not in one country but globally.
Slowly but surely, the change is happening. Women know that it can’t continue like this, and there’s a growing group of men who want more women in representative functions. Men are not stupid, they see the benefit, they just don’t know how to make it happen.
From your experience, what unique challenges do women face when stepping into leadership roles in tech?
As mentioned earlier, one of the unique challenges is a lack of role models. As a result, women think they have to figure it out all by themselves. Fortunately, AI can help a bit there because you don’t have to do everything yourself anymore. But it’s still pretty daunting to start a business.
Also, I think there’s a fair bit of perfectionism in place. I hear that from all the founders I’ve interviewed. Most of the discussions are around product quality. When do you launch the product? When is it good enough? Women tend to have higher standards. That is good, but it can also work against you. I’m generalizing here to an extent because some men are perfectionists and run into the same issues.
Another thing that is holding women back is societal expectations, particularly around raising children. I think it is critical to address this. We have to start spreading the work of raising children. We see this issue in the statistics. Around the age of 30-35, there’s a huge drop off in the number of women in the workforce. Why? Because they’re taking care of children. Some come back, some might re-skill or up-skill, but they are at a disadvantage because they’ve missed out on between two and five years of work experience.
I don’t have children myself so I have an easy time talking about this, but I still think men should be more involved. Then children would start to see that it’s normal for men to take care of children. We also need more men in education. In episode 75 of my podcast, I speak with Lieke Hölscher. Until she was nine years old, she wanted to be a boy. She was really frustrated about being a girl because she knew that she wouldn’t get equal chances. Then one year, one of her primary school teachers was a man. This made her think: if he can be the exception here, I can be the exception in another area. That realization is really powerful for both girls and boys.
Sponsorship is often the key to career advancement. How can men in leadership positions become effective sponsors for women in tech?
Start talking to women. That’s number one. And when I say talking, I mean listening.
Ask: What do they need? What do they bring that you don’t currently have in your leadership team? There’s power in a diverse group of people with different experiences. You get different perspectives and better results. Maybe you don’t have an opportunity right now, but you have a responsibility to ensure that your leadership pipeline is filled.
A great first step for leaders to support women is to start filling up that recruitment pipeline with women, rather than doing last-minute hires and going for more of the same, which is what usually happens. This way, you end up with a positive feedback loop because these women end up being role models for other women.
It will take a few years, but over time it will make it easier for women to get to senior leadership positions and that’s where a lot of magic can happen – for women but also for the companies and the world.
Start talking to women. That’s number one. And when I say talking, I mean listening.
Are there any memorable stories from your guests that particularly resonated with you?
I recently interviewed (episode 84) Carla Canino, founder of Kindlee. She’s a female solo founder of an AI startup, and she is an immigrant. So you could say that she ticks all the wrong boxes, but her attitude is: Everyone assumes that it’s impossible to be a female solo founder with an immigration background, yet here I am – tell me what is impossible about it.
So that made me think: if you set your mind to it, you can. It doesn’t mean that it won’t be difficult. But very often the belief that it is possible is enough. It’s like my podcast – if I didn’t believe this would be successful, I wouldn’t have started it.
It’s a nice story actually. Before I started Women Disrupting Tech, I was a bit scared. I knew that I could put the podcast together technically, that I could get guests. But I was worried that women would cancel me. I thought maybe they would get territorial. I shared this fear with my girlfriend’s niece, and she just said: “There is no way that will happen. You will be embraced. Women will see the value of you as a middle-aged white guy doing this.” That persuaded me.
What trends do you see shaping the future of diversity and inclusion in the tech industry?
There’s an interesting book called Men, Machines and Modern Times, by Elting E. Morison, which describes all the stages innovation goes through in terms of societal response. Ultimately, you have to go through all the stages before successful adoption.
The first stage is denial: it’s not there, just not an issue. The second stage is a recognition that there’s an issue, but the solution is not right, because “this time it’s different”. The third stage, well, that’s basically what you see with DEI right now, flat-out warfare. It’s uncomfortable, but it makes me really hopeful because it’s the last stage we have to go through before it becomes just a normal way of life (the fourth stage, adoption).
I see the DEI warfare and I think, cool, over time this problem will take care of itself and then we’ll just go into the next stage and a different cultural phase. That’s what we’re experiencing right now – the chaos before the calm and the newness.
Are there any other books or podcasts that you would recommend, in tech or otherwise?
The Huberman Lab. It is a podcast about how your brain works, but there’s a bit of everything in there – psychology, mindset, what to eat, how to stay healthy. Dr. Huberman is a Stanford professor and shares his knowledge in a scientific way without overcomplicating it.
Another favorite podcast of mine is Freakonomics, where the host talks about the hidden side of everything.
There’s also Journeys of Empowerment, which is a podcast about how to turn adversity into a catalyst for meaningful and positive change, and how to give people the power to be their best selves.
And for the investors, there’s a podcast by Jana Hlistova, called The Purse, where she interviews investors and founders in the female entrepreneurship space, highlighting role models.
Thank you, Dirkjan, for this insightful conversation!
Connect with Dirkjan:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dirkjan-hupkes/
- Women Disrupting Tech Podcast: https://womendisruptingtech.blog/