It’s not news that the Internet industry isn’t exactly the meritocracy it likes to imagine itself, where all that’s required to succeed is a good idea and a couple of Java-savvy friends. Particularly when it comes to gender, the New Economy looks much more ‘Old Economy’ than you’d think.

Very few women have managed to found and fund Internet companies—a report from market research firm VentureOne stated that, last year, only four percent of the high tech companies that received venture capital funding had female CEOs. Those that have—or nearly have—offer a look at the uncanny resemblance venture capitalism can sometimes bear to The Scarlet Letter.

Take Mona Lisa Wallace, the 33 year-old CEO of RealEco.com, who found out she was pregnant while in negotiations for Series A funding for her e-commerce site for ecologically-safe goods. While she felt equal to the challenge of starting a company and giving birth to her first child, venture capitalists—and even friends and family—were equally sure she couldn't have a baby and be CEO. In a turn of events that was more 'Hester Prynne' than 'high-tech CEO,' Wallace's company suddenly found itself without its promised first round of funding after her pregnancy was public.

Towards the end of 1998, things were looking bright for Wallace and her company. Wallace, who earned a law degree from Stanford (she was a practicing lawyer before founding her company) after graduating summa cum laude from Rutgers in sociology with a focus on macroeconomics, had, unlike many of her female peers, always been a computer geek. She was part of a vanguard of women CEOs pushing to overcome a lingering gender barrier.

Her company (initially called ShopEco.com), an e-commerce site intent on centralizing the fragmented $25 billion market for ecologically safe goods, had secured a place in not one, but two prestigious incubators—one of which was the new Women’s Technology Cluster, where the company was housed. Wallace had secured the angel money; and ShopEco had received first-round offers from venture capitalists.

Then, Wallace found out she was pregnant. In an interview last February, sitting in a hallway of the Women’s Technology Cluster’s lofted offices, the energetic Wallace said that discovering she was pregnant came as a shock—she and her husband had decided they wanted to have kids, but had assumed that, because of her age, it would take years to get pregnant. “I’m in my thirties, so it could have taken a while to get pregnant. But it happened,” she grinned briefly, “like, the first time.”

In February, already four months pregnant and trying to close ShopEco’s first-round funding, Wallace was facing a troubling challenge. “I’ve gotten offers, but I haven’t closed Series A,” she said. “Now, someone has to actually sign a check for $1 million knowing that the CEO is pregnant.”

For the early part of her pregnancy, Wallace wore scarves and bulky suit jackets to disguise her stomach—even when she got up on stage and gave her pitch to a roomful of high-stakes venture capitalists at January’s “Springboard 2000,” the country’s first venture capital forum for women. “I don’t think anyone could tell,” she said.

She sought advice from the handful of older women in the industry who had had children while working. “I heard the gamut, from ‘you can bring your laptop into the delivery room—I did it,’ to ‘give yourself three days of incommunicado—but no more than three days.’”

Full Disclosure
A budding PR flack wrestles with the world he’s helping to create.

Friends and Family
How a man can get lost in the Information Age.

A Different Kind of Start-Up
In a distressed neighborhood at the heart of the high tech revolution, a school gives real options to its students.

CEO’s Having a Baby
Can a pregnant entrepreneur get the venture capital to keep her startup alive?

Escaping the Corporate Cult(ure)
A former Silicon Valley dot com insider lashes out against the technology industry's HR efforts.

Money Changes Everything II
Economic futurists predict that, thanks to technical innovation, the road ahead is paved with gold.

Alarm Clock Communications is dedicated to providing a platform for opinion, and here is our promise: ANY editorial submission that is consistent with our editorial mission and that meets our editorial guidelines will be published. And the best of what we receive will be printed in alarm:clock magazine.So let us know what you think.

andrew@thealarmclock.com & brian@thealarmclock.com