As one of the few women in the venture capital world both when she entered the field and to this day, DFJ operating partner Heidi Roizen has written about sexism and lewd behavior she has encountered during her career. While she advocates walking away from any business deal where someone behaves inappropriately, she doesn’t necessarily think naming individuals publicly will be helpful.
Still, she notes that she gave up on a potentially significant investment in her first company rather than tolerate the investor’s unwanted physical contact. “I made the decision at the time to shut it down and move on and find other ways to generate revenues. And it worked.”