When Going Public Meant Greater Scrutiny

When a startup is private, questions about gender representation often stay inside the company or among a small set of investors. But going public can change who is looking at a company and can create new scrutiny from a broader audience.

In the past, that scrutiny often focused on the complete absence of women. When Twitter prepared to go public in 2013, the company faced criticism for having no women on its board. WeWork faced similar pushback after its 2019 IPO filing revealed an all-male board. Both companies added women directors following the criticism.

The pressure worked, and all-male boards became less common. But the next phase of progress has been less clear. A decade ago, many assumed the push for board diversity would continue until leadership better reflected the broader population. However, amid growing backlash against diversity initiatives, having one or two women on a corporate board may now be enough for companies to avoid criticism.

So, as the next generation of technology giants enters the public markets, the conversation about board diversity has lost momentum. SpaceX president and COO Gwynne Shotwell is the lone woman on the company’s nine-member board. Anthropic has two women directors: cofounder and president Daniela Amodei and Yasmin Razavi, a general partner at Spark Capital, one of Anthropic’s investors. OpenAI’s eight-person board includes both Sue Desmond-Hellmann and Nicole Seligman.

These women hold influential roles, and their presence matters. But their appointments also raise a question about whether goals have shifted from expanding representation to simply having enough diversity to avoid scrutiny.

When Progress Stops At Two

Researchers have examined this exact question of whether companies continue adding women once board diversity improves or stop after reaching a level that satisfies public expectations. The researchers examined the number of women on each S&P 500 company's board of directors and compared it with the number expected if those same directors were assigned to boards at random.

They found that 45% fewer boards had zero women than you would expect by a random reshuffle. This shows that public companies were making an effort to avoid all-male boards. “This finding may not be surprising given the immense amount of negative press that leadership teams face for lacking diversity,” the researchers wrote in an op-ed in The Washington Post.

However, the researchers also found that 45% more boards had exactly two women than would be expected by chance. They called this effect “twokenism.”

“In short, boards worked hard to recruit two women, then efforts appear to have declined, presumably because they had hit the level of diversity they deemed satisfactory. Interestingly, this result is far more pronounced at companies that typically receive more media coverage, consistent with the idea that twokenism is a response to anticipated scrutiny,” they wrote in the same op-ed.

The researchers predicted that as pressure to diversify boards strengthened, “threekenism,” or having a three-woman norm on corporate boards, would be just around the corner. However, DEI efforts have decreased in the past several years, and “threekenism” now seems far less attainable.

The Retreat From Board Diversity Pressure

Only a few years ago, the push for board diversity appeared to be accelerating. In 2020, Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon announced that the investment bank would not take a company public unless it had at least one diverse board member, saying the focus would be on adding women directors. By 2021, Goldman required two diverse board members, at least one of whom had to be a woman.

Solomon suggested that one rationale for Goldman’s new policy was to increase returns for shareholders. He pointed to research showing that IPOs with one woman on their boards have performed significantly better than those with all-male boards.

But, by 2025, Goldman ditched the policy. According to the New York Times, Solomon hadn’t changed his mind on the merits of the rule, but feared leaving it in place could make the investment bank a target for President Trump and activists. In addition, in 2026, Goldman announced it would no longer consider race, gender or sexual orientation when evaluating potential board members at its own firm.

Beyond Wall Street, other efforts that sought to push companies toward greater board diversity have also been rolled back. For example, a California law required publicly traded companies headquartered in the state to have at least one woman director by the end of 2019, and two or three women (depending on board size) by the end of 2021. In 2022, a California state court ruled the law unconstitutional.

Similarly, Nasdaq adopted a “comply or explain” board diversity rule requiring companies to disclose board diversity and explain if they lacked diverse directors. That rule was also struck down by a federal appeals court in 2024.

The shift is also showing up inside companies. According to the Wall Street Journal and PeopleReturn, the share of S&P 500 companies considering gender, racial or ethnic diversity when adding directors fell from about half to one-quarter last year. Among companies reporting this information this year, the share has dropped dramatically, and only 14% of companies consider diversity when adding directors.

When External Pressure Fades

For years, IPOs and public markets created pressure for companies to diversify their boards. Investors pushed companies to explain who was represented in the rooms where major decisions were made. But now, many of those external pressures have faded just as some of the most influential technology companies prepare to enter the public markets.

The women serving on the boards of SpaceX, Anthropic and OpenAI are clearly not just symbolic appointments. They are accomplished leaders. But the concern is that without external pressure, these companies will conclude that their diversity work is already done.