When it comes to diversity in tech, look to small companies for leadership

[Commentary] Everyone looks to the big players – Google, Twitter, Facebook, Apple – to make progress on diversity in tech, but to the chagrin of many, their progress is disappointingly slow. When looking at the demographics of smaller, early-stage startups, most of them look like the big tech firms: overwhelmingly white, Asian and male.

However, some of Silicon Valley’s up-and-comers have decided to prioritize diversity from day one. Smaller companies can be more agile and are able to embrace new practices quickly – and many of them already are. If we’re really serious about fixing tech’s diversity problem, we need to make sure that their voices, their stories of leadership and innovation where diversity is more than an afterthought, are being shared too.

[Sarah Nahm is the founder and CEO of Lever]