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Debbie Sterling

Founder & CEO, GoldieBlox · 1 appearance on the record.

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Debbie Sterling is the founder and CEO of GoldieBlox, a toy company focused on tackling the gender gap in STEM fields. An engineer and entrepreneur, she was named TIME's Person of the Moment and one of Business Insider's 30 Women Who Are Changing the World.

11statements → 5claims → 2claims resolved → 3.73/5average certainty → 2.55/5average debate potential → ≈4.5/5argument clarity, estimated → 2said about them ↓

1 supported 1 partly supported 0 contradicted 3 not checkable as stated how the 5 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

1 prediction · 4 assertions · 4 opinions · 1 insight · 1 what if · every statement was checked. The prediction and assertions are the 5 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 2 are resolved, and 3 name no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.

The record, in short

What the tape says about how Debbie argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

Their most notable supported claim

Assertion Supported
Target eliminated gender labeling in its retail toy aisles
“Target has taken down its gender labeling and its toy aisles.”
Debbie Sterling Dec 1, 2017 ▶ 14:10 20VC: Overcoming The Engineer Boys Club, Disrupting The "Pink Aisle" & Why VCs Are Missing A Trick Not Investing In The CPG Space with Debbie Sterling, Founder & CEO @ Goldieblox

How they sound: speaking style how? →

204 words/min while actually speaking · 5.9 um and uh per 1k words

No argument clarity score for Debbie Sterling: no usable question→answer exchanges on raw tape (a fair score needs 8+). We do not score a sample that small. Roundtable and news formats yield far fewer direct exchanges than interviews. Their coarse estimate from 13 exchanges on the produced feed is ≈4.5/5, shown at half point precision because the sample is small and produced tape scores higher.

Measured by listening to 3,707 words across 1 episode, but every recording we have of Debbie Sterling is the aired feed, and an editor cleaned that audio before release. Some of the hesitation was cut before we ever heard it, so read these as floors: the true rates are at least this high. These are measurements of speaking style, not scores. How it's measured →

How the interview went all their pushback → series average →

Across 1 rated episode:

host pushback ▾ 3/10
pushed back at the host ▾ 1/10
setup questions received 65%

Everything Debbie Sterling said on 20VC that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →

Opinion
Sterling calls Bratz "prostitute dolls" while noting their shift to STEM
“We have companies like the creators of Brat, who are the epitome of prostitute dolls for girls, coming out with a line of STEM dolls.”
Debbie Sterling Dec 1, 2017 ▶ 14:14 20VC: Overcoming The Engineer Boys Club, Disrupting The "Pink Aisle" & Why VCs Are Missing A Trick Not Investing In The CPG Space with Debbie Sterling, Founder & CEO @ Goldieblox
What-if
Lack of early construction toy exposure reduces women in engineering
“Most girls don't play with those toys, because those toys were very explicitly boys' toys, and that maybe if more girls had exposure to toys like those, maybe there would have been more girls in our engineering classes”
Debbie Sterling Dec 1, 2017 ▶ 5:33 20VC: Overcoming The Engineer Boys Club, Disrupting The "Pink Aisle" & Why VCs Are Missing A Trick Not Investing In The CPG Space with Debbie Sterling, Founder & CEO @ Goldieblox
Opinion
VCs miss out by avoiding children's products and inventory risk
“So many VCs, they don't want to touch the children's space with a ten-foot pole. They don't want to take on any inventory risk, and I think it's a shame because I see so many really, really exciting young entrepreneurs and innovators who are tackling really, r…”
Debbie Sterling Dec 1, 2017 ▶ 18:34 20VC: Overcoming The Engineer Boys Club, Disrupting The "Pink Aisle" & Why VCs Are Missing A Trick Not Investing In The CPG Space with Debbie Sterling, Founder & CEO @ Goldieblox
Insight
Expecting digital-style annual growth doubling is unhealthy for hardware startups
“It's a different model than trying to see scalable digital growth doubling year after year. I don't think that that's a healthy business model for a hardware company, especially a startup hardware company.”
Debbie Sterling Dec 1, 2017 ▶ 21:12 20VC: Overcoming The Engineer Boys Club, Disrupting The "Pink Aisle" & Why VCs Are Missing A Trick Not Investing In The CPG Space with Debbie Sterling, Founder & CEO @ Goldieblox
Opinion
Sterling disagrees that husband-and-wife co-founder teams are a red flag
“I always hear that husband and wife teams should have a red flag, and I completely disagree.”
Debbie Sterling Dec 1, 2017 ▶ 23:44 20VC: Overcoming The Engineer Boys Club, Disrupting The "Pink Aisle" & Why VCs Are Missing A Trick Not Investing In The CPG Space with Debbie Sterling, Founder & CEO @ Goldieblox
Assertion Partly supported
Girls begin losing confidence in math and science by age six
“Age six is a really critical time, even before middle school, when girls are losing confidence in their ability in math and science.”
Debbie Sterling Dec 1, 2017 ▶ 10:26 20VC: Overcoming The Engineer Boys Club, Disrupting The "Pink Aisle" & Why VCs Are Missing A Trick Not Investing In The CPG Space with Debbie Sterling, Founder & CEO @ Goldieblox
Assertion Supported
Target eliminated gender labeling in its retail toy aisles
“Target has taken down its gender labeling and its toy aisles.”
Debbie Sterling Dec 1, 2017 ▶ 14:10 20VC: Overcoming The Engineer Boys Club, Disrupting The "Pink Aisle" & Why VCs Are Missing A Trick Not Investing In The CPG Space with Debbie Sterling, Founder & CEO @ Goldieblox
Opinion
GoldieBlox proved to legacy toy manufacturers that empowering toys are profitable
“I think GoldieBlox has played a huge role in not only pressuring those companies to do the right thing, but I think more importantly, showing that they could make a lot of money doing it too.”
Debbie Sterling Dec 1, 2017 ▶ 14:28 20VC: Overcoming The Engineer Boys Club, Disrupting The "Pink Aisle" & Why VCs Are Missing A Trick Not Investing In The CPG Space with Debbie Sterling, Founder & CEO @ Goldieblox
Prediction Not checkable as stated
GoldieBlox aims to reach the scale of Barbie and Disney Princess
“Ultimately, what I really want to build is a global franchise of the size and scale and influence of Barbie, Disney Princess, Dora the Explorer.”
Debbie Sterling Dec 1, 2017 ▶ 27:04 20VC: Overcoming The Engineer Boys Club, Disrupting The "Pink Aisle" & Why VCs Are Missing A Trick Not Investing In The CPG Space with Debbie Sterling, Founder & CEO @ Goldieblox
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Stanford Engineering maintained an aggressive weed-out culture
“At Stanford, the engineering program was a weed-out program in a pretty aggressive culture, where they made a point to tell all of the students that, you know, they're really trying to weed out the weak and have only the strong survive”
Debbie Sterling Dec 1, 2017 ▶ 6:31 20VC: Overcoming The Engineer Boys Club, Disrupting The "Pink Aisle" & Why VCs Are Missing A Trick Not Investing In The CPG Space with Debbie Sterling, Founder & CEO @ Goldieblox
Assertion Not checkable as stated
GoldieBlox scrapped its professional launch video to reshoot in Sterling's apartment
“We actually ended up scrapping that entire video moments before we were supposed to launch and reshooting it on my living room floor in my apartment so that I could be comfortable.”
Debbie Sterling Dec 1, 2017 ▶ 16:12 20VC: Overcoming The Engineer Boys Club, Disrupting The "Pink Aisle" & Why VCs Are Missing A Trick Not Investing In The CPG Space with Debbie Sterling, Founder & CEO @ Goldieblox

The other half of the tape: Debbie Sterling's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 2 times in 2 episodes on 20VC. every mention, with the transcript →

Who brings them up most Harry Stebbings 1Harley Finkelstein 1

Every mention by year

tap a year for its mentions
0011222017episodesmentions
0122017episodes it came up in
000.51122017episodesmentions per episode
2017 2 mentions in 2 episodes 1 per episode

Appearances (1)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
20VC: Overcoming The Engineer Boys Club, Disrupting The "Pink Aisle" & Why VCs Are Missing Dec 1, 2017 19m
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