This TED Talk features entrepreneur Dana Cairns recorded live at TEDx Peach Tree 2017.

This is me at five years old shortly before jumping into this beautifully still pool of water.

I soon find out the hard way that this pool is completely empty

because the ice cold water is near freezing and literally takes my breath away.

Even though I already know how to swim,

I can't get up to the water's surface no matter how hard I try.

That's the last thing I remember trying to do before blacking out. Turns out the lifeguard

on duty had been chatting with two girls when I jumped in, and I was soon underwater. So he couldn't

actually see or hear me struggle. I was eventually saved by a girl walking near the pool who happened to look down and see me.

The next thing I know, I'm getting mouth to mouth and being rushed to the hospital to determine

the extent of my brain loss. If I had been flailing at the water's surface, the lifeguard would

have noticed and come to save me. I share this near-death experience

because it illustrates how dangerous things are when they're just beneath the surface. Today, I study

implicit gender bias in startups, which I consider to be far more insidious than mere overt bias for this very same reason.

When we see or hear an investor behaving inappropriately towards an entrepreneur, we're aware of the problem,

and at least have a chance to do something about it.

But what if there are subtle differences in the interactions between investors and entrepreneurs

that can affect their outcomes, differences that we're not conscious of, that we can't directly

see or hear?

Before studying startups at Columbia Business School, I spent five years running and raising money

for my own startup. I remember constantly racing around to meet with prospective investors while trying

to manage my actual business. At one point, I joked that I had reluctantly pitched each and every family

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