Elena Brandt didn’t think twice about taking her six-month-old baby to a corporate conference – because it was about building a business while a mother.
But the entrepreneur was gobsmacked when she was asked to leave a talk about pregnancy and growing a business after her baby cooed.
The mother-of-four, who co-founded behavioral research startup Besample, said she was asked to leave the Y Combinator Female Founders Conference event for bringing her baby.
‘I expected babies would not only be welcomed but celebrated, that wasn’t the case for me,’ Brandt told Business Insider.
The talk was hosted by founder Tracy Young, who discussed being a mother while starting a business, Brandt recalled.
Elena Brandt was asked to leave a business conference for bringing her six-month-old baby
‘Darwin [Brandt’s baby] was in a stroller, and I was rocking him back and forth to sleep. When he started babbling and cooing, I moved to the back of the room,’ she said.
‘That’s when someone approached me and said, «Would you like to stroll your baby outside? I want people to get the full experience out of this conference.»‘
‘I later learned she was one of the partners of Y Combinator.’
To ask me to leave with a quietly cooing baby during a talk that was explicitly about the challenges of being a mother and founder was shocking.’
Brandt said she experienced first hand the tension between being a mother and a business owner but that the pandemic and the rise of flexible working had shown her it is possible to do both.
‘Others want to maintain the status quo of business and babies as entirely separate,’ she explained.
Y Combinator, the host of the event, has not commented on the alleged incident
Brandt co-founded Besample and is studying for her doctorate in psychology
Brandt said women should not have to separate their business ambitions and motherhood
‘To me, that’s ridiculous… I realized then that the monster of systemic barriers to entrepreneurs who are also moms is bigger than I ever realized.’
Brandt said she later received a private apology from the woman who asked her to leave but did not hear from Y Combinator.
‘If you really want to make a difference for parents, offer on-site childcare. Change the narrative that tells us that kids are a distraction,’ she argued.
‘That would be the sort of meaningful change that would make a real difference for female entrepreneurs.’
Y Combinator did not immediately respond to DailyMail.com’s request for comment.
