Behind The Curtain: Unlocking Equity In Swiss Startups 

Article by Angad Manik I Strategy & Project Partner 🔍| Making People Understand & Use Generative AI 🚀| Founder | Raising Awareness About the Impacts of Unconcious Biases

The fingers trembling, breath held. The oxygen in your blood is turned into electric energy by your cells. The energy needed to reshape the silence, the negative space that holds expectations and biases, but also a tremendous opportunity. 
You are very talented, but…! Those could be the words Art Davis might have heard in 1969, when the double bassist who played alongside John Coltrane, Bob Dylan, Miles Davis, and many more was rejected from the New York Philharmonic, alongside his colleague Earl Madison. Both stood against the mighty walls of the Philharmonic with a civil-rights lawsuit. Were they fearless? Probably not. Courage rarely feels like courage at the time of action. But Davis knew one simple truth: meaningful change demands action, and it seldom happens quietly or conveniently. 

Decades before Davis’s lawsuit, in 1952, Charles Munch, the Boston Symphony Orchestra conductor, experimented with an oddly simple idea. Frustrated with nepotism and bias, he placed musicians behind screens during auditions. Anonymous blind auditions held the ability to free decision-makers from their invisible habits, subtly but profoundly changing who entered the orchestra. This little but impactful shift, so simple it was nearly absurd, eventually became revolutionary. 

Yet it took Art Davis and Earl Madison’s legal actions nearly two decades later to transform Munch’s quiet experiment into a widely adopted practice. By the 1980s, blind auditions reshaped the musical landscape across the United States. Los Angeles, Chicago, Cleveland, Philadelphia, and New York orchestras welcomed more women on their stages. Quietly but unmistakably transforming the field. Eventually, even Europe’s fiercely traditional orchestras like the Vienna Philharmonic gave in. It turned out diversification was not the long-feared stranger, but a friend who helped us perform better than before. Even the most conservative economist will admit that competition is the fuel for innovation. Just look at OpenAI vs. DeepSeek lately. 
Claudia Goldin and Cecilia Rouse published their empirical findings in the American Economic Review. Their message is clear: Blind auditions dramatically increased women’s representation in orchestras by nearly 30% and the probability of getting to the next round during auditions by more than 50%. One small, brilliant adjustment in habit had quietly revolutionized an entire industry.  
Equality, it seemed, began modestly behind a curtain. 

Today, we need another kind of curtain. Shaping decisions quietly, invisibly, with powerful consequences. Switzerland’s startup community shines brightly, promising innovation and prosperity. Yet hidden biases habitually exclude talented women. Over 75% of Swiss startups are still exclusively male-led; only 12% of venture funding reaches women-led companies, according to Ey’s 2025 Startup Barometer for Switzerland. Of course, it is difficult to quantify how much lost potential it is in Swiss Francs.  
Still, if you look at the gender-pay-gap of Switzerland (17%) vs. the OECD average (14%), the number is 23 billion Swiss Francs. 23 billion Swiss Francs in lost income per year for women. Not only could they fuel consumption in the economy, but also tax gains at federal and cantonal level. The losses are real and preventable. A loss not through overt prejudice, but through habitual oversight. 

Pointing fingers is tempting, if you are looking for a quick scapegoat for individual villains behind such statistics. Yet biases affect us individually but are shaped collectively. Blaming someone personally for systemic habits is about as helpful as shouting at the rain to stop soaking your clothes, while having an umbrella at hand but not using it. The real villain is habitual blindness, quiet but deeply rooted. It’s the unconscious preference whispered into every handshake, every pitch meeting, every “gut feeling.” 

Startup investors, like orchestra judges before Munch’s screen and Davis’s lawsuit, often do not realize how deeply habits guide their decisions. Gendered preferences are stubbornly fixed in decision-making patterns, and until these invisible habits are disrupted, innovation and fairness will suffer. 

Breaking such ingrained habits isn’t easy, and it rarely happens by accident. Just like blind auditions required intentional intervention, shifting biases in funding decisions demands deliberate and sustained effort. The Beat The Funding Bias Initiative (BFBI), designed explicitly to challenge these habits, is pioneering in helping organizations in Switzerland and beyond. Early results from initial pilots suggest meaningful shifts. Small, intentional disruptions that can catalyze broader change. 

But structured methods alone won’t solve the problem. Lasting change begins not with a program, but within “The Self.” Individual awareness, accountability, and courage. It begins with acknowledging our own complicity in perpetuating these habits and committing personally to disrupting them. 

Think back now to Art Davis and Charles Munch. Neither set out to be heroes; they simply refused to accept the quiet tyranny of habitual bias. Their courage was human, grounded in simple choices and intentional actions. Yet their decisions reshaped entire industries, impacting generations.  Their action was as “Swiss” as it can be. Grounded in what is the right thing to do, simplicity, and high effectiveness! 

So, how can we change biased behavior? The Beat Funding Bias Initiatives courses teach proven methods backed by research. To help you see quick changes, consider the other person’s “why.” This technique, called perspective-taking, highlighted by Galinsky and Moskowitz, involves imagining oneself in someone else’s shoes while actively considering their perspective and experiences. However, sometimes putting yourself in someone else’s shoes is not enough; sometimes, considering situational explanations is needed to counteract fundamental attribution errors. Moreover, avoiding immediate judgments, allowing space for situational understanding, and regularly reminding yourself of the potential impact of external factors requires awareness and acceptance that biased habits affect everyone, and their effects have real-world consequences on our society and economy. Try it for yourself and follow these three simple tips: 

• Identify situations where bias might limit empathy. 

• Actively imagine yourself in another person’s situation. 

• Consider their experiences, emotions, and challenges. 

You, too, can stand behind your own invisible curtain, and if you need any help detangling the curtain rods, the BFBI team always has a hand to offer. Disrupt the habits around you. Change does not have to begin dramatically. Quietness, consistency, and courage are more powerful than bold words without any action. 

Sources 

1. Bernstein, L. (1959). Draft: Young People’s Concerts: What Does Music Mean? [Manuscript]. New York Philharmonic Digital Archives. Retrieved from https://archives.nyphil.org/index.php/artifact/80297654-8666-45c4-9d68-457e24eeaaf8-0.1/fullview#page/1/mode/2up 

2. Goldin, C. & Rouse, C. (2000). Orchestrating Impartiality: The Impact of “Blind” Auditions on Female Musicians (American Economic Review). American Economic Association https://www.jstor.org/stable/117305 

3. Platt, M., et al. (2021). Perspective taking: A brain hack that can help you make better decisions. Knowledge at Wharton. 
    https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/perspective-taking-brain-hack-can-help-make-better-decisions/ 

4. EY. (2025). EY Swiss Startup Barometer 2025. Ernst & Young. Retrieved from https://www.ey.com/en_ch/insights/start-ups/ey-swiss-startup-barometer-2025 

5. Dong, P. (2022). Explaining the unexplained: Situational differences in fundamental attribution error.  https://doi.org/10.5296/ijssr.v10i2.19927 

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