Why we care about DEI at Launchable

Today, in the software development industry, the issue of gender, racial, and other diversities is widely accepted. But I also think this is still largely understood as “social value”, as opposed to “business value”. As a result, the awareness is not leading to enough actions, because it loses out in the crucial fight over priority. Like all other good things, it never get acted on. Several years ago, I had a profound personal experience that brought me a perspective change.

One of our corporate values is “be the change you seek” – why not here, now? That is why we are doing what we can to push this forward.

Kohsuke Kawaguchi
Co-Founder, Co-CEO

Diversity report

Gender

All our full time employees identify as male. When we include part time contractors, this number improves to ~15%ish

Race/ethnicity

75% of our full time employees are Japanese. When we include part time contractors, it expands to cover white/hispanic Americans, Indian, Sri Lankan, Phillipino, and others.

Time zone

FTEs span three time zones in the US and Japan.

Age

FTEs span 20s-50s, with concentration in the middle.

See About Launchable for the faces of those people.

Why Launchable is great for minority

The Launchable Crew
  • Giving an opportunity for a minority population to participate in the US/Europe tech scene was one of the key motivations for Launchable; That’s why we built an engineering team in Japan! Our effort doesn’t stop there, so join us, and be the change you seek.
  • Unlike big companies, where roles are clearly defined and we need to fit people into those molds, a small company like Launchable regularly adjusts roles according to the people we have. What other companies might see as your weakness might be a great asset for us.
  • Being “alone” in a large company can be difficult. Being alone in a small company is much easier, because everybody is alone.
  • We are a fully remote company. Not only that, we actively take advantage of it; We built our culture and working style around it. So you can be anywhere.
  • We are geographically spread team, and people are working from different time zones. That means your work schedule can be irregular.
  • We have equitable learning programs to subsidize employees who are spending time & effort to grow in an area that the company values/benefits from.