Emily Chang opens by examining how venture capital's informal 'pattern matching' for promising founders — often based on resemblance to previously successful (predominantly male) founders — systematically disadvantages women and other outsiders.

How this pattern matching operates:

• Investors unconsciously favor founders who resemble prior successful patterns they've seen
• This creates a self-reinforcing cycle, since funded founders further establish the pattern that future pattern-matching relies on
• Genuinely capable founders who don't fit this established pattern face structural disadvantage independent of their actual capability

This opening frames the book's central concern as structural and systemic, not simply a matter of individual investor prejudice alone.