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in terms of equality between the sexes as the elite financial sphere. The women were well-educated, but they disappeared as you moved up the ranks. Managing to rise to the kind of position Natalia held was evidence of extreme intelligence. And persistence.
    She raised her head and gave him a provocative look. “And what are Hammar Capital’s thoughts on gender-equality issues, if I might ask? You’re led by two men, right? The field of venture capital isn’t exactly known for its high percentage of women. So where do you stand on the issue?”
    â€œMy position is exemplary,” he responded, picking up a new potato on his fork, salting it, and stuffing it into his mouth.
    â€œBut what do you think about the fact that there are so few women serving on Swedish corporate boards?” she continued in a tone that told David she didn’t take the subject lightly. “Not to mention the operations side of things. How do things look there?”
    â€œHammar Capital doesn’t hire people based on their sex but rather their expertise,” he said.
    Natalia scoffed, and David was forced to hide a small smile. When she was passionate about something, she apparently put her heart and soul into it. All her polite blandness was replaced by fire and passion.
    â€œIf you do things based on quotas, you run the risk of hiring less-qualified people,” he continued, well aware that that argument ought to be like waving a red flag in front of a bull for anyone with a brain. “We hire based on skill.”
    It was like pouring fuel on a bonfire.
    â€œThat is such bullshit,” Natalia said, the red patches on her cheeks growing. “Skill isn’t the deciding factor,” she said, her jaw clenched. “Not if people headhunt the same way they always have—through the same old-boy networks. And they get what they want, the same old men with the same old views. It has nothing to do with merit. That’s just window dressing.”
    â€œI’m not saying we don’t want good women,” he said. “But some say they’re hard to find.”
    â€œWith attitudes like that I won’t be surprised if you go belly-up soon,” she said stiffly. She glanced down at her plate and added a muttered, “I hope so.”
    â€œWe’re doing great,” he said. “We have . . .”
    â€œBut don’t you see . . .” She was looking up again and started waving her hands around. When a woman who could presumably make it through a Nobel Prize banquet without committing a single breech of etiquette starts waving her silverware around, she’s got to be pretty worked up.
    â€œNatalia,” he interrupted. “You do know that I’m playing devil’s advocate, right?”
    She paused.
    â€œI’ve helped hire people for over twenty boards in the last year and a half,” he continued calmly. “Fifty-one percent of them are women. And exactly half of the chairmen of the board on boards hired by Hammar Capital are women.” He leaned back and watched her breathing calm down. Her chest was moving beneath her blouse. He glanced at her cleavage, at her pearls and pale skin. He flashed her a little smile, maybe the first genuine one he’d given her. He didn’t dislike her personally, just what she represented. “Recruiting people with the right expertise is a part of my company’s success,” he said slowly. “Hammar Capital weathered both the dot-com bubble and the financial crisis, and I’m completely confident that that had to do with the makeup of my staff.”
    She looked him in the eye, alertly, quietly, and he wondered what was going on beneath that cool exterior. He continued, “An integrated group comes up with different approaches, as I’m sure you know. They dare to say no and are willing to stick up for a divergent point of view. We rode out the crises, unlike many others, precisely because I