I've encouraged my girlfriend to apply (she's smart, has a couple of good business ideas, has done a lot of design work and has a college degree in art, and has great work experience at Google among other places...she has the skills she needs to be valuable to a startup), but startups are just not her thing. I don't know if it's endemic to being a woman...risk aversion is definitely more important to her than me, but that may just be different personalities, not related to sex.
It would almost certainly be a positive thing to have a well-qualified woman involved early in a startups life, as there are definitely some differences in the sexes, and some balance would probably be valuable. But, as someone else pointed out, the number of women in the hard sciences is very low, and probably lowest in computer science. Design is better represented, but even in that, there is a much lower number of women involved than men.
I suspect the goal should be (if there is a goal to be found in all of this) to get more girls interested in the hard sciences early. Being equipped to build a technology business is something that starts young.
It would almost certainly be a positive thing to have a well-qualified woman involved early in a startups life, as there are definitely some differences in the sexes, and some balance would probably be valuable. But, as someone else pointed out, the number of women in the hard sciences is very low, and probably lowest in computer science. Design is better represented, but even in that, there is a much lower number of women involved than men.
I suspect the goal should be (if there is a goal to be found in all of this) to get more girls interested in the hard sciences early. Being equipped to build a technology business is something that starts young.