[oliwarner]

Let's just be clear: it is racism, but it's just the sort of naturalistic —more comfortable with what you know and like— discrimination that's subconscious and extremely hard to avoid.

One would hope an investor would be able to look past that, but when so much about pitching is already about making your audience comfortable, you'd be silly to ignore it. If your co-founder CAN do the talk and is likely to be more "familiar" to your audience, you probably want them to do more of the talking.

Also remember that it's not just who's the native speaker. I'm AWFUL at public talking and I've been speaking the bloody language for 30 years. Confidence and passion are important.

Without seeing you both pitch, I can't tell you what to do, but you could tell friends and colleagues how important this is and try to get their honest opinion.

[AnnaGuzova]

How can it be racism? I am the same white race. Blonde hair, blue eyes. Just Russian. My American founder is much darker. )))))

I have much experience with formal presentation, but only in my Russian language. I have made presentations about almost one billion dollars, but always in the native Russian.

In this language, my partner has so many accomplishments. Every week, he is appearing on BBC for example, as the respect expert. For me, this pressure is so strong.

We are equals in our company. He is the hacker, I am the banker. But it does not mean we are equals, in English presentation!

[oliwarner]

I include ethnicity under the umbrella that is "racism". It's less of a mouthful than "racial and ethnic discrimination". Ethnicity and race aren't the same thing, but people treat them in very similar ways. They'll hear accents, see facial shapes, learn small details and their stereotypes take over.

But we're not here to argue about that. I don't think we're here to argue at all. You've made a clear case that he should do the pitch. I agree.