Earlier this week, an Australian entrepreneur admitted that he “stuffed up” when he highlighted that companies could save money by hiring women instead of men.

During his speech, Evan Thornley stood in front of a PowerPoint slide — which he said was intended to be ironic that read: “Women… like men, only cheaper.”

 “The Australian labor market and the world labor market just consistently and amazingly undervalues women in so many roles,” said Thornley, co-founder of LookSmart, the first Australian high tech company listed on the Nasdaq. “So, call me opportunistic, I just thought I could get better people, with less competition, because we were willing to understand the skills and capabilities that these women had, so there is a great arbitrage there.”

A swift backlash on Twitter followed his comments.

But was he wrong?

Four decades after the Equal Pay Act was introduced in the UK, male company directors out earn their female counterparts by $34,300 per year, on average. The average pay gap between male and female workers between the ages of 46 and 60 in the UK is more than $27,200 a year.

In New Zealand, male ICT workers earn bigger bonuses than women. In India, female IT workers are paid a third less than their male counterparts.

A study from the Harvard Business Review found that only one in eight women will negotiate for a higher salary when offered a job. Research from Wells Fargo shows that college-educated millennial men made $20,000 more per year than women with the same education level.

Right or wrong, there are companies that do save money by hiring women instead of men.