The Women Shaping Silicon Valley’s Next Generation: The Broadsheet

Good morning, Broadsheet readers! Helen Dixon controls Big Tech’s fate on data privacy, Rachel Maddow confronts her NBC News bosses, and women in Silicon Valley are creating a new kind of PayPal mafia. Have a mindful Monday.

EVERYONE'S TALKING

- The future is female. In 2007, Coins2Day popularized the term "PayPal mafia." The nickname referred to the Silicon Valley bigwigs—Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, Reid Hoffman—who came out of the payments platform and used their payouts from its acquisition by eBay to shape the next generation of Silicon Valley startups.

History has a way of repeating itself—and this time it's with a twist.

The companies the PayPal mafia funded—Facebook and Lyft, to name a few—are well into maturity and producing their own generation of investors. This time, those investors are women, and they're shaping the next next generation of startups.

The phenomenon started with #Angels nearly five years ago. That collective of former Twitter colleagues including former Slack chief product officer April Underwood and Lightspeed partner Jana Messerschmidt formalized the longstanding practice of men sharing angel-investing opportunities across their private networks. Today, #Angels have invested in more than 120 companies.

New groups of women from different companies are following in their footsteps. Former Facebooker Kelly Graziadei gathered six of her former co-workers to form F7 (a play on Facebook's developers' conference F8 and a nod, with the "F," to "Facebook" and "female") to pool their money together in a fund. And a group of women who have left Uber to go into venture at separate firms are sharing deals across their network.

The trend, with the potential to determine who gets funded in Silicon Valley's next generation, is one worth watching. Read the rest of my story here to hear from the investors themselves on what they're doing and why.

Emma Hinchliffe
[email protected]
@_emmahinchliffe

ALSO IN THE HEADLINES

- Hill leaves the House. Rep. Katie Hill announced her resignation from Congress last night amid the allegations that she had relationships with a Congressional staffer and a campaign staffer. Hill was facing an investigation by the House Ethics Committee; the Democrat was elected to Congress in 2018. Hill said she resigned with a "broken heart" and spoke about the "smear campaign" (namely: revenge porn) allegedly orchestrated by her ex-husband. Politico

- Dixon and data. More than a year after the introduction of GDPR, Big Tech has yet to feel the heat. Ireland's data protection commissioner Helen Dixon holds the industry's fate in her hands. Ireland is a key battleground in the war over data privacy, and Dixon, an economist by training, is on the front lines. Coins2Day

- Struck a deal. The United Autoworkers union's strike against GM came to a close after six weeks on Friday. Fifty-seven percent of the union's members voted in favor of a new four-year agreement; the strike cost the company, headed by CEO Mary Barra, $2 billion. Bloomberg

- Nothing like live TV. More details have come out about how NBC News allegedly stymied Ronan Farrow's reporting into Harvey Weinstein—in part because of alleged sexual harassment within its own ranks—and Rachel Maddow wants answers. The MSNBC anchor confronted her bosses live on air on Friday night: "Accusations that people in positions of authority in this building may have been complicit in some way in shielding those guys from accountability—those accusations are very, very hard to stomach." New York Times

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

- Fine for Education. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos was found in contempt of court and fined $100,000 (to be paid by the Education Department) by Magistrate Judge Sallie Kim on Thursday. Kim determined that DeVos had violated an order to stop collecting on loans owed by students from the now-defunct for-profit chain Corinthian Colleges. New York Times

- FOMO. High-profile CEO replacements at Nike and Under Armour last week were "missed opportunities" for women. The brands tell women to "dream crazier" and "will what I want"—but neither company seriously considered female candidates for the jobs. Bloomberg

- Logo misses first place. France revealed its logo for the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games last week. Rather than a rising sun or ski chalet, the logo features "a bob haircut that frames a face and pursed lips," an "elusive and carefree Parisienne." (Marine Le Pen noted the similarity between the logo and the tricolor flame that's the symbol of her far-right party). The design is spurring debate. Wall Street Journal

- Overdue award. Forty-two years ago, Italian filmmaker Lina Wertmüller was the first woman to be nominated for an Academy Award for her work as a director. Wertmüller didn't win then, but at the Academy's Governors Awards on Sunday the 91-year-old finally got an honorary award and statue. LA Times

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