In today’s edition: Meta collected data from a period-tracking app, sexual harassment is a big problem for Uber, and everyone wants to talk about the return of the female founder.
– She’s back. Earlier this week, I wrote about the resurgence of the 2010 female founder—a group of founders who lost control of their companies in 2020 are now coming back and trying again. I was happy to see it. People deserve a second chance, and five years later it seems time for us to give these founders one.
It seems as if this was a topic people have been searching for the right moment to talk about, because the response was overwhelming. In my inbox, texts, on Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, and more I heard from founders who said they’d been waiting for a story like this. I heard from founders who never came close to employee revolts or media “takedowns” themselves but nevertheless said they’d shrunk themselves in response to fears of bad media coverage over the past few years. Some were only now reckoning with the impact that had on their companies. Other business leaders—like Airbnb founder and CEO Brian Chesky, who started last year’s “founder mode” debate—shared the story too.
