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Mira Murati was attempting to speak. Women moved gracefully in their evening gowns, while men donned tuxedos. Gigantic heaps of meat rested on banquet tables draped in deep red tablecloths. Waiters served a cocktail named “Zero to One,” a nod to Peter Thiel’s philosophy. It was a Saturday evening in a repurposed church in San Francisco. The Foundation for American Innovation, a centre-right think tank, was hosting a formal gala to promote the emerging religion of AI.
Murati, founder and CEO of Thinking Machines Lab, was sharing the history of revolutions before an audience of over 350 people. The Albanian-born executive had kept a relatively low profile for several years as the vice president and later the chief technology officer of OpenAI, before taking part in a failed coup against Sam Altman and subsequently launching her own AI startup valued at $12 billion. Now, amidst the murmurs of conversations bouncing off the church walls, Murati’s efforts to convey her ideas were met with the same success as the coup: no one seemed to be listening. The woman interviewing Murati repeatedly requested the audience to stop talking or to continue their discussions outside.
I whispered to the friend seated next to me that this was the second time in a week I had witnessed a woman’s voice being drowned out. She sighed. We were both there to hear what Murati had to say. I tried to hold back my next comment but noticed my friend was also struggling to do so. “Though she has incredible hair,” I whispered. “Oh my God, I know,” she immediately replied. Murati’s hair had reached the heights of general AI discourse, and her jawline could cut glass.
Shortly after, Michael Kratsios, the former chief science advisor to President Donald Trump, took to the stage. The audience fell silent. We were all part of the problem.
The Search for Powerful Women in Silicon Valley
For the past three months, I have been asking everyone about the most powerful women in Silicon Valley, a club to which Murati undoubtedly belongs. When asked who the most powerful man in tech is, many quickly respond with “Elon,” or “Jensen,” or “Sam.” If you wait a moment, you might hear the name of some billionaire investor whose financial capital has been ruthlessly used to push an agenda, like “Peter” or “Marc.” However, when it comes to asking who the most powerful woman is, most people pause thoughtfully. An emoji with a thinking face might appear. “Gwynne?” “Lisa?” “Maybe Daniela?”
A keen observer of Silicon Valley might suggest that the most powerful woman has to constantly travel between Silicon Valley and Washington, D.C., like Ruth Porat, President and Chief Investment Officer of Google, or Dina Powell McCormick, President and Vice President of Meta. The editor-in-chief of WIRED, a woman, once remarked, “Isn’t it obvious that it’s Gwynne Shotwell?” Yet, a female CEO from Silicon Valley remarked that every time she mentions the President and COO of SpaceX, her friends ask, “Gwynne who?”
Some individuals appeared almost allergic to my question. They insisted that technology had no gender component or simply had little to say. “Who cares? Just put your head down and get to work.”
Nonetheless, the question sparked reactions. My conversations—conducted over the phone and via Zoom, in boardrooms, in San Francisco cafés, and in a Palo Alto home where my source dozed off on the sofa—unleashed a plethora of possibilities, from founders and CEOs to venture capitalists and philanthropic ex-wives. Many of these women, both CEOs and those who challenge the nonsense of their male counterparts, spoke at length.
Why No “Female Elon” Exists
It dawned on me that the real question is not ‘who’ is the most powerful but ‘why’ this question remains so difficult to answer in 2026. What might they be lacking in their lives or resumes? Why is there no woman like Elon? Why don’t we have our own all-powerful heroine or supervillain?
In June, a friend and former executive at Slack suggested that power in Silicon Valley encompasses multiple forms of capital: financial, intellectual, political, and social or cultural. We agreed that men score highly across all categories. Their influence has been remarkable, even alarming, due to its contagious effect. They write blog posts that are cited for decades, expose the identities of individuals with a single post on X, influence elections, and deliver sermons. They are asked to sign women’s breasts at a trade show in Taiwan as if they were the lead singer of an 80s glam band. They insinuate that a young woman trying to save the planet is the Antichrist.
Is there any woman in tech who approaches this cult of personality, spreading the seeds of her capital in this manner? There is no “Time to Build” manifesto around which the women of the Valley are rallying. The last time women in tech had a manifesto, it didn’t go as planned.
From Lean In to the End of the Girlboss Era
During a recent car ride to Lake Tahoe, I listened to the audiobook of Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg. I had read the book when it was first published in 2013 and wanted to see how its ideas had aged. By the third chapter, I had heard enough.
However, that brief listen reminded me why the book had been so influential for nearly a decade. Sandberg, who accumulated 14 years as COO of Meta, articulated many negative workplace patterns. Women were treated as second-class citizens in the office, prone to insecurity and shying away from opportunities that seemed incompatible with family life. And for heaven’s sake, we should be paid the same as men.
But Sandberg’s book was rife with too many anecdotes that were hard to relate to, as well as overly simplistic solutions. It largely placed the onus on women to sit closer, speak louder, or marry better. Perhaps most crucially, what began as a guide for a select group—relatively privileged women navigating the corporate ladder—was marketed as the answer to a whole host of women’s issues. Create a “Lean In Circle.” Start a hashtag. Run for office. Small actions can, of course, catalyse movements, but in a post-pandemic world, legions of frustrated working women opted to “lean out” rather than “lean in.”
Aileen Lee, a prominent venture capitalist who often organises private meet-ups for women in the sector, noted that she “appreciated” what Lean In highlighted. It was the precursor to a series of events that led Silicon Valley to examine its “bro-topia.” In 2015, Ellen Pao’s lawsuit, in which she alleged gender discrimination and retaliation by her former company, Kleiner Perkins, took place. A jury ultimately ruled in favour of the company. Then came Susan Fowler’s revealing blog post in 2017 about the treatment she received while working at Uber. Later that same year, reports emerged that a venture capitalist had made unwanted sexual advances towards half a dozen women he had interacted with in a business context.
Tech companies responded by hiring investigators and crisis communications teams and suddenly found high-profile positions for the women within their ranks. But “the 2010s were the era of empty words,” noted Timnit Gebru. “Look at how many women we have on our team! And if there was just one woman on the team, she received disproportionate publicity.”
She knows this well. In 2018, Google hired Gebru, of Ethiopian descent, to co-lead a project on ethical AI. Gebru did what was expected of her: she reported on biases in AI through a now-infamous research paper that Google claimed did not meet its standards. Her subsequent dismissal sparked an uproar. She now leads a group called Distributed Artificial Intelligence Research that investigates some of the harms caused by tech giants and AI.
The Challenges of Female Representation in Silicon Valley
Gebru pointed out that the 2010s were not an utter failure. Women were forming networks behind the scenes. Ifeoma Ozoma, who left her job at Pinterest due to pay disparities and racial discrimination, successfully co-sponsored California’s “Silenced No More” bill, which protects employees who report discrimination in the workplace.
But then came the backlash to the backlash. Some men were eager to declare their sacred workplaces free from political and social distractions. When Elon Musk bought Twitter in 2022, the app transformed into a platform where tech men felt emboldened to share their right-wing beliefs, while Musk himself became an even more “radical” icon. Once Trump was re-elected in November 2024, chaos ensued.
“The sector focused so much on the issue of ‘women in tech’ for a few years that it became counterproductive, along with a broader backlash against DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion),” highlighted one founder who spoke anonymously. She observed that it wasn’t just men avoiding discussions about identity and gender. “Women don’t want to talk about it either,” she added.
Fortunately, I managed to find exceptions to that rule. That’s how I ended up at a Palo Alto shed, ringing