The Broadsheet: October 16th

EVERYONE'S TALKING

• Goldiblox hits Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. The engineering toy company for girls will have its own float in this year's nationally-televised parade. "I hope every girl that watches the parade this year gets that excitement about not just wanting to be the princess on the float, but really engineering her own. She can build anything," says Goldiblox founder and CEO Debbie Sterling, who is one of Fortune’s 2014 Most Promising Women Entrepreneurs. Time

ALSO IN THE HEADLINES

• AMD's new CEO paid less than her predecessor. Lisa Su will receive an annual salary of $850,000, which is less than the $1 million paycheck the chipmaker's previous male CEO took home. Su became the 26th female CEO in the Fortune 500 on October 8th when she took over for Rory Read after he stepped down.  Bloomberg

• Merkel holds firm on board quotas. A member of the German Chancellor's party said gender quotas will hurt Germany's economic outlook, but Merkel is going ahead with her plan anyway. “Executive positions are desirable because they mean power and power is, after all, a good thing,” she said.  Time

• This woman rowed across three oceans by herself. When consultant Roz Savage had a mid-life crisis, she decided to row across the Atlantic Ocean... alone. "It was a crash course in personal development," she said Wednesday at a breakfast sponsored by Gannett. When asked why she would pursue something so unusual, she laughed and said she wanted to get out of her comfort zone.  Fortune 

• Debora Spar on asking for a raise: Don't make it personal. The Barnard College president and Wonder Women author says never make a negotiation about yourself: "After all, your boss doesn’t have to love you — they just need to love your work." Fortune 

• Why corporate sponsors stuck with the NFL. Turns out some corporate sponsors like CoverGirl benefited from the backlash the league got from the sexual assault scandal. "Brand consumption", measured by its number of mentions on the web, increased tenfold and a large portion of the mentions were positive.  Fortune 

• Gannett CMO: We're not in the publishing business anymore. "It’s not really that we’re in the publishing business anymore; we’re in the business of providing relevant, engaging content," says Maryam Banikarim, chief marketing officer of America's largest newspaper company. Adobe 

BROADVIEW

Nasty Gal founder: 'A sense of entitlement is a healthy thing'

Sophia Amoruso’s path to the executive suite was anything but traditional. That’s exactly why the next generation of leaders is so eager to hear from her.

After years of working odd jobs in record stores and shoe shops, Amoruso realized she was terrible at working for other people. So she became her own boss, first by selling vintage clothing on eBay. To her surprise, Amoruso generated $70,000 in sales that first year and saved most of it to start her own fashion retail site, Nasty Gal. Today, the fashion entrepreneur has grown her aversion to authority into a business that does $100 million in annual revenue.

Amoruso, 30, realizes that there aren’t many leaders who followed the same path she did. Yet she does share one characteristic with many in her generation: Entitlement. Moreover, she says she wouldn’t be where she is today without it.

“A sense of entitlement is a healthy thing and it is something I have like the rest of my generation,” says Amoruso, who is No. 30 on Fortune's 40 Under 40 list. “But my entitlement came about with an understanding that it was me that was going to put me where I wanted to be.”

The pages of Amoruso’s New York Times best-selling memoir, #GirlBoss, are filled with unconventional tips for success. A college dropout who stole the first thing she ever sold online, she has no problem being candid about her past life hitchhiking, shoplifting and dumpster diving. The California native believes it’s important to share a narrative that isn’t filled with the same cookie-cutter accomplishments and awards.

While she values education and would like to go back to school eventually, Amoruso is catering to an entire group of young women who want someone other than Facebook's Sheryl Sandberg to look up to.

“The businesswomen who are speaking to other women do have that pedigreed background for the most part and they make assumptions about young woman,” says Amoruso. “But there is another set of girls and women who don’t completely relate to that quite yet.”

Click over to Fortune.com to read my full story. 

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

• Wonder Woman is getting her own movie. Warner Bros. announced Wednesday that actress Gal Gadot will star in the superhero film, which is slated for release in 2017. The announcement comes after complaints that there isn't enough strong female representation in superhero movies. EW

• The dark side of egg freezing? After Facebook and Apple announced they would cover up to $20,000 in egg-freezing expenses for female employees, critics are saying the policy isn't 100% pro-women. By providing this perk, some other employers could avoid pricey policies like paid family leave and child care that would greatly solve the gender gap in many workplaces.  NYTimes 

• Women studies deserve a grain of salt. For every study telling women to do X in her career, there is another one telling her to do Y. Vox lists tips from negotiating for a raise to getting a sponsor to being tough in the workplace, and then shows two studies that give opposing advice.  Vox

ON MY RADAR

Most powerful woman in banking: Women have an obligation to help each other  American Banker

What is Ulta Beauty? Meet the CEO  Fortune

Y Combinator + Being a mom  Medium

First transgender woman named Working Mother of the Year  Biz Women

Is Gwen Stefani 'pro girl' or 'anti-feminist'?  EW

QUOTE

Don’t dwell on the dark side of things, but look for the light and build around it. If one door closes, look for another one to open. Never, ever, blame others for what befalls you, no matter how horrible it might be. Trust you, and only you, to be responsible for your own life.

Diane von Furstenberg.