Good morning, Broadsheet readers! Fortune’s Most Powerful Women Next Gen Summit ended with a bang, women CEOs lack vital tools to fight off activist investors, and a number of potential buyers have emerged for Yahoo’s core business. Have a terrific Thursday.
EVERYONE'S TALKING
• Austin on addiction. At the Fortune MPW Next Gen Summit on Wednesday, Austin Geidt, Uber's head of global expansion, spoke about her early struggles to overcome drug addiction. The process of getting sober has helped Geidt thrive and stay balanced in her career. “I love what we do, but I also have perspective on what’s really important to me,” she said. Fortune
MPW NEXT GEN NEWS
• Critiquing the critics. Wireless charging startup uBeam—and its founder and CEO Meredith Perry—has been under fire recently from critics who claim that its technology "breaks the laws of physics." On stage at the Next Gen Summit, Perry responded to those skeptics in no uncertain terms: "If it broke the laws of physics, that’s something you can find out pretty early with basic principles and math," she said. Read more
• YouBalance. YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki on constant questions about balancing her career and life with five kids: “Men never get asked about work/life balance,” she told Fortune’s Michal Lev-Ram on the MPW Next Gen Summit stage on Wednesday. “Implicit in the question for women is…who is at home taking care of things while you are working?” Read more
• Billion-dollar secrets. Three entrepreneurs heading unicorns—those privately held startups valued at $1 billion or more—sat down at MPW Next Gen with the woman who coined the term, Cowboy Ventures founder Aileen Lee, and dished on their keys to success. Read more
• Inverting introversion. Being an introvert doesn't have to be a bad thing, Polyvore CEO Jess Lee told Fortune Summit attendees. Lee advises: If you don't like the spotlight on yourself, put it on your team. They'll thank you for it. Read more
• Smooth operators. It seems that the COO role is increasingly filled by women. Fortune's Leigh Gallagher asked a panel of COOs—Instagram's Marne Levine, Stripe's Claire Hughes Johnson, and Infor's Pam Murphy—why that is. Their answer? Women have particular abilities to multitask, get in the weeds, and focus. Read more
• Games for girls. To close the gender gap in STEM, we need to expose girls at a very young age, said a panel of female execs at the Summit. “We need to think of new ways to change the culture of technology,” said Melody Meckfessel, director of engineering at Google. One way to do that is through play. Read more
ALSO IN THE HEADLINES
• Yahoo shoppers. Several potential buyers are emerging for Yahoo's core internet business—should CEO Marissa Mayer and the directors of ther beleaguered company decide to sell. Among the rumored suitors: AT&T, Comcast, Verizon, IAC/Interactive Corp, News Corp, and even Fortune parent Time Inc. WSJ
• Mom matchmakers. Jenny Galluzzo and Gina Hadley are the creators of Second Shift, a new company that aims to match moms who left professional careers with companies looking to hire consultants and freelancers. New York Times
• Is Dilma done? Impeachment proceedings have been opened against Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff. Though the hearings will ultimately center on whether Rousseff violated budget laws, the root of her widespread unpopularity is a corruption scandal involving some of Brazil’s biggest companies. Time
• A hole in the defense. A new Bloomberg analysis finds that of 27 S&P 500 companies led by women, just one had adopted any of the three most common takeover defenses. Has this made female CEOs relatively more vulnerable to activist investors? Bloomberg
• An odd couple. The two most powerful people in Myanmar, democracy movement leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and military commander in chief Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, just met for the first time. The two must find a way to transition from a military-backed government to one in which the military will share power with Aung San Suu Kyi and her party, the NLD. New York Times
• A global problem? While conventional wisdom suggests that Chinese technology companies have narrower gender gaps than their American counterparts, this WSJ story argues that this assessment misses a key point: Unlike Silicon Valley, the Chinese tech industry has yet to acknowledge the problem. WSJ
MOVERS AND SHAKERS: Tonia O'Connor has been promoted to chief commercial officer and president of content distribution of Univision Communications.
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ON MY RADAR
Meet the women changing the face of Boston politics Refinery29
Nearly three-quarters of Estonia’s doctors are female Quartz
Lena Dunham's newsletter now has an online store Racked
When women’s literary tastes are deemed less worthy The Atlantic
No damsel in distress. The new trailer for Batman v Superman features another superhero's epic introduction in the final scene. Wired
QUOTE
I was doing myself a disservice by not owning my bad-assery
Eventbrite co-founder Julia Hartz at the <em>Fortune</em> MPW Next Gen Summit, about proving to herself that she could lead
