EVERYONE'S TALKING

• Out for blood? Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes defends her blood-testing company at length in this Bloomberg Businessweek cover story, questioning whether she would have been treated differently if she were a male founder. "Every article [about the controversy] starting with, ‘A young woman.’ Right?," said Holmes. "Someone came up to me the other day, and they were like, ‘I have never read an article about Mark Zuckerberg that starts with ‘A young man.’" Bloomberg

ALSO IN THE HEADLINES

• Purple prose. Yahoo and Marissa Mayer are still dominating the headlines. Fortune's Andrew Nusca explains CEO Mayer's take on why the company choose to backtrack on its planned Alibaba spinoff, while Stephen Gandel writes about investors' negative reaction to that decision. Erin Griffith, meanwhile, steps back, using three charts to explain how the onetime Silicon Valley darling ended up in its current predicament.

• The Players. The Hollywood Reporter's annual list of the 100 most powerful women in Hollywood is out, featuring heavy hitters like A+E Networks CEO Nancy Dubuc and BET Networks CEO Debra Lee. As you may remember, this is the first time the publication has run the list unranked, following editor Janice Min's call for women to stop competing and start "[hunting] as a pack." The Hollywood Reporter

• Whitehead steps down. Cindy Whitehead is stepping down from her post as CEO of Sprout Pharmaceuticals, where she oversaw the approval of Addyi, often referred to as "the female Viagra." The company, which was acquired by Valeant in August, has struggled to get Addyi off the ground, with just a few hundred prescriptions filed in the weeks following its release. New York Times

• Gloria vs. Uber. Speaking at a charity event, Gloria Steinem lauded President Obama and Black Lives Matter, but she had harsh words for Donald Trump and Uber. She accused Uber of discriminating against disabled passengers. Fortune

• Sheryl shares. Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg sat down with Today's Savannah Guthrie to talk about the heartbreaking death of her husband Dave Goldberg, saying that using Facebook to share her grief helped her cope and brought her a fresh appreciation of the social network's mission. Today

• Opening up about open carry. Wendy Davis writes candidly about her support of open handgun carry when running for governor in 2014. At the time, she was "cowed by the political realities of my state," she says, but later couldn't shake the feeling that she'd compromised her principles "for the sake of political expediency."  Politico

MOVERS AND SHAKERS: Eileen Serra, CEO of Chase Card Services at JPMorgan Chase, will step down from her role in January.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

• No more Mommy Wars? It seems that U.S. attitudes about working mothers are finally changing. New research finds that as many as 92% of Americans now favor working moms and 77% also support dads' decision to stay home in some circumstances. New York Times

• Coders who care. Coding school Dev Bootcamp devotes 20% of its curriculum to Engineering Empathy, a program designed to raise awareness about bias and discrimination. Its goal: to make the tech industry a friendlier place for women and minorities. Fortune

• Unicorn hunters. Sue Decker, former president of Yahoo and a current director of Berkshire Hathaway, Intel and Costco, says that the hunt for the next billion-dollar startup is dividing private market investors into "haves"—those who get in early—and "have-nots," late-stage investors who pony up the bulk of capital for a smaller cut of the profits. Re/Code

• 30 years?! Time's Radhika Jones points out that the publication's decision to name Angela Merkel as its 2015 Person of the Year is the first time it has chosen a woman for the honor since giving it to Corazon Aquino, the first female president of the Philippines, in 1986.  Time

• My heroes. ESPNW teamed up with Marvel artists to create super hero-style drawings of 25 female athletes, including Misty Copeland, Becky Hammon, and Katie Ledecky. The result is a collection of heroines with badass names like "The Mastermind" (for Hammon) and "Full-Court Goddess" for WNBA star Elena Delle Donne. ESPN

• G-Woman to watch. Amy Hess is the FBI’s executive assistant director for science and technology, overseeing the scientists who wield the bureau's controversial tech tools—including those who are combing through the hard drives, flash drives and cellphones left behind by the perpetrators of the San Bernardino mass shooting. Washington Post

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ON MY RADAR

The hit podcast Serial is back with a second season  New York Times

Karlie Kloss, Abby Shapiro and the power of kindness  Time

A life on the move molds UCLA basketball star Nirra Fields  New York Times

Saudi women make history in elections  Time

QUOTE

I want to thank all of you for brilliantly and stylishly cleaning up the mess that Hollywood has made of equality and diversity. After all, isn’t that historically what women have been asked to do to, clean up messes that don't belong to them?

<em>Girls </em>creator and star Lena Dunham at <em>The Hollywood Reporter</em>'s Women in Entertainment breakfast