Good morning! Melinda French Gates is backing women in the workforce, Trump picks a replacement for FTC chair Lina Khan, and a new fund invests in frontier tech—backed by Marc Andreessen and Paris Hilton. Have a great Thursday.
– New frontier. Casey Caruso is deep in the tech world: She has lived in hacker houses, worked as an engineer at Google, and made her first nest egg mining crypto. Now the 31-year-old is tapping all of those experiences for her next act: launching a $75 million fund that will invest in frontier tech.
Caruso’s fund, Topology Ventures, is backed by Marc Andreessen, a cofounder of OpenAI, a coauthor of GPT-4, Paris Hilton, and anchors Cendana and Accolade, I reported exclusively for Fortune this morning.
Her thesis is that investors who deeply understand technology will win in an era in which tech is changing rapidly. “I think we pick better investments, because we basically can call technical BS, and then we can support founders better,” she says. She says she’s seen some “undisciplined investing” in AI that has reinforced that thesis. Her expertise gives her not just a better understanding of investment opportunities, but access to them—she likes to contact founders through Discord and GitHub. So far, Topology has made six investments.
Caruso’s definition of frontier tech includes AI, robotics, aerospace, neurotech, and crypto—all male-dominated fields. That’s barely on her radar as she focuses on the work she’s excited about in the communities she has always been drawn to.
“I can only build so much with my own one mind and two hands as an engineer,” she says. “Investing was the perfect answer, because you can really scale your impact.”
Read the full story here.
Emma Hinchliffe
emma.hinchliffe@fortune.com
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ALSO IN THE HEADLINES
- Working women. Through her organization Pivotal, Melinda French Gates is donating $150 million to nonprofits supporting women in the workforce. Of that, $45 million will go towards the advancement of women working in AI and tech. “[T]he modern workplace simply wasn't built with women in mind, and it's time for that to change," she said. Axios
- In and out. Donald Trump is replacing FTC chair Lina Khan with Andrew Ferguson, a current FTC commissioner. Trump also named Kimberly Guilfoyle, his son’s fiancée, ambassador to Greece. Guilfoyle was previously a California prosecutor and TV news personality. Time
- Real charges. Real estate agents Tal and Oren Alexander, alongside their brother Alon, were charged by federal prosecutors in New York with sex trafficking. The unsealed indictment revealed that the brothers used “the promise of luxury experiences, travel, and accommodations to lure and entice women,” and then sexually assaulted them. The Alexander brothers denied wrongdoing. CNBC
- Not sweet enough. Hershey’s main owner rejected Mondelez’s preliminary offer to takeover the chocolate company, headed by president and CEO Michele Buck. The company’s trust holds around 80% of voting power and called the bid too low. Mondelez said it would be focusing on smaller deals—Hershey would not be a small acquisition. Bloomberg
MOVERS AND SHAKERS
Forbes Media named Sherry Phillips CEO. She is currently the company’s chief revenue officer.
ChowNow, an online ordering and delivery platform for local restaurants, appointed Kanika Soni as chief executive officer. Most recently, Soni was chief commercial officer at Tripadvisor.
Mirvie, a predictive pregnancy health solutions provider, appointed Aimee Corso as SVP of growth. Most recently, she was growth, partnerships, and marketing leader for Amazon Pharmacy.
Generac Holdings, an energy technology company, named Amanda Teder CMO. She was previously EVP of marketing.
Associated Banc-Corp appointed Kristen Ludgate to its board of directors. She is chief people officer at HP.
ON MY RADAR
The girl economy is going strong—despite the manosphere Bloomberg
Sha’Carri Richardson spikes off: a sprint to greatness on and off the track Essence
What Alice Munro knew New York Times
PARTING WORDS
“We have to see what is getting in the way of the everyday woman to be able to feel that she can succeed.”
—Thasunda Brown Duckett, president and CEO of TIAA, on what still needs to change for women in the workforce