Good morning! Trans teens challenge Trump’s executive order banning them from playing girls’ sports, Linda McMahon talks dismantling Department of Education at confirmation hearing, and tech innovation is happening in Europe.
– Message safely. While Elon Musk and a bevy of billionaire tech CEOs head to Washington, Meredith Whittaker is looking to Europe. The noted Big Tech critic and president of Signal, the secure messaging platform, believes that Silicon Valley is no longer home to tech’s hottest innovation.
“This is where the cool, smart people who I used to meet in the cafeteria at Google in the mid-2000s are,” she told me onstage at the tech conference Slush in Helsinki late last year. “Really vibrant tech ecosystems are only growing outside of Silicon Valley.” That divide comes down to different approaches to regulation and profit motive on either side of the Atlantic, Whittaker says.
Whittaker became the president of Signal in 2022. She had worked at Google for a decade before becoming disillusioned with the tech giant over its contract with the Department of Defense and other issues; she was an organizer of the Google staff’s 2018 walkout. Since taking over leadership of Signal, Whittaker has become an even louder voice for privacy and alternatives to what she calls Big Tech’s “surveillance business model.”
In recent months, Signal has worked to develop its presence globally. The platform has hundreds of millions of users—including members of governments, militaries, boardrooms, and human rights organizations—who rely on its service to communicate without risk of their messages being seen by others. “We’re interested in really driving home the value of private communications in a world that is not getting less volatile, to be diplomatic about it,” she says.
When we spoke, Whittaker said that Signal had, as per usual, seen an increase in signups following the U.S. election. “At moments where people are unsure what those in power may or may not do and how that may affect them, that’s when privacy comes home to be a lived value—when you feel it in your body instead of as abstract notion,” she says.
Emma Hinchliffe
emma.hinchliffe@fortune.com
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ALSO IN THE HEADLINES
- Family business. At AI unicorn Anthropic, cofounder Daniela Amodei has hired her husband to work on the company’s AI safety policy. Amodei cofounded the business with her brother, CEO Dario Amodei. Fortune
- Challenge accepted. Two teenage transgender girls challenged President Donald Trump’s ban on trans women and girls playing girls’ sports at schools. Sixteen-year-old Parker Tirrell and 15-year-old Iris Turmelle filed an amended complaint to their ongoing lawsuit against New Hampshire state officials preventing them from playing on their school’s girls’ teams, asking to expand the case to challenge the executive order. CNN
- Senate updates. Linda McMahon, WWE cofounder and former CEO, called the public education system a “system in decline” during her Senate hearing yesterday, where she laid out her plan—and the White House’s plan—to shut down the Education Department if confirmed as secretary of education. Also, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was confirmed as head of the Department of Health and Human Services. NPR
- With or without Trump. “I was never a firm believer in bias training,” JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon said at a town hall, explaining that the firm’s rollback of some DEI initiatives had more to do with cost than the Trump administration. “I saw how we were spending money on some of this stupid sh-t, and it really pissed me off.” Bloomberg
- Satellite sovereignty. Christel Heydemann, CEO of telecommunications company Orange, is pro-European sovereignty on satellites, as companies in Europe are working to compete with Elon Musk's Starlink. Orange still works with Starlink in some geographies, like in Africa. Reuters
MOVERS AND SHAKERS
Prada Group appointed Silvia Onofri as CEO of its brand Miu Miu. Most recently, Onofri served as president of Napapijri.
Immersive Gamebox, which provides group game experiences, named Lisa Paton CEO. She was previously the company’s president.
L'Oréal Groupe appointed Ali Goldstein as president, head of acquisitions for L’Oréal USA, succeeding Carol Hamilton who is retiring after 40 years with the company. Goldstein was previously U.S. president of L’Oréal Paris.
DailyPay, a work payment platform, appointed Deepa Subramanian as CFO. Most recently, she was VP, corporate finance and investor relations at Uber.
Arizent, a business information provider, appointed Whitney Parker Mitchell as CMO. She most recently served as the company’s interim CMO and is the founder and former CEO of Beacon Digital Marketing.
Snack company Quinn named Heather Cooper chief sales officer and Beth Hunsicker Parker VP of marketing. Previously, Cooper was SVP of sales at Oatly. Hunsicker Parker is the founder and president of DotMap Marketing Partners.
ON MY RADAR
Behind the curtain: Masculine maximalism Axios
Rape under wraps: How Tinder, Hinge and their corporate owner chose profits over safety Guardian
The women of ‘SNL’ are the funniest people in the room Elle
PARTING WORDS
“There’s so much freedom in not being self-conscious.”
— Actor Renée Zellweger on returning to play Bridget Jones
