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Good morning! Women’s Health Initiative no longer being defunded, U.K. Chancellor Rachel Reeves discusses tariffs with the U.S., and there’s an investor you need to know in AI.
– Intelligent investing. Sarah Guo’s venture capital firm Conviction has backed some of the hottest companies in AI: the legal AI startup Harvey (last valued at $3 billion), French open-source AI startup Mistral (last valued at $6 billion), inference platform Baseten (last valued $825 million), and ex-Salesforce co-CEO Bret Taylor’s conversational AI platform Sierra (last valued at $4.5 billion). That makes the 35-year-old a fitting subject for the fourth and (for now!) final piece in our special series about women in tech.
My colleague Allie Garfinkle, the author of Fortune’s Term Sheet newsletter, dives into Guo’s path to AI investing in a profile here.
Guo was raised around a startup; her parents ran a cable and telecom infrastructure company called Casa. In her 20s, she was named a partner at Greylock—one of the youngest partners ever in venture capital. She considered leaving the firm to launch an AI-driven language learning startup with famed AI researcher Andrew Ng in 2016, but decided the technology wasn’t there yet. (She says Duolingo got it right.)
Conviction founder Sarah Guo invests in the future of AI. Stuart Isett/Fortune The technology is certainly there now. While ChatGPT was launching, Guo was looking for office space for Conviction, Allie writes.
“The joke was that you have this AI hammer, and that’s not the way you should go looking for companies to invest in,” Guo says. “And I’m like, well, it kind of depends: How good is the hammer? AI is a great hammer. So, what are the interesting nails out there in the world?”
Read the full profile here and subscribe to Term Sheet here for more from Allie.
Emma Hinchliffe
emma.hinchliffe@fortune.com
The Most Powerful Women Daily newsletter is Fortune’s daily briefing for and about the women leading the business world. Today’s edition was curated by Nina Ajemian. Subscribe here.
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Join MPW as it goes global. Hear from Olfat Berro, the area head of the Middle East at Roche Pharmaceuticals, discuss how the digitalization of health care will impact global health equity. Request an invite here |
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- Reversed and restored. The Trump administration quickly reversed its decision to defund the $10 million Women’s Health Initiative, the largest women’s health study in the country. A spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services said, “[W]e are taking immediate steps to ensure the continuity of these studies.” NPR
- Talking tariffs. U.K. chancellor Rachel Reeves met for the first time in person with U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to discuss an “economic prosperity deal” that will benefit both parties. While Reeves has said, “The U.S. has a point. There does need to be a rebalancing,” she is not in favor of tariffs or starting a trade war. Bloomberg
- In communication. Shari Redstone’s Paramount has been talking with the Federal Communications Commission to see what it needs to do to have its merger with Skydance Media approved. One commitment Paramount must make: to continue to forego certain DEI initiatives. Wall Street Journal
- Adding to the portfolio. Meghan, Duchess of Sussex shared that she is looking to add more female-founded companies to her investment portfolio, which includes the instant latte brand Clevr and the accessories brand Cesta Collective—“That is very, very important to me because they are so under-resourced and under-supported,” she said at the Time 100 Summit. Inc.
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Kettle, a creative agency, named Camille Imbert chief creative officer and Jess Mireau chief product officer; the agency now has an all-women C-suite. Most recently, Imbert was Kettle’s executive creative director and Mireau was group director of product.
The Bloc, an advertising agency for the health sector, named Jennifer Perry VP and creative director of art and Pooja Bhavsar SVP of strategic planning. Previously, Perry was creative director at Publicis Groupe, and Bhavsar was SVP of brand strategy at BGB Group.
CrossMed Healthcare Staffing appointed Amber Barna as chief clinical officer. Most recently, she served as chief clinical officer at Work With Fusion.
Electives, an AI-powered learning platform for companies, added Linda Aiello to its board of directors. Aiello is chief people officer at DraftKings.
Offerpad, a real estate services provider, added Donna Corley to its board of directors. She is the founder and CEO of Guiding Star Advisory and previously served as EVP and head of the single-family business at Freddie Mac.
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