Why you should build your culture like a product; Moats for generative AI applications; Measuring personal growth
Where women lead, shape, and fund the future.
Welcome to Femstreet’s life online. I’m Sarah and this is the 286th edition of Femstreet.
Insights
Human Ventures, cofounded by Heather Hartnett, is about to close a $50M second fund. Enterprise software investor Jennifer Li was promoted to General Partner at a16z and will help run their $1.25B Infrastructure fund. Why the perfectionism pitfall holds women leaders back and how to break the cycle. The share of women in C-suite roles falls for first time in two decades. Sheila Gulati and Stacey Giard of Tola Capital on the female VCs leading the charge in enterprise AI. Consumer tech fund Maven Ventures run by Sara Deshpande secured $60M for fund IV. Kathryn Haun is stepping off the Coinbase board later this year after 7 years. When to IPO in the age of uncertainty.
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From builders and investors in our universe…
Measuring personal growth
Measuring personal growth doesn't come as naturally to founders as tracking their business metrics. There are three interesting metrics to measure personal growth: rate of change, time to solve problems, and number of future options. Chip Huyen explores unique metrics to gauge individual development. From the rate of change in life every 3-6 years to the time taken to solve significant problems, she delves into unconventional ways to assess personal progress…Read more.
Build your culture like a product
The key challenge for any early-stage people leader? Knowing which to tackle first. Asana’s Anna Binder shares her step-by-step approach to crafting a people strategy from the ground up, constructing a cultural pyramid, and fostering conscious leadership within the executive suite. She tackles culture building like a product manager and zooms out to discuss what makes up a good culture and how it can differ from company to company…Read more.
Where to best incorporate your holding company
Expanding your startup globally? The decision of where to incorporate your holding company is crucial. Many founders of early-stage ventures tend to shy away from legal, financial, and administrative matters. Rena Kakon breaks down the fundamentals of corporate structure and offers valuable insights for entrepreneurs seeking to make well-informed choices about their holding company's jurisdiction. Discover the Jurisdiction ScoreCard and Matchmaker tools that streamline the process, and explore the leading contenders, from Delaware to Singapore, along with the key factors that should influence your decision…Read more.
Building a moat for generative AI applications
We’re still in the very early days of generative AI, and it is unclear what the end market will look like. Will there be huge “LLMs as a service” from cloud providers, will each company have a niche model of its own, or is the whole market overhyped, such that the number of applications will be smaller than expected? Antonia Woodford explores four potential approaches companies are taking to establish technological moats, from building proprietary models to harnessing LLMs in combination with other technologies…Read more.
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In case you missed our recent posts
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Building a sustainable company without running out of runway
The secrets of owning your odds and how founders can learn from athletes to build better teams
A straight-talking deep dive into the equity terms that matter for founders
Thanks for tuning in this Sunday!
👋 Sarah
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