The invisible power problem

Ask who's most powerful in tech and men's names come instantly. Ask about women and you get silence. After three months of interviews, the author discovered the real question: why is this still so hard to answer in 2026?

The mononymous men dominate

Elon, Jensen, Sam, Peter, Marc. These single-name tech leaders score high in financial, intellectual, political, and cultural capital. They write manifestos, sway elections, and build cults of personality that spread their influence everywhere.

Lean In didn't age well

Sheryl Sandberg's 2013 book helped women see workplace bias, but it put the burden on women to sit closer and speak louder rather than fixing systemic problems. The post-pandemic backlash saw women lean out instead.

“What began as a guidebook for a select group, relatively privileged women clawing their way up the corporate ladder, was marketed as the answer to a whole host of women's issues.”

The 2010s were lip service

Ellen Pao's discrimination trial, Susan Fowler's Uber exposé, and sexual harassment scandals forced tech to hire investigators and promote women. But it was performative. If there was one woman on the team, she got advertised to death.

“'Look at how many women we have on our team!' And if there was one woman on the team, that woman got advertised to death.”

Women formed networks quietly

While the industry paid lip service, women were organizing behind the scenes. Ifeoma Ozoma left Pinterest over pay discrimination and successfully cosponsored California's Silenced No More Act protecting whistleblowers.

The backlash to the backlash

When Elon Musk bought Twitter in 2022, tech men felt emboldened to share rightward beliefs. After Trump's reelection in November 2024, the conversation about women in tech became toxic. Even women stopped wanting to discuss it.

Anne Wojcicki's comeback

When 23andMe went bankrupt in 2025, Anne stepped down as CEO. But she bought the company back, a power move that male founders like Adam Neumann pull off routinely. Many of her earlier investors declined to support her.

Power needs more than money

Anne's mother Esther, a journalism teacher, said power requires cultural capital. You have to be visible on social media, at conferences, making noise. Anne disagreed, calling X a distraction and pointing to Gwynne Shotwell as powerful despite staying heads down.

“You have to be on X. You have to be out there.”

Gwynne Shotwell's quiet dominance

Over twenty years, Shotwell grew SpaceX into an eight hundred billion dollar business before its IPO this year. She's elusive to the public but essential to global power brokers. She rarely posts on X but controls a cash cow in Starlink.

Women founders still struggle

Female-founded startups raised a record seventy three point six billion dollars in 2025, capturing twenty seven point seven percent of US venture deal value. But the overall deal count for women declined, and most funding went to just two startups with women cofounders.

VC is an alpha male game

Venture capital's testosterone culture favors overconfident founders with outlandish stories. VCs accept ninety percent failure rates for big wins. Those founders tend to be men. Smaller funds with lower margins could open doors for women and founders of color.

Sarah Guo rejects the label

The Conviction VC partner told the author that making women a special thing made a generation take an entire class of people unseriously. She doesn't want to be complimented on her appearance or defined by being female. Her firm is majority women and winning.

“The entire problem with the last era of tech is that you made women out to be a special thing.”

Politics is now part of the game

Tech executives are jetting to Washington DC more than ever. Sarah Guo travels to DC more in the past three years than in the prior decade. Women leaders are cultivating allies in government on behalf of their companies, not for social causes.

Daniela Amodei runs Anthropic

At the nearly one trillion dollar AI startup, Dario is CEO and cofounder but Daniela runs day-to-day operations. All leadership reports to her. She's built a remarkable number of women in leadership roles and is determined not to let AI become a tool just for men.

“Do not let AI become a tool that's just for the guys.”

Women in AI face worse odds

Timnit Gebru says the AI industry is worse for women than tech was in the 2010s. People still don't listen to women, and most hyped companies are led by men. Outliers like Amodei and Shotwell are complex examples of power, often guiding men in charge.

“the AI industry is worse for women than whatever the tech industry was in the 2010s.”

Women are choosing not to compete

Many powerful women told the author it's not worth posting politics on X or saying uncomfortable truths in interviews. It would compromise their focus on work. They possess all kinds of capital but are choosing not to fully enter the matrix.

Why join a broken system?

Gebru flipped the question: why should women join the terrible thing men are doing? They're accelerating harm, mainstreaming AGI arguments, littering the world with data centers. Does power mean trampling your own people in a terrible system?

“Why do women have to join the terrible thing men are doing?”

The power list is long

Gwynne Shotwell, Lisa Su, Fei-Fei Li, Safra Catz, Meredith Whittaker, Melanie Perkins, Fidji Simo, Jayshree Ullal, Ruth Porat, Dina Powell McCormick, Sarah Guo, Timnit Gebru, Mira Murati, and others. But one name came up more than most: Daniela Amodei.