uncompromising editorial coverage of the self-made women building empires and rewriting the rules of commerce.
semiconductors
“How she took a declining semiconductor legacy, refocused it on high-performance compute, and built an AI chip giant on engineering discipline.”
In 2014, when Dr. Lisa Su became CEO, AMD was on the verge of bankruptcy. By prioritizing the Zen architecture and execution over short-term trends, she turned AMD into a global chip powerhouse valued at over $250 billion.
written by
sophia tanai
“The youngest Gates is building an AI shopping company on one condition: it can't lean on her last name.”
Phia started as two Stanford roommates' frustration with secondhand shopping. It launched in April 2025 and is now valued around $185 million — with none of it coming from Bill and Melinda Gates.
venture capital
“Before Glossier, Dollar Shave Club, or Chime were household names, Forerunner saw the shifting power of the connected buyer.”
Kirsten Green founded Forerunner Ventures in 2010 when mainstream VC was largely ignoring direct-to-consumer tech. She raised her first fund alone, built on the insight that digital connectivity would entirely reshape user expectations.
ipo
“She took the part of the tech industry that tried to push her out and built a company around handing women the first word.”
In February 2021, at 31, Wolfe Herd became the youngest woman to take a company public in the United States. The image of her ringing the Nasdaq bell with her infant son became an emblem for working mothers in tech.
bootstrapping
“No fashion background, no business degree, and a patent she drafted herself. The idea was cheap; the persistence wasn't.”
She was selling fax machines door to door when she cut the feet off a pair of pantyhose. Spanx launched in 2000, and by 2012 Blakely was the world's youngest self-made female billionaire.