Penelope’s haters: Where are they now?

Detail of Watermelon & Knife by Wayne Thiebaud (1989)

The setting: I’m buried—raising kids while running a startup. It’s 2010 and I’m one of the only female founders getting funded. I feel obligated to speak up, so I write blog posts telling women: startups are BS, just say no.

The Real Housewives of Venture Capitalists

Alexa Tsotsi said I was terrible for women. Jessica Wilson said I was tone-deaf to feminism.

So where are they now? Both married venture capitalists. Both talk about their amazing businesses—built with their husbands’ money and networks. If they get bored, they stop. They use their husbands’ money for schools and childcare, then write about their accomplishments as if they’re on a level playing field. Read more

/41 Comments

Everyone’s using AI to write. Stop pretending you’re not.

We are way past professors using AI to write their papers. Now professors feed a set of papers into AI and ask where the gap is in the logic so they can write a paper to fill it. When submitting, AI tells them who will likely be reviewing the paper for publication so they can strategically cite that person’s work. Spoiler: it’s working.

And really, why does this matter? Academic papers were never known for stellar writing anyway. Read more

/11 Comments

I’ve been doing lots of interviews. Here are two I really liked.

When I was younger and using my job to escape from the scary parts of my life, I did interviews all the time. I was always on my phone. So smart and scintillating.

I don’t feel that now. I used to think it was my job to make everyone like me. So I’d be really chirpy. I was telling a friend that I think I lost that zing, and she reminded me that I’ve always been a pain in the butt to interview. Then she sent me this post. Read more

/7 Comments

I fired Monica 15 years ago. Now look at what she’s doing.

I thought my post yesterday was absolute genius, and I asked myself if I shouldn’t hold off on publishing it so that I could submit it as an op-ed to the New York Times. Or as political analysis to the Atlantic. Instead I posted it here, because immediate feedback is like crack. And then the post bombed. Read more

/7 Comments

The Democrats have a Fiona Problem

In 2016 a sharp divide emerged in the US in baby naming, and this divide sheds light on why the Democratic Party is failing.

From the 1980s to 2015, androgynous names for girls surged across America. Taylor Swift’s mother perfectly captured the reasoning when she explained giving her daughter an androgynous name in 1989: “so she wouldn’t be held back if she went into business when she grew up.” This was hedge fund manager Andrea Swift applying the logic of her generation: if the world is rigged for boys, give your girl a name that lets her compete.
Read more

/2 Comments

How to stop picking fights when you’re scared

One of my kids’ credit cards is maxed out. I planned on paying it, and then I didn’t have the money.

I have mastered dissociation in the face of not having money for very important things. I mean, that’s been going on for twenty years. But this feels different. Worse.

I’ve never had a steady income. I surprise even myself with the ways I make money now: managing IEP meetings, getting kids research positions. Maybe we are all surprised by our work. Because it’s not just our earnings that top out at age 40; so does our sense of control over our career. If I’m being honest, I already knew that, but who wants to be honest about career erosion? Read more

/11 Comments

Gen Z treats LinkedIn like Instagram for ambition

Every single college-aged kid I know has a LinkedIn profile. You’d think: what’s the point? They have no career experience. But Gen Z treats LinkedIn like an extension of their college application, which makes sense since they worked hard to frame their accomplishments within compelling personal narratives for admissions. Gen Z sees that it doesn’t make sense to throw that effort away. And what’s a better receptacle for those carefully crafted stories than LinkedIn? Read more

/11 Comments

The Combs case isn’t about celebrity. It’s about parenting.

Sean “Diddy” Combs with his mom as his plus one

There’s widespread anger that Sean Combs was only convicted of prostitution charges, not the more serious trafficking counts. But our outrage is misdirected. Yes, the law fails domestic violence victims, but before that, the law fails to protect children from the conditions that produce both predators and victims. And if we don’t hold parents accountable for violating ethical obligations, we can’t protect children at all.

Read more

/17 Comments

Conscientiousnous is a trigger word for me

My to-do list when the kids were home was divided into A’s, B’s and C’s. The A’s were emergencies — like ordering a SpongeBob cake. The B’s were waiting to become emergencies, like seeing if swimsuits still fit. The C’s were things I couldn’t admit I wasn’t doing. It was like my off-site storage for wishes.

Once both kids were in college I did what everyone does with off-site storage: ignore it. But after a year, I took a peek. And this jumped out at me: attack people who think there’s virtue in conscientiousness. I felt an urgent need to do this because people think I would have more money saved—any money saved—if I were more conscientious. But I know the truth: conscientiousness has no impact on success except being a gateway drug to perfectionism. Read more

/13 Comments

How to tell a distraction from an endeavor

I’ve been writing and illustrating flipbooks. My favorite one is Skirting — go read that if you haven’t already. Now that I’m done with skirts, I’m working on fruit. But I’m constantly worried that this is a just distraction from doing something I’m already good at. Read more

/7 Comments