I started our Writer event in celebration of women with a confession.
It was my first women's event, ever.
Despite being in industries dominated by men (starting with my first job working in my dad's tool shop as a kid), I had never gone to a women's history month event, or joined a women's group, or done a women's networking event, ever.
In my mind, I told myself that I was too busy "doing the work" — subconsciously, I think I didn't want to be judged by the guys.
What changed my mind — and why I wanted to bring all the Writer women together, including our closest women investors and advisors — was generative AI.
We've seen wave after wave of tech change and progress not really move the needle on the % of women in the workforce, starting companies, running companies.
But generative AI really could be different, for two big reasons.
(1) At so many of our customers, it's *women* who are driving the change. Who are doing the bridge-building and the brokering, the change management, the business process rearchitecting, the WORK of driving the generative AI strategy and transformation.
Generative AI collapses the distance between dreaming of something and building it — and that could be our chance to bring in many more women builders and leaders.
(2) There's a skills-acquisition transformation we have to go through, because using AI to create leverage in one's workday, that doesn't come naturally to a lot of people. They have to be taught it. And we see that AI training work is being done by women today.
If we don't help them be successful, if we don't bring everyone along, an inequitable distribution of AI skills and capabilities could be a real source of social upheaval.
I don't think anyone thinks that social media has improved social cohesion, and if we could do it all over again, I think we'd build the tech differently.
We have that opportunity with AI, and we need women to not just be IN that coalition, but to DRIVE the coalition. To get credit for the transformation work they are doing, and to help shape how this tech impacts people's lives, both inside and outside of work.
So this may have been the first women's event I'd been to, but it's definitely not going to be the last :)
I'm so lucky to work with the incredible women at Writer, the women who back us and advise us, and the women who partner with us. Happy Women's History Month!
(and we're hiring for....everything!! If you're a woman in AI and would like to work with a ton more women, shoot me a DM.)
Founder at Anonymous
1yForgot the link, May Habib. 😂 Get it while it's hot guys: https://bit.ly/writer-extension Remember to drop them a review too. 🙌🏽