Faster Femme, Damp Powder & Robust Mergers 🤝

There has been some uplifting progress in gender diversity in the corporate world. According to a recent Bloomberg report, the number of female CEOs has reached an all-time high, with 41 women leading S&P 500 companies. Some of these companies are headed by remarkable women such as Mary Barra at GM, Adena Friedman at Nasdaq, and Corie Barry at Best Buy.

This is a significant improvement from 8 years ago when the count was much lower. 

The number of female CEOs is expected to increase further, as 13% of new CEOs appointed last year were women. While 50:50 representation may still be a long way off, it's great to see that progress is being made towards greater gender diversity in top leadership positions.

In Q4 2022, VC funding experienced a decline, with the weakest quarter recorded since 2018. 

This was obvious. The private investment market closely mirrors overall market sentiments. And since the end of 2022 brought with it recession and slowdown woes, VCs too subdued their over-positivity with startups. 

But that doesn't mean they aren't/weren't interested in investments at all. Startups still raised a lot of money. The only difference is in the type of startups. Instead of putting their money behind untested and unsustainable, short-term over-hyped companies like Peloton, VCs are now backing more settled or late stage startups. 

Venture capitalists are encouraging startups to prioritize capital efficiency instead of grabbing large profits.

In a stark juxtaposition to 2021's IPO frenzy, SaaS IPOs came to a screeching halt in 2022. On the other hand, acquisition of startups remained slightly more robust. There were several blockbuster strategic acquisitions, including Adobe's announcement to acquire Figma for $20 billion, which represented the highest acquisition multiple offered for any software company of scale. 

It’s exciting to think how AI can revolutionise the way we work — until you realise that it can simultaneously also revolutionise the way crime is committed. Meaning it can make the already advanced industry of cybercrime and spamming even more advanced. 

If you thought repeatedly hitting “Report Junk” on a half-dozen fake sales texts every day was a headache, you’ll want to keep some ibuprofen handy for what’s next.

Enabled by generative AI, spammers will be better equipped to trick people. AI can be trained to replicate your own writing style (minus the grammatical errors), to come up with realistic looking spam marketing mails, and to pretend “it’s you” in  active mail chains. 

Then there is voice and image AI which can enabled to be execute a kidnapping scheme, as shared by some weary moms on Facebook. 

This is the tricksters’ paradise. 

Cybercrime is booming. The industry currently grows at 15% YoY rate, pegged to hit an annual global toll of $10.5T by 2025.