The Search for Silicon Valley’s Most Powerful Woman

寻找硅谷最有权势的女性

Mira Murati was trying to speak. Women swished around in evening gowns, men in tuxes. Giant piles of carved meat rested like sleeping babies on banquet tables draped in linens as red as a handmaid’s robe. Bartenders served up a cocktail named Zero to One, a nod to the philosophy of Peter Thiel. 米拉·穆拉蒂（Mira Murati）正试图发言。女士们穿着晚礼服走来走去，男士们则身着燕尾服。宴会桌上铺着如侍女长袍般鲜红的亚麻布，上面堆放着巨大的切片肉，看起来就像熟睡的婴儿。调酒师们供应着一种名为“从0到1”（Zero to One）的鸡尾酒，以此向彼得·蒂尔（Peter Thiel）的哲学致敬。

It was a recent Saturday night in a converted church in San Francisco, and the Foundation for American Innovation, a center-right think tank, was hosting a black-tie affair to hype the new religion of AI. 那是一个最近的周六晚上，地点在旧金山一座改建的教堂里。中右翼智库“美国创新基金会”（Foundation for American Innovation）正在举办一场黑领结晚宴，旨在炒作人工智能这一“新宗教”。

Murati, the founder and CEO of Thinking Machines Lab, was talking about the history of revolutions to a crowd of more than 350 people. The Albanian-born executive had for several years kept a relatively low profile as a VP and then CTO of OpenAI before participating in an unsuccessful coup against Sam Altman and then launching her own $12 billion AI startup. Now, with chatter bouncing off the church walls, Murati’s efforts to get her points across were about as successful as that coup: No one seemed to be listening. The woman interviewing Murati asked more than once for people to stop talking or take their conversations outside. 思维机器实验室（Thinking Machines Lab）的创始人兼首席执行官穆拉蒂正在向350多名听众讲述革命的历史。这位出生于阿尔巴尼亚的高管曾担任OpenAI的副总裁和首席技术官，多年来一直保持相对低调。在参与了一场针对萨姆·奥特曼（Sam Altman）的失败政变后，她创办了自己的AI初创公司，估值达120亿美元。此刻，教堂墙壁间回荡着嘈杂的交谈声，穆拉蒂试图表达观点的努力就像那场政变一样收效甚微：似乎没人听她说话。采访穆拉蒂的女士不止一次要求大家停止交谈，或者到外面去聊。

I whispered to the friend sitting next to me that this was the second time in a week that I’d seen a woman getting drowned out. She sighed. Both of us were there to actually hear what Murati had to say. I tried to restrain myself from what I said next, but I sensed my friend was holding back too. “Her hair is amazing, though,” I hissed. “Oh my God, I know,” she replied immediately. Murati’s hair has achieved AGI. Her jaw cuts glass. 我向坐在旁边的朋友耳语道，这已经是我一周内第二次看到女性的声音被淹没了。她叹了口气。我们俩都是为了真正听听穆拉蒂要说什么才来的。我试图克制自己接下来说的话，但我感觉到朋友也在忍着。我低声说：“不过她的头发真棒。”她立刻回应：“天哪，我知道。”穆拉蒂的头发已经实现了通用人工智能（AGI）。她的下颌线锋利得能切开玻璃。

Soon after, President Donald Trump’s top science adviser, Michael Kratsios, took the stage. The crowd quieted down. We are all part of the problem. 不久之后，唐纳德·特朗普总统的首席科学顾问迈克尔·克拉齐奥斯（Michael Kratsios）登台。人群安静了下来。我们所有人都是问题的一部分。

Over the past three months, I’ve been asking anyone and everyone about the most powerful women in Silicon Valley, a club to which Murati clearly belongs. Ask who the most powerful man in tech is and many quickly say “Elon.” Or “Jensen.” Or “Sam.” Wait a beat and you might hear the name of a billionaire VC whose financial capital has been broadly and ruthlessly deployed to advance an agenda, like “Peter” or “Marc.” Ask who the most powerful woman is, and most people respond with a thoughtful pause. A thinking-face emoji. “Gwynne?” “Lisa?” “Daniela, maybe?” 在过去的三个月里，我一直在询问各界人士关于硅谷最有权势女性的问题，穆拉蒂显然属于这个圈子。问谁是科技界最有权势的男人，许多人会脱口而出“埃隆”（Elon）、“黄仁勋”（Jensen）或“萨姆”（Sam）。稍等片刻，你可能会听到某位亿万富翁风险投资家的名字，他们的金融资本被广泛且无情地部署以推进议程，比如“彼得”（Peter）或“马克”（Marc）。但问谁是最有权势的女性时，大多数人的反应是陷入沉思。一个思考的表情符号。“格温（Gwynne）？”“丽莎（Lisa）？”“也许是丹妮拉（Daniela）？”

THE TOP OPERATORS: They call the shots inside and outside their companies. 顶级操盘手：她们在公司内外掌握决策权。

An astute observer of the Valley might posit that the most powerful woman has to jet-set between SV and DC, like Ruth Porat, the president and chief investment officer of Google, or Dina Powell McCormick, Meta’s president and vice chair. WIRED’s top editor—a woman—said at one point, “Isn’t it obviously Gwynne Shotwell?” Then a Silicon Valley CEO told me that whenever she mentions the SpaceX president and chief operating officer, her friends say “Gwynne who?” 硅谷的一位敏锐观察家可能会认为，最有权势的女性必须在硅谷和华盛顿之间奔波，比如谷歌总裁兼首席投资官露丝·波拉特（Ruth Porat），或是Meta总裁兼副董事长迪娜·鲍威尔·麦考密克（Dina Powell McCormick）。《连线》（WIRED）杂志的一位女性主编曾说：“难道不是格温·肖特韦尔（Gwynne Shotwell）吗？”随后，一位硅谷CEO告诉我，每当她提到这位SpaceX的总裁兼首席运营官时，她的朋友们都会问：“格温是谁？”

Some people seemed allergic to my question. They don’t view tech as gendered, they told me, or didn’t have much to say. Who cares? Just put your head down and do the work. 有些人似乎对我的问题感到过敏。他们告诉我，他们不认为科技行业有性别之分，或者对此没什么可说的。谁在乎呢？埋头苦干就是了。

Still, the question provoked reactions. My conversations—which took place on the phone and Zoom, in boardrooms, in San Francisco coffee shops, in a Palo Alto home where my sourceドzed off on the couch—produced a wealth of options, ranging from founders and CEOs to venture capitalists and philanthropic ex-wives. Some of those women, both CEOs and those who call bullshit on CEOs, spoke to me at length. 尽管如此，这个问题还是引发了反响。我的对话——通过电话、Zoom、在会议室、旧金山的咖啡馆，以及帕洛阿尔托的一处住宅（我的消息来源在沙发上打了个盹）进行——产生了丰富的选项，从创始人和CEO到风险投资家和从事慈善的前妻们。其中一些女性，包括CEO们以及那些敢于揭穿CEO谎言的人，都与我进行了深入交谈。

I realized that the real question is not who is most powerful, but why this question is still, in 2026, so difficult to answer. What’s missing from their lives or résumés? Why is there no woman Elon? Why don’t we have our own all-powerful heroine or supervillainess? 我意识到，真正的问题不在于谁最有权势，而在于为什么到了2026年，这个问题依然如此难以回答。她们的生活或简历中缺少了什么？为什么没有女版埃隆？为什么我们没有属于自己的全能女英雄或女反派？

In June, a friend and former Slack executive suggested to me that power in Silicon Valley contains multitudes of capital—financial, intellectual, political, and social or cultural. 今年六月，一位朋友兼前Slack高管向我指出，硅谷的权力包含多种资本——金融、智力、政治以及社会或文化资本。

We agreed that the mononymous men score high in all categories. Their influence has been stunning, alarming even, in its contagion. They write blog posts that are referenced for decades. They dox people with a single post on X. They sway elections. They deliver sermons. They are asked to sign a woman’s breasts at a trade show in Taiwan, like some ’80s hair-metal frontman. They suggest that a young woman trying to save the planet is the antichrist. 我们一致认为，那些单名男士在所有类别中得分都很高。他们的影响力令人震惊，甚至因其传染性而令人担忧。他们撰写的博客文章被引用数十年。他们在X上发一条帖子就能人肉搜索他人。他们左右选举。他们发表布道。他们在台湾的贸易展上被要求在女性胸部签名，就像80年代的重金属乐队主唱一样。他们暗示一个试图拯救地球的年轻女性是敌基督。

Does any woman in tech come close to achieving this cult of personality, to spreading the seeds of their capital in this way? There is no “Time to Build” manifesto that the women of the Valley are rallying around. The last time women in tech had a manifesto, things didn’t go as planned. 科技界的女性中有谁能接近这种个人崇拜，并以这种方式传播她们的资本种子吗？硅谷的女性并没有围绕什么“建设时刻”（Time to Build）宣言团结起来。上一次科技界女性拥有宣言时，事情并没有按计划进行。

On a recent drive to Lake Tahoe, I downloaded the audiobook of Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In. I’d read the book when it came out in 2013, and I wanted to see how its ideas had aged. By the third chapter I had heard enough. 最近在开车去太浩湖的路上，我下载了谢丽尔·桑德伯格（Sheryl Sandberg）的《向前一步》（Lean In）有声书。我在2013年该书出版时读过，想看看其中的观点如今如何。听到第三章时，我已经听够了。

My brief listen reminded me, though, of why the book had been influential for nearly a decade. Sandberg, who clocked 14 years as chief operating officer of Meta, put words to a lot of bad workplace patterns. Women were treated as second-class at the office. We were prone to self-doubt and backed away from opportunities that seemed incompatible with family life. And for God’s sake, we should be paid as much as men. 不过，这次简短的收听提醒了我，为什么这本书能产生近十年的影响力。在Meta担任了14年首席运营官的桑德伯格，用文字描述了许多糟糕的职场模式。女性在办公室里被当作二等公民对待。我们容易自我怀疑，并对那些似乎与家庭生活不兼容的机会退避三舍。而且，看在上帝的份上，我们的薪水理应和男性一样多。

But Sandberg’s book suffered from too many unrelatable anecdotes and simplistic solutions. It largely put the onus on women to sit closer, speak louder, marry better. Perhaps most crucially, 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. Start a “Lean in Circle.” Create a hashtag, like #BanBossy. Run for office. Small actions can, of course, catalyze movements, but in a post-pandemic world, legions of frustrated working women opted to lean out instead. 但桑德伯格的书存在太多难以引起共鸣的轶事和过于简单的解决方案。它在很大程度上将责任推给了女性，要求她们坐得更近、说话更大声、嫁得更好。或许最关键的是，这本最初为特定群体——那些努力攀登企业阶梯的相对优越的女性——编写的指南，被营销为解决所有女性问题的答案。发起一个“向前一步圈子”。创建一个标签，比如#BanBossy（禁止称呼女孩为“老板娘”）。竞选公职。小行动当然可以催化运动，但在后疫情时代，大批感到沮丧的职业女性选择了“向后退”（lean out）。

Aileen Lee, a prominent VC who often hosts private gatherings of women in the industry, said she “appreciates” what Lean In brought to the foreground. It presaged a series of eve… 艾琳·李（Aileen Lee）是一位杰出的风险投资家，经常举办业内女性的私人聚会。她说她“感谢”《向前一步》将这些问题带到了台前。它预示了一系列……