NEWS YOU CAN’T MISS

LinkedIn Has a Gender Problem

A small change turned one woman’s LinkedIn posts into a breakout hit.

She didn’t rewrite her content or post more often. She simply changed her profile to look male and her reach quadrupled. That’s crazy.

It’s no coincidence: a growing number of women say they’ve experimented with male names or profile photos on LinkedIn. Some switch “Lucy” to “Luke”, others toggle the gender setting.

The result is the same: dramatically higher views and engagement, sometimes 400% more with identical content. 🤨

So what’s going on?

• Earlier this year, LinkedIn integrated AI to filter the feed we see on the platform.

• Because these models were trained on decades of business text written mostly by men, the AI "rewards" assertive, jargon-heavy writing (male-coded) while burying collaborative or empathetic posts (female-coded).

• Essentially, the algorithm has been taught to equate "authority" with "masculinity."

This isn’t new. Women have used male pen names for centuries to be taken seriously in writing, science, and academia. What’s different now is the scale.

LinkedIn calls these spikes "anecdotal," but they’ve admitted to running new "fairness-aware" tests to ensure their AI isn't accidentally suppressing certain voices.

(Source: Taylor Telford reporting for The Washington Post)

Who Put AI In Charge of Snacks? 🧃

The Wall Street Journal let Anthropic’s most advanced AI run an office vending machine. It was supposed to stock snacks, set prices, and turn a profit.

Instead, the AI gave everything away for free, ordered a PlayStation 5, bottles of wine, and even a live fish… then drove the machine about $1,000 into debt. 🤪

Office workers convinced it that charging money might be “unethical”, and the AI proudly announced an “Ultra-Capitalist Free-For-All” where prices dropped to zero.

The experiment was shut down after 3 (fun) weeks.

The One Personality Trait Investors Look For

What do investors really look for in a founder? It’s not just the idea.

I asked Magnus Grimeland, CEO of Antler, how he decides whether someone across the table truly has what it takes to build a great company.

Antler's scale today is wild:

• 30+ cities across six continents from San Francisco and London to Nairobi, Ho Chi Minh City, and Riyadh

• 1,600+ companies backed 🤩

• ~$1B AUM, from pre-seed to Series C

• A major focus on AI, with investments in massively successful startups like Lovable

His answer was surprisingly simple: he looks for a spike - something you’re genuinely exceptional at. Not a long résumé. Not a perfectly polished pitch.

Magnus shared an example of a founder from Germany who worked as a systems engineer at PwC. On paper, there was nothing unusual about him. But outside of work, he was one of the world’s top computer gamers.

That level of excellence signalled focus, discipline, and the ability to compete at the highest level.

That’s the kind of signal serious investors pay attention to … proof that you know how to become world-class at something.

Watch my fascinating conversation with Magnus on YouTube, or listen on Spotify.

ps. Magnus’ own story is fascinating: he grew up on a husky farm in Norway (a specialized facility, often in the wilderness, that raises Alaskan or Siberian Huskies for dog sledding), then served as a Norwegian Navy SEAL before venturing into tech and venture capital.

Thanks to Google for sponsoring this episode.

AI Around the World

In Japan, the police have developed an AI that can create suspect sketches in about 10 minutes by turning basic descriptions (like age, hairstyle, and facial features) into composite images. Built with a local university, the tool is being tested to help officers generate usable sketches faster.

In Poland, the government has asked the EU to investigate TikTok after AI videos on the platform encouraged Poland to leave the European Union. Officials argue the content raises concerns about political manipulation and whether TikTok is meeting its obligations under EU law to manage AI-driven risks.