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Hi, welcome to your Weekend.
This week we’ve got a pair of richly reported features about two fascinating women in tech: Alphabet’s venerated Chief Financial Officer Ruth Porat and Andreessen Horowitz’s rising young defense and aerospace investor Katherine Boyle.
Porat and Boyle could not be more different—at least in their political leanings, with the former often socializing with powerful Democrats and the latter breaking bread with right-leaning founders and investors. But they are both evangelists for tech and savvy political operators who have a litany of Washington insiders on speed-dial.
While Porat was just bestowed the gauzy new title of President and Chief Investment Officer at Alphabet, reporter Anita Raghavan learned that many Porat associates see her making a graceful exit in the not-t00-distant future—perhaps into the Treasury Department or another parcel of the Biden Administration.
Boyle’s future, meanwhile, is anyone’s guess. She’s less than a decade removed from covering the museum party circuit as a reporter for the Washington Post, and has only recently become a household name in defense tech circles. Already, she is credited with coining the Andreessen-approved term “American dynamism,” which is now splashed around Twitter with a fervor once reserved for “eth” and “Web3.”
Clearly, big and interesting things are in store for both women. The time to start tracking their next moves is now.
Now onto this weekend’s stories...
the big read
American Dynamo: An ‘Iconic’ Andreessen Horowitz Investor Is Turning Heads in Defense Tech
Katherine Boyle has taken an unusual path to venture capital— from Florida pageant queen to staff reporter at The Washington Post to seed investor in defense tech unicorns like Anduril. Margaux traces Boyle’s rise to prominence, providing a rare peek into how Andreessen Horowitz is trying to shape geopolitics—and help its portfolio companies land government contracts.
power moves
Is Ruth Porat’s New Job at Alphabet a Coronation or a Last Dance?
After eight years of steering financial growth at the Google parent, CFO Ruth Porat is stepping into a new leadership role with unclear implications. Anita Raghavan reports on Porat’s unusual promotion, which signals a subtle shift at Alphabet—towards technology investments and away from the financial hardwiring that was Porat’s calling card.
new ballgame
The Casino Crashing Your Couch: Sports Betting Will Soon Be Available on Live Game Broadcasts
Tappp, a New York–based payments processor has been working to develop an integrated streaming and TV betting system over the past four years. Now, its set to make its game day debut on Major League Rugby broadcasts in 2024, reports Daniel Kaplan. The new feature may please gamblers, but it’s a nightmare for addiction experts.
Reading: Grimes gives her vision of the future
Grimes landed the cover of Wired this month to discuss AI-generated music, space travel and the future of education. But she also provided an intimate look into her complicated family life (despite the various mysterious NDAs she alluded to throughout the interview). Apparently her three-year-old X is a rocket scientist, and her 20-month-old Y is an industrial shipping fanatic. Twice she pivoted the conversation to the “fertility crisis,” a fixation she shares with her sometimes-partner Elon Musk—and even used declining birth rates to excuse his anti-trans rhetoric. Consider this in the context of her upcoming participation in the Free Press-hosted “debate” over whether the sexual revolution has failed, and you start to wonder what role she sees for women in her technofuturist utopia. Another fun tidbit: She revealed herself as the inspiration for Elon’s infamous “dick measuring” tweet. —Julia
Noticing: The TikTok Shop’s shady health aisle
After two years of teasing an e-commerce feature, TikTok has launched TikTok Shop, where influencers can sell their favorite products. But as Media Matters reports, some of the shop’s most aggressively hawked products include dodgy-sounding pills and injections. It’s not surprising: my own TikTok feed is filled with creators hyping up their favorite places to get lip fillers, dubious weight loss hacks and daily intake of unproven health supplements. Sadly, many of these “wellness” products are unregulated and dangerous—one DIY “lipo injection” offering includes ten insulin needles and a mystery serum. It’s likely TikTok will develop product moderation tools to weed out such products eventually, but, until then, it’s a sad reality that teenagers are being marketed sketchy health remedies in between dance videos. —Margaux
Listening: Call her (and her protégés) Daddy
Alex Cooper won’t be a “single father” anymore. At least not within the new talent network the “Call Her Daddy” host announced this week. The 28-year-old podcaster, who is in the midst of a three-year, $60 million contract with Spotify, is taking younger social media talents under her paternal wing. Her new production company Unwell’s first two signings are TikTok stars Alix Earle (5.6 million followers) and Madeline Argy (4.6 million), both known for their funny, raunchy, day-in-the-life content. It’s the kind of subject matter that Cooper would have tackled in her early days—before she graduated from debaucherous dating tips to interviews with Miley Cyrus, Jane Fonda and Gwyneth Paltrow. Of course, TikTok virality does not necessarily beget success on a podcast (nor on any other medium—may we direct you to Addison Rae’s ill-fated acting career?). But Earle and Argy’s direct-to-camera content does feel like an intimate FaceTime with fans. Maybe the audio version will resemble another medium beloved by Gen Z: long, juicy voice memos. —Annie
Makes You Think
It’s Christmas morning for financial cops.
Until next Weekend, thanks for reading.
—Jon
Weekend Editor, The Information
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