What’s Inside
Highlights from the Women in AI event at LinkedIn HQ
How investors from 500 Global, Cake Ventures, Cowboy Ventures, Emerson Collective, Flybridge Capital and XFactor Ventures are approaching AI
A discussion about women in venture
During San Francisco Tech Week, about 200 people filled LinkedIn’s conference hall for the inaugural 100 Women in AI, and roughly 95 percent of them were women.
The event included a discussion on the panelists’ perspectives on AI, but this crowd came to talk about representation, community and how women are leading AI companies and shaping the future. The mood was upbeat and purposeful.
Women in AI, hosted at LinkedIn’s headquarters, was a collaboration between Flybridge Capital, LinkedIn’s Women in Product, Rho, SignalFire and XFactor Ventures.
The event opened with Cherae Robinson of Flybridge, who launched the Women in AI campaign to recognize 100 women impacting the field, including founders, investors, researchers and operators.
Robinson said lists may seem superficial, but they matter. They open doors, draw attention and make women visible in rooms still dominated by men.
After opening remarks from SignalFire’s Sadasia McCutchen and Rho’s Natalie Riso, Aihui Ong of XFactor led a panel of five investors representing more than $4 billion in assets: Christine Tsai (500 Global), Caroline Duffy (Cowboy Ventures), Joanna Lichter (Emerson Collective), Monique Woodard (Cake Ventures) and Dorothy Chang (Flybridge).
Ong opened with a question all investors are grappling with these days: What’s your thesis for AI right now?
Chang talked about progress rather than automation and how AI should empower people, not replace them.
Woodard tied her firm’s focus to demographic change, pointing to the need for tech that solves real problems such as Aging populations and the rise of deskless work.
Duffy emphasized democratizing access to Technology and addressing labor shortages in manufacturing and Nursing, essential work that still requires people.
Tsai offered a global view, noting how AI adoption and investment look different across regions.
From there, the discussion covered vertical versus horizontal AI solutions, the layers in between, and how investors balance speed, responsibility and returns. Lichter added perspective on impact Investing, saying everyone defines “impact” and ROI differently.
One audience member later joked that her LinkedIn feed was overloaded with a ton of “hyper-Growth at any cost” advice and the mantra to triple, triple, double, double, double.
A couple of the panelists countered that there’s nothing wrong with building a smaller, yet profitable company. Tsai lightened the moment by reminding everyone there’s always a “see less” option on LinkedIn.
Then, during audience Q&A, the tone became more poignant. An investor in the audience asked why the number of women in venture hasn’t moved much in years. The next audience member asked a similar question about female founders.
Woodard’s response resonated with everyone. “Turning a ship around is hard work. So sometimes you have to go build a new ship,” she said, referencing her founding of Cake Ventures.
Duffy gave a shoutout to All Raise, a nonprofit focused on improving the success of women in venture and tech. She said progress depends on more women and diverse founders at the earliest stages.
Chang shared a story about a child avoiding a robotics club because it was “full of boys,” a reminder that the problem with women in Finance and tech is systemic and starts long before a pitch meeting.
Lichter pointed out that the venture community itself is small, with an already limited pool of investors. Diversity percentages in such a tight group will always look even smaller.
A later question on motivation led Ong to tell her own story of being told she wouldn’t succeed because she didn’t come out of MIT or Stanford. Her takeaway: women founders don’t ask for enough, but they need to.
One of the final audience exchanges veered into vibe coding, and Tsai reminded everyone that intuition matters but so does expertise. She said engineers bring experience to the table that complements a founder’s instincts.
The discussion was wide-ranging and candid, yet the atmosphere stayed supportive. The audience cheered at stories of setbacks turned into wins and nodded along at every mention of persistence against the odds. Compared with the competitive energy that often fills tech conference stages, this event felt to me more collaborative.
“We’re not celebrating women thinking about being in AI,” Robinson said earlier in the evening. “We’re celebrating women leading it.”
That line captured the night and set the tone. It was all about progress and potential.
The future of AI is still taking shape, but in that room it already looked more inclusive and on the right path.
