Crypto and AI need female executives

Author: Alice Deep Tide TechFlow

Recently, I've noticed an interesting phenomenon in the AI ​​industry: more and more female executives are stepping into the limelight.

On December 30th, Meta announced its acquisition of Manus for a hefty $2 billion. CZ Chen, the 90s-born COO, has entered the public eye. She holds a bachelor's degree from Shanghai University of Finance and Economics and a master's degree from Columbia University. She started working in 2018, successively holding positions at Vanke and financial advisory firms. In 2024, she made her final leap to Manus, achieving financial freedom immediately.

On January 9th, at the MiniMax IPO bell-ringing ceremony, standing on the stage alongside 36-year-old founder Yan Junjie was a woman born in 1994, Yun Yeyi. This 31-year-old COO is now worth HK$4.8 billion. What is Yun Yeyi's background? Yan Junjie graduated from Johns Hopkins University with a degree in Electrical Engineering and minored in Economics and Mathematics. After graduating in 2017, she joined SenseTime, rising from a financing manager to assistant to CEO Xu Li, and then to director of the Innovation Business Department, witnessing SenseTime's journey from a unicorn to a Hong Kong stock exchange listing. In 2022, Yan Junjie decided to leave SenseTime to found MiniMax, and Yun Yeyi followed him almost without hesitation. Her value goes beyond simply following. MiniMax's prospectus shows that Yun Yeyi handles almost all aspects of the company except for technology research and development: product, commercialization, board of directors, operations, management... Her annual salary is $1.479 million, more than all the other executive directors combined, which speaks volumes. Not only in China, but globally in the AI ​​field, the power of women is undeniable. Daniela Amodei, with a background in English literature, after working at Stripe and OpenAI, co-founded Anthropic with her brother Dario in 2021, serving as president, focusing on daily operations and commercialization, and driving the marketization of Claude products. Lila Ibrahim, a former Intel executive, joined DeepMind in 2018 as its first COO, responsible for day-to-day operations, partnerships, social impact, external affairs, and government relations. Mira Murati, an Albanian former CTO of OpenAI, came to the US on a scholarship at age 16, worked on the Tesla Model X team, then moved to OpenAI, eventually leaving to found Thinking Machines Lab, valued at $9 billion… This scenario seems familiar. From 2017 to 2021, the golden age of crypto saw a constellation of stars, and one of the most striking features was the presence of female CMOs and COOs. The most well-known is Binance co-founder and CMO He Yi (now co-CEO). From Shanghai to Tokyo, from Malta to Paris and then to Dubai, she was present at every strategic relocation, helping the company become the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange. Lisa Loud, from Apple engineer to PayPal's head of Canadian markets, joined BitMEX as CMO in 2017, after which BitMEX became the world's largest crypto derivatives trading platform. Cynthia Wu, COO of Matrixport and former Vice President of Product Development at the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, brought her experience in traditional finance to crypto financial services, helping the company become one of Asia's largest digital asset service platforms. Once upon a time, crypto was the focus of global assets, and the spotlight naturally shone on these female executives standing at the center of the stage. But the tide has receded, and the protagonists have changed. Now, AI is the focus of the spotlight, and we've seen Daniela Amodei on the Forbes rich list and Yun Yeyi triumphantly ringing the bell at MiniMax's IPO. In essence, crypto and AI share a striking similarity—both cutting-edge and seemingly outdated. The cutting-edge nature of technology is reflected in the technology itself. Blockchain restructures trust mechanisms, and AI restructures productivity; these are fundamental technologies capable of changing the world. The "rustic" aspect is reflected in the founders' profiles. Most have technical backgrounds and are intimately familiar with code, but are unfamiliar with marketing, especially government relations and public relations. This is where the value of female COOs/CMOs lies. They act as a bridge between technical geniuses and the outside world, capable of deep dialogue with the technical team and telling compelling stories to investors and users. Daniela Amodei transformed her AI security philosophy into an actionable business strategy, enabling Claude to break through the shadow of ChatGPT; Yun Yeyi took MiniMax from the laboratory to the consumer market; He Yi served as chief customer officer for a long time, personally answering users' questions and building trust. When a product moves beyond the purely technical stage and needs to be more consumer-facing, the advantages of female executives become more apparent. After all, public relations and product development require empathy, not confrontational thinking. From another perspective, capable female executives will vote with their feet; they will go where they can showcase their talents and create value. If they start leaving an industry, it indicates that the industry's commercial certainty is disappearing. The current problem in the crypto industry is obvious: a lack of talent capable of translating technology into products that are widely accepted. Mass adoption and positive externalities remain mere rhetoric. This pattern is evident in any emerging industry: an industry truly shifts from technology-driven to commercial and mass-market-oriented when female executives with technical understanding, business acumen, and strong narrative skills begin to rise. Their emergence signifies the true maturity of the industry. The AI ​​sector has already experienced this turning point, with female executives like Daniela Amodei and Yun Yeyi driving the productization of technology, bringing AI from laboratory algorithms into everyday life and the business world. The crypto industry, however, deserves to remain mired in ruts of PvP if it cannot retain "elites who can speak like human beings." The flow of talent is a barometer of industry trends. Wherever they go, value is created; where they leave, the bubble often bursts.