The Wage Gap Won’t Close for 200 Years. She’s Not Waiting.

I like started my career as a model. So I would actually negotiate a lot in that role and you know often negotiating different modeling gigs. I was like 15 years old or so. Let's talk about what you're building Ruth.

What is it and what does it do? We are building AI agents to close the gender wage gap. So there's a study that found women who don't negotiate their first salary lose over 500,000 in earnings by age 60. Is salary negotiation the first thing is this also solving for?

The skill set of negotiation is going to be increasingly important in the age of AI because anyone can build an app. Anyone can write anything using a chat GBT. So what's going to set people apart is their ability to negotiate their work. You recently posted an article called what Aentic AI can do for women with a very interesting research study.

Tell me more about that. A man was being told to ask for $400,000 and a woman with the very same qualification, same city, same everything was being asked to ask for $280,000. So, $120,000 discrepancy. You're at an open AI town hall, 50 people.

You raise your hand and ask Sam Alman directly about the gender wage gap in AI. What did he say? He believes that AI can be an equalizing force, right? So, we already are seeing um the gender wage gap being projected to take over 200 years to close.

I think that's just like Hi, Valerie. So we are sitting next to the building where you hosted America's first women's w by coding hackathon and you moved to the city a month before that. What happened here? Yeah, I mean the transameric pyramid center is one of the most iconic buildings in San Francisco if not the world.

And when I moved out here, we we had gone to different hackathons and we realized that there were so many men at these hackathons building and that there wasn't really a place for women to come and feel like they were, you know, in a safe space to build empathetic products with AI. And so we, my co-founder and I really sought out to, you know, put women in skyscrapers and have them build AI for social good. And so this building means a lot to me because this is where we hosted our first ever women's hackathon. We ended up doing our second one at the Hurst Tower.

So this is definitely like our first post inaugural event and I think the it really inspired us to kind of make this a bigger movement and a greater series that would just showcase like architectural masterpieces like this one. So it's been very a very um just like meaningful building. That is amazing. And then after that you decided to permanently move to San Francisco.

Yeah. Yeah. It's definitely been the best thing I have ever done in my career. I think the last 10 years I spent in New York obviously were super transformative.

I was working in startups and got all of that experience. But being here in San Francisco around other people who are building and are super ambitious, I think has just really motivated and inspired me to a completely different level. And now let's talk about what you're building. Ruth, what is it and what does it do?

Yeah, we are building AI agents to close the gender wage gap. And we're really focused on a few things, but primarily is really helping position any woman as a thought leader and making sure that their businesses and their personal brands are populating in LLMs. Um, that's a huge huge goal of ours. I consider it a pretty existential problem if women aren't populating in these LLMs.

And additionally, we're also focused on the bias that exists within LLM. So there's gender bias that's been reported um where it's telling you know women with the very same qualifications as men to ask for less in their salary negotiations. And so we really wanted to create a platform where women could come and actually trust that they're getting the right benchmarks that they're also being told these are the right scripts so that you can go and ask for what you deserve. Um and that's really been kind of the driving force is like how can we make sure that women feel like AI is something that's for them too.

And before Ruth, you mentioned that you got laid off. Walk me through what happened. Yeah, I've actually experienced two layoffs before I was even 25 years old. So, I think for me, the idea of job security was something that I just felt like was a fallacy.

And I've always been very entrepreneurial. So, after my second layoff, I just felt, you know, I didn't want to go and apply for more jobs. I also at the time had been starting to post on LinkedIn. " And so I knew that there was something there.

I started posting and after about three months, I had over three million impressions. " And so I started to use my sales and my marketing skills that I I had accumulated over the last 10 years living in New York, working in startups and just started to implement that into, you know, really treating like the Valerie Chapman, you know, personal brand as like a business. And that was super transformative and allowed me basically to not have to go back to corporate America or work a traditional job. Oh, that is amazing.

Wow. And were you expecting um were you expecting that? Like what was your first reaction when you got told about like gleeing? Yeah, I think at first you're like, oh, it it like bruises a little bit of course and you're like, okay, what am I going to do?

There's of course the financial instability that comes with it living in New York, one of the most expensive cities in the world. I basically sat down with myself. I have a big whiteboard in my room and I sat down and I wrote with my expo markers. I was like, I am going to build the infrastructure of a oneperson business and I'm going to give myself three months.

So AI was so helpful in helping me connect all the dots for like what what did my career look like over the last 10 years. You know, I had done so many odd jobs, so many internships. I felt I had learned such a breath of knowledge, but I really was struggling to connect the dots. And so AI helped me with that, helped me figure out what's my IHEL statement, what's my mission?

If I could only stand for one thing like in this amazing life that we have, what would it be? And so it gave me so much clarity. And then from there, I really focused on like building my personal brand, posting online, getting super visible. And I think that clarity around my mission as well as being willing to put myself out there, that was just like the secret sauce and like it really created magic in terms of like being able to create a career on my own terms.

That's awesome. So everything happened like for re everything like happened for the better. Oh, absolutely. Like you're meant for this, you know?

Yeah. It's like bad to kind of say that getting laid off was the best thing that happened to me, but it truly was. And I I found actually with other creators who are like full-time, they've experienced similar things where they've gotten laid off and then, you know, bet on themselves and they they also agree that it's the best thing that ever happened to them. So, while it can be scary and definitely a time of like uncertainty and there's those feelings of rejection, I I definitely felt there was like a huge silver lining because you finally get to just bet on yourself.

Yeah, exactly. And so, you mentioned how you would use AI to rebuild. Tell me more about how that would look like. Yeah.

So for me, I actually started with just putting my resume into Chachu PT probably like 2023. No one was really talking about it. " I've always been a big proponent of being an early adopter. " Um, and then from there, I figured out what are the three content pillars that I could talk about.

So I started off actually with like what can I talk about all day that I wouldn't get bored. And so for me that was human behavior. I had studied that in school at NYU in addition to other things. I like made my own major at NYU.

I went to Gallatin. So that helped me understand the importance of having an interdisciplinary perspective. And um I started to just like really analyze myself from like the outside in. And I think I also had a lot of experience as well with like working with other founders and digital storytelling for businesses throughout this time in New York, but I'd never really taken the time to do that on myself.

And once I did, I think that's like where everything changed is like really looking at my personal brand as a business was the huge unlock. " I never had that person in my life. So, you know, it's cliche to be like AI was that for me, but like it certainly was. Wow.

And then at what point did you realize this isn't just like my story but this is like a product? Yeah, I think so like I said I gave myself those three months to build the infrastructure of a oneperson business and initially I wasn't getting brand deals you know I was doing one-on- ones with women entrepreneurs and I was helping them position themselves as thought leaders because at that point I had amassed a few million impressions on the platform. I knew what I was doing. Um, and so I knew that I could consult at that point, make a few thousand dollars, get some regular income streams, and then I could also do workshops.

So I started to do workshops with nonprofits and different organizations. And I think the real unlock for me was when I was in a room of about, you know, 50 women, and I asked them like, who do you help? It was a workshop on personal branding and AI. And I always open my workshops with who do you help?

And what I found was women didn't know how to answer the question. There were straight up crickets in the room. And you could hear a pin drop. And that was the moment when I realized that, you know, we could build potentially a software that would help position any woman as a thought leader and help them figure out who it is that they help.

Um, and that was really fascinating and super eye opening. That's amazing. And you wrote a piece in Fortune that I haven't been able to stop thinking about. So the argument is AI was supposed to close the gender wage gap.

Instead, it's making it worse. What do you mean by that? Yeah, I think right now we're living in a time where people are obsessed with AI, especially here in Silicon Valley. In other parts of the world, maybe maybe not so much, right?

But I think there has been a lot of this rhetoric about how AI can solve climate change and perhaps it can be a solution for food insecurity and all these different big systemic problems. And I felt, you know, no one was really talking about the gender wage gap and how to use AI to close it. And so, like I said, as I was using, you know, all these AI tools to figure out what my mission was, I sat down with myself and I was like, who inspires me? Who are the women that inspire me?

And I thought about like the women's suffrage movement and all these like really powerful women. And then I was like, wow, it would be so cool if I could do something to close the gender wage gap. And and then it clicked for me. I was like, maybe AI could be the thing.

And so it felt at the time like a pretty ridiculous notion, maybe like a very lofty, you know, thing to believe in, but I do believe that it's possible, especially because of the effects of of compounding. I think, you know, right now like AI is being trained on like all the information in the whole world, right? And I think the more that we give these models um data to train on um the better the models will be. And so my hope is people will come to Ruth to build their thought leadership presence to share their thought leadership to share their their business acumen and that will then help train the models so that you know women are being taken seriously in the context of business.

Yeah. And there's this stat so 27% of Chad GBT users are women. Only 28 oh users are oh only 28% of women report using AI regularly versus 45% of men. Does that surprise you?

Yeah. Well, I I can't say it surprises me and I'm hopeful that maybe those numbers are higher. I, you know, sought out initially to close that gender wage gap, not really through Ruth, but through making content. So, I would get up every morning, I'd be like, let me make a video about AI to educate more women.

I felt like if they if other women saw another woman talking about this technology, that would help close the adoption gap. And so I do feel like I've probably at this point gotten several thousands of women to use AI, which is really cool just on the power of content and distribution. And then I think, you know, where my hope is we'll get it to another level is is through through software, right? And through really reaching people at scale.

And so while those numbers are low, I'm not really that surprised. I think like AI has always been a a boys club in the same way that business has been, but I don't think that has to be the case anymore, especially with the development of vibe coding tools. And I'm really excited. I think this is really a moment for women to kind of lean into their entrepreneur entrepreneurial, you know, spirit.

And I think that's that lies within all of us. You're at an open AI town hall, 50 people. You you raise your hand and ask Sam Alman directly about the gender wage gap in AI. What did he say?

Yeah. Well, he said, you know, he believes that AI can be an equalizing force. Um, and he said that primarily because of the things that people can build now, right? And for the most part, I I do agree with that sentiment.

And I think the reason why I agree is because my story was, you know, I was laid off. I'm not making any income, right? And so then I used AI to make an income from being myself. So I think I think that's possible for so many people.

And I would never have sought out to build Ruth Ruth if I didn't believe that to be true. Yeah. And so you were me you were telling me that you know you did these workshop you do these workshops where you ask room full of women who do you help and yeah the room goes silent and and then there's also this um McKenzie stat when where it says women are nearly twice as likely to be mistaken for someone more junior than men. 37% more likely to have their ideas taken credit for.

Is that what the personal brand problem is about? Yeah, I think it definitely plays a role. I think the reason I'm so bullish on women building their personal brands is because I've seen as a woman the opportunities that come to me. I used to spend before I was posting online, I used to spend a lot of time doing outbound.

I would, you know, craft the perfect email and then like maybe I'd get a couple responses, but I think the moment I started being visible, now I wake up and I get crazy emails every day. I'm like, this is insane. I couldn't have even made this opportunity up. And that is something that I hope for any woman, especially, you know, mothers and women who are dealing with so much invisible labor, like I want them to wake up and be excited about checking their email, not dreading it.

And I think that's possible, but it does take, you know, that bravery and the courage to show up and tell your story. And you know, I just we're building Ruth to make that as easy as possible for women. Yeah. And so what can Ruth do that women can already do with Chad GBT?

Yeah. I mean I think chatbot and the chatbot interface has been transformative for so many people but I think this next wave of AI is really going to come down to very you know personalized user interface experiences. I think when you look at the claws and the chatt of the world like I think it's very obvious these things were designed by men like there's like a manly feel to it and so with Ruth we've definitely created the user interface and I would argue it definitely has a women's a woman's touch. Um, and I think that's one big factor for why people will come to Ruth is they'll feel it was truly designed for them.

And then additionally, you know, we're doing a lot of research and working with experts in the gender negotiation space to make sure that we are not, you know, giving benchmarks that have that bias in there. So, I think there's also like the deep research element that we're focusing on as a company in addition to really creating a product that has a strong user interface for our specific customer, which is women. Yeah. What advice?

So they um someone wants to start posting on LinkedIn, they you mentioned having pillars, right? Like what do you want to associate yourself with? How would how could people go about uh you know creating their first LinkedIn post or first social media post on Instagram? So I think probably the most important step that I took was that I asked myself what is my mission?

And it seems like a big question, right? if you like I said only have one thing in this world that you could truly make an impact in what would that be and I think that's the question that people should start with and um from there so I figured out okay I want to close the gender wage gap and then you kind of have to reverse engineer okay how do we go about this and so for me I wanted to pick three pillars that I knew I could talk about all day long but that weren't necessarily related but they were interdisciplinary like you could connect them so what I mean by that is my pillars for instance right now as they stand today are AI, personal branding and the future of work. And so when you continuously talk about the same pillars and even in your LinkedIn if your last line is follow me Valerie Chapman for the latest in AI, personal branding and future of work, anyone can do that simple framework and over time through repetition all of a sudden you become the voice who people go to to have conversations about those things. So I truly believe if I didn't do those tiny things, you and I wouldn't be having this conversation right now and it's a very repeatable framework that anyone can implement.

Yeah. I want to try to do this example on me. Oh, cuz I had never really thought about this myself with my pillars. I think it would be uh startups, podcast, like things about like podcasting, things about startups, things about maybe lifestyle, but also like founders like uncovering because I want to like uncover the story like yeah, I would probably do yours as startups, storytelling, and new media, right?

So you talk about the intersection of those three things. So you don't want to do so broad where you're like, "Oh, I talk about lifestyle because that means a lot of things. That means like I like to get my coffee. It means I like to go shopping.

It means I like to go to Tuskany. So it can mean so many different things. " Oh yes. Okay.

So, I'll do new media, storytelling, and like startups and founders. Yeah. And like people who are obsessed with one of those things will come and flock to you. Someone who's obsessed with all three of them.

You will be their favorite creator. Yes. Yeah. And then the I help statement would probably be like I I help like the thing is I want to help founders like gets seen like become more visible.

So that's it. Yeah. Founders get seen and become found and found. investing in I love this.

Thank you. I'm going to change it. Yeah, it like makes all the difference. It really does.

So, there's a study that found women who don't negotiate their first salary lose over 500,000 in earnings by age 60. Salary negotiation the first thing was this also solving for? Yeah, salary negotiation is in my opinion going to be like the skill set of negotiation is going to be increasingly important in the age of AI because anyone can build an app, anyone can write anything using a chat GPT. So what's going to set people apart is their ability to negotiate their worth, their ability to send the email and be like, "Hey, I saw this opportunity.

" That skill set is going to be so important. And so I really wanted to make sure that women had a place that they could trust to come and make sure like they're negotiating and also feel empowered, right? Like women don't negotiate as much as men. That's been reported in research.

Um, and I think for me, I felt like if we created the infrastructure and marketing and, you know, podcasts like this, perhaps we could get more women first off to negotiate and then ideally to have them negotiate with the right benchmarks that aren't biased and that the compounding effects of that would be pretty pretty incredible. Yeah. And I think that, you know, not having something like that leads to compounding losses, right? So, we already are seeing um the gender wage gap being projected to, you know, take over 200 years to close, some people say.

And I think that's just like a number that's absolutely unacceptable. And it's going to take building infrastructure, building movements to absolutely change the way the trajectory is currently headed. Yeah. Tell me about your first negotiation experience.

Oh my goodness. I feel like I've been negotiating my whole life. Well, really? primarily because I've always loved being like a content creator online.

So negotiation I think like is is like in my blood. Oh, okay. Amazing. But not like by choice.

It was definitely like because of survival. Um I like started my career as a model. So I would actually you know negotiate a a lot in that in that role and you know often negotiating different modeling gigs and being like oh you should pay me this amount. And that's kind of when I got my first start.

So I was like 15 years old or so. Wow. Um and then I think as my career continued and now as I'm a content creator as well as a founder, I'm managing all of my brand deals. So I'm constantly trying to be like, okay, am I asking for enough?

And then if I think that I can ask for more, I always go for the bigger number, even if it means like, oh, I could lose the whole brand deal. I just think it's that exercise like that getting in the reps of asking for more than maybe your brain is telling you you should is so important because I think as women we we tend to underell ourselves and and we really shouldn't. Yeah. Cuz it's also so hard to like I guess like the first time you negotiate it's hard to figure out like what is what is your worth?

But I guess like tips of like I've heard other people say is like look at like so in terms of like salary negotiation, look at like the the base range of like what people pay for your role and like a location and then go from there. Maybe like try to ask for a little bit of more and see like you know the more you go they they'll find a middle ground, right? Yeah. I think like you don't want to be too crazy about it that people are like oh my gosh this girl, right?

Yeah. Um, I think for me because I've been on both the brand side, my background has been in influencer marketing. So, I' I've actually negotiated on the brand side, you know, and then I've also been the content creator who's getting the brand deals. And so, I've seen both of those perspectives on how people write that email and the way that they're crafting it and all the different things that one can negotiate, at least in the context of a brand deal.

You know, you're negotiating your rate, then you're also negotiating pay terms, you're negotiating usage. So, I think AI, for instance, is a a great resource for figuring out what do I ask for? Yeah. And um and just like knowing like that there's all these different nuances that you can negotiate.

It's not necessarily always compensation. Yes. Exactly. So, I I'm one of the people who like I'm very scared to like ask for.

I like sometimes it would go for like lower lower price of things. Like I remember I was doing brand deals too when I was like a little bit um like younger during the pandemic and there was these like protein bars and I was ready to take like $20 for like oh just give ME FREE PROTEIN BARS like but then my dad really helped me figure out like no like yes these are really good protein bars but like you're also like promoting them so you should like get paid. So that was like really cool. Oh, and then recently, so with like my new job, I also negotiated, which I'm so proud of because my past internships or like my past jobs, like I would just go for the first thing they would give me.

But now I actually like cuz I I was talking to like this guy. He was like much younger than me, like 19 years old. He negotiated and he negotiated so much. Yeah.

Being around those people like if they could do it, why can't like right, why can't we? It's totally psychological. It's in our head. I think a big part of it is like social conditioning.

Like women feel like, oh, like if if I negotiate like I'm being problematic or, you know, they're not going to like me or they're going to think I'm difficult. Like those are all things that I think every woman, you know, not to speak in like absolutes, but I feel like for the most part, most women have felt that same way. I certainly have. " Like that's something not a lot of people are willing to do.

And so it also gives you leverage. I think it builds confidence because you're getting those reps in all the time that now if someone comes to me for a brand deal, I'm really thinking like what does this mean for my personal brand? Like is this does this first of all make me look good or am I making them look better? And I think like you have to ask yourself the question of like who really has the leverage here?

And I think like business at the end of the day comes down to leverage and making sure you have the most leverage in the situation. Okay. Creating leverage. So like if you don't like the offer for instance like create more value and then when you create more value you have more leverage.

Yeah. And having more options too is always like good because you can use those as like Yeah. comparisons kind of. Wow.

Yeah. No, that's really good. That's amazing. And so let's talk about some big takes.

There's a lot of rhetoric right now, especially from women, around being apprehensive about AI, the environmental implications, the ethical concerns, the general unease. Is that a valid stance? Yeah, I think absolutely it's valid. Um, it's a really complex, you know, topic, right?

Like AI does have environmental implications and I think women do tend to care about things like climate change more than men. that has also been reported on. And so I'm not surprised that women are apprehensive in this moment. And I think that it's very valid.

But I also think that you could argue it's it's a privilege to opt out of a technology of this caliber. Um I think as someone who I like I grew up in the suburbs of Miami, like middle-class family, like I don't have the option to not use AI personally. Um I don't have a trust fund waiting for me. And so for me, using AI is like what's going to get me to like another level, hopefully to the point where I I'm making enough income to where I can help others.

And so that's like my whole goal. Like I wake up and I'm like, how can I help people? Like truly, like I don't care if that's like corny, that's truly like what drives me. And I think like having more access to money, more capital, like we can make a bigger impact.

Um and so like it's it's a very privileged take I think to opt out of the technology especially when you know you can use the technology to solve some of these problems. Yeah. Yeah. And so I would say yeah you're a missionary then because there's so there's a missionary I was talking to this about um about this with another founder and the mercenary they do things for like money.

Yeah. That's like their goal. The missionary is like they they strive for just the mission itself. Yeah.

I mean money's money is not enough. Like money is not enough. I think Yeah, that doesn't drive me. Yeah, that's really good.

And uh the conventional wisdom is that AI is a great equalizer. It democratizes access to tools, information, capability, levels the playing field. Is that happening then? Yeah, I think I think it is starting to happen, right?

like I'm I I can just, you know, think of a couple of friends of mine who have recently gotten laid off and have used AI to build, you know, their own businesses, to start communities. So, I I I think I think definitely I think it's I think it's helping democratize access and but I think we're just getting started, you know, like we're now at a point where, you know, women are coming together to do these hackathons. I was just at OpenAI headquarters for they did like a women who codeex event yesterday and so like those are rooms that previously like they didn't exist like there weren't rooms of women building and so I think once that momentum continues to build and more rooms like that continue to exist that we're going to see a lot of change happen. Yeah.

4 trillion to the global economy if women keep lagging adoption. 4? I mean, they're not getting a piece of the pie if they opt out, right? Like, I think I moved from New York to San Francisco because I obviously want to be a part of that moment.

Like, I want to build a technology that truly impacts and helps people. And I think it's very exciting that so many people can do that now. And I think like it's not just about the money, but at the end of the day, like when women have more money, they help more people. and they they should seek that out because it's important that we make sure that the world is more equitable, but it it starts with having the right leaders, having people who are bold enough to like stand up and be like, I may not know what's happening in AI right now, but I'm going to try to like be an early adopter here.

I'm going to try to figure it out. And at the very least, like if I don't quit, I win. That's like one of my big mottos. And I think for me, like I was using like lovable when it just came out, when it wasn't even like very good.

I was like, I'm going to stick in this race because I know that eventually as the models continue to improve, this is going to be something that changes the world. And I feel like we've already started to see that happen. Yeah. Yeah.

No, I'm really surprised how uncommon AI is to like some other parts of the world. Like when I was I I was studying at University of Wateroo and I was in the communications program. Yeah. And a lot of the classes I was in, no one like uses that.

" Yeah. You can use AI to to help with your research. And they didn't realize that. But then the computer like the engineers and the computer science students at Waterlue, they they're like they're on top of it.

They know what's up. Yeah. It's it's fascinating. I went to NYU for school and I was actually catching up with a friend of mine who I went to school with who I would consider like one of the smartest people I went to school with.

Yeah. " I was like, "What? " Like that's why these rooms of like women coming together is so important because otherwise like people are living in their echo chambers with like their three friends who use AI and then all these other people are like I'm anti-AI and now we're creating these like wars essentially um within ourselves. And I think what's most important is if you have an idea like you need to understand that AI can truly help it manifest in the world.

Um and that's definitely been the case in in my own life. Wow. Wait, what what's the AI psychosis? Wait, what does that mean?

like when people just like feel like they're just talking to their chatbot and all of a sudden it's like making them think like a certain thing that maybe isn't true and so they you know and and that is a very real thing. It definitely happens to people but you know I I think like people tend to like overexaggerate and it's always people who like never have actually used a chatbot. I'm like what do you mean? So I think that's fascinating.

Yeah. I was talking to this other founder yesterday. He was talking about so giving AI to younger so to like children and how they if they grow up with AI like that could maybe play a some kind of negative part. There's obviously positives but also negatives like they wouldn't be able to differentiate an AI to like you know maybe a person like on the phone for example like that is what are your what are your thoughts on that?

Yeah, I think like I think about it a lot actually like especially how AI and and especially in the context of education for young people and I think I think for me personally if I were to have a child right now and let's say they're like 13 or 14, I probably wouldn't want them to use AI for like that, you know, those most formative years going on to like 13 or so. But when I think of like, you know, when I started to really have this interest in entrepreneurship, um, you know, I started like my first business when I was like eight. It was like a little massage business in my home. Um, and so that wasn't like a real one.

But when I was about like 14 or so, I started to build my first app and started to prototype it. But I didn't have like the technical acumen at the time to really bring it to fruition. And so I think around that like 13, 15 when kids really start to figure out like, oh my gosh, it'd be so cool if I could build this and this. That's I think a good time for them to start implementing AI.

And I think if I had AI back then, I mean, I think that would be nuts. And I I don't even know what would have happened in my life. Yeah. The conventional startup advice is ship fast, iterate, find product market fit, then grow.

You came in with basically the opposite approach. Yeah. Tell me more about that. Yeah, it's it's interesting.

I really So my co-founder and I I would say like we really our strength is in community building. And so when we moved to San Francisco, we didn't know too many venture capitalists. Like we didn't come from that world. So we knew that we had to lead into our strengths.

That's why we hosted a hackathon in this building. Um, and I think for us like we're not just building a product. Anyone can build a product like so we're not building a product. We are building a movement because for a mission as big as closing the gender wage gap with AI, you have to change the way people are perceiving this technology.

Especially women who a a great swath of them, you know, are very apprehensive about the technology. I think community is what's going to change that. And so for us, we've been doing these events in person, really making sure that people realize AI can be used for good. So that's why our hackathons are called AI for social good.

And the task when people come to our hackathons is you need to build a solution that can help solve a systemic problem that exists within society. And I think that has just been like a really empowering message for women and they're very excited when they come to the events. Many of them post organically. So our our events while they are really impactful in person, they've also gone viral and reached, you know, millions of people as well and even inspired hackathons to take place in Singapore.

So I think the effects of community can never be underestimated. Yeah. And the brand building. So before you even started building Ruth, you already had a brand and you already had an audience of people, right, who are interested in what you were up to.

And so I think what that that helped as well. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely.

I think like as a founder, you have to be visible, right? because people don't, you know, want to just buy a brand. They really want to like believe in the person behind the brand. And I think increasingly that's the case nowadays, especially with these parasocial relationships that exist online.

And so I think having a personal brand has absolutely changed my life. " When that really wasn't the case. I've been doing this for 10 years. I've been posting on Instagram since I was, you know, 13 years old.

" So, I knew that there was something there as it pertained to the importance of social capital. Um, and then over the years as social media continued to evolve and you know, 2016 happened and 2017 happened and like all these years started to you know, go on, social media just became more and more important. people started to build real followings and real businesses and um I just continued to work in that space primarily more like helping like I had helped for 30 to 30 founders like build their digital you know footprint and their brand so I was learning so much and I knew it was important but I think the moment that I really locked in on my personal brand everything changed and I think I often see you know these amazing people who work at startups and they're you know head of marketing but they spend no time on their own marketing and so are, you know, just giving all their best ideas, all their best energy. " Yeah, I think that's I think it's so important for Yeah.

for people who are working, you know, at companies like as like marketing people. I think it's really important that they also kind of post on their own and it actually makes the company that they're working at even more compelling, right? Like we're seeing the rise now of the the corporate influencer, which I think is super cool and now is becoming even more valued within these organizations. It's, you know, right now like if you're not willing to be visible, it's almost seen as like a weakness.

It's almost seen like, oh, you're like too insecure to show up on the internet where like, you know, the real world exists now on the internet. And so I think it's going to be really interesting to see how people adapt to this change, especially now that like AI agents are making decisions for us, especially in the context of hiring as well. Like people don't have an option anymore. They have to show up or else they're not going to populate within the LLM searches.

Yeah. Can we also talk about Okay, so corporate, some corporate companies, they don't like when people post their own stuff. Yeah. Yeah.

Like I got in trouble once. I guess it depends on the industry. Like if you're working at, you know, a a private like if you're working for like, you know, a private firm, maybe they like to keep everything private, then then like maybe Yeah. Maybe they don't really like that.

Yeah. No, it's a serious issue. I mean, I also have a hot take about that. I think I personally think that should be illegal.

I think it's really messed up to silence your employees. Um, that's a hot take. But like for instance, my sister, she works, you know, at a financial institution, has spent the most of her career at banks and so she's like scared to post on LinkedIn. And it makes sense, right?

There's a lot of like privacy, a lot of regulations involved in that industry. However, I think it's important to like humanize your employees, especially at a time right now where there's so many layoffs and people are like AI is taking over. Like I think what people really need is is like those HR departments that are really empowering people. And so like with Ruth for instance, we we do intend to take this enterprise so that we can go into these organizations like the Reddits and the canvas and go hey like we want to train your women on you know how to use AI and then what's cool is that you know because you know because AI is basically an infrastructure that you're building you know you you can build the product and then on the back end fine-tune like hey your employer doesn't want you to talk about X Y and Z topic so those things will never come out of the outputs that ROF presents but you can still share your story in an authentic way and so That's probably one of the things that excites me most about being in the software space now.

Yeah, I know. I'm really excited for those. I think those are very important workshops to have. Yeah.

Especially like I think it's it's much easier to do like but like going into enterprises and like big corporate companies like that is like Yeah. Feel like that's really cool. So you mentioned you've been on social media since uh 2016. Since a very long time.

Yeah. Or I don't know. I downloaded Instagram the first day I could, but I feel like I started taking it seriously around like 15, 16. Okay.

And then what took you the longest to figure out? I mean, for me, like I wish someone told me to start posting on LinkedIn sooner. Okay. So, I started on Instagram and then I feel like I was a little bit late to the Tik Tok game and I was never really able to like make an income off of like being myself.

Like I would get I would have like 10 social media clients and I was managing all these accounts. So, I knew that there was income to be made from existing on social media and doing that kind of work. But I think like if I had known the power of LinkedIn like when I was in high school, it would have totally changed my life. And what I mean by that is I personally think that LinkedIn has the strongest infrastructure out of all the social media apps during this time of AI because there's less bots, right?

Like you can't really be a bot on LinkedIn. True. And so that's pretty defensible in the age of AI. And I think also it's a platform that's really, you know, it has that idea and that perception of being a place where people come to share their business acumen and their professional.

And I think that we're going to need more of that now, especially when people are like getting laid off. They're going to need to go to a platform to tell their story, to talk about their interdisciplinary perspective, and also to be in front of the right decision makers. So why LinkedIn is so valuable in my opinion is that you can reach out to anyone. So like I got into sales out of college because I had a mentor who was like if you get into sales you can do anything.

And so for me, I look at LinkedIn through the lens of a salesperson. io, which is one of one of the tools that I discovered in my sales career. And that's how I, you know, lock in brand deals is like you have to do outreach, you have to introduce yourself, you have to build those relationships. And LinkedIn is where all of that is happening.

Mhm. And the way we like the way I found you was through LinkedIn, too. Exactly. And now all my all my favorite new friends are all like my LinkedIn friends because they're all on the same wavelength.

They they all know what's up. And you actually you interviewed the C the CMO of LinkedIn CMO of LinkedIn. That's how I found you. What are some cool takeaways you got from that conversation?

Yeah, I mean she really focused on like people building their personal brands and telling their stories. And she's she was super bullish on video content on LinkedIn specifically, which I totally agree with. " I actually was talking about like body language. So, I wasn't even talking about AI when I first started.

I would just like write these posts and I would analyze like Oprah's handshake because she has like a very unique handshake that she does. And so, you know, you kind of inch your way in, right? you start with the writing and and then you're like okay I'm it's safe to be seen by people right and then you're like let me do a video and so video is when I actually amassed so many impressions so I was posting for like about three months on LinkedIn started with the writing and then by month three because I implemented video I had over three million impressions on the platform and then by month four also because of video I would say um I had gotten invited to LinkedIn headquarters in the Empire State Building and their team was like oh you're they were like you're a pioneer in AI I was like I've just started talking about AI on here. And so I think that really is a testament to how powerful video is and the way that people can connect with you and then really like build that trust.

Like you don't have to necessarily like come out of the womb an expert on something, but if you are the person that's willing to talk about it the most, you are, you know, essentially the person who is top of mind. Okay. Oh, also what is Oprah? Handshake.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, you shake my hand.

" Oh, okay. Wait, let me try it. She be like, "Hi, it's so nice to meet you. " And like it's gentle.

It's like almost it can even be like a tap. But that gesture like there's so much science in body language that as a child I would just watch YouTube videos and like psychoanalyze and it was just like my hyperfixation topic. Yes, I've seen those like body language videos. What are some other um body language like things you learned?

I guess like if you're talking to someone usually like if you're interested you want to like make sure your feet are like pointing at them. Um, I guess like I I always try to like maintain eye contact for the most part. Like a lot of people like are scared of eye contact. I think eye contact is so powerful.

So like if I walk into a room, I often go to like events all by myself. So I walk in and I don't know anyone. And so instead of just like loitering around like a loner, you just want to like go up to the first person you see and be like, "Hi, what's your name? " Like just talk to them.

like be friendly with like just a really like magnetic energy. " And then um and I think like usually like that shows off in your body language, right? Like people can sense a radiant energy and they want to be around that. So it's probably a really important aspect to I think my success so far in business.

Okay. Yeah. No, I agree. You have such a radiant energy and like Thank you.

It's very powerful. You recently posted an article called what agentic AI can do for women with a very interesting re research study. Tell me more about that. Yeah.

So I've been fascinated by this topic of gender bias in these LLMs. and particularly within hiring. And so there was a study done out of Germany back in 2025 that showed that a man was being told to ask for $400,000 and a woman with the very same qualification, same city, same everything was being asked to ask for $280,000. So $120,000 discrepancy.

So that's what I mean when I talk about like the compounding losses that could happen if women are going on AI and being told to ask for less than they deserve. Like think about that, right? Yeah. So, first off, we have the problem that women don't negotiate as much as men.

But then if they go negotiate, they're going to be told a whole salary, like $120,000 is one person's full salary, if not two. And so, I think it's just astounding those numbers. And that's just one instance. So, throughout that woman's life, the compounding losses that she will experience, let's say she negotiated that when she was like, I don't know, 30.

Imagine how much she will lose at 60, at 70, because she decided to take such a lower offer than the man with the very same qualifications. That's that's crazy. Yeah, it's it's existential. Oh my gosh.

I would argue because it means like it means that women, you know, not just that women make less, but it also means that there's less money going into the home, right? Because now, you know, men and women and families are like working together to provide for their families. And and I think that just like the way that families and these systems are run now has changed. So we need to make sure that women are getting the same as men because it actually harms men in the end when women get paid less.

And who's a who's in charge of like changing that? Like how do we how do we make sure like Yeah, it's a complex topic, right? Because there's private institutions that can kind of do whatever they want and laws have been passed and apparently, you know, they equal pay like we got that down pack. Like up until a few years ago, like I thought we were equal.

I was like, they passed the laws, like we're good, but there's just still so much like systemic problems. Um, and unfortunately, there's just like that bias where like, you know, women don't negotiate or maybe they're being given an offer that's substantially less. And that just happens time and time again. And so, I think the conversation around policy is of course always important, but I think why I built Ruth is because I want women to have that autonomy and that ownership over their own lives.

is like we can't wait around for policy to change or for your employer to decide that you're worth the same as a man. Like ain't nobody got time for that personally. And so I think it's really important to just be your biggest advocate. Okay.

Okay. Be your biggest. You talked about the venture world being gate captive. A lot of things founders need to know that nobody tells you.

What's the thing you've had to bulldoze through that you wish someone had just explained? Yeah, there's so much about the venture space that's been fascinating. I think one of the reasons why I wanted to move to San Francisco is because I wanted to learn about it, right? Like I like I said, didn't grow up around venture capitalists or I didn't even know anyone who's an entrepreneur.

And so for me, what I feel like I realized and I wish I learned sooner is that relationships are so important. So like a lot of the times you'll see these founders who will be like, "Oh, I raised in a matter of days. " And like this idea of speed is just like everyone talks about like how fast they did it. And I think at the end of the day what they're not telling you is that they've known these investors for the last two years or that they've been building the relationship for the last you know year and a half.

And I think that's something that I wish more people talked about. And I think what I would advise you know founders who want to raise at some point and I'm also still in this journey is like start you know like genuinely building relationships with investors before you even have an idea. Okay. Is there one in uh is there like some an investor you have in mind that you've like built a relationship before?

Yeah, I mean I've built relationships with amazing ones now and and actually having a personal brand has has led to a lot of inbound from venture capitalists. So I think that's another reason why I'm so bullish on women building their personal brands is that while capital allocation for women and women businesses has been substantially less right like in the in about like the 2% of venture capital going to women like that number is of course you know irritating but I think having a personal brand you know definitely increases your surface area for opportunities as well as you know meeting the right investors. Nice. So you have a co-founder.

Tell me about that relationship. Yeah. So, my co-founder is amazing and I honestly couldn't build Ruth without him. I think it's so important to have someone who has like a big vision and he definitely has a huge vision for life and like where to take the company and that's really empowering.

I think what his strength in his strength in particular is in building movements. So, he actually came from the entertainment space. Used to be a music producer then worked at Sony Music as an ANR helping develop artists. So we would take an artist who's like relatively unknown to like you know headlining Coachella and that takes a lot of just like knowing what the consumer wants and knowing how to make someone a movement.

So he's been instrumental in kind of helping me take like you know all the great stuff that I've been doing in my career and like just amping it up to the next level. So for instance, that conversation that I had with Sam Alman, you know, he was there architecting like this is once you get in the room, this is the question you should ask. And then once you ask the question, you know, this is how we're going to blow it up, right? And so from there, we went and we pitched to different, you know, news articles and we pitched to Fortune and we were like, let's craft the story.

Those are things that maybe my brain wouldn't have thought of. I probably would have been like, let me go on cloud code. Let me let me just go on CodeEx all day, right? and and he's very much like no like press is such an important aspect and that's something that he learned from the entertainment industry that I think you know people in software and in the startup space could could definitely learn from.

Oh wait that's so awesome having him by your side and how did you guys meet? So we met through mutual friends and we actually had another company together before this called Inform where we would curate guest lists for different companies like Fox Media and Nordstrom and Sparkling Ice and all these incredible companies would come to us and then we would help bring all the Gen Z thought leaders into the room. " Oh, wow. Yeah, that's amazing.

Awesome. So, if founder, you kind of talked about this a little bit, but if a founder is watching this and they haven't touched their LinkedIn since their last job change, what are they doing wrong and what's the first thing they should change? Yeah, I think the first thing that people should change is their headline. Okay.

So right now I see a lot of people who are like marketing at XY andZ company but they don't actually say like who it is that they help. So the thing that changed me was actually taking a course from this guy named Justin Welsh and he's a big LinkedIn content creator and I took his course I paid like about $100. I took like the beginning of the course and one of the first things I learned was the power of this I help statement. So this format of like I help X Y and Z do X Y and Z.

And so mine quickly became I help women use AI to build powerful personal brands. And so when someone would land on my page, they immediately knew what I stood for and how I could help them. And so that tiny tweak changes everything. It increases your outbound.

More people are going to answer your email because when they click on that link of your LinkedIn, they know exactly who you help. And then you're going to get more inbound because like I said, people know who you help. " Like, I need to be more visible. But if you don't use those words of who you help, people just think like you you only care about yourself and you're self- serving.

Yeah. And then for the po first post, should they also do a similar post like a little introduction post or like this is me, like this is the kind of impact I want to bring. Maybe like a photo, something. Yeah.

I don't think it I don't think it hi, I'm Valerie. I just got straight into it. I started talking about body language. I was like, "Let me just get a post up every day.

" And I think like the only way you can figure out what you really stand for is by showing up every day, posting, getting no likes, and then eventually you get three likes and then 13 likes, and then you're like, "Wow, that person always like my likes my post. " Right? And then I think there's also this concept of like 10,00 true fans. Have you heard about this?

No. Oh my gosh. So I I feel like it was a thing like a few years ago that people were really talking about where like it's this concept. I think the guy's name is Kevin.

I don't recall his last name who created this concept, but you basically just need a thousand true fans to like make an income essentially is the concept. So, as I was posting on LinkedIn, I realized like all I need is 1,000 true fans who are like super diehard about like what I stand for and love my content. And that was like really my goal. I was like, it's not about like having a 100,000 followers.

It's just about having a thousand. And so, that's why it's so important to answer people in the comments to respond to those DMs because over time it accumulates and you have like it's not that hard to build a thousand relationships if you really lock in. Yeah. What are your big inspirations, role models?

I would say probably Melinda Gates is a is a big inspiration, especially her recent initiatives in like the women and healthc care space. Um, I also love Loren Pal jobs. I think I like really look up to women who like are very philanthropic with their wealth. I think that is something that is very noble.

What do you mean by that? Like you know these people like obviously have a lot of wealth, right? And we're seeing people like the Elon Musk of the world who also have a lot of wealth. And I think it it comes down to like what do you do when you're in that position?

And I think those are women who try to use their voice for good who constantly show up and they don't have to do that. Like they could be in Bali like at a resort, but instead they're fun like for instance Melinda Gates funds the wind challenge which is it's an initiative that's giving $60 million to nonprofits who are focused on women in the workplace. So I think that's so cool. Like once you get to the point where you have money like what are these other ventures that you can create and how can you actually allocate that wealth?

I think that's you know a true sign of intelligence in my opinion and the best way to showcase one's empathy. Oo and then do you have any resources you recommend any like books or even starting out that you have really really touched you? Yeah I think one of my favorite books that just like initially comes to mind is Big Magic. I read it years ago in a nail salon and there's this like you know one section of the book where they talk about the magic of like creative ideas and how if you don't capitalize on an idea that comes to you it's like a bumblebee and so it'll go to the next person and that has been something that's really changed my life because now when I get you know an idea for a video I try to not sit on it too long I try to act as quickly as possible and I feel like that's when like the magic happens and even you know friends of mine like Barman is a content creator and she says the same thing like when she gets an idea it's like boom I just got to do a yap video one minute and then she'll get like millions of views and so when I talk to all these other content creators they have a very similar philosophy and it's shown that you know it it ends up going more viral um and and actually like permeating within the cultural zikas when you act on things faster.

That is really good advice. Thank you. Yeah. So if Ruth works what or it's working so what changes what does the world with Ruth in it looks like?

Yeah, I mean I want the world with Ruth to be a place where women feel super empowered, where there's so many women entrepreneurs who like can't even keep count. I want to see, you know, capital allocation increase a lot for women and women businesses. And um I think also I just care deeply about like making sure women are getting their stories out there and overcoming this hump of like I'm scared to be seen. I really want to tackle that.

And I I feel like doing things like these podcasts and actually building the software, doing inerson events, like I think we are making a dent already in terms of empowering more women to do that. And I think the change that we'll see like we can't even really quantify what happens when a thousand women understand their mission deeply because they use AI to figure it out or when you know a hundred thousand women do it or millions of women who are locked in on their single mission. I think that would absolutely change the world and that's the mission that that I'm on. That's very beautiful.

And then what what do you have coming up? What are exciting like initiatives project that you're working on right now? You want to share? So we are getting ready to launch our beta.

So we're super excited about that. And then we're also focused on adding more research out there. Right? There's not a lot of research on gender bias or on how women are using AI tools and AI agents now.

And so we're actually uh putting together about a thousand person study. I can't like disclose too many details, but we one of the big things that we're doing at Ruth is of course the software side, but also making sure that there's more research out there on the market I think is super important. So like building out that institutional research arm is definitely a big focus in the in the coming months. Wow, that's very exciting.

And what can you tell me about your product that you haven't talked about publicly yet? Oo, um I guess I haven't talked about the beta publicly. So with the beta, we intend to launch our Ruth beta 100. So there'll be 100 content creators, people who've been close friends of the brand since we started and having them on board.

But also not just rolling out like a typical beta. Of course, we want to get our user data, but because my co-founder and I come from more of like this marketing and this PR lens, we also want it to be, you know, an opportunity for people to create content about it. And so we're we're thinking about it in in very savvy and I would say like very different ways to how most people have rolled out their beta. And what are like the so technical uh parts of Ruth then?

Yeah. How do you do you incorporate a lot of like technical is it like Yeah. Yeah. I think probably the most technical aspect of Ruth is probably our negotiation agent.

That's probably the one that's like the most time consuming because there's just so much research that we need to think about in the context of building out a user interface where women feel like they can actually come and negotiate their salaries. So, you know, we're talking to people like Linda Bapcock who is out of Carnegie Melon and is an amazing researcher in the gender space. And so taking kind of her insights and the work that she's done and published in books and figuring out how can we translate all of this amazing work into a user interface so that women feels truly equipped like this is the best researchbacked user interface. So I would say from a technical perspective that is definitely one of our like you know more fun challenges to tackle because it hasn't really been done before.

It's amazing. Yeah. Well thank you Val. This is incredible.

I'm really excited to stay tuned with everything you're going to be up to. Thank you. I'm so excited to watch all your upcoming episodes, too. This is going to be a good one.

Awesome.