{"id":2287,"date":"2026-08-14T09:43:30","date_gmt":"2026-08-14T09:43:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vaultinsider.top\/?p=2287"},"modified":"2026-08-14T09:43:30","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T09:43:30","slug":"tennis-champion-serena-williams-on-finding-mentors-for-the-vc-chapter-of-her-career","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vaultinsider.top\/?p=2287","title":{"rendered":"Tennis champion Serena Williams on finding mentors for the VC chapter of her career"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

Good morning.<\/strong> How do the leadership skills that are needed to thrive at the highest level of sports translate to business? One person who\u2019s thought about that a lot is Serena Williams. She launched her VC firm more than a decade ago, recently changing the name from Serena Ventures to Starfire Ventures, and has launched other businesses. She\u2019s experienced success as an early investor in companies like Coinbase, MasterClass, and Impossible Foods. And she\u2019s also dealt with the failure of her Wyn Beauty and S by Serena fashion labels that are no longer in operation. I recently spoke with the tennis star while she was mentoring young founders in the Reckitt Catalyst program as the first entrepreneur-in-residence for the British multinational.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n

As a celebrity, one of Serena\u2019s biggest challenges is how to take the spotlight off herself. The bigger the name or gap in achievement, the more important it is to build trust. Talking to fans and mentoring founders are different skills. \u201cI\u2019ve had to learn mentorship. I never really thought about it until I stepped into this role,\u201d she told me. One of the key lessons was \u201cleaning into being more accessible, obviously with time, but also letting people understand that they can call me, text me, and reach each other because we have a common goal of making this business succeed.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Williams also recognized the importance of finding new role models for this chapter of her career. \u201cI always said I did so good because I watched Venus first \u2026 I was sitting in every match and watching what she did or didn\u2019t do so I could take all that in.\u201d She also found a role model in longtime Starfire Ventures partner Beth Ferreira. In a less formal way, she also takes inspiration from her husband Alexis Ohanian, an entrepreneur and VC who co-founded Reddit. \u201cWe rarely work together, but the best advice I get from him is when he\u2019s on calls and I listen in \u2026 If I have questions, I\u2019ll obviously ask him, but we keep things very church and state at home.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Having had a father who was so famously involved in the trajectory of her sports career, I asked her what she wants her daughters to take away from this phase. \u201cI\u2019d like them to see how hard we work. We\u2019re not phoning anything in. We\u2019re showing up every day. We\u2019re making calls. We\u2019re spending hours in the office. We\u2019re doing all the work,\u201d she said, noting that her kids obviously have advantages that she and Venus lacked growing up in Compton, California. \u201cI think it\u2019s important for them to understand that in order to have success, you have to continue to do the work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Contact CEO Daily via Diane Brady at diane.brady@fortune.com<\/em><\/p>\n

Top leadership news<\/h3>\n

OpenAI examines AI\u2019s impact on revenues<\/b><\/p>\n

OpenAI’s latest research <\/span>found<\/span> no statistically significant correlation between how much companies use ChatGPT and the revenue they generate per employee. \u201cRevenue per employee is not meaningfully associated with output tokens per employee or messages per active user once other controls are included,\u201d the report explains. <\/span>It adds that companies that already have higher revenue per employee tend to be early ChatGPT adopters. <\/span><\/p>\n

Will Anthropic seek a $2 trillion IPO?\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

Anthropic investors <\/span>expect<\/span> the AI company to go public as soon as October at a $2 trillion-plus valuation, which would surpass SpaceX’s $1.77 trillion IPO record. However, analysts are waiting on further details as to how much the company is generating in net income. Renaissance Capital’s Avery Marquez said the figure is “definitely jolting,” adding that getting close to operating profitability could make the valuation “maybe not seem so crazy.”<\/span><\/p>\n

The markets<\/h3>\n

S&P 500<\/b> futures are up 0.045% this morning. <\/span>The<\/b> STOXX Europe 600<\/b> was down 0.13% in early trading. <\/span>The U.K.\u2019s FTSE 100<\/b> was down 0.31% in early trading.<\/span> The Nikkei 225 <\/b>is up 0.59%. <\/span>South Korea\u2019s KOSPI <\/b>was up 2.42%. <\/span>China\u2019s CSI 300 <\/b>was up 0.04%.<\/span> Hong Kong\u2019s Hang Seng<\/b> was down 1.10%.<\/span> India\u2019s NIFTY 50 <\/b>was down 0.04%. <\/span>Bitcoin<\/b> is down at $62.7K.<\/span><\/p>\n

Around the watercooler<\/h3>\n

Malcolm Gladwell would rather have a dad who makes $100,000 than $1 billion: Extreme wealth is \u2018quite crippling to your motivation\u2019<\/span> by Preston Fore<\/span><\/p>\n

Only 12% of family businesses stay in the family by the third generation. A Goldman Sachs chairman says optimism is the reason<\/span> by Nick Lichtenberg<\/span><\/p>\n

Jennifer Garner cofounded a $732 million business at 45, and says her age came with perks: \u2018I\u2019m blissfully not motivated by needing to be in charge\u2019<\/span> by Emma Burleigh<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018Multi-part case study on China\u2019s media\u2019 finds that AI models can\u2019t hallucinate away Chinese censorship<\/span> by Mia Osmonbekov<\/span><\/p>\n

CEO Daily is curated and edited by Joseph Abrams, Jason Ma, Claire Zillman, and Lee Clifford.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

#Tennis #champion #Serena #Williams #finding #mentors #chapter #career<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Good morning. 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