ICYMI

Hello! Hi! Happy Sunday HSR!

It feels like I am in full momentum mode right now despite barely recovering from endometriosis surgery but that’s what happens when you find product market fit. I have an exciting announcement happening tomorrow (hint: here), it’s World Cup season and I am officially in my WAG era hosting the VIP event with US Soccer as my husband is on the board before I head off to France for Cannes Lion all on the heels of NY Tech Week.

There are so many things I could write about today but the thing I cannot stop thinking about goes back further than any of it, all the way to my childhood because 2026 is a great time to be neurodivergent. Growing up? Not so much.

I started NY Tech Week reading an article by Palantir CEO and billionaire Alex Karp titled: "Only two kinds of people will succeed in the AI era: trade workers, or you are neurodivergent." And then, as if the universe was making a point, I spent the entire week surrounded by it.

I ran into the man building a $30 million fund solely focused on backing neurodivergent founders. My husband's $2 billion VC fund, M13, hosted a panel discussion on leading with ADHD. I met with three startups being built specifically for neurodivergent people, all of them using AI. The neurodivergent conversation is everywhere right now and I have a lot to say about it.

But first, the part I have not talked about enough.

I am diagnosed ADHD and dyslexic. I have known for most of my life that those diagnoses were not limitations. They were the reason I think critically, see things others miss, take risks that others talk themselves out of, and find creative solutions where most people see dead ends. I just had to carry that knowledge quietly for a long time before the world caught up.

I still remember the testing center to be diagnosed. The days of matching problems, writing exercises, math problems, and then the rooms where I was simply left with nothing to do and watched, to see how distracted and distressed I would become. But that diagnosis became my secret weapon. And it looks like it is about to become an even bigger one.

Alex Karp predicts that 1/5th of Fortune 500 companies will be actively recruiting neurodivergent talent by 2027. The skills that made us difficult to manage in a classroom, the pattern recognition, the hyper-focus, the ability to hold multiple ideas at once and connect them in ways others cannot, are exactly the skills that AI amplifies rather than replaces.

Which brings me to the AI crisis PR problem buried inside that headline.

"Only two types of people will succeed in the AI era" is genuinely fear-mongering for anyone who only reads the title. This is what we spent the majority of time discussing at the Axios roundtable about storytelling in the world of ai; the fact that ai has a serious PR problem because of titles like this. IMO, for every neurodivergent visionary, there absolutely needs to be someone who can execute, translate, and operationalize the vision. That is not a lesser role. That is the other half of the equation.

Katie is the clearest example I have in my own life. She is the reason a human can take exactly what I mean, both electronically and in person, and translate it into something real in a way that AI genuinely cannot replicate. We need both. The world needs both. So if you are not neurodivergent, do not spiral over that headline. The need for people who can get things done has never been greater. In my personal life, the same is true for CJR. He is the glue. Without either of them, I wouldn’t be nearly as competent. It’s why both my business and personal life have 10x since they came into the picture.

But for anyone reading this that can benefit off of my favorite tools, tips and products, here are a few things that have made my life significantly easier as a neurodivergent creative entrepreneur, in case they help you too:
- I split my week into filming and camera days versus what I call CEO days, computer and strategy only and filming.
- The Granola note-taker app has changed my ability to stay present in conversations entirely. I focus deeply on the things I am genuinely good at and delegate the rest without guilt.
- I use AI to summarize my inbox three times a day, flagging only what needs an immediate response and leaving the rest until I am in the right headspace to handle it.
- I take these, they are my favorite natural focus supplements

Beauty standards are changing fast. Women are talking more openly about fertility, aging, financial independence, and building businesses on their own terms. At the same time, careers are becoming less linear, proving that reinvention is often the key to long-term success.

If you've ever wondered what it really takes to build a decades-long career in industries obsessed with youth, relevance, and constant change, this is the episode for you.

Molly Sims, YSE Beauty founder, entrepreneur, and iconic model, joins me on Hot Smart Rich to talk Sports Illustrated, freezing embryos, prenups, anti-aging, entrepreneurship, and why women should never settle for less than the life they actually want.

all the brands, people, places, things we’re gossiping about this week

Women’s Health & Beauty

Media, Entertainment & Creator

Consumer, E-Commerce & Retail

Tech, Business & Investing

What everyone is missing about women in SPAM, creator businesses, and the future of power

This past week, I found myself watching dozens of videos about women in SPAM.

If you've somehow missed the trend, SPAM stands for social media, public relations, advertising, and marketing. The phrase exploded after TikTok creator Laura Cameron posted a video arguing that while everyone was focused on AI replacing jobs, many of the roles becoming more valuable sat inside these exact functions. Within days, thousands of women were identifying themselves as women in SPAM, sharing stories about their careers and pushing back against the idea that they were simply "marketing girlies" posting on Instagram all day.

And I could not stop laughing.

Not because the videos weren't funny, but because they reminded me of how often I've seen this movie before.

Back in 2018, I was managing an $18 million marketing budget for one of the fastest-growing direct-to-consumer brands in the world. The decisions our team made influenced customer acquisition, growth forecasts, retail expansion, hiring plans, and company valuation. We were helping shape the future of the business in very real ways, yet there was still an underlying perception that marketing somehow sat adjacent to the important work.

Looking back, it feels almost absurd. Not because marketing suddenly became important, but because it always was.

The more I thought about the women in SPAM trend, the more I realized it reminded me of something I've been noticing for years. I've seen it in beauty. I've seen it in creator businesses. I've seen it in female friendship. I've even seen it inside Silicon Valley.

The same pattern keeps showing up in completely different industries, and once you see it, it's hard to unsee. At first, I thought women in SPAM was a story about marketing. Now I think it's a story about power. And more specifically, who gets taken seriously before the money shows up versus after.

Because the most interesting part of this trend isn't the acronym…it's the pattern hiding underneath it.