Why Karlie Kloss And Phoebe Gates Are Committed To Empowering Women

Key Concepts

• Multi-hyphenate: Individuals with multiple career paths and interests.
• Intentionality: Designing ventures with a clear purpose and alignment with personal values.
• Impact Investing: Allocating capital to businesses and projects that generate social and environmental benefits alongside financial returns.
• Democratizing Access: Making opportunities, skills, and information available to a wider range of people.
• Personal Brand: Establishing a unique identity and voice to connect with audiences authentically.
• Values Alignment: Ensuring that business practices and partnerships reflect core beliefs and principles.
• Mentorship: Providing guidance and support to individuals, especially young people, to help them navigate their careers and personal development.
• Reproductive Rights: The fundamental right of individuals to make decisions about their reproductive health and bodily autonomy.
• Sustainability: Building businesses with a focus on long-term environmental and social responsibility.
• Storytelling: Using narratives to connect with audiences, build community, and influence perceptions.

Carly's Journey: Authenticity and Impact

Carly, discovered as a model at 14, initially planned to be a doctor or teacher, careers she associated with purpose. Her fashion career evolved into a platform for her voice, driven by authenticity and a desire to help others. Her ventures are guided by what she genuinely cares about, split into three main areas:

• Code With Klossy: Founded 10 years ago, this initiative has taught over 11,000 young women and gender-expansive teens how to code. It empowers them to build their ideas into reality through technical skills. The program is expanding, with 3,000 more young people participating this summer.
• Gateway Coalition: Focuses on supporting access to reproductive care. Carly partnered with Phoebe on "Everybody's Fight," a storytelling series highlighting the challenges in accessing reproductive care across the US.
• ID Magazine: Carly acquired ID magazine last year, bringing it back to life and to print, focusing on storytelling and supporting the next generation of talent and creatives.

Carly emphasizes the importance of using capital as a means of power and encourages more girls and women to realize and embrace this. She invests in people she believes in and ideas that benefit the planet or consumers, or solve significant problems she's passionate about.

Phoebe's Portfolio: Values and Transparency

Phoebe, inspired by her mother's career in software engineering and philanthropy, designs her ventures to reflect her generation's values. Her portfolio includes:

• FIA: A fashion tool co-founded at Stanford, designed to help consumers find the best prices.
• Burnouts Podcast: A platform to share entrepreneurial experiences, ask questions, and learn from experts. It reinforces her journey as an entrepreneur.
• Reproductive Freedom Advocacy: Driven by the overturning of Roe v. Wade, Phoebe actively advocates for reproductive rights, viewing them as fundamental to economic empowerment.

Phoebe emphasizes the importance of having a supportive team and aligning ventures with personal values. She believes that taking a stand on issues like reproductive rights shouldn't be risky, as women's access to choice is crucial for societal and economic growth.

Integrating Impact: Authenticity vs. "Paintbrush"

Carly notes that many businesses try to embed impact into their organizations, but it often lacks authenticity. She emphasizes the importance of aligning with people and ideas that benefit the planet or consumers, or solve significant problems. Capital is a means of power, and she wants more women to realize and embrace this.

Advocacy and Polarization: Leading with Values

Phoebe acknowledges the privileged position she's in, having access to education and resources. She believes it's essential to be honest about one's values and use one's platform to advocate for important issues. Carly adds that everyone has a voice, a vote, and the power to influence change. They both emphasize the importance of standing up for what you believe in, even if it's not publicly.

Carly highlights the reality that millions of women in the US live in states with abortion bans, emphasizing the need for storytelling to raise awareness and move dollars to support philanthropic efforts.

The Power of Storytelling: Building Narratives

Both Carly and Phoebe emphasize the power of storytelling in building businesses and reinforcing values.

• Carly: Uses ID magazine to tell stories and support the next generation of talent. She focuses on democratizing access to skills and information.
• Phoebe: Believes people want to buy into individuals who are authentic and relatable. She uses her podcast to share her experiences and uplift the stories of others. For FIA, she brings in users who find better deals using the app to create videos. She also emphasizes the importance of uplifting the content you care about and speaking true to your content.

Philanthropy and Business: Creating Enduring Value

Carly discusses how Code With Klossy has scaled over the past decade, providing thousands of scholarships. She highlights the long-term impact of the program, with a significant percentage of alumni pursuing degrees in computer science. She sees this as a way of investing in long-term change and empowering young people to build the world they want to live in.

Phoebe believes the stability of a business comes down to the product. She emphasizes the importance of continually evolving and staying close to the consumer. She highlights the underserved female power shopper and the opportunity to focus on pain points that distinctly women have. She emphasizes the importance of continually shipping and staying really, really close to the consumer.

Building Partnerships: Collaboration and Values Alignment

Carly emphasizes the importance of values alignment in building partnerships. Code With Klossy was built off of her career partnerships, with long-time supporters like Estee Lauder and Carolina Herrera. She also sees herself as a partner to the founders she invests in.

Building a Business Empire: A Non-Traditional Approach

Phoebe focuses on her business as her core focus, with everything else giving her energy to focus on her business. She plans out where she wants to be in six months, continually learning and improving.

Takeaways for Traditional Sectors

• Carly: Mentorship is crucial. Everyone can mentor a young person and share their experiences.
• Phoebe: Don't let perfection be the enemy of progress. Take action, even if you don't have all the answers.

Synthesis/Conclusion

The discussion highlights the evolving landscape of business and leadership, where intentionality, values alignment, and impact are increasingly central. Carly and Phoebe exemplify this shift, building multi-faceted platforms that integrate their personal values with their professional endeavors. They emphasize the importance of authenticity, storytelling, democratizing access, and building partnerships based on shared values. Their insights offer valuable lessons for traditional sectors looking to engage with new generations and create businesses with enduring purpose and impact.