Quick test. Name the person who runs Tesla. Elon Musk. Without hesitation. Now name the person who runs General Motors. That's Mary Barra, who has led GM for more than a decade and ranks No. 2 on Fortune's 2026 Most Powerful Women list. As Wired's Lauren Goode found in Silicon Valley, ask who the most powerful man in tech is and you get first names: Elon, Jensen, Sam. Ask about women and you get a pause.
That pause isn't unique to tech. Across the C-suite, startups, venture capital, and dealmaking, women are holding record levels of power while remaining largely unknown to the public.
The Corner Office
A record 55 women lead Fortune 500 companies in 2026, about 11% of the list. Globally, women run just 34 Fortune Global 500 companies, or 6.8%. Women also tend to lead smaller companies than men, and the first woman-led company on the Fortune 500 doesn't appear until No. 18.
Startups and Entrepreneurship
Women own 15.7 million U.S. businesses, 40.6% of the total. But the average woman-owned business earns about $179,000 a year, versus $896,000 for men. At the top, a record 43 self-made women billionaires made Forbes' 2026 list, led by ABC Supply's Diane Hendricks and Anthropic cofounder Daniela Amodei. Most people could name the richest self-made man in America. Few could name Hendricks.
Venture Capital
Female-founded companies raised a record $73.6 billion in 2025, but more than $30 billion of it went to just two companies, Scale AI and Anthropic. On the investing side, only eight women made Forbes' 2026 Midas List of top venture investors, two fewer than the year before.
Deals and Acquisitions
Dealmaking may be the least visible arena of all, since the bankers and lawyers behind major deals rarely make headlines. Top female "deal captains" include Sonia Nijjar of Skadden, Faiza Saeed of Cravath, and Lily Mahdavi of Morgan Stanley. And, some of the boldest deals belong to founders themselves. Some of the boldest deals belong to founders themselves. Anne Wojcicki bought 23andMe back out of bankruptcy, and Merrilee Kick sold BuzzBalls to Sazerac for an estimated $500 million or more.
So, why the pause?
Women more often hold operator roles, like CFO, COO, or deal adviser, that do the work without drawing the spotlight. Capital still concentrates in a few huge bets, so record totals can hide thin participation. And as Wired found, many women skip the loud, personality-driven visibility that turns men into household names. The power is real and growing, but recognition isn't keeping pace. That matters, because the names people know shape who gets funded, hired, and invited into the room.
Women own 15.7 million U.S. businesses--40.6% of the total--but generate only 4.6% of national business revenue, according to the 2026 Impact of Women-Owned Businesses report commissioned by Wells Fargo. New research suggests part of that gap opens before a loan application is even submitted.
A recent survey found that 56% of women who started a financing application abandoned it, compared to 43% of men. Those who applied often asked for less: 44% of women lowered their request out of fear of rejection, versus 33% of men. And when they applied, 45% of women were fully approved compared with 54% of men. The consequences are concrete. Nearly 1 in 4 women delayed a hire and nearly 1 in 3 cut inventory after being underfunded or denied.
The Wells Fargo report, drawing on Federal Reserve data, finds approval rates have largely converged. But both sources reach the same conclusion, even approved loans are often too small to fund hiring, investment, or expansion at the pace men-owned firms manage. So women fill the gap themselves. Clarify found 39% of women reach for personal savings first, and only 42% of 2024 SBA loan recipients were women-owned, even though those loans carry federal guarantees of up to 85%.
Venture capital hasn't changed the picture for most founders. PitchBook reports that female-founded companies raised a record $73.6 billion in 2025, but more than $30 billion of that went to just two companies, Scale AI and Anthropic. Early-stage deal activity outside AI is flat or shrinking.
Some help is arriving. The SBA launched a $6 million Women's Business Center Modernization Initiative in July, aimed at eight states and territories where existing support hasn't kept up with the number of women entrepreneurs.
So, founders, finish the application, ask for what your business actually needs, and shop lenders carefully. The Fed's 2026 Report on Employer Firms found small banks had the highest full approval rate, at 57%. A lender can't say yes to a request you never submit.
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