Businesswomen From The United States

"Why even be in Congress if you don’t believe in doing your job? Just quit and let someone who actually gives a damn do it instead of acting like a useless piece of furniture when babies are shot with AR15s that we let teen boys impulse buy before they can legally have a beer."

"President Trump decided to veto a completely non-controversial, bipartisan bill that passed both the House and Senate unanimously. Why? Because nothing says ‘America First’ like denying clean drinking water to 50,000 people in Southeast Colorado many of whom enthusiastically voted for him all three elections. I sincerely hope this veto has nothing to do with political retaliation for calling out corruption and demanding accountability Americans deserve leadership that puts people over politics."

"Charlie Kirk was a doer of the word, a risktaker, a bold defender of truth. And, he has sown into the lives of millions. And, that harvest will produce 30, 60, and a 100-fold. Charlie, you have a legacy."

"We need to get voter turnout. I think that all Republicans need to focus on ballot harvesting where it’s legal in Colorado. And, I mean, that’s something that we have to pay attention to or we’re going to continue to be in the mess that we’re in. Democrats chase ballots while we’re chasing voters. And so, I mean, we have to get in the game."

"We are addressed as 'MAGA extremists,' 'extreme MAGA Republicans,' and I would like to make just a clarification point: it's 'ULTRA-MAGA.' That's what we prefer."

"The church is supposed to direct the government. The government is not supposed to direct the church. That is not how our Founding Fathers intended it. And I am tired of this separation of church and state junk. It's not in the Constitution."

"They illegally mailed out hundreds of thousands of ballots right in our faces."

"Why is it that so many who cross the Clinton Crime Syndicate end up dead?"

"Democrats want to teach our children to hate each other. This radical critical race theory brings division, not unity, it advances hate, not love, and puts a person’s skin as more important than the content of their character."

"The truth is, they want borders wide open. It helped Democrats take over the entire state of California, and now we're seeing in New York, they're paying 15 grand to illegal immigrants. 15 grand because you came here illegally, you can't make this stuff up. We have to take our country back."

"We already see in Washington, D.C., you can’t petition your government, you’re an insurrectionist if you do that!"

"Madam Speaker, it is my duty under the U.S. Constitution to object to the counting of electoral votes of the state of Arizona. The members who stand here today and accept the results of this concentrated, coordinated, partisan effort by Democrats where every fraudulent vote cancels out the vote of an honest American has sided with the extremist left! The United States Congress needs to make an informed decision and that starts with this objection."

"I was stuck in their cycle of poverty under their failed policies and I busted out, and glory to God, I am never going back and taking the same message of freedom to everybody."

"Please stop acting like you don’t know what this is. He murdered two people. And will walk free. You’ve never in your life heard of a POC that killed two people and got to walk free. #WhitePrivilege"

"For every family in liberal San Francisco that went solar with SunRun in 2010, nearly eight families in more conservative Fresno made the switch to our solar power service."

"When the fan magazines started wanting to take pictures of me making sandwiches for my husband, I said no. You know there are tribes in Africa who believe that a camera steals a little part of your soul, and in a way I think that's true about living your private life in public. It takes something away from your relationships, it cheapens them."

"Yes, I was raised by my pops. I think it made me super strong, maybe too strong at times. I remember I was the only kid who didn't cry for their mommy at sleepovers. Which turned into not really needing anyone. Which made it hard to date me. Every guy always cried long before I ever did in a relationship. I'm so lucky I met someone who could handle me. My husband changed me for the better, but he loves me for the tough bitch I am. If he's not happy, even for a moment, I will totally cry."

"I started DJ-ing about eight years ago. I used to hang in the DJ booth with DJ AM a lot and he really inspired me. I loved watching how happy he was while making other people so happy as he dropped each track. He really was my inspiration and my motivation. He was the one that told me I could do it. Paris actually hired me to DJ all of her record release parties around the world. This was before it was "cool" to be a chick DJ. We actually had a lot of fun."

"My mother contracted the AIDS virus when I was very young by the doctors at the hospital. They gave her a precautionary blood transfusion and did not check the blood they gave her. It was a total fluke. I was lied to for 15 years about it. I always thought she died from toxic shock. I was very angry that my father lied to me, but I now understand that he just did not want the stigma of the disease to affect my friendships at school. As we all know, kids can be mean, and my father was trying to protect us. The stigma of this disease has always been something I'd like to help remove. Anyone at any time can contract this disease, gay, straight, a mom of four with no drug history. Anyone. Everyone needs to educate themselves on how to be protected and also about how to discuss this disease without adding to the stigma. It shaped my outlook on life by reminding me that life is so precious and can be very short. Live life to the fullest, but be smart and take care of yourself."

"Growing up in L.A., for me, was a lot different than you’d think. I was the daughter of a hardworking pizza man who ended up kickin’ it with the rich kids. I lived in Malibu because we opened a D'Amore's pizza there. I'd make just enough money delivering pizzas so I could pay for gas and valet at the hottest clubs. I worked to party. I must have been fired from D'Amore's 100 times. But being the owner’s daughter had perks. And, of course, free pizza for life, so I never starved."

"I knew from the time I could walk that I wanted to work. I wanted to be my own boss and do my own thing. You can get what you want if you act like there is no other option."

"Hence, the whole party girl club rat phase that I went through in my life. School wasn’t for me. Honestly, I felt uncomfortable and I didn’t have a clique. I was floating by friends with all the different groups. Maybe that’s the Gemini in me, but I didn’t have my thing in school. I wasn’t very good at school. I was terrible at math. Testing freaked me out. I dropped out. My last completed grade is ninth grade. We walked in one day and walked out and I was like, “I’m done.” I was in the club one night and DJ AM was deejaying. I literally saw the sky open and I was blown away by how he controlled the room and his energy made everybody else so happy. If you looked at him, he was joyous and it brought joy to me and everyone in the room."

"I grew up in Malibu and people hear that and they’re like, “You were some rich socialite.” I’m like, “How?” My dad is the pizza man, first of all. When I wanted enough money to go to the club or something crazy that night, I delivered pizzas. I had to work. I was in this circle and I grew up with these girls that were more financially fortunate or famous than me and my family. It was a very interesting dynamic, but none of that matters when you’re all true friends. Everybody’s got your back. You become friends with who you become friends with."

"I have heard that the business can start to control you. We have to be careful because life is short and we can’t just make it about the business."

"When you’re in LA, you can try everything."

"Ask your employees questions and ask for their opinions. Empower them to feel ownership. When they love what they do and how they're treated— you'll see results. I like working with people that can teach me something that benefits the business. People willing to do more than just what's required to get the job done."

"REAL women don’t bully other women."

"Churchill is my favorite example to use with western audiences about the nature of truth in popular histories. To millions, a liberating hero. To yet millions of others, oppressor and genocidaire."

"It’s a good thing to do the right thing today. It’s a better thing to recognize the people who did it yesterday, when it was hard."

"We must work together to create a safe, inclusive culture, where everyone feels welcome, that their contributions are valued, and that their perspective matters."

"We operate Wikipedia as a public trust. Our vision statement says: “Imagine a world in which every single human can freely share in the sum of all human knowledge. That’s our commitment.” At best, this is an aspiration; in reality it is a beautiful, if slightly mad, ambition. But even knowing the challenges, we forge onwards because we believe in people — the contribution every human can make, and the things humanity can do together."

"A month ago, we were planning for the future. Today, we still are — just a different future than any of us expected... At Wikimedia, we live by a mantra: everything that happens in the world happens on Wikipedia. And when things happen, the world looks our way."

"When it became clear that SARS-CoV-2, or simply, the latest coronavirus, was spreading globally and likely to become a pandemic, we took it seriously. Our responsibility is to keep Wikipedia online and available for the world, especially in moments of crisis. A world that is changing requires changing how we work."

"The COVID-19 epidemic is something that makes clear our global human interconnectedness and the responsibility we have to one another. We don’t have precedent for its challenges, but we do know that our best response relies on the sort of global empathy, cooperation, and community building that sits at the heart of this organization."

"Diversity is baked into our vision statement: the sum of all knowledge, every single human being. And feminism is a foundational part of diversity: if we’re talking about every single human being, we need to be talking about every single human being, including women and non-binary people. So, not only is this part of my values, it’s absolutely part of the Foundation’s mission."

"If our vision is a world in which every single human can freely share in the sum of all knowledge, then all knowledge has to be written by all people, which means that it has to represent all people... We really need to think about what kind of language we are using to talk about the value of free knowledge, because free knowledge is valuable to absolutely everyone and we want to make sure that we are communicating that in a way that resonates... If we have more women editing Wikipedia, do I expect more articles about women scientists and novelists? Absolutely... But do I expect more articles about things that are just of interest to anybody. Yeah, I expect that too."

"Wikipedia’s content [is] freely licensed for reuse by anyone and that’s part of our mission: that every single person can share in free knowledge... We want people all over the world to use, share, add to, and remix Wikipedia. At the same time, we encourage companies who use Wikimedia’s content to give back in the spirit of sustainability."

"At the same time, women make up a majority of senior leadership at the Wikimedia Foundation — including the chief executive, chief operating, chief advancement, chief creative, and chief engagement officers as well as the vice president of human resources... we’re just willing to hire people who, perhaps when we first see their resume, are not necessarily the exact right fit for the job... If you believe that a bunch of amateur, volunteer, nonspecialists can write an encyclopedia and then have it be the fifth most popular website on the planet, then you also have to believe that there are talents that exist within society that may not match what we actually think a COO or a CTO should look like."

"Women are just as competent in technology as men; it’s just that we’re not socialized to believe so... On English Wikipedia, for example, 18 percent of our biographies are about women... One of the reasons for the imbalance... is that men outnumber women roughly 9 to 1 among the site’s unpaid contributors... Another part of the problem is that if you actually look at representation of women in the broader public sphere, Wikipedia is a tertiary source... It requires secondary sources for an article to exist, which means that in order to write about a notable woman, you need to actually be able to find a newspaper article or a book or something that talks about her accomplishments and achievements. And we know that gender representation of women in all forms of media is actually not great. Women are less likely to be quoted in articles; women are less likely to be covered as the subjects of articles, even really notable women..."

"Rather than replacing humans, A.I. is best used to support our capacity for creativity and discernment. Wikipedia is creating A.I. that will flag potentially problematic edits — like a prankster vandalizing a celebrity’s page — to a human who can then step in. The system can also help our volunteer editors evaluate a newly created page or suggest superb pages for featuring. In short, A.I. that is deployed by and for humans can improve the experience of both people consuming information and those producing it... We must defend a web that is free and unfettered, and improve connections that allow creativity and collaboration."

"In a given month, I might fly to New York to meet with the about making its collection more accessible online to Wikipedia, then head to Tunisia to meet members of the Wikipedia community. A big reason why I spend so much time on road is that we support nearly 300 languages. We’re committed to the idea that Wikipedia should be this essential knowledge infrastructure for the world. ... I used to be really aggressive—walk off the plane and go straight into meetings. Because we’re a nonprofit, we travel economy class everywhere; getting off a long flight can be tough.... If I need a nap, that’s OK. You have to be nice to yourself. ... One of the first things I do in a city is go for a run. It’s a great way to orient yourself—even if it’s just for a mile or two."

"We realised a few years back that of all the biographies on English Wikipedia, only 16 per cent were about women. That's out of more than 1.3 million biographies. So that in and of itself is an opportunity to think about how we write in the remaining 34 per cent [of the female population]... We forget how valuable knowledge is to the development and furthering of our society. Accuracy of information, continued inquiry, this has always propelled us forward. If we lose value and appreciation for that, then some of the other structures start to crumble."

"Katherine Maher, the Wikimedia Foundation's CEO, will step down as of April 15, she tells Axios, leaving the nonprofit in a vastly stronger position than she found it when she joined in 2014.. Wikipedia is growing to become the most global and trusted source of knowledge in the world. Its base of active editors is rising, its number of women editors has increased by 30% just in the past year, and it has upgraded not only its website but also its app, which is now available for feature phones as well as smart phones... Financially, the Wikimedia Foundation now has an endowment of more than $90 million, and has doubled its annual budget to an estimated $140 million in 2021. It's hard to think of any other tech nonprofit that has been remotely as successful... One area that Wikimedia has been particularly successful is in garnering trust... Driving the trust: Maher is proud of her new Universal Code of Conduct, but also credits the diversity of Wikipedia's editors as a key ingredient creating trust in its content."

"The women behind Wikipedia believe it will continue to be a force for good, despite all they have weathered as its custodians. Maher sees Wikipedia as tasked with “ensuring that the general public has access to a baseline of context and information to be able to interpret the day’s events.” Right now, Americans have a general skepticism, not just of the media but of any kind of authority, she points out. Wikipedia, for all of the pedantry and nerd-outs that go on during late night edit-a-thons, isn’t pretentious. “It’s very open about the fact that it’s a best understanding of the world as we know it, and we make mistakes,” she says."

"In mid-March, Katherine Maher, the CEO of Wikimedia Foundation, sent an email to her organization outlining changes to mitigate stress, including: “If you need to dial back [work hours], that’s okay.” She also committed to paying contractors and hourly staff on the basis of their typical hours, regardless of their ability to work. When you make changes, be explicit that you are doing so to support the mental health of your employees, if that is the goal."

"(That incident) led Wikipedia to realize that we’d gone from being an experiment to really something that had an impact on the public discourse... That really set the stage for a close appreciation for Wikipedia editors for ‘What does it mean to hold the responsibility of not just being this public, free resource, but also perhaps the primary resources in many instances? We don’t always get it right, but by and large, as soon as something comes to the attention of the Wikipedia editing community or the public, editors are extremely responsive and are able to not only go in and lock that article down, but also to correct the record and make sure that it’s reverted to the most accurate and most recent form."

"When you meet Wikipedians from every corner of the globe, from every background imaginable, from grannies to 13-year-old students, from Kazakhstan to Uruguay to Korea, you are reminded of all the things that unite us, the ways in which our diversity enriches what we know... I leave knowing that one of the things that makes us human is our curiosity, and one of the things that is the record of our curiosity is our knowledge."

"Til that LBJ telling MLK to “make me do it” on civil rights is apocryphal. Funny, because I’ve definitely said that in my work at Wikimedia, though I was encouraging community activists to keep the pressure on for change at a movement level."

"Love you, SF. EMTs walking through Dolores Park handing out free, cozy cotton masks, without judgment, as everyone enjoys the sun (and enjoys their open containers and other things...)"

"It’s never exactly a good time to step away -- transitions always have some rough edges -- but it’s always best to do so when the organization is strong, and before you’ve overstayed your welcome. The movement is in a good, strong place. Our communities are growing, our readership is too"