S0:E52: The Grace Hopper Conference Got Canceled Two Weeks Out - Why It Matters
The Grace Hopper Celebration — a women-in-tech conference that's run continuously since 1994, drawing roughly 30,000 attendees in 2024 — was canceled just two weeks before this year's event, officially over a lack of sponsorship.
Jess (who ran the Diana Initiative in 2018) and Jake break down what sponsorship money actually funds at a conference this size, why a shortfall like this should have been visible months out rather than two weeks out, and the possible contributing factors: pulled-back AI/VC spending, broader economic conditions, and companies using the current anti-DEI climate as…
The skinny
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