The year 2023 has become the worst year for tech employees as nearly 2 lakh tech employees -- from Big Tech firms to startups -- have been sacked to date globally, as companies like Meta, BT, Vodafone and many others announced further plans to lay off more employees in coming months. As per the data by layoffs tracking site Layoffs.fyi, 695 tech companies have shown the doors to around 1.98 lakh employees so far this year. In comparison, 1,046 tech companies laid off more than 1.61 lakh employees in 2022. In January alone this year, close to 1 lakh tech employees lost jobs globally, dominated by companies like Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Salesforce and others. In total, about 3.6 lakh tech employees have now lost their jobs in 2022 and till May this year. As more and more Big Tech companies continue to sack employees, they listed various reasons behind the move -- over-hiring, uncertain global macroeconomic conditions, strong tailwinds from the Covid-19 pandemic and more. Meta (formerly Facebook) is reportedly going to start laying off more employees next week in its third round of <keyword id="30690" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="job-cuts" source="Orion">job cuts</keyword>. While the exact number has not been confirmed, it is expected that the company will lay off approximately 6,000 employees in this round. Amazon India laid off around 400-500 employees from its Cloud division AWS as well as People Experience and Technology Solutions (PXT) or HR and support verticals this month. Fintech unicorn Zepz is laying off 420 employees, or 26 per cent of its workforce. The UK telecommunication giant BT Group has announced plans to slash a massive 55,000 jobs by the end of the decade. Global telecom carrier Vodafone said it plans to reduce 11,000 jobs over the next three years, with an aim to "simplify" both headquarters and local markets. Meanwhile, Microsoft will not give any raise to salaried employees, including senior leaders, this year as global macroeconomic conditions continue to haunt Big Tech. SEE ALSO: <a target="_blank" class="c-link c-message_attachment__title_link" href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/corporates/news/zomato-net-loss-narrows-to-188-crore-in-q4-revenue-rises-70-yoy/articleshow/100358894.cms">Zomato net loss narrows to ₹188 crore in Q4, revenue rises 70% YoY</a> <a target="_blank" class="c-link c-message_attachment__title_link" href="https://www.businessinsider.in/stock-market/news/mankind-pharma-pnb-among-stocks-to-become-largecap-from-midcap-mutibagger-rail-vikas-nigam-to-turn-midcap-from-smallcap/articleshow/100356527.cms">Mankind Pharma, PNB among stocks to become largecap from midcap; mutibagger Rail Vikas Nigam to turn midcap from smallcap</a>

2 lakh techies lost jobs in 2023, more to come

<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/531767b16bb3f78112ecf100-1061-796/amy-andersen-linx-dating.jpg" border="0" alt="amy andersen linx dating" />Courtesy of Amy AndersenAmy Andersen </div></div></div>Silicon Valley professionals get a bad rap for being uncreative when it comes to personal style. The common stereotype is that engineers live in <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/spotted-mark-zuckerberg-shows-up-for-his-big-ipo-roadshow-in-his-hoodie-2012-5">hoodies</a>, jeans, and flip flops, while venture capitalists constantly rock fleece vests and v-neck sweaters. 
Menlo Park-based matchmaker Amy Andersen has seen her fair share of young professionals sporting these uniforms. She <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/tips-for-dating-in-silicon-valley-2014-2">founded Linx Dating</a> in 2000 when she saw that a surprising number of professionals were having trouble navigating the Silicon Valley dating scene. Since then, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/tips-for-dating-in-silicon-valley-2014-2">she's coached a wide network</a> of people in the tech, financial, and health care industries to better position themselves for success in dating. 
Andersen shared her take on style in Silicon Valley as well as some tips for what young professionals should be wearing to impress their dates. 
Business Insider: Do you think there's a Silicon Valley dress code? 
Amy Andersen: There is a definite Silicon Valley aesthetic and culture. The mentality is you want to fit in here and you don't want to stand out. Employees want to blend into their company culture. I have heard stories about people taking jobs at Facebook, as an example and, before the job started, dying her hair to be a mousy brunette so as not to stand out too much as a platinum blonde. 
With the kinds of perks that Google or Facebook or Palantir, for example, offer to employees, it is easy to see why an employee on the margin might stay at work rather than venture out and would certainly not focus on fashion. The goal is to work and stay on the company campus, while having some fun too. If you think about it, the culture at these companies for 20- and even early 30-somethings is not unlike the dorm experience at a top university - project teams bond over what they do all day. It's more about living to work than it is about working to live, and so you do everything together. 
In Silicon Valley, in the fields of tech and engineering, there's no focus on outward appearance unless you have a client-facing role, like in leadership or sales. In that case, you are expected to be polished and dress the part. 
Expression outside of the campus environment is totally different - techies and those in those circles express themselves through a variety of ways to their inner sanctum of friends. This could be through the new Italian wheels in their garage at home, artwork displayed on their walls, recently purchased memberships at private social clubs like The Battery in San Francisco, or epic new multimillion dollar pied-a-terres in San Francisco. 
<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_left"><div><div class="image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/531770196bb3f7c029ecf101-1200-924/sv-style.jpg" border="0" alt="sv style" />Steve Jennings/Getty Images, Amazon</div></div></div>BI: Is the clichéd hoodie a reality in the tech community? 
AA: For many, hoodies are a way of life in the tech community, as fleece vests are a way of life in the venture capital and hedge fund community. I see a ton of guys (and girls) walking around town in their respective company hoodies. 
Let's not just focus on hoodies though! Tons of guys wear frog feet shoes "5 finger footwear." They say it is good for posture. I think they're completely hideous and a huge fashion offense!
The Adidas black and white sneakers are very popular, and backpacks are a way of life here as well. The ironic thing is most all of the major fashion houses for women are using backpacks for Spring 2014 as part of their look for women - not a Jansport backpack but more Chanel, Louis Vuitton, or Chloe. 
BI: How often are wardrobe consultations part of your coaching? 
AA: A few times a month. Some clients hire me to do this for them and other times I match the client to the right stylist according to their budget and personality. I have a roster of great stylists for every type of person that contacts me. 
BI: What kinds of things do you tell your clients as far as dressing better? 
AA: First impressions are so important. If you are coming from work, do what it takes to put your best foot forward and freshen up. No one likes a sweaty, frazzled date!
Women will often put a lot of time and thought into their first date outfit. It is not uncommon for her to get a manicure, maybe even buy a new dress. A woman doesn't need a guy to look impeccable, but she does want him to look presentable ... "Nice" could be a pressed dress shirt and nice pair of dark denim, brown belt, nice brown loafers or dress shirt and pair of Banana Republic khakis. This is not hard to achieve and will send a signal that a man is taking the early stages of dating seriously. 
<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/531756a26da811d71e509783-600-750/rag.jpg" border="0" alt="rag &amp; bone tee" /><a href="http://www.bergdorfgoodman.com/Rag-Bone-Basic-Long-Sleeve-Henley-Port/prod94200014___/p.prod?icid=&amp;searchType=MAIN&amp;rte=%252Fcategory.service%253FNtt%253Dmens%2526pageSize%253D120%2526No%253D240%2526refinements%253D&amp;eItemId=prod92610009&amp;cmCat=search+">Bergdorf Goodman</a>Long-sleeve shirt from Rag &amp; Bone</div></div></div>BI: What should guys wear out on a date? 
AA: This is all situational and depends on the context of the date. It also depends on the person largely. If going for sushi and cocktails, throw on dark denim, a cool t-shirt, and unstructured blazer for a little bit of an edgy look. If you are reading this and saying, "Huh?" then do dark denim and a <a href="http://www.bergdorfgoodman.com/Rag-Bone-Basic-Long-Sleeve-Henley-Port/prod94200014___/p.prod?icid=&amp;searchType=MAIN&amp;rte=%252Fcategory.service%253FNtt%253Dmens%2526pageSize%253D120%2526No%253D240%2526refinements%253D&amp;eItemId=prod92610009&amp;cmCat=search+">Rag &amp; Bone basic long-sleeve t-shirt</a> with the right shoes. That is definitely more Silicon Valley code for casual, yet on the right guy and body could look totally hot. 
If it's a more dressy date, I would suggest a nice pair of slacks and dress shirt or fantastic blazer paired with dark denim, gorgeous loafers (or drivers), and a dress shirt with cuff links. Totally polished, put together, and making a stand-out impression. 
BI: What should women be wearing out on a date? 
AA: Like advice I would give to men, let's start with being confident. Once you are there, rock it out and have fun with your clothing. What men tell me they find appealing is a woman who is confident and sexy in her own skin. 
<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_left"><div><div class="image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/531775a66da811b726509783-1200-924/linx-fashion-show.jpg" border="0" alt="linx fashion show" /><a href="http://linxdating.wordpress.com/2014/02/07/the-2014-spring-fashion-report-from-the-runway/">Linx Dating</a>Models at a fashion event Andersen attended in Menlo Park</div></div></div>At Linx I get a lot of demands for a woman who is classic, ladylike, stylish, not trying too hard, not showing too much skin, but perfectly presentable. For better or for worse, men are impossibly visual creatures. A universal message is that men like a woman who accentuates her figure.
What does that mean from a style perspective? Think more Olivia Palermo than Pamela Anderson. For a casual to more dressy date, do a pair of skinny pants, a great silk tank style top, an edgy leather jacket (so <a href="http://linxdating.wordpress.com/2014/02/07/the-2014-spring-fashion-report-from-the-runway/">hot for Spring 2014</a>), <a href="http://linxdating.wordpress.com/2013/05/02/its-all-about-the-necklace/">the right costume jewelry</a>, and some nude pumps. If it's a fancy sort of restaurant and you want to seal the deal, do a body hugging <a href="http://shop.nordstrom.com/c/herve-leger">Herve Leger bandage dress</a> paired with a great blazer, hair in a loose bun atop the head or at the nape of the neck, and statement heels. 
BI: Why is style important to dating more effectively? 
AA: I would say style and first impressions are important considering people generally make up their mind in the first 60 seconds if they are interested in getting to know you better romantically or not. Why not do everything you can to substantially increase your odds of success from the start?

Silicon Valley's Top Matchmaker Tells Us What Techies Should Wear On A Date

Silicon Valley may still be the center of the universe when it comes to all things tech, but the startup scene in New York City continues to grow. 
A <a href="http://www.osc.state.ny.us/osdc/rpt2-2015.pdf">new report</a> from New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli shows that the tech industry has continued to offer high-paying job opportunities when other industries have struggled. 
Over the past four years, for example, jobs in New York City's high-tech industries have grown by 33%. That's more than four times the rate for the rest of the city's economy (8%). 
As you'll see in the chart below, tech companies provided more than 100,000 jobs in New York City during the third quarter of 2013, approaching the record high hit before the dot-com crash of 2000.
<div class="KonaFilter image-container"><div class="image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/536cea2becad048c7f3e69c3-960-720/figure%201-2.jpg?maxX=800" border="0" alt="comptroller silicon alley report" width="800" />Courtesy of the Office of the State Comptroller</div></div>
Workers in New York City tech jobs also tend to get paid more as a whole. Their average annual salary in 2012 was $118,600, compared to $79,500 in the rest of the city. Tech salaries rose by 13% from 2009 to 2012, compared to a 9% for all other jobs in New York City. 
<a href="http://www.osc.state.ny.us/osdc/rpt2-2015.pdf">DiNapoli's report</a> includes data on annual wages for some typical high-tech jobs. <div class="KonaFilter image-container"><div class="image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/536cecd26da811781d3e69c8-800-840/figure%202.jpg" border="0" alt="comptroller silicon alley report" width="800" />Courtesy of the Office of the State Comptroller</div></div>
And while the focus may be on programming and engineering jobs, there's still plenty of opportunity for those without a set of high-tech skills. 
"The growth of the high-tech industry offers employment opportunities for workers with different levels of education, not just those with technical backgrounds, because not every job at a high-tech firm is a high-tech occupation," <a href="http://www.osc.state.ny.us/osdc/rpt2-2015.pdf">the report reads</a>. "As is the case in other industries, high-tech firms employ workers with other skills, such as accountants and sales representatives."
The growth of the New York City tech scene has benefited other industries as well. Job growth in advertising and public relations, for example, grew by 25% in the past four years. Media, design, and entertainment companies have all benefited from recent technological advances. 
<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/536cf00fecad0402193e69c7-575-641/figure 3-1.jpg" border="0" alt="comptroller silicon alley report" />Courtesy of the Office of the State Comptroller</div></div></div>The neighborhoods favored by techies have also expanded. While Silicon Alley has in the past been loosely defined as the Midtown South area (Chelsea, the Flatiron District, SoHo, and Union Square), tech companies have begun setting up offices in clusters scattered around the city. 
Lower Manhattan, Downtown Brooklyn, and Long Island City have all become popular with startups, in part because of the lower rent prices found there. 
"These areas are rich in services and amenities important to high-tech businesses and workers (e.g., technology incubators, co-working spaces, public transportation, higher education institutions, more affordable rent and broadband connectivity)," <a href="http://www.osc.state.ny.us/osdc/rpt2-2015.pdf">the report said. </a>

Tech Jobs Are Booming In New York City [CHART]

<h5>Story by Melia Russell Photography by Lelanie Foster</h5>Ruzwana Bashir is ransacking her kitchen cabinet for just the right tea. On this fall day in Manhattan, the 40-year-old CEO of Peek, an activities-booking company, looks chic and comfortable in black trousers and a wool turtleneck. She's offered to make tea, and when I tell her I like fruity and black, she seems enthusiastic about the challenge. She's sorting through stacks of tins like it's the most important thing she'll do all day.While she's distracted, I take in her SoHo apartment. A large white sectional wraps around a coffee table laden with candles, fresh roses and ranunculus, and books on Andy Warhol, Picasso, and the Byzantine empire. In a sun-drenched corner, an ecstatic fiddle-leaf fig reaches toward the 13-foot ceiling. Below it, a dining table has two laptops and a stack of notebooks at one end.A minute later Bashir retrieves a container of Mariage Frères loose-leaf tea with blue-cornflower petals, sniffs it, and places it on the counter, satisfied.Being a host is kind of like being a CEO, she says, drawing hot water from an espresso machine. She feels responsible, in both her personal and professional life, for bringing out the best in people, plying them with the right role or the right loose leaf. "Part of your job is to help people find the seat they should be in," she says.I'm at Bashir's home in part to talk about her company, which, despite my eight years of reporting on startups, I had to Google. Though its name barely registers with laypeople, Peek, which started as a kind of OpenTable for travelers and pivoted to providing software to tour companies and operators, is now basically the Salesforce of tourism.Each year, about $1 billion worth of ticket sales — a seaplane tour over the Golden Gate Bridge, a visit to the Museum of Ice Cream, a swim with pigs in the Bahamas — goes through the company's platform. This past spring, the venture-capital powerhouse Andreessen Horowitz declared Peek the 14th-largest virtual marketplace for goods and services in the United States. The company has raised $120 million from the likes of Jack Dorsey, Eric Schmidt, and Goldman Sachs. All of which makes Peek's (and Bashir's) near-anonymity more remarkable. In an industry where success is often measured by how much noise a startup makes, Peek has proved it doesn't need the limelight to commandeer an industry.<div type="image" title="Ruzwana Bashir" height="1173" width="2798" msid="105263408" hostid="261"></div>Even so, I feel dazzled being with Bashir, not least because her apartment has enough fine art to charge admission. She speaks in a lilting British accent and has wide silver-green eyes like eucalyptus leaves. She's a careful listener, leaning in when I offer my observations on the new status shoe for techies (Allbirds are out, Hokas are in. Though Bashir seems to prefer Chloé's Nama sneakers.)Like her company, Bashir isn't a household name; rather, knowledge of her is passed around in the types of circles that would make the illuminati jealous. She's a conduit for ideas and connection, hobnobbing with tech gods and artificial-intelligence researchers, as well as fashion icons, Hollywood directors, economists, and media moguls. She's played Connect Four with Elon Musk, brunched at Balthazar with the investigative journalist Ronan Farrow, and posed for the September issue of Vogue.She references her network throughout our two-hour conversation. For three years she's been learning to invest from Roelof Botha, a senior steward of Sequoia Capital's brand and operations. "Mustafa Suleyman sat here," she says at one point, patting the Google DeepMind cofounder's preferred couch cushion, "and we've had conversations about what's going to happen with AI but also what's going to happen in the world."Bennett Miller, a close friend of Bashir's known for directing films like "Moneyball" and "Capote," says they often watch movies together. In describing Bashir, he references a bit in "The Big Lebowski" in which The Dude bemoans the destruction of an area rug. "There's a line about the rug — how it really tied the room together," Miller says. "Ruzwana is that rug."I can feel Bashir's penchant for forging connections as she focuses in on me, making me feel like the most important person — and the most discerning tea drinker — alive. ("If it's not strong enough, let me know," she says of the tea. "I can add some more.") She doesn't just host, doesn't just lead; she creates little universes where nothing existed before.<hr />Bashir has built a career connecting people to new experiences. She grew up in a Muslim household in northern England, where she wore a shalwar kameez and a head scarf every day. Her parents didn't read or write in English, and her father sold produce to provide for his wife and their three children.After high school, Bashir attended Oxford University and became president of the Oxford Union, the famed debate society, where she welcomed speakers such as Madeleine Albright and Tom Ford. Her love of travel bloomed in school. Jared Cohen, a partner at Goldman Sachs and a college friend, recalls studying for exams with Bashir at an Egyptian resort they booked on a budget travel website. Her idea of a study break: waking up early to drive across Israel and visit the ancient city of Petra.Bashir jumped to Goldman Sachs and then to the Blackstone Group, but in 2011, while studying at Harvard Business School, she caught the entrepreneurial bug.The idea for Peek came to her after she spent 20-plus hours looking up things to do on a birthday trip to Istanbul. There had to be a better way to book activities online, she thought. And so, with the help of an engineering virtuoso named Oskar Bruening, she built one. They launched Peek in the fall of 2012.Suddenly, Peek was just about everywhere (though not for those of us who were broke college students at the time). So was Bashir: on Forbes' "30 Under 30" list alongside Mark Zuckerberg; in billboard ads for the luggage brand Tumi; in Elle, where she was described as "one of the hardest-working (and chicest) women in tech." It was the age of the Ubers, the Airbnbs, the WeWorks — a moment when "disruptors" were treated with near-total credulity. "This idea of software eating the world was just starting," Bashir says. "It was a moment where people suddenly realized this incredible value creation happening in tech." <blockquote class="pullquote-wrapper pullquote-breakout"> <q class="pullquote-quotation">The only thing that I've always tried to be is authentically myself.</q> </blockquote> The cult of personality that rose up around Bashir wasn't unusual; founders like Travis Kalanick and Adam Neumann were just as inextricable from their brands. But the line can be blurrier for women, especially if they lead consumer companies, which rely on branding to set themselves apart. Ty Haney's bubbly personality helped position Outdoor Voices as the cool-girl queen of the activewear market. Emily Weiss amassed legions of fans through her beauty blog and online presence before launching Glossier."Part of building a business was going out and sharing what you were doing with the world," Bashir says. But she says she didn't think much about how her personality melded with her brand. "The only thing that I've always tried to be is authentically myself," she says. "Sometimes that means that you're not fitting into people's stereotypes or the box that they're expecting. And that's OK. Hopefully, we're finding ways to expand that box."<div type="image" title="Ruzwana Bashir" height="5769" width="4480" msid="105263678" hostid="261"></div><hr />At first, Bashir's team at Peek focused on bringing experiences directly to people. But they soon learned where the real potential lay. "There's an opportunity to help people book experiences, but in some ways it's quite a narrow one," Bashir tells me. "The bigger opportunity is to unlock everything and bring it all online."In 2013, Peek started putting resources into software to allow travel companies to enable purchases on their own websites and track their reservations — a move that turned out to be the company's saving grace. In 2016, Peek capped <a target="_blank" href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2016/07/28/travel-site-peek-raises-10-million/87647754/">hundreds of millions</a> of dollars in annual bookings and opened a second office in Utah. By 2019, downloads of the Peek app, which had spiked at more than 30,000 in December 2013, had dwindled to a few dozen, according to the analytics company Data.ai.But even as downloads cratered, bookings were mounting. By then, Peek had gone all in on its software sales. "As a startup you have to be extremely intentional about where you put your resources," Bashir says. "When you're seeing success you have to back that horse." Bashir refashioned her startup to meet the needs of an industry that still operated using pen and paper and, in doing so, earned a second shot at overseeing a business worth billions. <blockquote class="pullquote-wrapper pullquote-breakout"> <q class="pullquote-quotation">That's the hard part of being a founder. You have to make tough decisions and then also live with the consequences.</q> </blockquote> Just as Peek got back on its feet, COVID-19 knocked it all the way down. People were terrified and trapped in their houses, and travel bookings fell to nearly zero overnight.On March 13, 2020, President Donald Trump declared a national emergency, and Bashir caught a flight to Salt Lake City. She and Bruening were on their way to Utah to lay off almost a third of their staff in person. They hoped such a drastic step would get them to the other side of lockdown. "That's the hard part of being a founder," Bashir says. "You have to make tough decisions and then also live with the consequences."To the delight of investors, Peek rebounded with dizzying speed. During the pandemic, digitization flourished as much of the world moved online. Suddenly a small-business owner with a zip-line park in Costa Rica or a pub-crawl party bike in Atlanta needed software to help them market, process sales, schedule guides, and send emails. For years Bashir's startup had been building muscle around these capabilities; now it had an eager audience.<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/fqaLSFMWGnA?si=ybR-1qOOSZm1o9oR&amp;controls=0" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0"></iframe>In 2021, Peek crossed $2 billion in all-time bookings from some 35 million customers. It also landed $80 million in Series C funding from investors including the former Airbnb chief financial officer Laurence Tosi's firm, WestCap. Those who know Bashir say things wouldn't have turned out any other way. "She's not a despairing person," Miller says. "There's a determination there that I would bet on 10 out of 10 times."<hr />"I need wind," Bashir says as a canvas parachute whips around her.She's standing on the set of her photo shoot at Chelsea's Pier59 Studios in a black bustier dress, metallic pumps, and a red lip. Like Beyoncé asking her team to please for the love of god <a target="_blank" href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-12340703/Beyonce-SINGS-instructions-team-live-concert-forgot-turn-fan-on.html">turn on the fan</a>, Bashir gestures for the hairstylist, who's holding a leaf blower, to come closer.Through hundreds of interviews, I've grown familiar enough with the trope of the misfit founder to know there's some truth to it. But from where I'm standing, that person is not Bashir. At one point she huddles around a monitor, watching images of herself flit across the screen. She takes a swig of tea and wags a pale-polished finger at a photo she likes.I ask if she's fazed by the glamor. She shrugs and launches into a story about how, on the set of her Vogue photo shoot, she rejected a wardrobe selection from Anna Wintour."Can you say no to Anna?" someone asks."I'm not scared of Anna," Bashir replies — though maybe she is, just a little, because she turns to me to ask if we're off the record.Bashir is the rare entrepreneur who can traverse the cultural zeitgeist, leaping from generative art to the Human Genome Project to Taylor Swift. (Though she's not a Swiftie, her role on the SoFi board ties her to the "Eras Tour" movie, which is set at the company's stadium.) "I've rarely come across so many superpowers in one person," says the investor Katie Haun, who met Bashir at a conference. She says Bashir struck her as a "deep thinker across many disciplines."Miller met Bashir 11 years ago at a different conference, fresh off her company's founding. "You have every different type of person, and at the center of it was Ruzwana, probably the youngest person there," he says. "By the end, it felt like the entire conference was orbiting around her.""I just think she's attractive, and I don't mean that in the superficial sense," he adds. "She's generous in her enthusiasm, her spirit, her optimism, her humor. They burn bright and colorfully."<div type="image" title="Ruzwana Bashir" height="4480" width="5769" msid="105263679" hostid="261"></div>A few years ago Bashir attended a leadership summit in the mountains where, after a day of discussions, she wandered into a room with board games. She sat down to play Connect Four across from Elon Musk. A crowd formed around them, and things got intense. She won, 3-1. "It was great to take the victory," she says. "He has space; I have Connect Four."She also has a standing invitation to Silicon Valley's most exclusive, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/silicon-valley-secret-power-dinners-2013-1">semisecret</a> dinner party. Each month, tech's biggest power players — Marc Benioff, Reid Hoffman, Marissa Mayer, Dick Costolo — gather for a Jeffersonian dinner where the conversation ranges from all-knowing artificial intelligence, or AGI, to their industry's impact on geopolitics. Eating at acclaimed restaurants is fine, but Bashir prefers the more-intimate affairs at tech executives' homes because, she says, "you can stay longer." The dinners have the feel of a cool kids' gathering at a hometown bar the night before Thanksgiving — an ease that comes from decades of friendship.This supper club's guest list has the power to affect policy, inspire innovation, and even shape our digital destiny. Bashir has been attending when she can for several years. "The goal for all of us is to shape our thinking so that we can be purposeful with it," she says. It's this kind of intention that defines Bashir's life, says Cohen, more than any material success. "There are people who take a piece of paper and chart out their path to achieving greatness by the age of whatever," he says. "Then there are people who view ambition through the lens of having a good and meaningful life and measuring impact by what that looks like day to day. And she's much more in that latter category."Katherine Maher, the CEO of Web Summit, has gone to one such dinner as Bashir's guest. The two met seven years ago as members of the Young Presidents' Organization, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ypo-young-presidents-organization-secret-club-for-ceos-2021-4">an elite social group for business leaders</a>. Maher wanted to attend the organization's retreat, but she couldn't afford it at the time. So Bashir offered to split a hotel room. They bonded over art, book recommendations, travel stories. "Both of us felt like being CEOs of technology platforms weren't the only interests in our lives," Maher says.The dinners scratch a familiar itch for the startup maven whose curiosity needs constant feeding. It's her reason for traveling — she visited more than 40 countries before turning 30 — and seeking out friends in such disparate fields. She points to one, Daniel Kahneman, a behavioral psychologist who won the Nobel prize in economics. It's not unusual, Bashir says, for laureates to take home prizes in fields where they're not experts. "They have understanding," she says. "But then, they are not beholden to the rules."At the dinner, Maher noticed that when Bashir spoke, the table listened. "She has this way of reminding people of their core value, as opposed to the value that the world projects on them," Maher says. "She's got everyone's trust." <div type="image" title="Photo of Ruzwana Bashir" height="1400" width="1080" msid="105263682" hostid="261"></div><hr /><h4>Credits</h4>Writer: Melia Russell Photography: Lelanie Foster Creative Direction: Liane Radel Styling: Becky Akinyode Prop Styling: Elaine Winter Hair: Yukiko Tajima Makeup: Ayaka Nihei Production: Tiffany Bloomfield for Dela Revoluciøn Photography Assistance: Chad Hilliard, Enmi Yang Digital Tech: Kenny Aquiles Ulloa Styling Assistance: Cyrenae Tademy, Madison Perez Prop Styling Assistance: Aidan Lapp, Bashira Webb Tailoring: Zunyda for Stitched Tailors Agency Design and Development: Bryan Erickson, Jinyoung Chang-Rodriguez, Rebecca Zisser Editing: Claire Landsbaum, Emma LeGault, Joi-Marie McKenzie Editing Assistance: Brea Cubit Video: Conner Blake, Kyle Desiderio Social: Victoria Gracie, Nicole Forero, Virginia Alves

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