Hailey Bieber's $1 Billion Deal. Plus: How To Cut Small Talk From Work Meetings

Forbes

a day ago

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We begin this week with big news out of the beauty world: Yesterday afternoon, the publicly traded e.l.f. Beauty announced that it is acquiring Hailey Bieber's skincare and makeup company Rhode for as much as $1 billion. The deal marks one of the largest celebrity beauty acquisitions in recent years.
Bieber launched Rhode in 2022 to near instant virality (as she told me that fall, there was a waitlist of 700,000 people for the company's three products). According to the e.l.f announcement Wednesday, Rhode's net sales in the year ending March 2025 hit $212 million. Bieber, whose spokesperson declined to comment on the size of her stake in the business, will remain involved in operations as chief creative officer and head of innovation.
'You don't know what to expect when it's out in the world and in people's hands,' Bieber told me in 2022. 'Did I have hopes? For sure, but this has far exceeded my hopes and expectations. I don't know how else to say it except that it just feels so crazy.'
Cheers!
Maggie
Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Indian billionaire entrepreneur and founder of Biocon Limited (biotechnology ... More company) is seen during the World Audio Visual & Entertainment Summit (WAVES) event in Mumbai. (Photo by Ashish Vaishnav/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
Thwarted in her ambition to become a brewmaster, Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw channeled her frustrations into building an international knockoff drug powerhouse and has become one of the world's most successful—and richest—female entrepreneurs. 'I call myself an accidental entrepreneur,' she says.
This week marked the release of the 24th annual Midas List, Forbes' ranking of the world's top venture capitalists. Unfortunately, there are just 10 women on this list of 100 people, a statistic that reflects the overall poor representation of women among the world's most powerful check writers.
Getting an MBA tends to boost earnings significantly for both women and men, but it's not helping to close the gender pay gap, new research shows. A survey of more than 1,000 graduates from elite MBA programs across the U.S., Europe and Canada, found that in the first post-MBA job, women's salaries, on average, rose 52% to $131,449 from their last pre-MBA role. Men's, meanwhile, surged 73% to $140,007.
In proof that a moment of forgetfulness doesn't have to derail a whole day—or in this case, match—Coco Gauff forgot her tennis rackets when she walked onto the court for her first-round match at the French Open on Tuesday. Still, the No. 2 seed got them in time to dispatch Olivia Gadecki of Australia, 6-2, 6-2, to improve to 6-0 in first-round matches in Paris.
Elon Musk might be ending his time as a 'special government employee,' but the effects of his DOGE cuts will far outlast his current tenure, especially when it comes to biomedical research and funding cuts at the NIH. Michelle Heritage, Executive Director of the American Brain Foundation, recently spoke to Forbes about how Musk's cuts will 'put the brakes' on cutting edge treatment innovations for brain disease—and this could disproportionately affect women, who suffer from higher rates of Alzheimer's and neurodegenerative disease. 'There isn't an ability for the private sector or private donors to fill those gaps,' Heritage said.
1. Implement some fact-checking at your organization. Fact-checking isn't just for journalism! If you publish knowledge-based content in service of your company's strategy, influence or authority, it's important to think about information integrity.
2. If you're exhausted, look at your inner monologue. The stories we tell ourselves matter. They either fuel us or drain us. Are you filling your own head with doubt, insecurity, and cynicism? Things like, 'What's the point?' or 'This is never going to work'? This type of fixed mindset thinking becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
3. Skip the small talk. If you want to show your team empathy without wasting time, set the tone in meetings by omitting a recitation of weekend activities and instead say something like, 'Let's jump in. I know we're tight on time.' Here's how else you can strike the right balance between efficiency and empathy.
A world leader said he and his wife were 'squabbling and joking around' after a video showed her apparently shoving him in the face before departing an airplane. Which couple was it?
Check your answer.