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Good morning, Broadsheet readers! One in four men say women’s equality has come at their expense, Seema Varma talks telemedicine with Fortune, and Peggy Johnson set an intention. Have a wonderful Wednesday.
– Setting a CEO intention. We briefly mentioned in yesterday’s Broadsheet that headset startup Magic Leap hired top Microsoft executive Peggy Johnson as its CEO. As Kristen reported, Johnson was one of three female executives on Satya Nadella’s 16-person leadership team and is best known for spearheading Microsoft’s $26.2 billion purchase of LinkedIn, its biggest ever.
Johnson’s record at Microsoft made her move especially noteworthy in Silicon Valley circles, given Magic Leap’s struggles of late. The augmented-reality firm has raised nearly $3.5 billion in funding on the notion that it could fulfill the lofty promises of spatial technology. So far, its results have disappointed. The arrival of its first headset was delayed; when it finally launched in 2018, sales flopped. The company has since revised its strategy, pivoting from consumers to businesses and in April laid off roughy a third of its staff.
The circumstances of Johnson’s hiring make it a trademark case of what researchers call the “glass cliff,” the phenomenon in which women and people of color are given a shot at a top job when the company is crisis, and therefore face slimmer odds of success. Other recent appointments that fit the trend: Linda Kozlowski at Blue Apron, Jill Soltau at now-bankrupt J.C. Penney.
But it was another nugget of this news that caught my attention. In an interview with New York Times, Johnson explained that she has long aspired to be a chief executive. “I chose this,” she said. “It really says something that, at this point in time, I would leave Microsoft to go to this space, because Microsoft is doing quite well.”
It is exceedingly rare for a female executive to express—publicly or otherwise—that kind of intention. In fact, a 2017 Korn Ferry survey of 57 female CEOs—41 from Fortune 1000 companies and 16 from large privately-held firms—found that only five had always wanted to be a CEO and another three said they’d never wanted to be chief executive. Two-thirds said they didn’t realized they could be a CEO until someone else told them.
Women not envisioning themselves as chief executives is “a common blind spot,” the researchers said. The study urged organizations to provide “wake-up calls” so women would recognize their potential. Cliff or no cliff, Johnson saw hers.
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Fortune hosted Day One of its first-ever virtual Brainstorm Health conference yesterday, featuring some of the top women in health care. More below on what they’re making of this seminal moment in public health and medicine.
Claire Zillman
claire.zillman@fortune.com
@clairezillman
Today’s Broadsheet was curated by Emma Hinchliffe.
