I have always loved the publishing business. It started in my teenage years in Denver, getting up at 4am, snow or shine, to deliver newspapers to 250 doorsteps. Once the job was complete, the cycle started anew. The next day edition was already in process; content being created, edited, packaged, printed, stacked and dropped on my driveway for me to distribute every 24 hours. Amazing.

I know the stats. And they are depressing: the gender gap both in compensation (good karma notwithstanding) and participation in executive roles is alive and well. This is especially true in the technology industry, where I self-identify. I have spoken on this topic on many panels and will continue to carry this message. Among the depressing numbers: for S&P 500 companies, women represent only five percent of CEOs, 15 percent of C-suite roles, and 17 percent of board positions...

After publishing a recent post in the Harvard Business Review and Re/code about how the Alibaba deal came together, I have received many inquiries about what Yahoo is worth, and how it will trade “the morning after” the big shindig of the pricing of Alibaba’s IPO on Thursday evening. I am a Yahoo shareholder, having long held onto my shares since I left the company in 2009, awaiting the events of this week. So I have a vested interest in this question, as well.

In May of 2005, Yahoo CEO Terry Semel, co-founder Jerry Yang, business development executive Toby Coppel and I went on what would turn out to be a fateful trip to China.

Fateful for Yahoo, for certain.

Less than a decade later, the ownership stake that resulted from that trip has been the saving grace for the company that had once dominated the early Internet. The value of the shares bought then, in fact, now make up a big chunk of the value of Yahoo today, and the windfall of cash from that purchase is what many hope will allow it to remake its uncertain future.