Hi, everyone. This is Martha Stewart and our guest today is Amy Griffin. She is the founder of G nine Ventures, a venture capital firm that invests mostly in female driven early stage companies like Goop, Sarah Blakeley's Spanks, the beauty company Westman Atelier, and the wearable fitness tracker Aura. You know what, I have an Aura ring and I still I have it on the charger and I have not worn it yet. So we're gonna talk about that in
a little bit. I first met our guest Amy at her home in East Hampton, Long Island, and I hope you're enjoying that beautiful place every single summer. You go out there all the time.
You know, it's been the place really where we raised our kids. It's the place where I'll talk about it. But I sat on the bathroom floor to write my book. It's been you know. I love design, and so over the years of you know, living in that house and having my kids, there's been absolutely.
They must have loved it so much.
But also, Martha, I remember the day that you came over that day because I remember there was a plant in the corner and you said, Amy, this plant is dry. Oh and I said, oh no, oh no. And actually from that point on I learned how to take care of that plant. How are you being in the house, And so every time I see it, I think of you.
And I'm going to give you my gardening handbook today right so that you can learn more about garden great And then I rekindle our friendship just recently at a lunch that Joe was hosted for female founders in a room full of women who are growing innovative new businesses. And that was such a great lunch downtown. And I admire so much of the work that you've done, Amy, and we'll talk about that today also. But your busy
life has had an outward appearance of perfection. A beautiful family, four children, how old are they now?
So I have one that is twenty one, who is eighteen, one who will be sixteen in a few weeks, in one who is twelve, Oh wow.
And you have an adoring husband. You are a professional success. Your life is enviable. And then all of a sudden you publish a book called The Tell, a very personal memoir about a deeply repressed secret. And the catharsis that the memoir brought to you by writing a book and by doing a few other things, you have come to Is it a bigger calm?
Absolutely? Yeah, I mean a calm, but also just a freedom. And a lot of the things I talk about in the book are the themes around power and the power that comes not from control and perfection, but this power that comes from vulnerability. And it was this idea of when I really stopped. The book has a lot of themes about running and that in many ways I was running from something and so I built this life, Martha, this life that I had in many ways, in some
ways gotten lost in. And it was really only in sitting down to write this book where I've sat down on podcasts conversations and people have thought, oh, we're going to be talking today about the companies you support and why do you support a founder in a certain way,
and how did you build your business? And actually really has nothing to do with why I wrote the book, But in some ways it has everything to do with why I wrote the book, because it connects to how I can now connect with founders and then how they build their businesses and say, Okay, let's sit down and figure out how we're going to do this honestly.
Well, how interesting. So welcome to the podcast and we're on our way. It's very interesting to talk to someone like you who who for many many years didn't realize you were repressing something horrific that had happened in your youth.
Well, there was this idea, Martha, that I think that i'd done. I've been working in business, I'd been building the foundation with this with G nine, my business that I've built, and also as a mother, my children were finally of the ages where they weren't falling in swimming pools, and I had a little bit more time to be honest about my life and take accountability for what had
gone on. Also, you know, I look at the idea that i'd been in as a twenty year relationship with John, where I felt safe enough that I could come out and say this had really gone on, and I knew it was time to address. And what the word I use is permission. So I decided that I was going to give myself permission to hold myself accountable for everything that had gone on.
I know, but it's not about even accountability. I mean, you were a young child when a school teacher had his way, and you have had repressed that for how many years?
Many many years?
But how many years did it go on?
It went on from the time that I was around twelve. And you know, the idea around memory is that I don't know exactly the dates of it. And as much as I wish I could know exactly every date from the time I believe it started when I was twelve until I was a teenager. My sal was sixteen.
Oh, and you didn't tell anybody that it was going on.
Why because you know, I also grew up in the conservative South.
Rillo, Texas, where I've been by the way.
You know what it is. It's a beautiful this place of community where I grew up, and Martha, it's amazing cattle ranches, but and you could see forever. I mean, it's an incredibly beautiful place as well. It's flats you can see for miles. But one of the things that's so fascinating is that I equate you to my grandmother, who is this incredible pioneer in a small town, who
much like you. In the nineteen fifties, my grandmother my grandfather had passed away, and my grandmother had these children to raise, and she thought, how am I going to do this, and she looked and saw these needs. She started, which you're going to love this. She started three businesses.
I don't talk about all of them in the book, but she was the original entrepreneur in the first business she started was a lighting business because there were no chandeliers in the Panhandle, and she thought everyone does, everyone should have nice life lighting. And she started a wedding registry business which still exists today, and you would go in and you would register for a plate and buy a plate. It's called the Little Brown House. And you can still go in and buy silver set and register
for your wedding set. So in many ways she is connected to you. And the third business that she started was a convenience store chain.
And when I know, we all know how successful convenience stores have vin so how many stores now?
I think there's I'm not going to say it incorrectly, but I think there's almost one hundred stores. They're out the Panhandle. Who runs those names and my family still runs them. It's still family owned. It's a family business. But you know, it was my grandmother who did all of this. And so she was the first entrepreneur. And I think that I really I link back now to what I learned from her and seeing I thought that was the norm that you saw a woman go to work every day and run a business.
Yeah, but you didn't tell your grandma.
I didn't tell anyone.
Amy uses the name mister Mason, who is the teacher who started to abuse her, rape you on the school grounds or elsewhere?
It was on the school grounds, only on the school ground, only, school bathroom.
Ow in the school bathroom. Do you remember the episodes? Did they do? You do?
I do? And you know I had remembered. One of the things I think I talk about in the book is this idea that there was so much that I remembered. I remembered being around this person. I can't really use him by name because it's still hard for me to even speak the name, even though that's not mister Mason, is not his name. I recognize that. It's only in
my experience. I've just come to understand how my memory has worked, and how there were things that were so difficult for me to process, that what I did was sort of perfection myself out of them, and that if I could just succeed, if I could get away from all of it and I could make sure that no one saw what was going on, then I could be successful.
But you did that so successfully. I mean Amy Griffin at the time. What was your maiden name, Mitchell, Amy Mitchell, Amy Mitchell was a very fantastic athlete. Tell us about what sports did you participate in.
I played volleyball, and I played tennis in high school and then went on to play volleyball at the University of Virginia, which was a real ticket out for me.
That was the most incredible opportunity. And Martha, I think about all the time that when I went on the recruiting visit to go for the University of Virginia and I walked on those holid grounds where there was this sense of place in the community, Thomas Shefferson and the architecture, and I thought, this is unlike anything I've ever seen in my entire life. I want to walk on these copplestones every day. I want to be part of this piece of history. And you did, and it was it.
But what's interesting was I called my parents the night I was still believe it or not, I was still the payphone days, and I remember I came off to the lawn after seeing the rotunda and the pavilions. And I called home and I said, well, this is where I'm going to school. And they said, but you haven't met the coach or talked to the team, or even been to the gym. I said, doesn't matter. This is where I'm going to spend the next four years of my life. I'm going to commit to the coach.
You were probably there with some of my family. My husband went to UVA, but I know that son in law went to Uva, my sister's husband, her her son went. Oh. So many people in our family went to Uva.
Well, and now I have a son that's there.
Oh you do. Oh?
So I love going back down and it brings up back such incredible, fabulous place. I would think that Charlott's will be a place that you love.
I love it, I loved I loved Thomas Jefferson's home Maticicillo. I love visiting the gardens there, and of course the campus is so beautiful. Well, your life really did and does look upsolutely picture perfect from the outside. And there was one episode I read somewhere that caused you to face the facts that you had a dark secret and that involved your daughter. What happened.
Well, aren't our children always our greatest, our parents If we pay attention to them, they parent us in many ways. And I think it was this recognition that when my daughter, both of them pulled me into a room and said, Mom, you know you do everything perfectly, but we we don't know you. You're you're not real. Who are you? We want to know you? And it was that moment they really said that they did.
They did. Those are children.
I actually, I'll have I tell you a funny story, but in that moment, this was not funny. But in that moment, I went in and I slammed the door and my husband said, well, what was that all about? And I said, Oh, she's so mad because she wants this, that and the other for me, and I do everything for her and I plan everything, and I, you know, try to make life perfect for all of our children. And what he said was, I think she's trying to
tell you something. And it was this idea that they didn't want me to be perfect, They wanted me to be reachable. And I write that in the book. And I think it was that moment that I had, that I had that ability to decide I was either going to pay attention to them, or I was not going to acknowledge that. And it was in that moment that I heard my children and I acknowledged it, and I acknowledged that, and I knew that I needed to pull
on that thread. But Martha, it's so funny because the book has been out now almost a month, and I've tried to stay away from reading reader reviews, and friends who were authors said, don't read anything. Just stay in your bubble and do what you have to do, and you know, believe in yourself. And so, but my daughter came to me, the one who called me into the bedroom recently, and she said, Mom, Mom, I have to
tell you something fantastic. And I said what happened? She said, well, I saw someone on the that didn't give you a great review because they said they didn't think that I could say the words that were in the book. And I said really, and she said, so I wrote them. I wrote them, and I told them I said those exact words, and she took the comment down, and I thought, gosh,
this child is so astute. She's been telling me this for such a long time, and here we are right back in that same You know, it's the same situation.
Do you have anything else to Jill or no?
Good? No?
But what did they think about the story? The children? Well, I mean have they read the book?
My children have read the book. I think the most interesting part of all of this is that all of it's been a process. So when you when you read the book, you recognize I have.
To started before you answered did your husband know about when you when you met your husband and you subsequently got engaged and married, did he know about this childhood trauma?
He didn't know, specifically, because I never laid it out for him perfectly. At the same time, there are many clues that throughout the book I write about that he had recognized in me in certain moments that come up in the book that he said, Wow, I don't really understand why that just happened. And at the time, remember, I'm living it, so I don't understand why I'm protecting myself. But as we've talked about it, and as I wrote the book and I went through the process of.
Writing, had you had psychiatric help?
I've been to a therapist before, but I was never really willing to touch it. It was something that just was not going to be in this universe that I was going to touch. I don't know in this lifetime if maybe I would have just that I was just not going to I wasn't going to address it because it was too hard. It was something that didn't feel
like it was of this world. But I think, you know, we were talking about my children and one of the things that happened on the first night after the book launched, and it was really surreal when Oprah surprised me and walked out on stage at the Ford Foundation and we had this incredible interaction, and then I was interviewed by Mariska Hargate, who has been a longtime friend, and it was just it was overwhelming and beautiful in that moment.
But I went home and I decided to go to all of my children and say what did you think about that? And how did you feel about it? And realized it was really important in this relationship with my children that I continue to go back and forth with them. So I went to my twelve year old and I said, Julian, how did you feel about tonight? He said, Mom, it was great, it was great. I loved it, and that It was then, Martha that I realized that he was seven when I wrote the book and he couldn't read.
And so I said, you know, you haven't read the book. And I realized tonight there were a lot of things said about the book that you may not have known. He said, Mom, I never knew you had that conversation with my sisters. And I said, right right, because you haven't been able to read it. And I said, well, do you think you'd like to read it now? And he said yeah, but I think I'm going to wait
for a book report. I said, okay. He said, let's wait for a book report because I know I'll probably get an a on the subject because it's my mom's book, and I'll just, you know, do it all at once. And I thought, this is just the way it is, though, and this is the relationship that I wanted to have with my children and having these conversations.
So were you fearful about losing their attention by telling the story? I think you're pretty bold, should you know, put it all out there.
I think I was worried. And this is where I realized that the word control in so many areas of my life that I was worried about so many things that didn't happen and then there were things that did happen that you know, I could never have even known to worry about. But in this case, what was most fascinating was that I went to my children, and my children, in their childlike brains, didn't ask me the questions that a lot of adults asked me. So I was so worried.
I mean, one of the worst days of my life was going and I knew it would be. Was going to tell my incredible mother, who does everything well and is beautiful like you, Mars, it's horrific.
My mother didn't tell her a thing.
It's horrific. But what happened was that when I recognized as I started telling people that each person I had a relationship with each person as I told them my story, and I became aware that what I needed to do was when I was going to tell someone a story, I had to make sure that I understood where they
were and how they could handle it. And oddly enough, or actually beautifully enough, when I went to tell my children, all of my children, in their various ways, just said, we get it, we see you, we support you, and we're so proud of you for doing this.
So that's what you want to.
Hear and that's where, you know. And many times when I would go to an adult, some of my family members might say, but why, but how? But where were we? And a lot of those questions are questions that I don't necessarily have answers for. And it's so hard for me because the writing of this book and believe it
or not the title. At one point in time, as I was writing in the manuscript, I thought about calling it believe Me or just having something about being believed, because it was so hard for me to believe what had gone on myself, having tucked away some of these memories for so long. There are so many memories of myself with this teacher. You know, I thought about this teacher even as an adult, over and over and over again, but I just wouldn't let myself touch the abuse for such a long time.
Incredible You had a book agent, Kate. Wait, but why did you mention? Because she's also my agent. She helped you negotiate what you felt comfortable revealing in the book. It didn't start out as the tell well, what's the original book?
I think there's so many things that have come into this, you know, I look at the book now, and sometimes I think of the thousands of things that had to happen to fall in line, from one from Kate to getting a phone call from Oprah. But what happened was Kate really started everything. Kate a friend called me and said, would you mind if I connected you to Kate Hoyt. I didn't even know she was a literary agent. I
was told she was a literary agent. But I said, I'm happy to take a phone call with her because I'd been writing for over two years. I'd been in East Hampton, writing and writing and writing, and had been an English major in college. And my husband the day that I really decided to confront all of this, he handed me a notebook and he said, Amy, this is what you do best. Go sit and process and write. And I knew it in that moment before you had
your treatment. This was the morning after. Oh. But to say so, what happened was if you want me to talk about the MDMA piece. I had made this decision. I'd seen John talking about PTSD. My husband had been interested in psychedelic therapy from a veteran's perspective, and I had never recognized because of his father. Yes, John's father was a war veteran, and oftentimes when we would go out for dinner, someone might say, John, what did your
father do? And John would say he ran the Westchester It's Soccer youth league, and I would think, Okay, that's not really a job. But what happened was that John decided that he wanted to go in to understand what psychedelic therapy was, to work with a practitioner with MDMA and have his own session. And we were at dinner one night a week or so later, and someone said, John, what did your father do growing up? And John said he didn't. He was a war veteran, and he didn't work,
and he didn't have a job. And so I saw something, a change and a shift in John, and also in a friend who'd also worked with a practitioner. The thing about me and Martha, which I think is fascinating to note, is that I never expected myself to be the psychedelic person, and I never I am the straightest person you will ever meet. If you've talked to my college friends, I was a very serious college athlete, and I actually recognize that I don't like being out of control. I barely drink alcohol.
Yeah, you barely drink. You never took drugs recreationally. I've never seen drugs recreation. Yeah, but all of a sudden you thought, well, maybe this will help.
And I'd also met the person I was going to be working with, and I understood it to be in a very clinical setting with a practitioner who'd been doing it for many decades. And I knew in that moment that it was something that I needed for myself, and that I'd been talking around what had gone on in my life, and I think I recognized that it was it was again I talk about this idea. People say to me, oh, it's so brave that you went to do that, But I never really thought of it as brave.
I thought of it as giving myself this freedom, or this permission to go in and explore and be compassionate with myself.
Weren't you afraid at all? Very?
Oh, my bet, I was very afraid.
I mean, you're completely at the mercy of the psychedelics.
And I've also came to recognize I didn't. I purposely didn't do a lot of research in knowing that I had talked to my husband who had been through this process and said, you know, the idea is to let go and to have this compassion for yourself to go in and have the session. But Martha, that was the hardest part of it is to say, Okay, I'm going to surrender.
Is a session?
Well, well, the other thing I like to talk about, which I think is why it's been interesting that the book people are talking about my story is that I am not a scientist and I'm not a doctor, and I don't have I don't have a story for someone to say that I did this session and now my
life is perfect. Now my life truly is perfect. Instead, it's actually the process that I walk through of unwinding something that was really horrific and to be able to come out on the other side and say, I personally feel like I understand now that myself, like everyone, is a work in progress. But I understand that work in
progress much better than I did before. And so yes, on the day that I went in to have the therapy, I went to the practitioner and I said to her, I know I need to address a lot of sexual abuse or just a sexual try to record you. You're in my case, I could record it, and I didn't. The person took notes for me.
You drink it and you inject it. What is it?
So it's a pill, and what's fascinating for me? And in my case was I was so nervous to take the pill. But I took the pill. And when I swallowed the pill and I put the eye shades on, I turned the practitioner and I said, how long is it going to take for this to work? And she said it's you know, relax, It'll take you thirty minutes or forty minutes just to find yourself and just go be with yourself. The way that I've been told that it works is that that MDMA is an intactogen or
an empathogen. It's not a hallucinogen. It also from the research that they have now, but just from my experience, what I was going to say was that it absolutely within five minutes, Martha, within five minutes, I said, I said, well, it takes thirty minutes. I'm ready to tell you everything.
This is where I'm not a scientist again. But I think the idea that I took the pill, which was this lack of control to say it was right there on my brain and to understand that I could go in and just I could tell the story of what had gone on, and.
Talked to experts since and did they say anything negative about it?
Or I don't know the science behind it. I'm fascinated to learn what the science will develop to be. What I came to understand now in the way that the science and I tried to study and understand the science behind it, is that the brain, it allows the fight or flight, the fear center of the brain, the amignala, to shut down, so that the fear center allows you
to have this empathy for yourself. And I could only say that in my case, again having no drug experience whatsoever, that in that moment, I spent eight hours in a room, eight hours in my case. And I've heard people say that it's been different lengths of time from five hours to four hours to ten hours, that in my situation the first eight hours, I spent eight hours with.
This practicition, only with one person.
With this person, and I told my story of being in this bathroom, of the multiple times that I was sexually abused over and over and over again, and I could recall everything down to minute details, down to the handle in the door, to the sinks, to the tiles, and I clung to those I clung to those details as a way for me to recognize that I understood in that moment that I could leave my b and
go somewhere else, and that's how I would survive. And that is the only way that I could describe how I could recognize how survival works in many cases for humans. I think about Martha, even someone who has a car crash or you know, I can think of many other situations in my life where someone tells me something horrible. It's like I write in the book that my father always says, when we call home to tell my mother and father something bad has happened, we have to immediately say,
I'm calling right now. Everything's okay, everyone's alive, but I have to tell you something. And sometimes I've had other instances in my life where if you can think back when someone tells you something and then you later remember, wait, I can't remember what they actually even told me because I was I'd gone into a state of frozen. And in this case is the only way that I can recognize that it was a compassion that I have for myself of protection of what had gone on.
So you took this pill, you really didn't know what was going to happen. You entrusted all your memories to the therapists. Is she a well known therapist for this.
Well, she's been well known in the circles, But I don't know how well known she is because I'm the only one. You know. I was introduced to her, my husband has worked with her, and I completely That's exactly right, Martha. She was completely trusted. She was a trusted source. She was someone that I trusted immediately. I would never have gone to also take a drug at a club, and I haven't done that. That's not something that's been my experience.
So when we talk about what MDMA is and ecstasy is, and I've only people say, oh, I did ecstasy at a club, I don't have any experience of doing ecstasy at a club. I only had this experience for myself.
But sounds a little bit like hypnosis in a way, because because I remember getting hypnotized. Do you remember every single thing?
I remember, every single note there was music playing in the background. Why when I do you remember everything that I remember everything that was also happening in the room, down to the note of the flamenco.
Music mentally and physically, did you notice anything different.
After my experience. Oh, I mean, you know, the next day was it was the aftermath of all of it. That night, when I came out of the session, I told John, and I can only describe it in the way that I ride about it say. He knew in the moment he did what I think could be the most loving, compassionate thing for a spouse. He listened, and over time we unpacked a lot of the stories that made him recognize why maybe I'd done some of the things I've done, and how he could have He recognized
that maybe this had gone on. But in that moment, Martha, it was wildly liberating to be able to tell the secret not only what had been done to me, but this idea that I live, this life that looks one way that I built up all these walls and castles, and yet I was able to dismantle the secret that I'd kept from the person who I loved the most in this world.
It was so free, That's what's so strange. And you've been married for how long before this happened.
Let's see, it was I miss eighteen nineteen years. I lose track, but I think it was about seventeen eighteen years wow. And it was because of that connection with him. I think it was because of that that freedom that I had in the relationship with John, that I was able to te tell him in knowing in this that there wasn't going to be this fear that I would be cast out. And it was after this long period of connecting and building this relationship with him that I
felt safe to do so. And also there were so many things that led to this. Also, I think it's really important to note that my daughters were also of the ages that I was when I was going through this abuse, and so to say that I was feeling this tension with them when they called me out, along with having the session, being in the relationship that I was in, and being safe enough within myself to say, I'm strong enough in the business I built you to each that I am.
I didn't tell your mom.
No, but why because this person told me that I wouldn't be believed if I did. He told me, you come from one of the nicest families in town, you will not be believed, no one will love you. So what did I do? I achieved out of it. I achieved away from it such that no one could see what was going on. One of the things I write about in the book is how you know we have one foot in a bucket of hot water and one foot in a bucket of cold water, and that's we
live our life in between. In some ways, I was always living fearful of the secret coming out, and so I was building this life such that no one could touch me. And yet at the same time I was living in fear from all of that. And I think in acknowledging what had gone on, it was so beautiful because now I could live so fully on both sides that I can still feel deep, deep sadness and I still feel deep, deep signest and then also the joy of the freedom.
But raising children, I mean, aren't you You must be terribly concerned about.
Your kids, definitely, And I think one of the things that's so beautiful in the relationship was in the idea that if in the book, I talk about running a lot, but I also talk about how I really was so controlling over my children, and the idea that if I
could just keep them safe. I thought it was in many of the ways that I talk about from the conservative South, that in the South we were raised that your skirt needs to be a certain link, that your nail shouldn't be too red, that your heels should be a certain height, and those were ways that might keep you safe in life. But what I came to realize, and it was one night that I write about in the book, where my son was maybe one minute late from coming home from curfew. I stood in the doorway
pacing because of that one minute. And there was this recognition also in that moment too, where John and I talked about what was I solving for the relationship or control of him? And through this process, I've been able to recognize that I can solve for the relationship with them of the conversation back and forth, not of the control.
In the book, too, you talk about the fact that you were not able to have any retribution whatsoever with your abuser.
Why, well, there was a loophole in the statute of limitations that had passed in terms of me being able to move forward. But I think one of the most interesting threads of the book is that, and I talk about this a lot in people that haven't read the book, is the book is not just about the horrific things that happened to me. The book in fact, I look
at it. There's a crazy crime thriller that goes on that I was writing about as I was living in it, Martha, as I'm going after this person, and I was doing what I had always done in my life, which was the idea if I could go and get this person and do everything I could to hold this person accountable, then life would be perfect again, and I could tie it up with a bow and I could say I accomplished this. This person is in jail, and look what
I did. But in reality, I was trying to take care of myself, take care of my family, run my business, and hold this person accountable. And the statut limitations had changed in Texas as such that there actually were two people that had been led out of jail because their cases had been overturned based on a loophole.
And this is just going to be a movie.
Oh gosh, you know, I've been asked that so many times, and I actually don't know, because also can I say why?
It sounds like Ryan Murphy.
I could only wish. But you know what's interesting about the movie piece of it is that I put hundreds of thousands of hours into the word choice of how I wrote about this book and the idea of then going back into it again. I'd just come out of putting the book out into the world and also putting the book out into the world so that people would read it. But imagine that Martha. There was this decision which just as I was going to get back to Kate hoyt our agent who when she said to me,
you know, can I read what you wrote? And I have this one thought of when I pushed send and I turned to John. He said, what did you do? I said, I just sent Kate everything I've been writing for two years. He said, you send it to her, and I said, yes, because it's time for me to tell this story and I think I'll help a lot of other people. Without knowing that that was what was going to happen, I had no idea that a literary
agent was going to call me. And so the most important thing about the book that I say is the takeaway for me, which I've had to get comfortable with, which is why I don't know if there will be a movie, is that I've had to get comfortable with the fact that I wrote this book on my bathroom floor. First, for me, not thinking that anyone in the entire world
would ever read it. And so now that that's changed, I'm having these conversations with people all over the world that are writing to tell me how this has opened something up for them, or they've remembered something that they had hidden. And what's been fascinating too, is that such a big part of this has not just been about sexual trauma. It's been about all kinds of things, people's sexual orientation, or something happening with a partner, or something
at worked that happened that was inappropriate. There's just so many things that I think we as humans overlook, and especially Martha and you know this, we as women hold and we are held to different standards.
Totally argally right. So, has the feedback that you've received surprised you or anything to say about that? I mean, the feedback's been amazing. Every magazine I open has a very good review of your book, every single one, and.
That's so kind. Yeah, you know, I was very nervous. This is the first time I'm probably saying I was very scared to put my words out into the world for so many reasons, for fear of being judged, for fear of being not believed for fear of the idea that this is what I was told was the secret in many ways, was the thing I was running from. That was the hardest part to tell my parents and
to break that secret. So to put the book out into the world and have the people people come back to me with me like the connection one on one. I cannot tell you. Seeing people reading it in lawn chairs and on subways and having these threads that they pull of it has been. It's been absolutely surreal, and that has been such a gift to me. I'm so grateful for it.
So what did your mom say when I told her?
Yeah, immediately when I went to tell my mom, you know, it all felt so fuzzy. As I told her what had happened. She went inside to get something to drink, and I found her on the floor, on the tile floor, curled up in a ball, and she said, I can't get up. I can't get up. And I said, Mom, you're going to have to get up because I have to finish telling you this. I have to tell you, tell you, tell you. Back to the title of the book and Martha, I have to say, my mother is
the most extraordinary woman. She has risen from this she has read. She was five steps ahead of me in terms of reading every book to then come to me and say, I understand now why you couldn't tell us. I understand why how other people had been through this. There's a story that happened last night. A woman that is in the book that I write about, who haven't
spoken to a long time. He's a dear friend, wrote me last night and said me, when I had my incident, happened to me and I had this horrific thing happen of abuse, your mother twenty years ago, twenty five years ago was the first person that showed up at my house to tell me her story. Oh wow, And I
heard that story last night. So to go back to my mother and see how my mother has grown and accepted this and understood this, and how we've grown as a family has been one of the most beautiful parts of this process.
I as a person would hope that it happened earlier in your life, but it's good that it's happened now. Well.
I always have had a beautiful relationship with my mom. She's an incredible homemaker and she can do anything, and she could be a senator or a CEO or she still could be, and who knows what she will do. She's only like seventy two years young. And we were always close, and this was something that was also part of the problem, is that we were so close that
I came from a beautiful family that was intact. And I do believe as I went through all of this, and I surfed through all of it, through the waters, that I realized that it was my family that kept me intact. And I was so I was so blessed I had the family to go home to that was intact, that I could go home to my parents who were loving and caring.
No, it's amazing that you have that and that strength behind you. But so this has been a tough conversation and it's heartrending, and it's also extremely enlightening and also very encouraging that someone can live through what you've lived through, succeeded so beautifully, and so many many things. And I just wanted to talk a little tiny bit about Amy's amazing accomplishments as a female founder, as a fantastic mother, as a wonderful wife. You run a company that everybody
admires so greatly. Tell us about g nine.
Well, G nine started with the idea that I loved I was an athlete, and I loved being on a team, and I love supporting people. And I came to this realization that I had the skill set from my background to jump in and figure out how to be a problem solver and to be a leader, and to lead these founders and to surround them with the support they might need as they're building their businesses. And so I started very simply by making one or two investments in
a few businesses. What was your first investment One of the first businesses that was material that I made. I made a few others, I mean an ice cream store and this and that and the other, but one of the first that was material, really was believing in Goop and what Gwyneth was building and seeing that transition that she was making, both from having this model of sending out this weekly email to saying, you know what, I'm going from Hollywood to go be this founder and I'm
going to step in and run this business. And I wholeheartedly believed her and still do and seeing what she's doing and how she's stuck with it and how she's become the CEO of that business that she is today.
And more than seventy percent of your portfolio, which is quite extensive from what I've read, are female founders.
That's right, And that wasn't by design necessarily, except that I recognized that I come from the female perspective, and I recognized, you know, you look at a business like a spanks or a bumble, or there's many health which is around men's healthcare. And I saw areas where women were being left out, and I wanted to apply my experiences to those businesses. And so over time, as I had enough founders around the table, I started seeing these patterns within founders and how they did well and how
they built their businesses. And I also recognized that there were patterns. But at the same time, it was about showing up and just rolling up by sleeves and saying, what do you need is you need a new CMO, you need someone to help you with branding, You need me to show up and help hand out flyers. I mean, it's this idea that it's like whatever it takes.
Reese Witherspoon's company Hill at Sunshine, Yes, incredible, Yeah, how's that doing?
I mean, what a beautiful idea that I did that, Reese took and said, I'm going to help women tell their stories in a very different way, and I'm going to help them own their stories from start to finish in a different model. And so I was so proud to be a part of what she was doing. As she said, also, I don't see women in these roles, and I want to give more women the opportunities to take these lead roles. So I'm going to buy these scripts and I'm going to make these movies and I'm
going to make it happen. And that's like as exciting as it can get for me.
You said that you are also invested in Westbinochlier.
Oh, I mean, Gucci's the most fabulous, sickest human alive.
And that was also the neighbor of mine. I've been Bedford and I love her products. I think she's done such an amazing job with her company from start to finish. Yes, and she's done it the right way. She's built it slow and methodically and with thought. She deeply cares about every single product that she makes. She's been a longtime friend, but I've watched her and immediately when she said she was starting this business, I said, I would love to
be part of it. And can I tell you that, you know, I would like to say that I've been helpful to these businesses, but in many ways I learned from them and Gucci and Gucci is one of those founders that I learned so much from in terms of what to do and how to build a business the right way. And Spanks that is evolving and evolving. That's how old is that company now?
Well, Spanks is just going into its twenty fifth year. Sarah Blakely is the original inventor creative of shapewear. Shapewear and you know, I think of Sarah as a real She is an icon like you in many ways. So to sit with Sarah who still comes to board meetings and says, wait a minute, light bulb idea and always has these incredible answers as to how we should move and where we should take the company in the next iteration.
And truly, this was this first idea that she believed in a business that could make women feel better in the clothing that they were wearing, and she did it, and she's just so much.
It's just incredibly what's up and coming? Can you talk about any company?
Well, My team is focused a lot on women's sports right now and just making sure that there are women owners of sports teams. I think that's one thing we've been looking at a lot, because otherwise evaluations are going to get away from us, and you know that we want to. It's really exciting to see what's happening in
women's sports from an investment perspective. But also we've been really focused on women's health and just finding businesses in women's health that are going to transform women's wives in various ways, from the female microbiome with EVY to MIDI, which is a midlife care. We're really interested in them right now because of the fact that I see how they can transform for.
Most of them more I think we I think women need more information.
We look at someone like doctor Mary Clare. I don't know if you've followed her, but she's someone that's been a friend for a while, and I've seen so many women talking about We're talking about things that we didn't talk about before. And those are some of the categories that I've been interested in. Like, no one said the word menopause, no one said the word perimenopause. No one knew that there were there was businesses to be built around this to help women not just men.
And my company are talking about menopause.
Great and it's working. I mean that means there's money to be made, but not the money is not where the money is one part of it.
They know what it is now because of companies like medi and those. You know that there that is in the conversation now, which is interesting.
I think there's so many subjects that have been passe and off you can't have the conversation. So the fact that we're having conversations about menopause, both women were silid from it too. I think women are for the first time actually learning what it means to have these symptoms of menopause. So that's an area that we've been really excited about.
Well, keep up your fantastic good work. Congratulations on being able to tell with the tell and encourage all of us not to think that we have to hide things that are painful or secretive in our lives. Amy, You've done a good service to all of us by writing this book and coming forth with the truth.
I'm living in the messy now, Martha. That's the thing, the idea I'm trying to embrace the spilled glass of wine on the table, and stay a little longer, and you know, as life changes and transforms. I think the greatest gift that I've given myself is in the freedom of this book, okay, because I can now go back to my businesses, Yes, and even more open mind.
You have the most It's very exciting what you're doing. Thank you, and I'm excited for you, and I'd love to see the enthusiasm that is spilling out of your beautiful eyes is great. Well, thank you so much for speaking with us today and this of luck.
Thank you, thank you, thank you. My icon