Cindy Eckert (formerly Whitehead) (@cindypinkceo) is an entrepreneur with 1.5 billion dollars in exits who currently serves as the founder and CEO of The Pink Ceiling, an investment firm and consulting enterprise nicknamed the Pinkubator with a mission to invest in, launch, and build other women-led or focused businesses. She believes that access to good advice alone is not enough to change the ratio of men to women in business, and that is why she personally invested more than 15 million dollars in 2017 alone to support the development of nine portfolio companies.

I should mention right off the bat that if you're a guy, don't let this bio turn you off in any way — in the sense that I wanted to have Cindy on the show because she is a good CEO and entrepreneur, very much irrespective of gender. The negotiating techniques, the approaches to deal-making, everything that we talk about applies to entrepreneurs, period, full stop.

Earlier in her career, Cindy was the founder of Sprout Pharmaceuticals, home of Addyi, the first and only FDA-approved treatment for low sexual desire disorder in women, which was sold for one billion dollars and then reacquired in a crazy story with incredible terms that we will discuss in this conversation.

Please enjoy this wide-ranging conversation with Cindy Eckert!

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Past guests on The Tim Ferriss Show include Jerry Seinfeld, Hugh Jackman, Dr. Jane Goodall, LeBron James, Kevin Hart, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Jamie Foxx, Matthew McConaughey, Esther Perel, Elizabeth Gilbert, Terry Crews, Sia, Yuval Noah Harari, Malcolm Gladwell, Madeleine Albright, Cheryl Strayed, Jim Collins, Mary Karr, Maria Popova, Sam Harris, Michael Phelps, Bob Iger, Edward Norton, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Neil Strauss, Ken Burns, Maria Sharapova, Marc Andreessen, Neil Gaiman, Neil de Grasse Tyson, Jocko Willink, Daniel Ek, Kelly Slater, Dr. Peter Attia, Seth Godin, Howard Marks, Dr. Brené Brown, Eric Schmidt, Michael Lewis, Joe Gebbia, Michael Pollan, Dr. Jordan Peterson, Vince Vaughn, Brian Koppelman, Ramit Sethi, Dax Shepard, Tony Robbins, Jim Dethmer, Dan Harris, Ray Dalio, Naval Ravikant, Vitalik Buterin, Elizabeth Lesser, Amanda Palmer, Katie Haun, Sir Richard Branson, Chuck Palahniuk, Arianna Huffington, Reid Hoffman, Bill Burr, Whitney Cummings, Rick Rubin, Dr. Vivek Murthy, Darren Aronofsky, and many more.

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Spencer Robert Young — University of Idaho