Forbes’ roundup of 2025’s headline-making women entrepreneurs is billed as a feel-good masterclass in grit and mindset, and there’s nothing wrong with celebrating success. Conservatives should cheer when private citizens turn ideas into jobs and services, but we should also call out the media’s cozy habit of turning business wins into feel-good narratives that skip hard questions about sustainability and public accountability. The entrepreneurial spirit that built this country deserves honest praise, not uncritical worship.
Take Halle Berry’s pivot into women’s health: what began as a personal fight with a misdiagnosis has been repackaged as Respin Health, a menopause-focused venture that Berry says is meant to fill gaps in care and end stigma. That’s admirable — nobody who actually believes in market solutions should sneer at someone using fame and capital to tackle unmet needs — but the early-stage company’s funding and revenue remain modest, and celebrity-backed femtech often trades on emotion as much as on durable business fundamentals. Consumers and investors should be excited but prudent about the claims such ventures make.
Michele Kang’s work in women’s soccer is a clearer example of private capital moving a sector forward: she’s bought clubs, built a multi-team model, and funneled tens of millions into research and training designed specifically for female athletes. That kind of long-term, risk-taking investment is exactly what conservatives should applaud — it’s the market, not grandstanding bureaucracies, that is professionalizing a sport and growing its fan base. If America wants more competitive leagues and better development pipelines, expect more owners like Kang to step up and take the hit until others follow.
Meanwhile the headline about the world’s youngest self-made woman billionaire — Lucy Guo, whose stake in Scale AI pushed her paper wealth over the billionaire line in April — is a reminder that big fortunes in 2025 are still being minted by people who solve hard technical problems. The conservative case for capitalism is simple: when risk-takers create new value, society gains new tools, jobs, and wealth, even if the valuations make Washington uncomfortable. Markets reward solutions; that’s why we must protect innovation from overreaching regulation and punitive taxes that chase founders overseas.
Emma Grede’s profile — from Good American to a major stake in Skims and a podcast about building wealth — shows another side of modern entrepreneurship: celebrity partnerships, brand leverage, and relentless monetization of personal networks. Grede’s playbook is textbook capitalism: find a gap, build a brand, scale partnerships, and use reputation as leverage. Conservatives should note how private initiative, not state programs, built these brands and created real economic opportunities for workers and suppliers.
The item about going “From writing ‘No Scrubs’ to building an empire” captures the same lesson in a different lane — artists who turned creative success into diversified businesses, like restaurants, beauty lines, and licensing deals, are living proof that the republic thrives on variety in enterprise. Songwriting royalties and small chains don’t get government headlines, but they create livelihoods and build local communities in ways big policy programs rarely do. Celebrate the songwriters-turned-business-owners; they embody the bootstrap ethic that made this nation prosperous.
At the end of the day, these stories deserve applause from the right for one reason above all: they are examples of private citizens taking risks, creating value, and serving customers on their own terms. That’s the real antidote to the prevailing Washington habit of commandeering every problem with new rules, new funds, and new bureaucracies. If we want more Halle Berrys and Michele Kangs, we should cut taxes, roll back needless regulation, and let capitalism do what it does best — turn hard work and bold ideas into prosperity for all.
