Shane Parrish

And his salary would be approximately double hers.

When Mary Kay protested, and of course she protested, she was told something considered perfectly reasonable in 1963.

Men needed more money because they had families to support.

And she was a divorced single mother of three children.

This wasn't the first time.

It was just the most egregious example.

Throughout her entire career at World Gift, when she brought ideas to the all-male company board, they dismissed her suggestions with one variation or another of the same phrase, which is, oh, Mary Kay, you're thinking just like a woman.

They didn't mean it as a compliment.

Never mind her thinking like a woman had helped increase their revenue by 50%.

In 1963, having watched this pattern repeat itself across multiple companies over 25 years, Mary Kay resigned.

She called it retirement.

It was a refusal to continue participating in a system designed to ensure she'd never be properly compensated or recognized for her contributions.

She was 45 years old.

She had no pension, no significant savings, and no backup plan.

But she did have one asset, a lifetime of experience watching how not to run a business.

So she decided to write a book.

She sits down at our kitchen table and makes two lists.

List number one is every negative experience she's had in 25 years of business.

Every time she was passed over for promotion, every time a man she'd trained was promoted above her, every time her ideas were dismissed because of her gender, every instance of unequal pay, every meeting where men talked over her, interrupted her, or simply pretended she hadn't spoken.

Then list number two, what would her dream company look like?