Max Doerner Doesn’t Exist, But He’s Who AI Thinks I Am
Last week, I saw a viral LinkedIn trend: women in tech were feeding their résumés into ChatGPT and asking for a profile image. The results? All of the images generated were of men. It was hilarious, infuriating, and deeply revealing.
As someone who’s spent years building AI products, I had to try it.
I gave ChatGPT my résumé and asked it to create an image and a description of me based on it.
It returned a picture and bio of Max Doerner, a seasoned product leader with 15 years of experience, including leadership roles at Jasper AI, Mindbody, and TripAdvisor. Max had launched enterprise features, guided AI adoption at scale, and helped early-stage teams find traction.
It was me, just…not me.
Max had my background, my portfolio, and my achievements. But he was a man.
The disconnect was uncanny. And painfully familiar.
Representation in AI matters
Because this isn’t just about me. It’s about how invisible women still are in AI, even to the AI itself.
We’re not absent from the work. But we’re absent from the narrative.
I’ve spent the last few years leading product in the generative AI space. Most recently, I helped Jasper launch enterprise-ready features that closed six-figure deals. Today, I co-run Hyperfocus AI, a boutique agency that helps early-stage founders build usable AI products fast. I’m building with these tools every day. I know how they work. I know what they’re trained on. And I know that what we feed into these systems matters.
Because even when your résumé is clear, the model might not “see” you. Not unless someone like you was part of the training data. Not unless someone like you was writing the code, or in the proverbial “room where it happens”.
The data reflects the industry. And the industry is still wildly unbalanced.
Only 2% of VC funding goes to startups with a female founder. And only 1 in 4 people in technical roles at major tech companies are women. Women of color are even more underrepresented—in funding, in leadership, and yes, in training data.
This is why representation in AI matters. Not as a nice-to-have, but as a product risk, an ethical risk, and a missed-opportunity risk. When you don’t see the full spectrum of builders, you don’t serve the full spectrum of users. And you end up with a Max Doerner—confident, competent, plausible…and entirely made up.
So here’s my call:
- If you’re a founder who’s been told you don’t “look” technical enough,
- If you’re building in a space where nuance, voice, and context matter,
- If you want an AI product that reflects your users, not just the defaults baked into the model,
Let’s talk.
If we want AI to reflect the full spectrum of humanity, we need more of that humanity building it.
At Hyperfocus AI, we’re helping early-stage teams turn ideas into real products, and we want those teams to be as diverse as the future we’re all building toward.
If that resonates, reach out. My DMs are open.
My name is Marie, not Max. And I’m building the future I want to see.