Transcripts For CSPAN2 Inside The Sisterhood Shaking Up Tech 20180104

Gentlemen. Welcome to barnes and noble tribeca appeared to not have the pleasure of introducing Heather Cabot and Sam Walravens as they join us to discuss their new book, geek girl rising inside the sisterhood shaping up tech. Heather cabot is a former abc news correspondent. Investor, adjunct professor and a woman at forbes contributed. Sam walravens is an editor, recognize speaker on women, contributed to women at the Huffington Post and disney interactive. Please join me in welcoming Heather Cabot and Sam Walravens. You so much thank you [applause] we really appreciate coming out on a rating i like this. This is a super exciting moment for us because first of all we are in the same city. Which we really are because i live in new york and pam lives in San Francisco. This really is the evening before geek girl rising inside the sisterhood shaping up tech comes out. It is really a special moment for us and to kick things off, to give you a taste of what the book is about, will shave a little trailer. Lets roll the video. [video] i think women now understand we are not going to get ahead unless we help each other to get ahead. I have a fema manager and she advocates for me and pushes may be on my leadership role. Having a new tech path gives women the opportunity to work from home, travel and everything they want. Their mothers but also have a job. I dont think google or any tech company should be the gatekeeper of who gets to take advantage of the amazing opportunities of technology. Does exist because there enough we need more women sharks. I have been in groups of all men and they do not necessarily get my product. When i have groups of all women they automatically see it. They see the value in it and they see the passion that i have for it. And immediately, there offspring how can i help . [music] [music] [music] that taste of geek girl rising inside the sisterhood shaping up tech. A combination of more than five years of reporting and research and more than 250 interviews. I do not know if you want to chime in a little bit about the genesis about the project and how we met. I call myself the first generation Silicon Valley growth. I worked in Silicon Valley 1995, really before or at the beginning of the when people start using the internet for consumer use. It was when netscape was on, Microsoft Windows came out, before that, it was primarily used for academia now it is being used by regular people. So i worked at a magazine as reported for a few years and then i went to work for Silicon Valley software startup. We went public and it, i saw the rise in the fall of the. Com industry. 1999 we went public. The stock shot up to 120 within six months. It was dented to. So we were really rich and then we were all really poor. But it was fun i made some really lasting and wonderful friendships during that time. And for me the inspiration was in 2013 actually. I was having lunch with a girlfriend. Who is been in Silicon Valley, a. Com survivor. She says ive been working in the valley now over 15 years and i decide performance review. She was head of sales by Software Company. Just had a review invite manager tom even though my sales team had hit numbers out of the ballpark he said to me, ive been told by some people in the New York Group and accompany that you are a little too aggressive. And youre even abrasive. Do you mind turning it down a little bit . And by the way, your lipstick is too bright and you are too much jewelry. That is literally what he said to her. And she was horrified. Needless to say she did not state the company very long. But she said sam, it is unbelievable what women are facing in Silicon Valley today. Some are sexism, such unconscious bias. And you need to write about it. And i said before i write about i want to interview a couple more people and see whats going on. So i started reaching out to other women that worked intact. Heather was working for yahoo at the time. I said tell me your story. I want to hear about your experience. Have you really face this kind of bias and discrimination, is it really that bad . Ive been out of the industry for a little while. And she said to me i have been researching this in new york and she said i have been researching a similar topic for yahoo. And she can take her story but i have like Amazing Stories from all of these female founders and it is great. I started talking to female founders and starting at the stories as well. And i said you know we do basic sexism and its in every industry women are facing this. But anything about the technology i am developing. Many say about the company that i am building. Let me tell you about all the positive things. There are a lot more positives than negatives when it comes to women starting companies and working intact. That is the story we decided to tell. Heather was a contributor to my first book which looks at women and worklife balance. And so we came together in 2013 and heather can tell her story. I had been in abc news correspondent and longtime reporter and i had the wonderful opportunity to go to work for yahoo in 2007. Really at the dawn of the iphone and the app store. My job there was to cover digital lifestyles. Essentially to look at how the internet was changing the daytoday lives. And put together stories that i would then present on the today show and Good Morning America and all different kinds of outlets. I was the on air consumer spokesperson. It was really eyeopening because i kept meeting women that were starting companies. And i thought, these women are really bad ass why is nobody telling the story . Im featuring them in the segments and featuring the product but its interesting that they were successful and they were fearless and i knew that because i had worked on a documentary right out of grad school back in the 90s, i knew that it was a problem. And so i thought this was really interesting. Theres a landscape of women were really doing well for themselves in spite of the sexism and in spite of the fact that it is a male dominated industry. I wonder what you know what is it about them that has made them successful there that has enabled them to persist two and what can we learn from them for our daughters . Sam and i both had daughters. I had 11 real twins a girl and a boy. Sam has kids and some daughters. And what is it about these childhoods from all the experiences that gave that resilience to keep going . And so, during the time that i was with yahoo i started curating interviews with these women. And then when sam said she was interested in doing the same kind of mining the same subculture, we realize that we could cover so much more ground if we are working on two coasts. Both were able to do which was so cool at the time that there were so many tech hubs that were starting to bubble up that it really allows us to go out there and spread ourselves as far and wide as possible to be able to track these women and get out of the coast. And get into the middle of the country to find some of the stories. Answer the book to give you you know you saw the trailer. What we really try to do is personal, we are writing for what i like to public Good Morning America audience. We are writing for a mainstream audience to take them inside the subculture of women in tech. And it takes people, takes the artist to the front line with women are working at the Grassroots Level to close the gap. We survey the landscape. Profile activists. Profile entrepreneurs, we profile investors. We profile women and companies are trying to reinvent the culture of work. We take you to College Campuses and then we take inside classrooms and also inside the world of the toy industry. Also trying to solve the problem. So really try to again, preventive mainstream audience that may not really, maybe they love tech in their iphone but they dont necessarily know a lot about the industry or understand the challenges that women and people from diverse backgrounds face. We try to explain that for them and hopefully get them interested. And being part of this digital revolution. I would like to take a few minutes to talk a little bit about confidence and maybe a little bit about the book from the confidence chapter. One of the Things Holding me back in the tech sector and in Many Industries is the fear of failure. Has anyone here heard of the imposter syndrome . Anyone ever experience it . Each and every day . What am i doing up here . The imposter syndrome is that nagging feeling like i am not good enough. I am not smart enough. Everyone in the room with me is smarter what am i doing here . Even Sheryl Sandberg says she feels it to this day after all of her accomplishments. Right . So i want to review, this is from the confidence chapter. The woman i will reach you about her name is donna. She is currently a an engineer, lead engineer at microsoft. She talks about bearing failure. But not just fearing failure but actually failing. She felt the first Computer Science class in college at the university of michigan. And went on to become an Software Engineer at microsoft. If i may, i will read from the chapter. Also give you a taste of what the book, the flavor of the book. This is called agreement, do it, own it. Confidence coaches. Donna was wearing leopard and phoniness. It was midnight in downtown seattle and the renaissance woman was in parliament. She was testing the words first check for 48 hour brainstorming session to try making the first app for microsoft augmented reality device, a futuristic hazard enables 3d images called holograms to go from computer screens into real life or they can be manipulated with the swipe of a finger. At 36 yield up donna is a hardware gate. As well as a Fashion Designer and a novelist. She is leaving the Outreach Program confirming her status as a rising star in microsoft. It is hard to believe that she felt her first Computer Science class. But she did. In her story of resilience is one that she does often as she travels the country inspiring young woman to try to go into engineering studies and hang onto jobs in the male dominated world of tech. And as a developer for the windows operating systems like to think of tech is that visible fairy godmother that makes things happen. As of june 2016, to his oversee Microsoft Windows program with millions of users giving feedback about versions of updates. My biggest successes being a senior woman in one of the Biggest Software companies in the world. Microsoft is a legendary Software Company and being a principal level woman here, really has a huge achievement. When i was growing up in detroit if someone told me donna youll make a really good salary working at microsoft as a senior person i would have historically laughed. That is because they didnt know anyone like the woman like she will become. She grew up in downtown detroit with her parent immigrants walked in the auto industry. Ran a small dress shop. Im sorry her grandmother ran a small dress shop. The computer lab at the high school consisted of ancient pcs and it put the teenage boys that left the room she approached him about joining the Computer Club. She was fascinated by computers ever since she first laid eyes on the old mcintosh in her fifthgrade classroom. Her father heard about all the news in the Tech Industry and encourage it to compete as a checkable programmer. He thought his new industry was not as and that his daughter might have a better shot at life. He scraped the money to sign her up for a coding class at a Community College less you still in high school. But it was not enough to prepare for Computer Science 100. The intro programming class at the university of michigan. Which granted seven complex concepts into one semester. She felt like her male classmates, most of them she later realized had taken ap Computer Science in high school. Something that her school did not offer. Speaking a Foreign Language as they had assignments. And then they would say i cannot believe how easy this step is one of them, why am i even doing this . Who doesnt do this . And i am sitting there like i dont i do not know it at all. I dont even know what this means. And the teacher will Start Talking and the guys would say we already knew this, move on. And then donna felt the course because she was too embarrassed to ask questions but she did not want anyone to think she was an airhead and muddle through on her own. Immediately afterwards she thought about dropping the Computer Science major altogether. Then she started thinking about how she learned to ride her bike and how she would skin her knees. And she would cry a lot and vowed i will never do this again. Only to get back in the saddle two days later. She took the Computer Science class again in this country this time she got a b. She said i just needed to be exposed to this twice. Sounds like they got it the first time. The message she wants to send to them as you cannot give up on your goals because it did not work out the first time. That is like saying, i ran in a race intending to end and i came in second so i will quit running. It is funny the concept is so weird to me. What are people talking about they met a lot of people want guaranteed success. I believe he can get 75 percent of the way and it is far Better Success than zero percent of the way. [applause] love her i know. She is amazing thank you for reading the passage. I think it is really important to point out, people have asked us, why did you choose certain people to be in the book . One of the things that we have said as we have been interviewed recently is the fact that there are really countless numbers of stories. I mean there are so many women we could have put in the book and one of the reasons why we launched the digital platform is to try and highlight these stories. Because there is a visibility gap in tech. The reason we chose donna is because not only does she have this super compelling story about failure and then getting up and becoming incredibly successful. But she is also a Fashion Designer. She is also a writer. She is a maker. She is really kind of the opposite of the stereotype that you would think of who works in technology. And i love that i think we both love that about her. She just, she really kind of questions that stereotype. It was really important to us as we were meeting all of these different women from all different backgrounds and all over the country. To see how creative and collaborative not only their jobs are but how they are in their lives. And a big goal for us was to try and choose people that we felt others in our audience would hopefully feel a connection to in some way. And also to dispel again, in light of the misconceptions about what it means to work in tech. Often times people assume it is lonely. That is called, it is not collaborative. You know these are some of the things that you hear something from young girls we ask them about it. But what we found was that so many of these women that we met is that it was the complete opposite. They were super creative. They were artsy. They care about fashion. They have families you know, they have these incredibly multifaceted lives. And their jobs are very collaborative so that was a really big point for us in terms of the message we wanted to get out. And hopes of maybe Inspiring Women who maybe think twice about going into these types of careers. To see the breadth and depth of the type of people that work in these jobs. And how interesting they are. Has anyone here ever seen the hbo show, Silicon Valley . It is pretty hilarious. But it is very stereotype. There is a packer house. You have the computer genius, the coder guy, the ceo and founder of pied piper. A tech company. I spent a week in Silicon Valley. At an accelerator called the womens start of lab. I spent a week at a hacker house with eight female founders. There were Technology Founders living in a hacker house and really what i learned, researching this book was that female entrepreneurs in tech do not look like richard henderson. They do not affect the program a type that you see on the t. V. Or hear about. These women were from all over the country and one woman in particular, she is from new mexico. Just two little kids at home. She says this is the first time ive actually been able to breathe and not have my kids all over me. She is starting a company which is a baby rental Equipment Company that you want to make into an airbnb of baby equipment. When you go visit your parents across country and have strollers and crabs and toys to carry do not have to. You can go from one state to another and rent the equipment. So she was there for the first time she said i can read and so long and focus on my company with these seven other entrepreneurs. And we spent the week work shopping and training and learning. Building so she can go out and pitch investors for capital to scale her business. So i met carrie and spent the week with her in the other entrepreneurs. And the other thing about the program is that it really is building a network of women entrepreneurs. So we talked about the loneliness and you hear about it is collaborative. Its not. They will be people introduced to advisors, mentors bushes is a cultural competence for she got home and her husband looked at her and said oh my gosh, who are you . Where is the old kerry . This is the new kerry pierce you selfconfident. She also met fran meyer who is a founder for cofounder and one of the advisors at the lab. Frank saw a vision and she said, i want to partner with you and take your vision, i want to scale it and make into a billiondollar company. Now fran is her cofounder and ceo and ashley kerry is transport now they have spread this across the country and it is booming again, going back to the collaboration and the sisterhood of finding the people that will help you to not just scale your business and find investments but to build the confidence that you can do it. You are not alone. You have this network of support. Certainly one of the things that we address in the book. We devote a chapter to entrepreneurs. And also to investors is the fact that women founders were trying to scale their companies and were having a hard time raising money. So one of the things that we look at is how female investors are now starting to come into play. There is through an angel investing. We also profile a handful of females, Venture Capitalists. We were able to get inside their world and meet them and get a sense of what it is like to be one of the rare general partners in a Silicon Valley Venture Capital firm. You know, the network is really a key point here. Because men have always had the boys club. What these women are trying to do is, not only are they trying to start a company which is the hardest thing ever. But they are trying to break into the boys club. And set in terms of raising money. What we found, going back to the network was the value they are and how they were able to help each other lead the right person. Make the right introduction. In the first chapter we talk about some of these underground secret handshake societies that have been bubbling up. Whether it is on a meet up or transfer women are coming to dinner and saying if we are not going to get in the traditional way, we will make our own way that was a major theme of the book. Also molly wanted to focus on what was happening at the Grassroots Level. It was a story that had not been told yet. We felt like the focus so much in the Mainstream Media has been on and rightly so, on the entrenched sexism in the Tech Industry. We certainly does need to change but the same time he felt like there is some hope there. When you look at the strides in light of these women have made on their own. By creating their own networks. It is pretty impressive and i think very inspiring. She went to work for Google Ventures and she realized what Silicon Valley was. Building her product, getting money, financing and launching her company. She realized there are so few women coming to pitch their companies for investment. So she went back to start her Second Company that is 3d Virtual Reality where you can walk around a room for home design basically you take for pictures of your living room and send it in and they make a 3d model of your room that actually looks like it was different Design Concepts so no longer pulling samples or take a back worship it back or put down the rock samples now virtual you can walk around as an avatar. It is super cool and she has now made 11 million. She said there are so many interesting founders and investors you meet on the way every year we go to park city it is an innovation festival taking place in april and on the slopes and she brought a group of investor and entrepreneur friends for this fourday trip boondoggle one of the other entrepreneurs said at one point i feel guilty i should be a home in janet said this is what the guys do they play golf. Come on. This is the girls club and now she does this every year to build her network a lot of stuff happens over beers or on the slopes so she has doing her own grassroots girl club so we have found these 250 women paving their own path creating opportunities even beyond working that could turn into business relationships so to start something called the girls lounge which is a popup salon at these mail dominated tech conferences but it was most famous for the first one so basically she creates a comfortable place for women to come and hang out at these business events and they are the only ones they are. It is amazing to see these women not only bonding but doing business as well as her belief is that women need more opportunities to collaborate women have been socialized to not be competitive and she is trying to dispel that notion. I spent time with her in germany last fall she did an entire panel devoted to the shine theory that if you sound around yourself with women who are successful you will be successful as well. I saw that throughout. Whether in chattanooga or pittsburgh or seattle or los angeles. There seems to be a mandate where women to look each other up i remember the great copper conference we went early actually right after we sold the book proposal and went to houston and spent a few days at the great copper celebration of women and computing the women largest gathering of women technologist in the world. They are used to being the only woman in the room now there are 15000 from all over the world together and the year we were there the whole program was how do we help each other how do we get this done . Mentoring . Champions . Internship. We were interested in finding college students. Kennedy there was a big report Research Compiled the American Association of women that the first time researchers have highlighted things that were actually working retain women in Computer Science programs. Not that they expected the interests but actually graduating. We went to great copper because the college actually pays for freshman women to go there. But they do that so they are connected to and can see our other women like them and can meet professionals. They give them role models that are relatable. They were craving opportunities but those are not necessarily the relatable role models if you are a sophomore engineering student. It feels like it is so far away they need to meet real women midcareer in tree level but have access to those that are in their age limit but that is such a fantastic example of how that is working. We just have the most amazing opportunities. If you go to stanford you can do whatever the heck you want to do. So that a plus plus Computer Programming language so not only was this group of students its own network but engineers or double major in english and Computer Science and sociology. They were there to support each other but they had a program called the c ambassador program. They paid that forward to us fire the next generation to the communities around the United States to find Young High School girls interested in Stem Technology to start a program in your local community to encourage kids to get involved. I have two daughters we live in Northern California once said she started a Robotics Program after school in my little town and was there with some mentors and it is free and people come they learn how to build robots. But these communities are not there for each other but to pay it forward to inspire young girls to get involved in maybe that revolution is happening ranging the way they live or interact. They are vested to find the next generation. Spending time at Carnegie Mellon for the Students Middle School programs to teach them various skills not just in Computer Science but stem in general. So what we took away from that is this is how we bonded. But also solidifying the relationships and they still have ties to those they left behind those relationships become incredibly helpful because of the network. It comes down to having that network that is why we call it inside the sisterhood. We are happy to take questions. What was your most interesting thing you learned in five years writing the book x. I have learned so much i dont know where to begin. Silicon valley, where im is really growing up. So all these people starting Technology Companies in the last ten years are now in their 30s having kids so they trade in the punk tables for paid leave and worklife policies that accommodate working parents and employees who are caring for aging parents. One entrepreneur is ceo of event bright starting in 2006 to very intentionally created a culture we value the whole person. We realize you have issues outside of the house. Your own health, children, offer take the time you need policy. Paid leave whenever you need it. So that was a big change when i had babies and worked in Silicon Valley only the bathroom was for pumping. In a cold bathroom it was an outdoor bathroom. Then you hear a knock on the door. Is everything okay . Whats that noise . Now they have milking rooms and massage rooms and care about the whole person. I had never seen that before. And event bright is a shining example that is hopefully setting an example for other companies. So did the things that i have tried to apply is one thing i noticed when they have an idea they went for it. Often you have an idea in the back of your head maybe i will work on that then you forget about it. Or you worry it is not fully formed. Its not ready for prime time. So certainly working on this book sometimes you have to get it down and put it out there or youll never do it. So time and time again we saw that with these different women whether outside or a fulltime job, or a group of friends, those with that expertise they didnt let the fact they did not have all the answers stop them from moving forward. That is such an important life lesson for anybody. Starting a nonprofit, and Neighborhood Group if you have the desire to do something dont let that hold you back from doing it because you will regret it later. Or you dont have to feel alone. If you cannot find your tribes and go build your own. Where were some of the other places that you visited throughout the country . Everybody thinks of Silicon Valley that what are the others do you think outside of those normal spots for tech is easy to break out or to become more dominant in the future . In my personal opinion i think they feel the axis is shifting without entrepreneurial activity. While Silicon Valley is engineering centric the founders are coming from wall street or media or fashion with incredible expertise there is not a bias not to have a degree. But often times when you hear from the valley do you have a technical background or cofounder . So it does feel outside of the valley there is more openness towards other types of expertise building a product you need that Technical Expertise but you can hire somebody to do that or recruit a technical cofounder later. So i had the opportunity to spend time in chattanooga tennessee but that is a hotbed of activity in feminism. Which is unexpected. And fun. Then you can write your own story. Like pittsburgh and albuquerque and those that are popping up and there are more women and diverse founders. They are not immediately dismissed because they dont have the technical or fancy degree frankly. That is a bias for those who didnt graduate from stanford you dont have that another parts of the country. I spoke to people in South Los Angeles to be a Fashion Designer starting a company that connects designers with manufacturers. And the urban Economic Accelerator Program trying to put some light into her economy because it is a poor area to another entrepreneur she calls herself the anti mark sucker berg and started a company that says there is all this activity because they are engineers working in the auto industry. So their friends are popping up coming into that Tech Industry trying to train them and start these jobs. Do see more people going into this from other industries . There are a lot of reasons for that. Those that are not technical but the reason for that but talking to us about the fact when the app store came online suddenly you have this opportunity for people to use open source tools to build a prototype without having to raise millions of dollars or be affiliated with university, it didnt take millions of dollars to build the first version it could be a couple thousand. Then once the cost started to come down and started to democratize the ability for anybody to get into this world. It opened the gates for people coming out of Business School or media or wall street or other industries that had a business idea but didnt have to have the engineering background. That only happened post iphone. There is one company starting that is the Recovery Platform for addicts whether drug or alcohol addiction. With no technical background but how to solve the problem that the aa programs do not work for all alcoholics she tried it for herself it did not work so i want to create a platform for people can find different needs that are in recovery. They are coming from all different backgrounds. But the common thing theme is passion. They are so passionate they will go to any means to get the problem solved. The with the chief operating officer but to say that if you dont love what you are doing for what you were put on this earth to solve this problem you will never succeed. Because it is so hard to be an entrepreneur and three quarters fail. She was giving advice to younger woman standing with us specifically dont start a company to start one but because you really care about this problem you try to solve because you really believe in it. The sacrifices and ups and downs are so extreme that if you dont have the passion you will not be successful. One of the cofounders of clouds where it is and Authentication Company said entrepreneurship is a roller coaster ride that people pay to get on roller coasters. Having sympathize with the stories about women what would you say stand out as the piece of advice you could share with us . Just start. Get out of your way. Go for it. Dont let being a woman or nontraditional founder standing your way either. That is a big one. And the idea of perfection to realize it is about iteration and trial and error to see what works they show products and then they ship another version and another version that is baked into the culture that that is part of the process. If you stumble or get rejected for the first version is and what you thought dont give up. Just keep going and i would say that is a common theme whether entrepreneurs or activists all of them seem to have that quality they could live with themselves if they made a mistake so they just kept going that is a big take away for me also. She said if we raise our voice brave and fearless we raise our girls to be compliant and wellliked. We need to teach her girls to be fearless and bold it is okay to get your hands dirty to try and fail. They have no answer in their head but the girls have to be so prepared. Relating to the next generation what is the message we give our girls about trying and failing . And learning from our mistake in Going Forward . That was a huge message for me as a recovering perfectionist learn from your mistakes go forward it is that grit. That reminds me of the book the curse of the good girl. It sounds like this is part two of that. So getting pushed out of the Computer Club as a kid it was incredibly gendered experience i didnt have that language but where did that idea start . Why do we think of technical mom technology as mail . Or is Something Else going on . We both had the opportunity to interview engineers from other countries talking to somebody from russia or israel there is not the same stigma. That is very much a western thing and i really do think that has to do with the media in our country the gender are so entrenched and have to from the 50s it is hard to get away from that and unfortunately movies and television all of these perpetuate those stereotypes. Research shows that is one reason you have so few women wanting to pursue Computer Science engineering. But the reality is there are women going to science and math but it is engineering and computing specifically where you have the gap. And in our research we certainly found the media plays a huge role and they were marketing personal computers to men and gaming to manifest videogames out were these shoot them up they didnt have a story. Anybody remember carmen san diego . The only one that i played. [laughter] when we worked on the documentary we profiled the people that created that game. It had a narrative and that is why girls liked it because it had a story and a Strong Female figure. Even goldilocks that was the vision to make that connection between building and the narrative to realize we are different we learn differently it is okay to appeal to us in different ways but i feel it is very hard to overcome the societal expectations. I hope this and this one dash emphasis is now part of the vernacular. So with dan and math needs are not required courses. And to be ruled down San Francisco is working on that. To try to get that on k1 k12 make that less of the gender issues. So we have the opportunity to interview someone sent the Obama Administration has left what will happen with that initiative . But what i was told that was so interesting they could get the College Board to create a new Computer Science apa exam. You had to learn job of java and that was it. Now it is a survey course with programming language but also understand the societal impact and implications of the code you are learning. I believe there were 55000 kids that tickets this year and that it was much greater than the original Computer Science exam. Show women how technology affects our life. That women do like to feel connected to the rest of the world. It is important to understand like the narrative. I cannot wait to see what happens in ten or 15 years. I hope that we get there. I really do. Thank you so much for joining us. [applause]