They raise awareness of todays critical issues. If you turn on the news to check twitter youll see theres no conversation were timely than tonights discussion gender equity in fostering work environments where everyone has the opportunity to thrive. I have been with bank of the west for over 35 years. Its fair to say i see many changes in the Financial Services industry. One shift is increased role of Women Leaders and banking. Bank of the west ceo was named to one of the most powerful women in banking by the american banker. Other executives are head of small and medium enterprises, or general counsel and are head of community have been named as influencers in their areas of specialty. In our Parent Company is committed to gender equity and half of the Board Members are women. Im proud to represent a company that supports a culture of respect for all of its employees. One focused on ideas and business so we do its right for our customers and community. Its my hope the conversations we have tonight inspire all of us to support each other and have a safe environment for women. Its my pleasure to introduce emily, author of broke topia, breaking up the boys club of Silicon Valley. Emily is an anchor and executive producer of bloomberg technology. She regularly speaks with top tech executives, investors and entrepreneurs as the host of bloomberg studios 1. 0 series. She began her career as a news producer at nbc in new york. Then she moved to the affiliate in san diego where her reporting for msnbc one her five emmy awards. She spent several years at cnn in beijing and london before joining bloomberg. Emily is a linkedin influencer and member of the lien and community. She was named one of the top 100 influential tech people on twitter by Business Insider the most influential tech women. Emily is a graduate of harvard and sits on the board of the nonprofit organization, build. Moderate in the program is gina, founder and ceo of mighty networks. She was previously the ceo of me and entrepreneur in residence at anderson horowitz. Please join me in welcoming emily and gina. [applause] you can tell shes a journalist used to doing the interview. But tonight i get to do the asking of the questions and im excited. Jean is very excited thank you all for being here tonight. I think it will be a wonderful conversation, emily just wrote a book it is wonderful. Its about women in Silicon Valley and technology. I thought we could start with questions that are super important that most startup founders most people who will be raising money get asked we talked about building startups and inventing the future task about what important truth do you believe underage beer a few people agree with you im not done, given some of the research and statistics you found in your book around this radical idea that women should have equal opportunity and could contribute to Silicon Valley success in the industry, where did you get such a radical idea . It was radical at the time. This is before trump and before me too. People would whisper about it we talk about it offcamera and then nobody would say what they really wanted to say. A woman who is raising money doesnt want to risk not raising money because shes calling out investors who are 93 male. Yet everybody had ideas about why women have been left out. Women account for 25 of computing jobs, Women Led Companies get 2 of funding. 2 people have ideas about why this happened like its a pipeline problem so everybody deserves to be where they are, and then when i went back and started doing research i realized women were not the hardware makers but involved in the software of the computers because educated women were encouraged to study math. The Program Computers for the military and nasa but industrywide. Then as the industry started to explode the jobs became higher status and higherpaying the men wanted the jobs. The industry was so desperate for new talent they hired psychologists to develop a test. They decided good programmers dont like people. Thats interesting. There is no evidence to suggest that people who dont like people are better at computers than anyone else. But if you look for people who dont like people you hire are more men than women. These personality tests were influential were used by Tech Companies for decades. Were talking about Companies Like ibm and it solidified the idea of the antisocial white male nerd stereotype that has existed, theyre looking for people like Mark Zuckerberg and executives. Unfortunately that has shut out more than half the population. As you are thinking about this project in addition to your day job why was this important to you . First of all, its so unjust. Its not just the right thing to do, its a smart thing to do. Silicon valley is controlling what we see and read, how we get around to communicate, how we shop for an industry thats transforming our lives every day the people making the products shouldnt be 95 male. Its a problem thats not just Silicon Valleys problem, its a world problem, a cultural crisis i also have three sons i fully believe that their lives will be better and a more equal world but for all of the parents who have sons and daughters i want their daughters to succeed they wont stand a chance if the industry does not change. This is a well researched book. One thing you did was to go into the statistics of the research. You mentioned one stat of man be a 93 of Venture Capitalist, women getting 2 of Venture Capital dollars released on 2016 numbers. Uber with 20 some billion dollars. I think jennifer is one of the most successful ceos. The amount of capital you raise if you raise more money you get more chances to figure it out. You have more time so if a woman is getting 10 million and a guy getting hundred million, whos getting a better shot . What were other statistics that in your research you are like bison anybody talking about it first of all, it wasnt always this way. By 1984 windows was being introduced to the world. Women accounted 230 of Computer Science degrees. That has since plummeted to 18 . And its remain flat for the last decade. Number two, the statistic of how quickly women are leaving the industry. When i started writing this a male investor said you dont have a book, its very obvious that women just want to be home with their kids. So i just nodded. Women are twice as likely to quit tech than men are. But theyre not leaving to take care of their children. Women are 800 more likely to leave jobs and technology than any other field. When i saw the number its actually 807 . I was astonished that no one was talking about it. For an industry that loves data, data tells the story. We talk about research and data, where technology should probably know these things, what you think it is that makes these numbers so easy to ignore . I believe its anybody who wants to change the world can do it here. The reason i name the book this is the cousin signifies that Silicon Valley is a modern utopia that anyone can make rules of your man. As i was reading the book i felt like the name of the book of the subtitle i think it couldve been subtitle damped if you do, damned if you dont. One things thats fascinating is the way in which you captured not just the research, the stats are clear but the daytoday experiences of women working as engineers and executives. Weakness startup founders. One of the quotes is that if you like everything i do is wrong. How does that happen . What are the different ways the stats become a reality. Its not just any schlepping Woman Working in Silicon Valley. These are women who graduate 50 or 53 provide school and come to Silicon Valley and are dropping out at higher rates. We needed to 300 interviews how did that experience come into being around everything i do is wrong. One of the most impactful moments was two weeks after susan hosted her blog post that went viral susan engineer at uber. She had a bad experience of Sexual Harassment was propositioned for sex on the first day of job as her from her male manager. She took screenshots and what she said that they said were to let it fly because hes a high performer. She wrote about it and everybody was shocked and i had 12 woman over to my dinner two weeks later including a couple engineers from uber and they were not shocked at all. So hard to describe what the women go through. They are the only women in the room over and over again all day long. It is exhausting and they are fed up and theyre frustrated and they feel like they have to perform this emotional labor to prove they have to be there which is a second job. Their studies i show that if you hide the names or if you reveal the names women get a worse grade. Thats just one example. 25 were comments on good reviews. At the same time, they love their job and they love have in their opportunity to change their world. At that dinner people were sharing their stories in summer very powerful and shocking. It goes to level of bad behavior not being just tolerated but normalize. Women would be invited to strip clubs in the middle of the day by their male managers that decide whos going to get this project or that project while theyre there but im also put in this uncomfortable position or do i not go in the ninth the cool kid that doesnt get the next hot thing. Whether at the dinner or is he talked to other women in the course of reporting on the book, what has struck to is one of the most insidious ways women is kicked out of the arena. I think its so systemic, the level to which women are outnumbered. I think a huge part of the problem is men believe they have to lower their standards to hire women. They dont say it out loud except in one instance which is the reason i decided to write this book. I was interviewing michael who is chairman of sequoia, perhaps the most of Venture Capitalist ever. Hes had a story hes had some failures as well. At the time sequoia had no female partners. He said to me i asked him how do you identify a Venture Capitalist and he said i think its difficult to see if someone will be good on investment. He started as a journalist and then got his chance on investing. I said what is your responsibility to hire women . Is expecting you cant answer and he said to me, well where the working very hard. Were completely blind to the gender, race, sexuality not enough women are studying Consumer Science but what were not prepared to do is lower our standards. I thought did he just say that . Today to me it was a moment of truth where he said will probably a lot of people believe but no one is willing to say it. And i think thats part of the problem so everywhere i went people want to talk about what he said most people are horrified. Some understood where he was coming from but unfortunately if that is what people think women are not going to catch a break. If you judge sequoia only on its actions they do not hire a woman for 44 years. You cannot tell me that in 44 years the best Venture Capital firm cannot find a single woman to hire. Youre right when i was at a Business School in 2000 i interviewed a company out of sequoia. When they were interviewing me and i was meeting the partners i think it was mike moore said we once hired a woman an intense end well for us. This is 2000. So they had a long time to look. In addition to your great relationship you also have gotten attention to the next from the book that was published about Silicon Valley sex party. I was curious as i was reading the book the book is actually nuanced and thoughtful the topic of sex parties, getting invited to go to Conference Room gr a strip club with the 5dollar allyoucaneat buffet and at 1145 its a hot lunch or Conference Room g. 1140 on a friday a woman has agreed to accompany me on the mission. Theres a line out the door attack workers at lunch for strip and trim at a strip club. So what was the most jawdropping story shared with you . That made it into the book. Stain on the strip club example, immediately invest in a woman came over to the table and i said im a journalist im just asking some questions. Shes like cap all these companies are here all the time and they comes in groups of mostly guys. Sometimes theres a woman taking a long. They talk about work and will be at their boss after the big tech conferences the walk in their door with their special badges and the makeup to private room together, businesses getting done in the middle of the day in the heart of San Francisco at a strip club. Were talking about sexism exists in every industry. In Silicon Valley, this is supposed the most progressive industry in the world is certainly the most powerful. Yet the people who have organize the worlds information when you asked them what can we do about hiring more women its like thats just so hard, i dont how we will solve that. So one of the Important Reasons i wanted to write it was simply the hypocrisy of it. I fully believe the people were taken us to mars and connecting us to the world, i believe they can do this. They can hire women and pay them fairly. And another stat for you, the pay gap in Silicon Valley is five times the national average. If you can troll for job title, experience, and location its about 5 , in Silicon Valley is 28. 5 . At the very least you can look at the data and pay women what you paying the men. Seems simple. And to be fair some text founders and executives have said im going to make up for the pay gap. Yes, there are good people in the book. That was really the best part. There are some amazing female founders. I talk about the founder of christina lake, who founded states fix, the First Investor shes talked to said no ultimately one said yes and she took her Company Public at the 2 billion market cap. Nobody believed in her. When you pitching to male investors when you have a female focused idea it can be hard to understand it. Theres also great men in the book many of these men are on their third or Fourth Company who have changed their ways and are willing to admit it. I interviewed max who admitted to me early on that he only hire people he knew. It was other male students from the university of illinois. As a result the paypal mafia became one of the most powerful networks in the world, all men. Not a single woman. His next company he did the same thing and there is water drinking and he had to push out the brose, fire some people is a double down on culture by the time he got to his Third Company and not everybody has a chance to do three, a firm he was focused on hiring and promoting women. Is willing to talk about it. Stewart butterfield, the founder of flat entrance lack has made this his priority. By the way telling people you care about Diversity Matters to the people who care about diversity. He now has 43 and half women at the company which is better than the industry average. Twitter ceo at his latest company decided not to hire another man until he hired a woman. He knows that if you go too far or way too long when youre trying to focus on diversity then its too late. In fact it might be slow in the beginning but as you go on you can move more quickly because you dont have to ask women on the street if you like their product. There are a lot of reasons this makes sense. Another one not in the book with mark they did a comprehensive pay review. Their sense equalize the salary. And if a company as big as that can do it anyone can do it. Header we get the latest culture of this . One thing i would observe having started my career on wall street and coming into Silicon Valley early on is that it wasnt always like this, even the latest series of bad behaviors wasnt always like this. Seems to be the case is also a number of Venture Capital firms have come out explicitly say we only want to invest in men who look like bill gates and Mark Zuckerberg. You have a tremendous amount of firsttime founder ceos who are getting a significant amount of money. The term unicorn to not exist as a term in a thing before six years ago. Then there has been a number of trends and things that have happened and he said in the book the social network is supposed to be a cautionary tale not a guidebook. Im just curious if you look at either things the course of reporting that have gotten worse in some things that have gotten better and how has that progressed given the last nine months another way they have led the charge an innovative and pioneering really pioneered in part because of your reporting. In the Silicon Valley, which happened months before Harvey Weinstein at the company i want to talk about is in reference to the first part of the question, google. Its much like the industry average. 30 overall winning, 20 women in technical roles. In the early days, the founders of google focused on hiring strong women, and they hired some amazing women like susan, who built their business and is now the ceo of youtube. Some Marissa Meyer who invented the search bar we use many times a day. And they scaled the ad business and went on to do the same thing as facebook. And then as google grew and it exploded over the first decade of 2000 they simply lost focus. They were not focused on diversity. They were focused on filling their seats and getting through the financial crisis, and in 2012 they lifted up their heads and they were like my god, where are all the women . And third numbers plummeted to the average of everyone else and i think that is just a perfect example of what can be done when you make it a priority, and again not just the right thing to do, but the smart thing to do. Look at these amazing women and what they did for google. I dont think they got enough credit. This needs to be a top priority. It cant be something that is number 15, we care about that. I think there is too much talk and not enough action. It goes to show not only is it possible, but it made us business sense and there are studies that show those with diverse leadership have better financial return is. Again for an industry that wants data, lets look at the data. Lets spend our first 30 minutes together talking about dark topics, dark data and topics. What is the triumph that you found in reporting your book . I think susan, cheryl and marissa are great triumphs. What are others you found . Jennifer, the ceo and people like jennifer who spend honestly talking about this like she lived it. So i am honestly humbled that you feel like i have done the subject justice. At the end of the book i interview six teenage girls whove learned how to code and they are excited about coming into this amazing industry and doing their part to change the world, but they read the news and they know whats going on. They know about them going to the strip club i learned Something Interesting in your book about him. He asked his girlfriend to time if she could find other women to bring into threesomes, which i dont feel has been reported in another way the Company Seems to have built a great culture from the top. The reason i included that and wanted to make sure i was focused on things that affect work. If you dig too muc take too muco peoples personal lives, it may not necessarily be relevant to the culture that is created. Travis come at the same time susan fowler was getting harassed by her manager went to strip clubs with several other executives and as i spoke with his exgirlfriend, she talked about how it was easier for executives to get close to him if they shared his lifestyle. And again, that might shed out some more. If you are in hr and get a complaint from susan fowler and at the same time you find out that your executives went to a strip club, you might not stay so focused on susan fowler. He would have a bigger you know what to deal with. At the end of the day they hired them to do an investigation on Sexual Harassment and they had 47 cases of Sexual Harassment. Ive talked to others and asked if on in and they said no it should be one or maybe two at a company of that size. That is a culture that has gone very wrong. I feel optimistic about the new ceo. Ive met him and when i told uber im right in this book and theres things you may not like about it. They said we are grateful for what susan did and it brought about very important cultural change. I do talk to them for employees and its importance. With the right leadership, they can change i agree we have seen it and we have seen cultures change. You mentioned this in the book in the early days versus facebook after cheryl joined, google scaled up and its been fantastic. One of the questions we got from the audience is what advice would you give a woman graduating from college in turning technology wanting to be an engineer . I would say look for a place that is going to support you. You dont need t to pick a job with the hottest company on the block. Look for a place that you feel shares your values and you think you can find your team because having your team with a organization is important for people for going to support you and advocate for you. When i have these women over for dinner i think the startups may be wors worse worse culture of e of his crazy answers no sort of system in place. They said it depends on your manager. Its like playing russian roulette. If you get a bad manager, youre screwed coming and if you get a good manager it can make all the difference in the world no matter what is going on around you. We find those places. In both stories that youve done, certainly in the look but also beyond, we talk abou talket some of the bright spots. Give us three more. Jack dorsey at twitter is the ceo ask square hiring and promoting women. They will put her on a team that already has women so they are not alone and there is a sacrifice because there will be some more teams in the network. Speaking of twitter, one of my favorite chapters in the book that we havent talked about much is the eighth chapter where i posed the question was if women dont the internet and have an equal seat at the table from the beginning what might be different, and i interviewed the cofounder of twitter and asked him what you think if women had been involved in the founding would it be such a problem and he was like yeah. We were not thinking about that. We were thinking about amazing and wonderful and cheerful thing that could be done with our product. And when cheryl got to face but they have 66 million users, this was in 2008. She started asking questions about the content on the sites like whsitelike why would we les rape joke or something Violence Toward women and these are questions that literally no one asked before. He approached it from more of a platform perspective and she approached it from an individual perspective like what is this person going to feel like in their dorm room if they see this online. It is a much more friendly place than twitter and i think theres an interesting blessing because mark made as much space for cheryl and it has resulted in a partnership that really works. Do you need one more . We need a couple. [laughter] this is a great question from the audience, and i think it is relevant, just hats off to you because the questions coming in our great. How are we going to solve this, what are we going to do about this which is also indicative of the fact that we work in an industry in this room where we solve problems every single day. And youve done a phenomenal job of documenting the problems and keeping the data and the Research Front and center. What is so cool to me is it does have all of the characteristics of not only something solvable with a tremendous opportunity and those are Cultural Values that we have in the industry that we can tap into and take advantage of. This is a fantastic question which is what are the shared characteristics of women who dont leave the industry, who are staying in the game and are seeking to check this culture, challenge the culture, call out and look for Solutions Based on the culture fax you are a living testament to that. I wasnt looking for it but i will take it. Competence, vision, motivation, those are all characteristics investors love to see male entrepreneurs and sometimes female entrepreneurs. If they see it sometimes they doubt it. Thats what the research says. Number one, we need to fund more women. I think about all the women who never got to start the next facebook. In about a. D. We would have another facebook or google or apple. Maybe the intranet would be different and we need to find more than men and give them more money so their Companies Stand a better chance. We need to hire a Venture Capital firm and we need those to start carrying about this issue. Historically the limited partners that found the venture firms care about returns so i have a quote in here that says some of the best investors are not the best people but they have the best returns, therefore we invest in them. And the majority are actually winning. I expected the community would be as lawmakers, but in fact there are a lot more around the table in the community which i thought was interesting. They often say they dont have power because of the benchmark that they have the power and they would like to get in those spots. They do have some power. So in all of that, i think it comes down to the ceos. First of all, the females i mentioned like katrina, her workforce is close to 50 50 soviets just having the women in leadership position. It repeats itself. They attract others. But since most of the people in power are men, it is a priority and some of the things theyve done if you focus just on raising awareness about the issue were trying to combat the unconscious bias reminding people you are much more likely to send injured and thats not going to have a lot of impact if you give them tools on the action they can take to combat that can have an impact if you are doing interviews maybe you dont even start them until you give equal weight female candidate or candidate of color you are doing more structured review feedback systems, and the way its delivered can be very gendered. Youre doing a comprehensive pay review and asking them to source the diverse candidates. Referrals are the lifeblood how they pay their employees for referrals. If you refer someone you are more likely to refer people who look like you but if you ask people to refer generally they can. I want to come back to the characteristics and then i have a comment about the do and dont in the referral model. Let me start with that. How many people in the audience male or female gloves when someone calls you up and dislike would you be interested in this opportunity we totally need a woman or do you think you can just do us a favor and come interview for this thing because we need somebody like you. I have heard that more times than one should. I want to come back to the shared characteristics, because you have painted a pretty bleak picture so as you have been talking and reading the book and thinking about the fact that almost down to the question, every question that has come in so far has been what do we do about it, how can we solve it. And i know when i look at the statistics and i look at my access to capital is going to be 1. 5 billion versus 6 billion as a female ceo and founder i have to come back to mission. When i think about not just the mention of my company in terms of unlocking opportunity and ways for more people to access entrepreneurship but when i also think about the fact that i know i can have a unique impact because of my point of view and experience, there were a fair number in the early days of social building Amazing Products and amazing services. It wasnt just cheryl on facebook. Naomi was the first head of growth doing Amazing Things in the culture a long with a lot of other incredibly talented women in that organization. And when i look around this amazing audience i think about passion and resilience and mission to build Amazing Things and do it in large part because if we do it tha then other peope will come in and say this actually could have been. There could be more people who dont look like this guy. Just kidding. Thats something fundamentally we have an opportunity to do different and leave feeling reinvigorated for the fight so just a little bit more data on that point. Say in a presentation the ma thn is more likely to get the funding. The same characteristics used are positive or negative and if a man is young to have the potential and a woman is young they think shes inexperienced. If a man is cautious they think thats great. When investors are looking at men and women they are thinking to be like this idea and can he execute and when they are looking at a woman its does she have what it is. So a lot of the qualifications that we need more women like you to have in order to start these companies. If i was the guy the they would so they need to be aware and women need to break through. One of the things that was interesting about that number you said even the Revenue Growth was promising. Like in the next chapter, the author closely studied entrepreneurship and said they tend to set bigger goals for growth while women focus on making the business is sustainable. I have heard this over and over again. Women dont have the vision. Or will you even be heard first time . Thats why i say we need resilience and mission because when you have a mission, you go into the next room and the next. A female entrepreneur is a smart breast pump company and she started with her husband and they have some stories that i will call you a good one. She has three sons, so we bonded over that. She was having trouble raising money and they keep up their apartment and moved into a minivan for months and groomed crosscountry to buy some extra rent money and that got them to their next round. I posed this question what about these events to you without you can do it. If anyone doubts i can do this, i will punch them in the face. [laughter] there are women that are willing to sacrifice and punch out those walls. We just need to believe that they can because they can. Thats the most important thing because again, if you are damned if you do and damned if you dont, you might as well be your self. [applause] another question which i think is fantastic. What is something that you used to believe that you have since changed your mind about after writing this book . I wanted to believe Silicon Valley was a meritocracy, and that many of these people have gotten to where they are because they worked hard. But more than anything now, i realize that luck has a lot to do with it and it is not a meritocracy and a meritocracy is in fact impossible to achieve because it completely ignores the privilege and the discrimination in the larger anr factors working against everyone else into the escalator is moving a lot faster for some damthan it is for others. As much as i would have loved to believe everything that has happened here is fair, it is not. And when you believe you are operating in a meritocracy, you can act more like this because everything is working correctly and people are in the right spot and you ignore and lose sight of the fact its not that this point after writing this, ignorance can only be willful. A lot needs to change. One thing though coming back to our hell do we solve this question, and i kind of feel at this point it is an open question we can just keep coming back to this. In my experience, trying to remember that all the time is like carrying 50 extra pounds on your shoulders, and it isnt particularly constructive. There is a great quote the truth will set you free but first it will pass you off. But i do think that there is a Human Element to this, which is Everybody Loves a winner and two, that the reason the mission is so important and startups and your job and your company is that the mission can trump that 50pound weight that just feels heavier and heavier with every dismissal or meeting that you are in that you dont feel heard or believed. That is what we all have to do and help with each other. Otherwise the rate of dropping out is going to get hire. 50 of the women and Venture Capital firms, these things wouldnt happen if we had more quality. Its not going to happen overnight but when we can stop talking about this, that is success. We have a question about familyfriendly and how amazing the familyfriendly Silicon Valley is. Chapter seven. I want to point out the person that wrote this question flagged this is an issue. The last time i checked, everybody played their part. Silicon valley had some of the most amazing perks in the world and if you go to facebook or google free food, breakfast, one gent at dinner, you can get a haircut, you can get a massage, its amazing. You can get a ride from a tricked ou out buses going backd forth between the city and the park and Mountain View but if you have kids, youre on your own. Theres not enough childcare options. Theres this sort of work hard play hard work late dynamic. Facebook has and i interviewed a dad who was the cto of facebook and he said to me if Mark Zuckerberg asked me to a meeting he couldnt say no and he was just 25. He was a few years older than having his first child. He said when people went on Maternity Leave was 50 50 whether they would come back. So when brett started his next company, quipp, he said were leaving at 5 30. I will go home and work by not going to send emails or make other people feel like they have to respond to me. And it attracted a diverse workforce. It was close to 40 women but it is an issue for moms and dads. Coming back to my point, he wrote an oped in the times where he compared the United States to china and talked about how everybody works harder than the u. S. And how we need to be accretive china surpassing the United States and even women in china. Their husbands will meet them and isnt this knowledge amazi amazing. So i lived in china. The longer you live in china the more you realize you dont know if iit is a complex and nuanced culture but to imply they have more freedom to pursue their careers, completely ridiculous and misleading. This is a country that had the one china policy, women had a forced abortions to avoid breaking the law. Being a hard worker is not at odds with having a family and wanting to see people out of the office. We need people to be well rounded so that they can sustain their work ethic over a longer career because contrary to popular belief, nothing in Silicon Valley happens overnight. Overnight. It took the years for facebook to go public. The public. Its been around for nine years. This is a long haul and we need people of all backgrounds and a culture that supports people of all backgrounds. Is that going to be the sql . I couldnt find the data. But yes. Again it is common sense. This is interesting in light of the fact you could have somebody with a lot of power and success right about how great some of these companies and different cultures are and as you are doing right here in dispelling the myths. How do you feel companies and managers can help dispel entire tropes like the pipeline problem that undermined inclusion and diversity and elsewhere i think it is such a great question that we are already in this together because its sometimes feels like when you are talking about this stuff but there are so many different parts of it that somebody tries to capture it and its like you are walking in quicksand. Its not only leading from the top, but communicating to the workforce about why this is a priority. Raising awareness about why we need to combat all has tools to combat unconscious bias. Im sure some of you heard about the engineer at google who wrote a memo tin a note to the compant went viral and claimed men are biologically more suited to the job than women and understandably that just a few people off. It was in fact the same argument that the psychologist used in the 1960s to justify why they were hiring people and it isnt true. Girls and boys perform exactly the same in math and Computer Science. Any differences are cultural and not gender. We need to expand the idea of who can do this job and who can be a good investor, who can start a company. They dont all look like Mark Zuckerberg. In fact, they look like gina bianchini. If you look out over the next ten to 20 months, what are you the most excited about right now . Starting a meaningful conversation about this, and i know that it might upset some people like you said it can piss some people off but no good change comes without people feeling uncomfortable. I came to this without an agenda. I am a journalist simply reporting what i see. And i am an optimist. The same people that are changing the world every day can do this and i think they just need to believe they can do this and that they should. Im excited to start that conversation, and i know that this topic inspires visceral debate and its a very important topic i just hope people will listen. Im excited to share my message. To use the data of course they are going to listen. There are a few at home that are listening so thank you so much for coming. [applause] i hope you enjoyed this Evenings Program brought to you by the Commonwealth Club in Silicon Valley. We would like to thank emily chang and gina bianchini. Of course i want to add emily chang anchor and executive producer of Good Technology and gina bianchini, founder and ceo of mighty networks. I also want to thank the audience here in santa clara and those of you joining us on the radio and on the web. Now this meeting of the Commonwealth Club is adjourned. Youve been looking forward to the signing of the book. Emily chang is going to be on my left. Please form a line here at the center and then proceed for your signatures. [inaudible conversations] divisions and values were compelling to me offering a Clear Pathway away from my past and a chance to contribute to the greater world and still maintain my families loved. If mario could do if faced with a different set of challenges like not speaking english until he was 8yearsold, then so could i. How could i tell mario cuomo did a story would appear in the press linking my brother to john gotti. How do i talk about organized crime in my family with the one Italian American elected official who personified the complete opposite . I pictured myself at the World Trade Center tower number two telling reporters any notion having connections was bullshit because it was in my family and the outside word was that he was unreachable. In my Imaginary Press Conference threresigned as an eyewitness ie rumors instead i condemned myself for not protecting barrio from my family and for being unable to resist the work in the first place. Looking at my work as penance for the sins of my father and the mobsters but ruined our lives i would do to through Public Service. I would clean up the family name. I got up and paced around the office and finally, i sat down and i wrote a script i would read to the governor and this is the script. Governor, i have some very unpleasant news which i feel obligated to share with you. My brother was sentenced to three months in prison for tax evasion today. And in the federal court in uniondale judge bachelor in his decision expressed the belief that my brother had some association with organized crime on the two news area reporters were present, one of whom i knew and i anticipate there will be a story in tomorrows paper, so i dont want you to learn of this secondhand. I read over my little speech with my hands trembling. There was no escaping them. No need rationalization. I couldnt pretend that everything would be as a plus. Thit was. The phone on my desk ring. As the governor. I placed the script in front of me holding onto it like a life preserver. Hello, governor, i said shaking. Whats going on, he said as he usually did. I read my script word for word. The governor was silent as i read. I finished, closed my eyes and waited for the response. With my heart pounding. I dont see how this should affect you he said without hesitation. I certainly feel for you. But i dont see how it affects you. You are a superb public official and i dont think that it should have any affect on you. Stunned, i think thanked him anand took the photograph of the World Trade Center a selfcontained world where i escaped each day a world of Public Service and doing good with a brilliant italianamerican with the highest integrity, a world of my own sealed off from my family, which no one could take away from me. [inaudible conversations] hello, everyone. You all sound excited. Thank you so much for coming tonight. I am a bookseller at women and children first. We are one of the last 12 feminist bookstores in the United States and we wouldnt still be here if not for all of you so thank you for coming to