Available. Good evening everybody. And welcome to tonights program hosted by Commonwealth Club of Silicon Valley. My name is Maria Lazarini market president for the division were delighted to support tonights program. The Common Wealth club can you hear me . Commonwealth club convenes some of the most informative and thought provoking conversations from World Affairs to the work place. These forum support learning engagement in our communities. And they raise awareness of todays critical issue. Right now, if you turn on the news or check your twitter feed, youll see there is no conversation more timely than tonights discussion on gender equity and fostering work environments where everyone has the opportunity to thrive. Ive been with bank of the west for over 35 years. So its quite fair to say that ive seen many changes in the Financial Services industry. One shift is the increased role of women, leaders in banking. For instance, bank of the west ceo was named one of the most powerful women in banking by the american banker. Other executives at our bank are head of small and immediate enterprises michelle and general counsel venn is a washington and our head of community and csr, jenny have been named as influencers in their area of specialty. In our parent company, bmp is committed to gender equity and a half of Board Members are women. So im very proud to represent a company that supports a culture of respect for all of its employees. One that is focused on ideas and business so that we do what is right for our customers and our community. And it is my hope that the conversations we have tonight inspire all of us to sport each other and have a safe environment for women. And now, its my pleasure to introduce emily chang author of bro open ya breaking up the boys club of Silicon Valley. Emily is a well known anchor executive producer of Bloomberg Technology and regularly speaks with top tech executives, with investors, and a entrepreneurs. As the host of bloomberg studios 1. 0 series. She began her career as news producer at nbc in new york then moved to nbcs affiliate in san diego where her reporting for msnbc won her five emmy awards. She spent several years at cnn as an International Correspondent in beijing and london before joining bloomberg. Emily is a linkedin influencer and member of the lean in community. She was named one of the top 100 influential tech people on twitter by Business Insider and 100 most influential tech women. Emily is a graduate Harvard University sits on the board of the Nonprofit Organization build. Moderating tonights program is gina, founder and ceo of Mighty Networks she was previously the ceo of ning entrepreneur in residents at angd anderson ladies and gentlemen, please join me in welcoming emily chang and gina. [applause] hi everyone. [inaudible conversations] hello. You can tell shes a journalist used to doing the interview. But tonight i get to do the asking of the questions and im pretty excited it be. Ive also interviewed gina five times so shes excited to turntables on me. But put me in my place. Rng thank you all for being here tonight. I think this is going a wonderful conversation. I dont know if you guys know this but emily just wrote a book, and [laughter] its called brotopia about women in Silicon Valley and technology so i thought we could start tonight with a question. Superimportant most founders and people raising money get asked which is peer t. Suggested this in his Book Building startup to inventing the future to ask people, what important truth do you believe on which very few people agree with you. Well im not done. Given some of the jaw dropping research and statistics that you found in your book, really arranged this really radical idea that women should actually have equal opportunity and could contribute to Silicon Valley success, success in the Technology Industry not just women women, poem of color as well. So i was just curious where did you get such a radical idea . [laughter] you know, it was quite radical at the time. I started doing this two years ago so this was before trump, before me too. And you know, people would wise whisper about it and talk about it offcam and you get people in the chair it is skier rei to speak up. Nobody wants to be whistleblower and woman raising money doesnt want to risk not being able to raise money because shes calling out, you know, investors who are 93 male. And yet everybody had these sort of ideas about why women have been left out of the greatest Wealth Creation in the history of the world. Women account for 70 of the investors women get 2 of funding. 2 of funding lets marinate on that for a second. 62 billion, and you know people would have ideas about why are this is happened like its a pipeline problem. Silicon valley is everybody deserves to be where they are. Women just dont want to work in tech. They think it is boring. And then you know when i went back and i started doing some research, i realized well, in fact, women were part of the commuting industry in early days. Woman were actually not the hardware makers but involved in software of Early Computers because they were encouraged to study math so plenty of female programmers to go arranged they programmed for the military and for nasa think Hidden Figures but industry wide literally and then in the 60s and 70s as industry started to explode jobs became higher status and higher paying and quite frankly men wanted those jobs and so the industry was so desperate for new talent they hired two psychologists to develop a personal test to identify a good programmer. And they decided that good programmers, quote, dont like people. Which is interesting theres no evidence to suggest that people who dont like people are better at computers than anybody else theres also no evidence to suggest that men are better at computers than women but if you look for people that dont like people youll hire more men than women and these personality tests widely inthriewn cial used for Tech Companies for tech kaidz were talking about companies as big as ibm that solidified idea of the antisocial mostly white male nerd stereotownship that has existed for decades when it comes to engineer, entrepreneurs theyre looking for people who look like mark stuker burg and executives. And you know, unfortunately that has shut out more than half of the population. Right. As you were thinking about taking on this project and writing a book, in addition to your day job. Why was this important if you i know why it is important to me but first of all it is just so unjust. But its not just the right thing to do. It is the smart thing to do. I mean Silicon Valley is control aring what we see and what we read. How we duet around, how we communicate how we shop. And for an industry that is transforming our lives every day people making products shouldnt be 95 male so were talking about a problem that snot just Silicon Valley problem or tech problem [applause] this is the worlds problem. This is a cultural crisis. I also have is three sons. You know people always say i have daughters i care well i have son and i really care about this. Because i fully believe that their lives will be better in a more e equal world but yes for all of the patient out will who have sons and daughters and want daughters to succeed in this industry theyre not gepg to stand a chance if industry doesnt change. [inaudible conversations] this is an extremely well researched book and one of the things that you did was to go into the statistics, research you mention one stat of two, one men 92 of intercapitalist women getting 2 of Venture Capital dollars at least on 2016 numbers im not sure that it really changed in the last year. So uber raised 20 something billion. Rent the runway run by jennifer i think raised 200 million one of the most female ceos and amount you know this, the amount much capital you raise if you with raise more money you get so many more chances to figure it out. You have so much more time. And so if youre a woman is getting 10 million and guy is 100 million who will get a better shot and that is systemic. So what percent of the other statistics that in your research you just were like oh, my god why isnt anybody talking about this . A few what are spsks . First of all like i said it wasnt this way. By 1984 mac was coming out windows is being introduced to the world. Women accounted for 37 of commuters science degrees it shall that what is since plummeted to 18 . And it has remained flat for the last decade theres been no progress in the percentage of women in computer science. That was number one. Number two, was the statistic about how quickly women are leaving this industry. You know so when i started writing this book a male investor said to me, you dont have a book. Its very oven. Women just want to be at home with their kids it is biological they want to take care of their kids. Thats the answer. And so i just nodded. What else would you have said . [laughter] women are twice as likely to leave tech but not leaving to care of their children but work in other fields. Women are 800 more likely to leave jobs in technology than in any other field. Yeah, when i heard 107 i was astonished why isnt anybody talking about this . And so for an industry that loves data well data tells the story. What is the one thing that, you know, as you were thinking because were talking about research were talking about data because were [laughter] in technology. We should probably know these things. What do you think it is that makes these numbers so easy to ignore . I think people believe that Silicon Valley is a mare took city and they can change world here and reason i call it brotopia that it is a modern ewe pope ya where anyone can change the world and make rules if they are a man. And if youre a woman it is harder. Speaking as i was reading the book i felt like the name of the book or the subtitle the sub tilings is breaking up the boys club of civil Silicon Valley but could be be dammedded you did and dammed if you dont. I think one of the things that was so fascinating in way in which you captured the research the the research is clear that stats are clear. But daytoday experiences of women working as engineers, working as executives working as startup founders. And one of the one of the quotes is, is it feels like everything i do is wrong. How does that, how does that happen . What are the different ways that those stats become a reality are . Because its not also its not just like any like women who are like working in Silicon Valley like these are women who graduate 50 or 53 i think it is from ivy league schools, and come to Silicon Valley and are dropping out at significantly higher rates. What was when you did what 300 interviews, 200 interviews how did that experience come into being around everything i do is wrong . So one of the most impactful moments of my reporting was two weeks after susan fouler posted her blog post that went viral for those of you dont know she wassage engineer at uber she had a very bad experience a Sexual Harassment at uber propositioned for sex by a male manager on second day and took screen shots of it and when she showed screen shots to hr they said, were going to let that slide because hes a high performer. And she wrote about it. And everyone was shocked and i had 12 women in tech over at my home for dinner two weeks ago couple of engineers from uber, and they werent shocked at all. And one of the most and so hard to describe you know what these women go through. But you know best way that i can think of to describe it is they are only women over and over again all day long. And it is exhausting it shall and theyre fed up and theyre frustrated and they feel like they have to constantly perform emotional labor just to prove they deserve to be there which is like a whole second job. I mean, there are studies that show and i some of these in the book that women gets a better grade than men but if you if you hide names but if you reveal the names, women get worst grades. So thats just one example. I think it was Something Like 25 more comments on their code reviews. Absolutely. But at the same time they love their jobs. They love having their opportunity to change the world. And so industry just has so much work to do to keep them here and at that dinner you know people were sharing their stories and some perform and shocking stories. But you know, it goes to level of bad behavior not just being tolerated but normalized so uber for example you know women would be invited to strip clubs in middle of the day by male managers you know in a position wait do i go . And where work will be done there maybe they decide who will get this project or that project. But im also put in this incredibly unkivel position and not go and uncool kid that doesnt get the next hot thing. Dammed if you do. Dammed if dont. Exactly. Whether it was at the dinner or as you talked to other, you know, women in in the course of reporting on the book, what has struck you as most insidious way women are kicked out of the arena . I think its just so systemic that the level to which women are outnumbered. You know, i also think that a huge part of the problem is that many men believe they have to lower their standards in order to hire women. And they dont say that outloud except in one instance which is actually reason that i decided to write this book. I was interviewing Michael Morse chairman of sequoia perhaps most successful ever invested in google and hes had a storied career. Web ban. Had some failures as well i actually think hes still arranged trying to make up for that. [laughter] and at the time sequoia had no female partners in november 2015 that i interviewed him and he said to me he was talking about how you know i asked him at which it was really interesting. You know, how do you identify a good Venture Capitalist he said i think it is difficult to tell at background if theyll be good in investing interesting since they have requirements and he started as a journalist and then got a chance to do investing and he was a incredible success and he had no parter ins in u. S. Investing business i said what is your responsibility to hire women and i was expecting some sort of canneddersned answer vel spoken. And he said to me well were looking very hard were completely blind to gender, race, sexual sexual sexuality wt preparedded to lower our standards and i i mean i just was like did he just say that . And to me it was this moment of truth. Where you know he said, what probably a lot of people unfortunately believe but no one is actually willing to say it. Not intelligent. Not on television i think thats part of the problem so everywhere i wect went people wanted to talk about what he said. Most were horrified some people understood where he was coming from. But unfortunately if that is really what people think, of course, women are going to catch a break. Yeah. Made a lot of friends you made a lot of friends there. [laughter] if you judge sequoia only on its actions didnt hire a woman for 44 years you cant tell me that in 44 years that best capital firm couldnt find a wol to hire. Yeah, youre right. [laughter] actually i when i was coming out of Business School in 2000, i was a company out of sai coy ya and when they were interviewing me and i was meeting with the partners one of the i think i think it was mike said hes like, we once hired a woman and it didnt end very well for us. [laughter] this is 2000 so a long time to look. A long time to look. Yep. In addition to your great relationship with sai sai so it was published in vanity fair about Silicon Valley sex party. I was curious as i was reading the book which first of all if youve read it and havent read the book the book is actually is really nuance and very thoughtful about the topic of sex parties the topic of getting invited to Conference Room g or a strip club around like the corner from called gold club in selma a center of startup land and to be fair they have a buffet. Well it is cheapest lunch in San Francisco 5 all you can eat buffet. And at 11 45 its a hot lufnlg spot hence yelp employees call it Conference Room g, and at 11 45 a. M. On a friday, i show up with a female colleague who agreed to accompany me on this very dangerous reporting mission. Theres a line out the door of workers for lunch at a strip club. So in that context what what was the most jaw dropping story that was shared with you . I mean there are so many. Into the book . You know, i staying on strip club example i peedly confessed you know woman came over to our table like im a journalist im just asking some questions do you mind to she was superhelpful and shes like yeah. Tech people from and named companies here all the time and come in groups of mostly guy sometimes woman tagging along for whatever reason. You know they talk about work and be the boss after the executives will walk in the door with their special badges and they people flock to them they may group to a private rule together. I mean, business is getting done in, you know, in the middle of the day in the heart of San Francisco at a strip club. And you know, were talking about you know part of it look sexism exist in every industry. But in Silicon Valley you know, this is supposed to be the most progressive industry in the world it certainly is the most powerful industry in the world. Yet people who connected and built selfdriving cars trying to take us to mars you know when you a