the welcome to barnes and noble tribeca. tonight i have the pleasure of introducing samantha to discuss the new book girl rising. a former abc news correspondent investor, adjunct professor at columbia university grad school

of journalism and a woman at forbes contributor. editor "new york times" recognized speaker, contributor, the huffingtonpost and disney interactive. please join me in welcoming heather and samantha. [applause] we really appreciate you coming out on a night like this, and this is an exciting moment for us because first of all we are in the same city that we rarely are because we live in the same city of new york but this is the first evening that it comes out, so it is a special moment for us. to kick things off on what the book is about we will show you a book trailer first. let's roll the video. >> i think that women now understand we are not going to get ahead unless we help each other get ahead. i have a female manager and

she's the one that helps advocate for me and push beyond my leadership role. the only women that i no know he been able to work the typical jobs give them the opportunity to work at home and travel and everything else they want but also have a job. it's the advantage of the opportunity that exists because there are enough. >> they don't necessarily get it. when i pitched to the group of women, they automatically see the passion that i have for it and immediately they offer how can i help.

[applause] ♪ so that is a little sample of "geek girl rising." if you want to chime in about the genesis of the project and how we met.

>> first generation silicon valley girl, 1995 which is before when people tell you the internet for consumer use. it's when microsoft windows 95 came out and now it is becoming used by regular people. i then went to work for the silicon valley and we went public and i saw the rise and the fall of the industry so 1999 was public 120 within six months was down to two. but it was fun. i need some friendships and the

main inspiration was 2013, silicon valley.com survivor like myself. i have been workin had been wory for over 15 years and at a review my manager told me even though my sales team hits the numbers out of the ballpark he said i've been told by people in the group you are abrasive, do you mind turning it down a little bit. and by the way, your lipstick is too bright and you have too much jewelry. he literally said this to her. needless to say, she didn't stay at this company very long. it's unbelievable what women are facing silicon valley today. it is such an unconscious bias. before i write about it, i want to interview a couple more

people. heather was working at the time and i said to tell me your story. i want to hear about your experience how you face this kind of bias and discrimination. is it really that bad? heather said to me i've been researching this on a really similar topic. i have amazing stories. every industry people are facing it left me tell you about the technology and the company that i'm building. there is a lot more positive than negative. so that is a story we decided to tell. heather was a contributor to my

first book about women and the worklife balance. so we came together in 2013 and she can tell her story. i've been and abc news correspondent reporter and the wonderful opportunity in 2007 at the dawn of the iphone and my job there was to cover digital lifestyle to look at how the internet was changing in our day-to-day life. i was the on air consumer spokesperson and i thought these women are really bad. why is no one telling their story i'm figuring them on their

project. back in the '90s i knew that it was a problem and so i thought this is interesting there is a landscape of women doing well for themselves despite the fact that it is a male-dominated industry. and i wonder what is the secret, what is it about them that made them successful and enabled them to persist and what can we learn for our daughter's? i ha had him enough in your old friends, a girl and a boy and so that certainly was an inspiration to try to min find e stories and figure out what is it from their background and childhood and all of their experiences that gave the resilience to keep going.

she was interesting in doing and mining the same subculture. they go out and spread themselves thus far and wide as possible to track these women and get out of the coast and get into the middle of the country to find the stories. we are writing to take them inside the subculture of women and to go to the frontlines where women are working at the

grassroots level to close the gender gap and frankly the diversity gap, so book is broken out into seven chapters and we survey the landscape. we profile women and companies that are trying to reinvent the culture and take you to college campuses and then we take you inside classrooms and inside of the world of the toy industry that is also trying to solve this problem. so, again for a very named stream audience that may love their iphone, they do not necessarily know about the industry or understand the challenges. to talk about the confidence on the book, one of the things

holding us back in the tech sector is the fear of failure. it's that feeling like i'm not good enough or smart enough. they feel it to this day after the accomplishments, so what i want to read to you from the chapter, the one i'm going to read about is a lead engineer at microsoft and talks about fear and failure but not just fearing failure. she fears the university of michigan and went on to become a software engineer at microsoft,

so i will spend a few minutes reading from this chapter and get your take of the flavor of the book. donna was wearing a leopard and owninleopard andowning it. midnight in downtown seattle with the element on the soundstage. she was hosting a 48 hour session for 100 filmmakers, artists and engineers to make the first act of the augmented reality device. a big leap from computer screens where they can be manipulated. at 36-years-old hard donna is a hardware geek, fashion designer. confirming the status of the rising star and microsoft.

the resilience is one that is too often traveling the country inspiring young women to charge ahead in their studies and hang onto the job in the male-dominated world. it is the invisible fairy godmother that makes things happen and june 2016 was overseeing microsoft windows inspired programs that had millions of users getting feedback about the update. my biggest success is being one of the biggest commodities in the world microsoft i of microsa legendary company and a principal level had a huge achievement. growing up in detroit if someone had told me i would have hysterically laughed.

downtown detroit they worked in the auto industry. she approached about joining a computer club and have been fascinated ever since she first laid eyes on the back of the classroom. it wasn't as entrenched as banking or law. scraping together the money.

the university of michigan granted them together in one semester. she felt like her classmates have taken the computer classes in high school and was speaking a foreign language as they paired up for assignments. i was with them all the time and they would say they couldn't believe how easy it is. and i'm sitting there like me, i don't know any of this. i don't even know what the word means. we started talking and they would say let's move on. donna failed the course because she was too embarrassed to ask questions and didn't want anyone to think she was an airhead. she started thinking about how she had learned to ride her bike and wood skinned her knee and

would cry a lot and say i will never do this again only to get back in the saddle a few days later. it isn't the best course but it's better than what i had and i realized how much i earned. they got computer science on the first time. the message she wants to send is you can't give up on your goals just because it didn't work out the first time. what are people talking about. and a lot of people don't go unless they are guaranteed for success. to get 50% or 75% that is far better success than 0% of the way. love her. [applause] she is amazing.

thank you for reading that passage. it's important to point out why certain people are in the book and as we have been interviewed recently the fact there are countless numbers of story there are women we could have put in the book and one of the reasons we launched the digital platform is to highlight the stories because there is a visibility gap but one of the reasons we chose donna is not only does she have a super compelling story of failure and then getting up and becoming incredibly successful but she's also a fashion designer and a writer. she is the opposite of the stereotype you would think of. she really kind of crushes that

stereotype. we are meeting all these different women from different backgrounds 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 is to choose people that were out in the audience and would feel a connection in some way and offered to dispel a lot of the misconceptions and often times people assume it is lonely, it's cold, it's not collaborative. these are some of the things you hear from younger girls when they ask about it but what we found with so many is that it is the complete opposite. they have these incredible multifaceted life and their jobs are collaborative so that is progress in terms of the message

we want to get out and it may be inspiring women to think twice about going into these types of careers. to see how interesting they are. >> has anyone seen the show silicon valley? it's pretty hilarious but very stereotype. there is a hacker house, the genius, ceo, founder of the tech company. i spent a week in silicon valley in menlo park at and accelerator called the startup lab with eight female founders, technology founders living in the hacker house. what i learned in researching this book is that even entrepreneurs don't look like

richard hendrix or act like the type in the media. of these women are from all over the country, women in particular. her name was kerry from santa fe new mexico, little kids at home who said this is the first time i've actually been able to breathe and not have my kids all over me. starting a company that is a bbl equipment company. when you go visit your parents across country, traveling with kids with all this stuff to carry coming you can go from one state to another and went the equipment. so with these other entrepreneurs she spent the week work shopping and training and learning to go out and pitch investors to scale her business,

so i spent the week with her and the other thing about the program is that it was building a network of the women entrepreneurs. these women are being introduced to mentors and she got back home and her husband looked at her and said who are you. she was so confident and also met. she said i want to take your vision and make this into a million dollar company. so, fran maier is her cofounder and ceo and they turned the company now into 40 different

markets around the country and it is booming. so again going back to their collaboration sisterhood of finding people that will help you and not just to scale your businesbusiness and find invests that build up confidence that you can do it. you are not alone in having you do have a network of support. one of the things we address in the book we devote a whole chapter to entrepreneurs and investors. the fact that they had a hard time raising money, one of the things we look at is how female investors are starting to come into play with it there is through angel investing and we profile a handful of female venture capitalists and we were able to get inside their world and get a sense of what it's like to be one of the general

partners in the venture capital firm. the network is a key point because men have always had the boys club and what these women are trying to do is not only start a company which is like the hardest thing ever but they are trying to break into the boys club so in terms of raising money what we found going back to the network is the value and how they were able to help each other meet the right person, to make the right introduction. at the first chapter of th chapk about these secret handshake societies that have been bubbling up whether it is on the meet up. women are coming together saying if we cannot get in the traditional way we will make our own way and that is a major theme of the book and why we want to focus on what is happening at the grassroots level because it was a story that hadn't been told yet and we

felt like the focus in the mainstream media has been rightly so on the entrenched sexism in the industry that certainly does need to change but at the same time, we felt like there is some hope. this drives these women made on their own by creating their own network is pretty impressive and inspiring. >> on >> one of my favorite stories is an entrepreneur from san francisco who talks about the boys club and she's an entrepreneur and started her company while she was at graduate school and it was a gaming platform where we build tools to help others with their games. associate launched this company in 2005.

that is the first time she ever realized what the boys club of silicon valley was. getting money, getting financing and launching her company so she realized there are so many that are coming to pick their companies for investment. what's going on. this is really bad so she went back as many entrepreneurs do, so she's now working on a super cool three d. virtual reality environment where you can walk around the room and basically what you do is take for pictures of your living room from four corners of the room and they make a three d. model of your room that looks like your room and they give you different

design concepts so no longer do you have to pull different samples, ring the furniture in, don't like it, send it back. you can do this walking around like an avatar on your computer so it is very cool and she has raised $11 million now. she started this project talking about girls club. she said there are so many interesting founders and investors she met along the way she said i'm going to invite everybody to park city utah for this innovation festival takes place in april so it's sunny and on the slopes of park city. she brought a group of investors and entrepreneurs and other advisers for this trip to park city where they skied and have fun and network and pointed at the entrepreneurs that ran who's that i feel guilty i should deal with my kids working on my

company and she said this is what the guy is due. they play golf and if they go on these trips. this is the girls club we are starting. she's doing it every year now to build her network. a lot of this happens over you beers after work or on the golf course so she's doing her own grassroots girls club so that's what we found through the journey interviewing these women. they were paving their own path creating opportunities where beyond networking test defeat could establish relationships with each other that could turn into business relationships. shelley in the first chapter started something called the girls lounge with his essentially a pop-up so long at these male-dominated tech conferences and business conferences are around the world now most famous for the first

one what she does is create a comfortable place for women to come and hang out when they are at these business events where they are like the only ones there and it is an amazing place to see these women not only bonding but actually doing business as well. her belief that women need more opportunities to collaborate and they have to socialize and be competitive. she's trying to dispel that notion. i spent some time with her at one of the conferences in germany and she did a panel called the cheyenne erie witches this idea if you surround your self with women who are successful you will be successful as well like i cheyenne, you shine and that is her mantra throughout. if it was in chattanooga tennessee or pittsburgh or seattle or los angeles or all

these different places, there seems to be this mandate for women to lift each other up. one of the places we went to houston and was the largest gathering in the world. for all of these women that are used to being the only ones in the room, suddenly there were 15,000 from all over the world together. the year we were there was every program how to help each other like how do we get this done whether it is mentoring, finding champions, helping people find internships one of the reasons we went this week were interested in finding some college students because we knew

we wanted to do a chapter around college women and what was happening. there was a big report came out that this research compiled by y the american association of university of women, and it was one of the first time researchers have highlighted the things that were working to retain women in the college campuses so they don't just expect an interest, the big issue is persisting and actually graduating so we went because harvey college is one of the schools that actually pays for freshmen women to go to grace hopper and they do that so that these women get connected to a network and so they can see there are other women like them and t i get to meet professionas in the field and say they actually get role models that

are relatable to them. these young women were creating opportunities. they see people like meg whitman but those are not relatable when you are a sophomore engineering student. it just feels like it is so far away. they need a chance to meet real women in the field, entry level midcareer. they also need to have access to women that are closer to their age. i think the harper conference is a fantastic example of how bout and how it is working so that is ultimately why we were there and we had the most amazing opportunities when we went back to the campuses. >> i spent some time at stanford. you can do whatever you want to do. there is a group c++ and that is

how you start your computer science studies. not only was the group of college students but it's a network of engineers and some of them are actually studying double majoring in english and computer sciences and information science and sociology. they were there to support each other but more so, they have a program called the c++ ambassador program so they were paying it forward. we find high school girls that are interested in engineering or technology, science technology, engineering and math.

and they say i want you to start a program at your local community that encourages and inspires other kids to get involved. i have two daughters north of san francisco and one of the girls i met started a robotics program in my little town, my library program with a mentor high school girls and they worked with these young girls and show them how to actually build the robots. they are there to pay it forwa forward. it's changing the way we live and interact with people. how can they not be involved in

this. they are inspiring the next generation and we certainly saw that across the country. when we spent time at carnegie mellon we had a chance to follow the students that were mentoring middle school girls and bringing them to campus and teaching them various skills not just in computer science but stem in general. the big thing we took away from that as this is the way they bonded. they had a bond they were helping the administration thatt they were also solidifying relationships.

should we pass the microphone around? c-span is here filming so wait for the microphone. >> what is the most interesting thing that you learned in the five minutes of writing your book? >> i've learned so much i don't know where to begin. all of the twentysomethings in the past ten years are in their 30s and they are having kids

so they pay for the paid leave and the policies that accommodate working parents and employees so in a sense one that we profiled started the company alongside her husband in 2006 with the intention of creating a workplace value. they offer the policies of its basically paid leave whenever you need it. so that was a big change.

the only bathroom we had for pumping milk for my newborn was a cold bathroom. it was horrifying and there was a knock on the door and they would say are you okay in there, what is that noise. now they have nursing rooms and massage rooms and they care. so this is something i was relieved to see as a shining example for other companies. the biggest take away for me that i actually have applied with access to people when they had an idea, they went for it and so often you have an idea in the back of your head and then

you forget about it or you might write it down. for you worry that it is not fully formed. you worry this isn't ready for prime time yet. and then you don't do anything with it. certainly in the process of writing this book it was the lesson of sometimes you just have to get it down and put it out there or you will never do it. time and time again we saw that with these different women whether they worked on it on the side at night they would work on it and they found a group of friends they would talk about and find people who have an expertise they didn't have too help them get smart on the topics they want to cover and build the products.

whether you are starting a company or writing a book or starting a nonprofit or neighborhood group, if you have the desire to do something, don't let the fact that it isn't fully formed or perfect or you don't have everything figured out, don't let that hold you back from doing it because you will regret it later so that is what i took away from the chance to meet all of these amazing people. >> and also you don't have to feel a loan if you are a woman in technology or any industry that is male-dominated. if you cannot find your tribe, go build your own. there is no reason to feel like you are on your own in this world. >> where were some of the other places you've visite you visitee country? every one thinks of silicon valley but where were some of the other places you went outside of the normal spots was

it easier for women to break out or do you see it becoming more dominant? i have heard more and more people say that it's shifting away from silicon valley in terms of the entrepreneurial activity and while silicon valley is very engineering centric, places like new york have the founders coming from wall street, fashioned with incredible expertise and there isn't a bias for not having a computer science degree where often times when you hear about the valley people are pitching the question. so when we talk to entrepreneurs it does feel like outside of the

valley there is more of an openness and the reality is if you are building a company, you need all kinds of expertise. you need for technical expertise you can hire someone and recruit a technical cofounder at some point later. so certainly we see that here. i had the opportunity to spend time in chattanooga tennessee which you wouldn't expect that it is a hotbed of feminist hot d it is really unexpected and fun. then you are in a place like chattanooga, you can write your own story and i think that is really cool. that's where you see people like albuquerque and these others, kansas city, these popping up around the country where there are more women and diverse

founders because there is an openness to their background and they are not dismissed so you don't have the technical degree or the fancy degree likely. so, that bias to towards people you don't necessarily have that in other parts of the country help put some life into her economy because this is a poor

area. there is another one who was from detroit and called herself the anti-mark zucker with no technical program and says in detroit there's all this activity around entrepreneurs because the engineers that are now without jobs and so they are trying to get some talent to train people and get them to work in these jobs. >> are you seeing those that don't have the typical

background? >> there is a lot of reasons for that but you are seeing women that are not technical starting these companies and one of the reasons for that she talked to us about the fact when the store came online and when you suddenly have this opportunity for people to the cable to use open source tools, to be able to build a most viable product especially to a prototype without having to raise millions of dollars or be affiliated in thwiththe university, suddenly t opened up the gates to anybody but it didn't take millions of dollars for something you wanted to test out on the market. you could build it for a couple thousand dollars.

once the cost started coming down and it really democratized the ability for anybody to get into this world and opened up the gates of people coming out of business school or coming from media or wall street or others that have a business idea but they did not necessarily have to have an engineering background. that is an interesting shift and that only happened after. >> many of the founders we spoke to didn't have a technical background but they were fine. one that i spoke to this starting a company from a recovery platform for addicts whether they are drug addicts or alcoholics action. she basically has no technical background but had the problem that didn't work for all

alcoholics or feel that spiritual connection and said i want to create a platform where people can find different kind of meetings for people that are in recovery and it's artificially intelligent space so they are coming from differenalldifferent backgroundd industries and the common theme they have is passion and the problem they are trying to solve and they will go to any means to get the problem solved. the chief operating officer of the news is the greatest platform today and she was saying if you don't believe you

were put on this earth for this company that you are building you will never succeed because it is so hard. three quarters of the startups fail. don't start a company just to start a company. start it because you care about the problem you are trying to solve and you believe in it because the sacrifices are so extreme if you don't have that passion you just are not going to be successful. >> entrepreneurship is a roller coaster ride but people pay to go on roller coasters.

>> having read all of these stories what would you is a standout that you could share with us? >> if you have an idea, don't let being a woman or nontraditional founders stand in your way. that is a big one. it's about testing and trial and error. then they ship another version and another version. i think that it's really important to realize that. if you stumble and get rejected,

don't give up. it's like the original story from microsoft. you have to keep going. that is a common theme whether they are entrepreneurs, investors, technologists, all of them seem to have that quality because they believed in themselves and what they were trying to do, so they just kept going. it is a take away for me, too. it is a universal take away. >> something that i learned from the program grows -- girls who code said if we raise our boys to pay rent and to be brave and fearless, we raise our girls to be perfect and compliant and she said that is bull crap.

we have to teach them to be bold and that it's okay to be messy and get your hands dirty. boys will raise their hand. the girls had to be prepared to raise their hand and give a perfect answer. so that is part of the process. that was a huge message for me as a recovering perfectionist. it's okay. i'm not always going to get it right. i'm not perfect. learn from your mistakes and move forward. >> we have the last question right here. >> that reminds me of the book the curse of the good girl.

it sounds like this book is part two of that book. but i wonder so much of what you are saying totally designates. i didn't have the language for calling it back but i wonder where does the idea start and why do we think of it as simple as role models and what is going on there. >> we have the opportunity to interview those from the country and to talk to somebody from russia for example, there just isn't the same stigma attached. i think it does have to do with the media.

in our country to gender norms or so should and it comes out of the 1950s and it's hard to get away from that. unfortunately, movies, tv, all of these perpetuate the stereotype and there's research that shows it is one of the reasons why they want to pursue. the reality is there are women going into science and women going into mass. its engineerinit's engineering g specifically where you have this gap. and i feel like in our research we found that the media plays a huge role and that the companies were marketing them to then. the first video games that were

out did anybody remember carmen sandiego clack we profiled the e that created that game and that is one of the first that had a narrative and that's why girls like that because there was a story to it. the vision was to make the connection between building and a narrative. it's okay to try to appeal to us in different ways. but i feel it is hard to overcome these societal expectations of what we are supposed to be. i hope that this emphasis in

recent years i hope it is now a part of the vernacular and i hope it goes a long way to dispelling those. >> talking about how math and other sciences that are taught at school there is less of a gender disparity in those fields where computing and coding are not required courses in k-12. so there is an initiative that is being worked on and rolled out in chicago public schools in san francisco is working on it and new york may have it to get computer science and coding into k-12 and that will make a difference on the issues. >> i have one other point to add to that which is interesting.

we had the opportunity to interview somebody that was one of the architects. there's questions of what's going to happen in the initiative. what i was told is they were able to get the college board to create a new exams of the original you have to learn and you were tested and that was it. the new test is a survey course thabut you're understanding the societal impact and implications of the code that you are learning. it's the 55,000 kids it was much

greater than the original computer science exams are partf it is also like we were saying earlier showing when and how it affects our life so that his also appealing to feeling connected to the rest of the world. we enjoy that and it's important to understand it is like the the narrative. you want to make the connection between how you are learning and we are just at the beginning of this. i can't wait to see what happens in ten to 15 years. i hope we get there and that's why we wrote the book. >> thank you for joining us. we appreciate it. [applause]

when i got here i wanted to spend my time getting to know people and find out why the senate doesn't work. i interviewed a majority and buy one obyone of the three or fourt conservative by voting record but not very partisan. i don't think they are

impressive. why are we not tied to the portability of benefits or millennial's that will change faster and faster and as i spent time in private talking to these people i realized that there are some substantial collective action problems which i would sort of summarized as saying as we move into this postindustrial moment, local communities and media institutions are being hollowed out. most are not polarized and mostly politically disengaged. there is a lot of loneliness in america but most are not consuming cable tv news talk shows. ..