 Live from Houston, Texas, it's The Cube, covering Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing. Now here's your host, Jeff Frick. Hey, welcome back everybody. Jeff Frick here with The Cube with Rebecca Knight. We are live in Houston at the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing 2016. 16,000 women and men really celebrating women in computing, hardcore science, AI, ML, machine learning, autonomous vehicles. You name it, it's here. And we are really, really honored to be visited by our repeat Cube alumni and I'm a huge fan. Telly Whitney, the founder and CEO of the Anita Borg Institute that puts on this fantastic show. Telly, great to see you. It's so good to be here and welcome back. Thank you, yeah, back to Houston. So we were here last year and it was pretty exciting, but this year we blew it out. We brought the biggest Cube set in the history of The Cube. There's even more people. I think this conference grew by another 4,000 people. And I got to say the keynote, all I could say was, wow, you guys filled up the Toyota center where the Houston Rockets play. Somebody said the Houston Rockets don't even fill it up anymore. It was so exciting during the opening session to look out and see all of these mostly women in this, I mean in the stadium. And our opening keynotes, our two keynotes, just, I mean, they knocked it out of the ballpark. They did. Ballpark, or at least out of the stadium, I would say. Let's not mix our sports metaphors here. But Menomade Field is just down the street, so if you're here next year and you need a bigger space, they can accommodate you. Okay, there we go. And again, I just, you know, we've talked about Anita Borg the person every time. I think we've talked and to think back to what you guys have started and the vision that you had, did you ever think in your wildest dreams we would be here today? Well, this certainly has surpassed any of the dreams that we had. I mean, it's very exciting. But what's really exciting is the young women. I mean, the chance to come to here, I mean, earlier today I was at our booth and we had these women saying, oh my goodness, you know, I've never seen anything like this. I want to take this, I want to take this home. So my question for you is every year it gets bigger and better, more people, more panels. What is different about this year? Did you make any big changes from last year? Well, one of the things that we're most excited is about the diversity of the conference. On the main stage, we have 30% women of color. And, you know, diversity is really important to us. I mean, certainly it's important to us to have more women at companies. And so it just makes sense that as we reach a broader audience, the intention to ensuring that each and every person feels like they can look up and hear somebody on the main stage who looks like them is really important. Speaking of diversity, we have 1,000 men here. So they are in the distinct minority of conference participants. Do you want to see more men come or do you want to keep it more of a woman thing? What are your thoughts on that? Very good question. You know, men are important. And we've always had men at the conference. And having male allies and people who are supporting you is really important to equal participation. Certainly, the conference looks to celebrate women. And so it will always be, the speakers will be predominantly women. But we've seen more and more organizations consciously bringing more men. Because if you think about it, I mean, we're all about creating cultural chains within the organizations. And that's not going to happen. We can't do it alone. If you don't have men or the women at the table. Right, right, right. Jeff's here, right? That's right. Adding some diversity to this group. It's funny, in 2014, the first time we met, I remember, I think it was the first year you had like a men panel. Allies, yes. And I remember that that was a little bit controversial back then, that everyone wasn't sure that that was what they really wanted to do. Well, it's interesting that you bring that up because we had a male allies panel, which were some of the favorite male advocates to even today or on that panel. But we learned a lot. We actually learned a lot about what not to do, what to do because at the time, a male panel with all men on plenary was probably not the best choice. But what we're really excited about is the Anita Morgan Institute is investing in organizational transformation. We have a group. And one of the areas that we're looking at is what we call gender partnership. And that is engaging with men within organizations. And how can men and women work together to create change? Right. If you were to put a theme on this year's, I mean, this is a celebration of women in computing, but what do you think are really sort of the underlying themes that you're hearing both come out in the panels, in the plenaries, from the participants themselves? Just a few thoughts of what are the dominant things that you're hearing? Well, we've already talked about diversity, of having all women at the table creating technology from all different ethnic races. I mean, community is what we're all about. So people come here if they want to make sure that we have great technical sessions, great professional development. Striking that balance. But ultimately, they're here for the community. I mean, it's the chance to meet other women who look like them that they can make a connection to. But I also, the last thing I will say is that each and every person needs to leave here with an action that they can take. And there's many ways that they can get there, but realizing that they too can make a difference. It was interesting, Elizabeth stopped by yesterday. Oh, good. And she was talking, we were talking about the tracks because I was looking through the tracks and just really everything that's hot now in technology. Like I said, AI, autonomous vehicles, machine learning. And she said how you guys are almost more a catalyst than actually putting on those tracks. It's really the community which triggered my thought that gets the chairs together, puts the tracks together, gets the speakers. And you guys are really just kind of an enabling vehicle that enables the community to kind of self decide what they want to present, what they want to learn. Well, that is absolutely correct. I mean, we are one of the few technology conferences that have a broad reach within technology and you named a few, but 75% of our content comes, it's submitted through our call for participation process. So we find people who are managing their track chairs and we have people submit. And yes, this absolutely comes, we have not developed a set of experts on our staff. Yeah. When you think about the namesake of this conference, Grace Hopper, who is a real Spitfire Navy Rear Admiral, one of the first computer programmers, male or female in this country, what would you say if you could have Grace here at this table? I mean, what do you think she would say? How would she be impressed with the progress or would she be discouraged by the low numbers? What do you think? You know, Grace Hopper was a programmer when there were very few women. And where she didn't necessarily like being singled out as a woman, she was very determined to get ahead. And that commitment to taking action was core to who she was. And so I do think that if she was here today, she would be excited by the young people. I mean, particularly excited by their enthusiasm in creating change and making a difference of finding their own path. Yeah, it's obviously all the women that make this a different tech conference, a lot shorter lines at the bathroom on the men's side. I don't know about the other side, but really I think the magic is in the youth. Like you said, the percentage of girls that are either just getting out of school, just finishing school, or early on in their careers, I think adds an energy vibe that is unlike any other conference. And we brought some of those with us this time, our tech fellows, and they're out scouring, they're getting interviews or bringing people on theCUBE. And I think that's really the secret sauce that makes us such a unique place. Well, we have a lot of students, about 35% of our attendees are either students or faculty, and we hold the firm on that. We actually keep a pot for them. And if you think about our students, what's going to really matter is hearing for them is to hear the stories from the women who are just a little bit older than them. I mean, yes, it's great to hear Jenny Rometti, but she's too far away. But if you hear somebody that's been working at Google or Facebook for just a few years, that's very exciting. What do you think that those younger women, as you said, sort of the Google veterans who are now 40, say, what would you, what do you think it is that those young women need to hear? What are the words of encouragement, the words of inspiration that will make them say, hey, I can forge a career here. I want to stay in this industry. You know, sexism be damned. When you're a young student, you're not necessarily thinking about sexism or how women are treated. In fact, it's really important for most students to be recognized for their contribution and not be singled out as a woman, albeit they're here at this conference. And so what they want when they look for a job is the ability to have an impact, to make a difference. And so the more that organizations can paint the picture of how they can come in and make that difference, that's the best recruiting tool in the world. Yeah, and there's no better illustration of you can change the world via software and technology than just the breadth of companies here again. What's different about Grace Harper than most tech conferences? You don't see Walt Disney, State Farm, the US Navy, and Google all at the same conference very often. But the other piece I think is interesting is more the later in stage professional woman, Robin Matlock, who's the CMO at VMware. They had a VMware woman track within VMware, the larger conference. And they had the Clayman Institute there and it was a great panel. But she made an interesting comment. You know, she said, I was just so busy working and trying to make my career. I never really, I didn't feel necessarily any problems, but then it's kind of like she achieved, you know, CMO status and could take a little breath, you've done well. And then took a step back and said, you know, I need to take more responsibility, more active role, even though I didn't necessarily feel kind of put down on my way up and kind of it's enlightenment as, I don't know how old she is, I don't want to guess that wouldn't be a good thing to do. But, you know, but as a later stage, you know, professional. I'll make two comments about that because yes, both men and women, you could, I mean, I've watched time after time when that light bulb goes on. One of my dear friends who was a very senior executive, I mean, she just wanted to be good at her job. And she was talking to this group of young women just almost accidentally. And she all of a sudden understood the impact that her words were having on them. And she realized how big of a difference that she could make. You know, we also have something called the technical executive forum. And what I hear from a number of the attendees is they thought everything was fine. And all of a sudden they had an issue with their company for one reason or another. And it made them look up. I mean, they were just busy building the product. They were not against diversity. They would have said they supported it, but they had this aha moment when they saw a particular problem in front of them. How do you think that women should approach their careers? Because we've talked about that tension in that the sense of I just want to go in there, do my job and be the best engineer I can be. And yet also be mindful that there are biases. There are forces working against me. How do you, what is your advice to women in this field in terms of managing that tension? Well, I make a couple of observations. One is that each of us is responsible for our own career. And so understanding what your dreams are, understanding what you really want, you just, you have to do it. But you need to recognize that the environment is key. I mean, with our top companies work, many of these companies, they're putting them at the sign up that I actually participated in top companies. And so there are ways to signal that some environments care more about you than others. And so paying attention to the kind of company that you are joining can make a huge difference. Right, and as you said in some of the other interviews, it's competitive for top talent. So these things really matter. They really do. And the millennials are less likely just to go with the job and do want to make a difference and do feel like the company cares and is doing more than whatever kind of their core business is. And if you don't do it, you're not, not only are they your potential employees, but they're also your potential customers. Makes a big difference. It's a different world. It does. And these are going to become increasingly the factors that lead them to take the jobs. And like you said, it's a very competitive landscape. The one other point that I will make about companies is that every company is a technology company these days. If you look around the room, you mentioned some of them, Walt Disney. I mean, the NFL is one of our partners. I mean, they're, they're banks. I mean, B&Y Nellin is a company that we've worked with for a while. And so more and more of this diversity of business have huge commitments to technology. And much of the technical talent, which is in such demand, will often go to some of these other companies because they sometimes have better cultures for women. And so they're losing out not only on these potential, potential female workers, but also female workers who can then design products for female customers. And that is, that is a big question. Right. I mean, the customers, the companies that are looking for diverse workforces is often all about their customers. There's no question. If 50% of your customers are women and you walk in with a product team, that's all men. It's a sign. Well, I heard something the other day. Somebody notices. I read something somewhere, maybe here about, it was like a physical fitness tracker that didn't take into account a period. Like they just didn't think of it, right? Cause it was probably four guys that decided, that it's not on my calendar. I don't have to worry about that. So it really, I mean, it's a very simple and tangible point that, you know, again, the diversity of opinions, experience does provide better outcomes, which does drive profitability, which at the end of the day, needs to happen beyond just to feel good and it's the right thing to do. That's really how you change behavior. You know, and some companies are taking this seriously. I have heard of a couple of stories where teams come in to a prospective customer and those teams are all men and the customer walks away. They actually require diversity when working with a company. So I don't want to stress you out, but let's talk about next year's conference and what is on the plate? What are you, what is- I know, I'm sure you need to just take a long vacation after this is over because this is such an extravaganza and it requires so much planning and thinking, but in terms of next year, I mean, how much bigger do you want it to be? What is on the agenda? What do you want to do differently? We will continue to grow. We will continue to grow. We have controlled growth. I think you know that we sold out for 15,000 in 21 minutes. Is it 21 minutes? 21 minutes? I knew it was hours, not days. I didn't know it was minutes. That doesn't happen. Rolling stone does that. Yeah, I know. Really? But we want to make sure that we don't grow too fast because it's not just about quantity. We have to provide the quality. I've told you that 75% of our content comes from the community. So we need to make sure that we can actually provide the right content. But we will continue to grow. What we've seen is that increasing numbers of organizations are bringing large groups of their female employees, that this is an important part of their retention and advancement strategy. And so we acknowledge that that's happening. We want to help them do that. So I will continue to see that. The Grace Hopper Celebration is a platform. So many of the organizations that we work most closely with, Girls Who Code, NCWIT, among others are here. So we want to have a gathering place where all that are working on this problem can come together and have an impact. And then of course, we will have great speakers. Well, and there's Grace Hopper Locals, so people can look for that. You're going to have to have a Grace Hopper X, I think, like TEDx, right? Have it at the company. But the ABI got locals. I don't know if you're aware of this. We have GHC, I mean the GHC ones. Right, the GHC ones, right? And so we do expect to see an increasing number of those. Right, but then, as we kind of come to the close, I want to wrap, because this is such a personal place. And I think, you know, Jenny Rometti, CEO of a big company, got so personal in her keynote. And I think really summed up the theme, if I may, be so presumptuous, you know, don't let others define who you are, which is short and succinct, wrapped up her story. And it's really a big part of the message at this event. Right, I mean her keynote was very authentic. And she's got a good example that sometimes CEOs want to come and give a business talk, but the keynotes that work the best is where they show part of who they are. And she was a really great example of what we're looking for. So I was thrilled by what she had to say. All right, so I'll give you the last word. When should people start looking for the registration opportunity for 2017? The best part is to subscribe to our mailing, to our newsletter, because we will always keep you informed. But the most important next date is that in January, the call for participation goes out. So we encourage each and every person that's listening to this podcast that, I mean, to understand that they should be thinking about what can I contribute? What can I suggest and participate? All right, well, Jeff Frick with Rebecca and I tell you, thanks again for taking time out of your very busy day. There's 16,000 people that would love to sit down with you like this. So we're really honored and touched that you spent the time with us. It's always great to talk to you, Jeff. Thank you. Absolutely, I'm Jeff Frick. You're watching theCUBE. We'll be back right after this short break. Thanks for watching.