 Hello and welcome to the CUBE Conversation. I'm John Furrier here in the Palo Alto Studios with two great guests, Tara Stolfowski, who's the founder and CEO of Iridescent and our Simpson Global Ambassador of Technovation. Thanks for coming in today. I appreciate moving your schedules around to come in. Thanks for coming into our studio. You bet. So, Sindar Pakai was at your event. That's the big story this past week. It's been the Google Memo from a low-level employee who wrote some things that got the whole world shaken around gender biases, role of women in tech, and as we do a lot of women in tech, as you know with the CUBE, hundreds and hundreds of women in the years, friends, and also smart people. This is a pretty big moment for you guys. You had an event at Google. Sindar canceled his all-hands meeting to address this under fear of retaliation and safety, but came to your event on the Google campus. Surprise into many. It was written up on Recode and The Verge. Pretty notable. So tell us about what happened. So, yeah, this was the 2017 Technovation World Pitch Competition and the award ceremony, and Sindar came and he talked to a lot of the girls who were presenting their ideas to solve problems in their community. And then he had a little bit of a one-on-one conversation to learn a little bit more about the kinds of problems, their interest in technology entrepreneurship, and then he addressed the crowd of 900-plus supporters and really re-emphasized that there's a place for women in technology, and more importantly for him and Google that there's a place for these girls at Google. Talk about your mission. Right. So Technovation's mission is to empower girls to become technology entrepreneurs, and it's much more than just learning how to code. It's really about seeing girls and telling girls that if there's a problem in their community, technology can help them have a very powerful voice. We've been running for eight years, and Anar is our global ambassador who has helped us grow to more than 100 countries. But Technovation's relationship with Google is eight years long. Google has supported Technovation. It was the very first technology company to support Technovation way before any other company saw the potential. And since then, since 2010, Google has provided funding, mentors, spaces not just across the U.S., but globally. Is it beyond entrepreneurship and beyond coding? I mean, talk about specifically what you guys are bringing to folks outside of Silicon Valley. Oh, sure. So, you know, my role as the global ambassador for Technovation is really getting to girls all over the world and saying to them, you need to be engaged in technology. And what we found, as Tara mentioned, we've been doing this now, I've been doing this now for five years, is that we're building a movement. We're bringing in girls. We're bringing in mentors. We're bringing in companies and governments together to make this a reality for girls in tech careers in their own countries. What's some examples of during your life where you had those kind of change moments? I think iridescent, we are now in our 12th year. And every couple of months, it's a change moment because it's a test of grit and just believing in yourself because, I mean, I started it with just an idea and grew it to be an organization that's all over the world. And it doesn't come with just full-hearted focus. And a lot of courage is what I've seen. I think I've also seen that how much you're passionate about an idea really swings how the other person is thinking. And so the idea only matters so much. I think it's, of course, I mean the track record and everything has to be there. But I think a lot of it depends on your own passion for it. And I think I've come to realize that passion is maybe proportional to the complexity and the impact of the problem you're trying to solve. So if you're only trying to solve a small problem, you lose interest in two years, right? And maybe that's why I'm always curious like why do so many startups fail after two or three years? It's because maybe you came in not thinking that you're going to change the world. Maybe you came in because you wanted to make quick money or exit or whatever. And so I think for me, this is my life's work. And we want to bring more underrepresented communities into innovation. And so it's not something that's going to be solved easily. Let's get back to the Sundar event that you guys were having. I think this is a good conversation to have because one of the things that came out of the Bruja that became that memo really was a conversation publicly. Now it's been polarizing. There's just some kind of a hate kind of mindset with it most of the time. Plenty of stuff on the internet to go read there. But there were actually some good conversations in the industry. What was the conversation like during the event? Because this was in full conversation mode while you guys were having your 2017 world pitch competition of which he presided over and had a speech to the entrepreneurs. What was it like? What was some of the conversations that were taking place? I think the most powerful piece of the whole evening was really the girls walking in and seeing the incredible diversity that we have in this world, right? So we had girls from and mentors and supporters from over 30 countries and just them coming and waving the flags and different faces and different cultures all trying to make the world a better place. I mean, it's rare that you see that using technology and I think it's very fitting that Silicon Valley is the center of this. But I think there was not one dry eye in the group because you realize it's the conversation is so much bigger than one company, one country. It is something that affects us as all human beings and you're believing in human potential. So I think seeing these young girls, some of them 10 years old, there was this I think maybe the crowd's favorite was these 10-year-old girls from Cambodia who want to improve sort of the lives of these people working in cottage industries, right? And they created an app like say Etsy or something, but focused on Cambodian products and the courage of these little girls. I think everybody walks away feeling okay, there's hope. There's even in the midst of all of this discussion. Yeah, it creates a lightning rod in some ways and hopefully we'll move on to the substantive conversations. How do you guys feel about what happened as you take this mission forward? You guys doing some amazing work. We'll do all another segment I think that's on that in a minute. But given the landscape now, how do you view this? And how are you talking with friends and colleagues and family members around it? Because I've certainly had certainly conversations with my friends, certainly in the East Coast, like no, no, that's not the way to look in Valley is. Google actually is a very cool company. It's not exactly what you think it is. They're very open. They support a lot of great initiatives and they're candid and then they go on to explain. It's like a university. Suri and Larry have this little ecosystem that they've kind of built a university culture if you will. But it is open and there are things that happen that get misrepresented. And that was my take for the folks that don't know Silicon Valley. What's your take? What do you think about what's happened? So this is really, really good that you brought up the university campus, you know, environment of it. So I have two girls. They're both millennials and they're both in the tech world. And we had this discussion and here's the perfect answer, right? So one of my daughters, Kat, she said that, you know, when she read that, she thought it was basically a gathering of his thoughts and it was a gathering of his thoughts because he was probably asked to adhere to IND stuff that's going on in every company right now, right? And so it was like a little bit of a, wait a second, you know, he wants to sort of respond to his being asked to go to IND stuff. And then Katya said, but you know, mom, it was just a gathering of his thoughts. And if this, this is an essay and it was a poorly written one. And if I was grading it, I would give him a C minus. Then my older daughter said, because he didn't, he tried to make it very professional and very academic. And she said, but it was a first draft. He has not, you know, he didn't proceed to toughen it up, solidify it, find more evidence, you know, have it critiqued. It was just a gathering of his thoughts and he hasn't gone through the process. And both these girls graduated from Berkeley. And so I think they would know what a C paper looks like versus an A paper. And then my older daughter said, and the other thing is, you know, it's not, it's not like IND efforts are actually bad. But what we're trying to do is we're trying to condense the time in which we're trying to get women at the, at equal pairing in the tech world. Now, you know, women have never been at equal pairing in many professions. There were not enough doctors, lawyers, accountants, you name it, right? Main Street Wall Street has never had equality. And now we're looking at technology. And the reason everything just flares up in technology is because we live in today's world where news and information is available all the time. So there's two things going on. Information is readily available. People can come into the conversation very quickly. And whenever anything happens in Silicon Valley, the effect is massive because all eyes are on Silicon Valley all the time. So it's a bit of a distorted view. But we have gone through this. It took a long time for women to become astronauts. It took a long time for women to become neurosurgeons. It took a long time for women to become lawyers and dentists. It will take a little bit of time for women to become top technologists. But we're hoping that it'll shorten and things happen quickly in the valley and we're trying to get that quicker. And so we're seeing a little bit of friction. This is responses from millennials. So for me, it was like, yes, great perspective. And then sooner said these things, you know, at the world pitch, I was sitting in the second row and every time he said something, I would clap really loud and Todd said, why are you being so good? And I said, I need to hear that. I need to hear him say that because he said that. Oh, he just said, you know, you have a place in technology. And I said, yes, we needed to hear you say that right away all the time, and especially to these girls, these eight to 18 year old girls, and all of the ones that come from 100 countries that weren't at Google, but we're listening to the live pitch. We seem to be going back to a crowd that wants to see respect for the individual and citizenship. These were company values that you look back at when I was there that I always remember it was unique. Hey, you can have differences, but if you have respect for the individual and you have a citizenship mindset, that seemed to have been lost in tech. And with the whole this whole movement, you see, and, you know, win at all costs, you know, being an asshole, what are you going to do to be a CEO or, you know, flip it fast or, you know, Brog's program, you know, so it became a very selfish environment. It seems to be shifting that with this conversation, your thoughts. So I have to say, you know, doing a startup is not easy. Getting successful in this world is not easy. Shaking the status quo is not easy. So I have to say that the same people and, you know, we're not going to name names, but the same people who are, you know, very arrogant and have little respect for the laws and rules, they have given us products that are changing people's lives. There is no question about it. Without their bravado, without their sort of, you know, I don't care, I'm just going to go over you if you don't comply with me, you know, a lot of ridesharing wouldn't even ever happen. And to me, when you provide employment, when you provide alternative services, when you provide something that takes away the way things were, I see that as a plus. Okay. I think what we're seeing is that's needed to a certain extent. And then you realize, okay, now we have to get back to growing it and working it. And if you keep going in that mode, you probably want to see it. So being tough and determined and having grit is what you need to break through those walls as a startup, but you don't need to be necessarily a jerk. But your point is if you're creating value. If you're creating value and that sometimes you actually have to be a jerk, because there are very few brave, non-jerk people who have gone against big unions and big monopolies, right? You and I, I would not be able to go against the Taxi Commission. You need somebody who is a complete a-hole to do that. And he did that and it made a difference. He doesn't have to continue to do that. And that's- It was a meme going around the internet. If you want to make friends, sell ice cream. Exactly. Exactly. So you can't always win friends when you're pioneering things. Right. Right. And you know, there is a balance. And maybe we've fostered the fact that you need to be that attitude for everything. And that's not true. So, you know, the pendulum shifted a bit too much. But I think you shouldn't, that we shouldn't scorn them. Because really, they have made a difference. Let's just let everybody get back to- It's a tough world out there to survive. And you have to have that kind of elbow, sharp elbows to make things happen. I think so. And but it's the value you're providing. It's how you do it. Exactly. I mean- It's a great question, too. Awesome. Well, it's no secret to the folks that know me and watch theCUBE and know the Silicon Valley. I'm a huge proponent for computer science. And, you know, it's kind of someone who kind of fell into that in the 80s. It's now become very interesting in that the surface area for computer science has increased a lot. And it's not just, you know, coding and heads down and squashing bugs and writing code. There's been a whole another evolution of soft skills, agile, cloud. You've seen a full transformation with the potential unlimited computer available. With mobile now 10 years plus into the iPhone, you see new infrastructure developing. So it creates the notion that, okay, you can bring the science of computers to a home of the level. That must be attractive as you guys have that capability to bring that to bear in the programs. Can you guys comment on how you guys see just the role of computer science playing out? This is not a gender thing, just more of, you know, as I have a young daughter, I try to say, it's not just writing code. You can certainly whip out a mobile app, but it's really bringing design to it or bringing a personal passion that you might have. So what are some of the patterns you're seeing in the surface area of what's now known as computer science? I think it's super important because as technology has progressed, we've been able to provide this program. If we were still programming with, you know, the in front of screens and doing the what you see is what you get kind of thing without, we would not be there. I think the big thing that's happened in the last 10 years is the mobile phone. I mean, if you find a girl anywhere today in the world, chances are she'll have a mobile phone on her and she's going to be loathe for you to take that one thing from her. You could take other things from her, but try taking that phone away from her. She will not let you. And so the fact that she's so attached to that mobile phone means that you can then tell her, hey, you don't have to be just a consumer of that thing. You can be a producer of that thing. Anything that you see on there, you can actually design. This is power. This is your thing to good and great and better. And if we can shift that in their minds that this is their link to the world that's wide open, we're seeing that. Well, the world is consumed by, I mean, a lot of women in the world will be consumers of product. Certainly with AI, the conversation with the weekend I was having with folks is the role of women is super important, not just in AI, but as software becomes cognitive, you have to align with half the audience that's out there. So it's been hard for a guy to program something that's going to be more oriented towards a woman. But it brings up the question of application and whether it's self-driving cars or utility from work to play and everything in between software and the role of software is going to be critical. And that seems to be pretty clear. The question is, how do you inspire young girls? That's the question that a lot of fellow males that I talk to who are fathers of daughters and or are promoting women in tech and see that vision. What are some of the inspiration areas? How do you really shake the interest and how do you have someone really kind of dig in and enjoy it and taste it and feel it? So there's some research to back like what the formula is that works and to drive change in behavior. And so there's this one of the biggest sort of names in cognitive psychology is Albert Benderoy. He's a professor at Stanford. But basically it's the same principles that drive say deaddiction from alcohol or weight loss or any kind of new behavior change. So the first is you need to have exposure to someone whom you respect showing that this is something of meaning. And so the key words are someone you respect. And so media can play a very big role here for scale. Otherwise it's only maybe your teacher or your parent and if they're not exposed to technology they can't really affect your. And so media can play a huge role there. Second is the experience itself. Like how do you make it easy to get started. And then it's like learning from video games. So you make it very very easy. Like the first step is just come over here. It'll be fun. There's pizza come. Like your friends are coming. But then the feedback has to be very fast. So the first step and that's where a good curriculum matters. So that's where also working on a mobile phone is very appealing even though may apps it's relatable. It's relatable but the feedback is instantaneous. Right. And so the programming language that the girls use is block based. So even though you don't have any prior programming background you can still build a working app. So that's critical. Then human beings get tired very easily. And so the feedback needs to keep changing. Right. It has to be unpredictable. The third piece is that of an expectations. Right. So you have to have very high expectations. And so that's why this current discussion around cognitive differences in gender I feel is missing the point because it's not what you're born with. What are you capable of. Right. And so if we looked at our genetics we would never go to space. We would never go to like the deepest parts of the ocean because we're not meant for that. Right. But we had really high visions and expectations. And so human beings rose to that. And then the last piece is less relevant in developed countries but it's still important. So it's sort of the human energy. We are not a brain dissociated from the body. We are connected. Right. And so if you're hungry and tired and sleepy not the right time to sort of make a dramatic change in like your interest. So this is relevant. Like if you if for us we try to figure out which countries are we going to work in. So post conflict war tone areas are not the best areas to start a new program. And you need the right. So you're saying the biological argument of of course they're different men and women. Yes. But it's the capability that's where people are missing. And the support system. Right. Like so have high expectations. Provide them with the right support. But the most important thing is your own own beliefs in that. Let's get your thoughts on that because I think you guys have a great program with technology. You mentioned mentors. Key part of the formula most likely. What we hear in the conversations I've had with women peers has been you know there's a real call to arms at the executive level now folks my age in the 50s who are made it they're succeeding they really want to give back and they really have recognized the value of having that peer mentorship and then inspiring the young generation. Whether it's part of things that we cover like Grace Hopper or Technovations things that you do or even just mentoring in their own communities. What does that mentorship look like that you guys see that you'd like to see double down on or areas you like to see tweaked or perceptions that are need to change. What's your thoughts on mentorship and the role inspiring young girls. Mentorship from men. Men and women. I mean from both. Well I see the mentorship of women that's the first step. Right. I have a whole nother conversation in my opinion that the men need training. Right. Not just like go to class and learn how to talk but how to empathize. Well my my big thing has been that you know when you wanted to encourage women up the ladder in your companies or you want to encourage women to actually get into technical roles that that intent should not be placed in the CSR department of your organization because that speaks volumes right to say oh well that's in the you know social responsibility department or the HR that just says okay so you know you're not really you don't think we're capable of helping you with your product or service we're sort of part of this and it's like no you know so I think you want to mainstream it which is what a lot of IND things are trying to do. Inclusion and diversity. Inclusion and diversity text. To make it part of the fabric not a department checkbox. Exactly. That's what you're getting at. Exactly. And you know the the the the involvement of these departments right to include everybody and to make it more diverse is going to going to be not frictionless it will be friction until a time where it won't even be necessary. Yeah. IND departments should have one goal which is to work themselves out of a job if they can work themselves out of a job then then the company would have done you know what it needs to be done but but I think meaning it's self-sufficient it's self-governing people are humans as respect for individuals. Yes. I mean this is basically comes down to if you look at it as humans. Exactly. It takes it every conversation could be tabled as what there's a person in the side it's a human being right not a woman or a white male or whatever. And you know they're not there yet but I mean certainly that would be the end game so that in that scenario that department's out of business the INR the inclusion and diversity department. You don't need one because you exactly you don't need one because you know what you're okay and I think capabilities is really important in corporations and this isn't anybody's fault this is just how it's been done this has just been the culture of it right who gets invited to which meetings who gets invited to which conferences right and so we heard the CEO of YouTube Susan Wojcicki saying you know she had to sort of elbow a little bit to say why am I not allowed at a certain conference and it's like maybe just wake up to that and say well why why aren't you involving you know more people at conferences and think tanks because you know I come from an oil and gas background and people used to do a lot of deals on the golf course because oil and gas people play golf a lot and a lot of deals used to happen well in the valley we don't play golf a lot but we do do other things conferences or get together and if you don't include the people in your team as groups or representationally well they they're not going to be there when when you make these decisions so maybe just be a little bit exclusionary is a problem and Kleina Perkins was taken to task they had ski trips apparently planned and they didn't almost the guys and they didn't invite the woman partner was a big scandal this is where they kind of make that it's a normative thing they got to change the norms it's change the norms and if you actually want your company which is made of all kinds of people to move really far ahead don't don't be like that include everybody because the only goodness about that is you'll go forward you don't include somebody while you're going to hurt them I want to add to that so there's quite a bit of data so the patterns are not anything different from what the message girls get from school and parents right so if you look at the data there are hundred countries that legally discriminate against women and so what industry is what message industry is telling is really firstly doesn't filter through to the larger population Silicon Valley is a completely different bubble right but overall the messages girls are given is like this is not for you right and so especially in some of the most sort of populist dense countries in the world and so we have to fight a lot of these kinds of perceptions from the ground up right and the the number one sort of gatekeeper is the father and so a key part of what we've not done to date is to provide sort of education and training to the parents because there's a very moving story that we work in a remote town in South India and a mentor who's very dedicated has been trying to get these girls to participate in technology they did he did that and then there were one girl was actually offered a job but the father kept sort of saying no not needed no girl in my family ever needs to work but he fought he fought it and so then the girl actually gets a job and then a year later the father calls the mentor and said you know what i'm so grateful that you did it because a day after she got the job i got hit in an accident and i lost my job but it's these kinds of perceptions that have to be changed one person at a time which is what makes this very hard unless you actually are able to get the the media to change sort of the the messaging and i think in the us which is there's some very interesting studies and a question right like if you were to think would there be more women in stem in poorer developing countries versus richer highly developed countries where would you see more women in stem the answer is actually the the women in like poorer countries like iran melasia the reason is because in an individualistic society like in the us where there's a lot of emphasis on materialistic but it's also about are you happy the conversation has changed to from parents telling children do what makes you happy and then you are very prone to advertising and advertising works when it's highly targeted and highly gendered and so in the 60s there was no such thing as pink and blue now there is pink and blue right and so now we just made our entire society entirely susceptible to advertising right and like girls are are passive and compliant and boys are aggressive right and so then when you're looking at the board structures there's no it's very very hard to fix the problem right there right you have to go down deeper because you don't get leaders who are compliant maybe secretaries are compliant right but you have to fix the message that teachers give girls that parents give their baby girls when they're born and so industry is just sort of in the spotlight right now but the issue is not that of industry i think it's also industry if you look at sundar's support and you guys is interesting that this industry seems to be chipping it's certainly still going to be a little bit different as you said but in general it is a cultural parent thing any plans there with technovations to have a parent track yes totally i mean i think right now 10 percent of parents actually volunteer to be mentors kind of like say girls crowd troop leaders and so we are trying to figure out okay what is a way to involve parents and to make them part of the discussion Tara and our thanks so much this is The Cube Conversation here in Palo Alto i'm John Furrier thanks for watching