 Hey, we are here with Reshma Sajani, founder of Girls Who Code. Thank you for having us. Thank you for having me. So before we get into Girls Who Code and how you came about, because you really have no tech background, you have a political background. You're an attorney, Yale Law. What do you think of the political environment quickly before we move on? Well, I mean, I think it's broken. And I think that people feel more disaffected. But I think we're not talking to each other. We're not finding common ground. And I think we need to have more kind of fresh voices that are participating in the system. Like yours. You ran in 2010 in the Democratic primary against incumbent Carolyn Maloney. Will you run again? If the issue and the time is right, I mean, the amazing thing is I get to go to work every morning and know I'm making a difference. I literally can quantify the change that I'm making right now. And I think if there came a moment where there was similarly another issue or this issue where I thought I could make a bigger impact being in political office right now, then I would. Like I'm making more impact as a CEO of Girls Who Code than I would as a congresswoman right now. You made a ton of impact when you spoke out against Ivanka Trump and because she had mentioned you in her book, said you were an inspiration, which you are. And you were like, yeah, well, don't include me in that. How come? Well, listen, we have girls from all walks of life, girls that are trans that can't use the bathroom, girls that are Muslim who wake up and have their hijab pulled at, you know, girls who are from the Rust Belt, who are having a hard time finding a job. And so this administration's policies have impacted my family and by my family, I mean our girls. Right. And it's important for us to speak out. So you created this organization to speak out. Yeah. So you've got to take us back a little bit because from being in politics and walking around and talking to people, that's how this germinated. Yeah. Tell us. Yeah, I mean, like I was one of those girls who was terrified of math and science growing up. I'm a weird person. What did you major in? I majored in poly science speech communication. I went to law schools, got my masters in public policy. I mean, completely the opposite of having a technical education. And I, so I'm a really weird person to have started this movement. But I ran for office at age 33. I was coming home every day in the fetal position. I hated my job. I was working in finance. I was $300,000 in student loan debt. Wait, you were in a fetal position as an attorney? As an attorney working in finance. Yeah, I hated my job. I wasn't making an impact. I was, you know, I, if you had met me when I was 12 years old, I would have told you that I wanted to change the world, right? That I wanted to, my parents came to me as refugees. I've always loved this country. And at age 33, I was completely off path because up until that point, I had done everything that I thought I was supposed to do, you know, put one more credential on my belt, built one more bullet on my resume. And I was unhappy because I wasn't doing what I knew in my heart I was meant to do and I wanted to do, which was to make a difference. So I ran for Congress in a race that I probably had no shot of winning and because I thought we needed new voices, right? We need to talk about like new issues like immigration and job creation and that, you know, we needed, you know, we needed to have change. This is back in 2010. Yes, this is back in 2010. Got my butt kicked, lost that race miserably, you know, woke up, broke, humiliated. You know, I'd pissed off everybody in the Democratic establishment and I had like no contingency plan because I thought it's going to win, of course. But, you know, one of the issues that I saw on that race was the technology divide. You know, as a candidate, you go to a lot of schools, you meet a lot of parents and educators and I saw that there were tons of boys who wanted to be the next Steve Jobs or Mark Zuckerberg, but there weren't any girls. And I understand it didn't make sense to me. And so I started really digging in and trying to understand what happened to women in technology. What are the interventions that we're making on this topic? Realize there weren't really any. And so launched a program, literally launched a program in this office at AppNexus. Borrowed a friend's conference room. Borrowed Brian's conference room. The CEO of AppNexus. And we're in their space right now? We're in their space right now. Literally the conference room downstairs, you know, downstairs on the fourth floor. And, you know, handpicked my first 20 girls and we taught them how to code. Did you know how to code? I didn't even know how to code. I didn't even bother to learn how to code. Like, that is how impactful that loss was for me. Because when I lost that race, it was the bravest thing I'd ever done. And I lost and I didn't die. And I was like, oh my god. Like, I had this tremendous experience and I'm going to continue that journey. And had I never ran that race, had I never lost that race, I would never have seen the technology divide. I would have never started this organization. Right. So everything happens for a reason. Yeah. But something in you is different though, because other people would have stayed in the feudal position. Other people would have took that loss and ran away as opposed to ran towards something. Yeah. So what was it? I mean, you said your family's from Uganda. Yeah. I mean, I think it's growing up as the daughter of refugees. You know, my parents came to this country with ten dollars in their pockets, you know, changed their names, had no family, you know, and built a life for themselves. You know, just... So brave. Yeah. And I'm so in awe of that and of their experience. But so much of it though is I'm so grateful. And I think that's why I'm always chasing the need to create opportunity for others, because I'm so grateful I had it. You know, and it's very much, I think, so much part of our culture, you know, of what I was taught by my father, you know, to give back. And that's what this organization is about. Like, I see, I meet girls every day that have such an amazing, like, are just so smart, so intelligent, so humble, so full of humanity and compassion. But, you know, they're born into hard circumstances. And I want them to have a chance, because I think this country will be a better country, a better nation, you know, if we create more opportunities for girls. Well, the economy needs them. Yeah. Fifty percent of the economy's women. We need them. Yeah. We need them to get more. Forty-five percent of America's breadwinners are women. You know, the New York Times just did a great story about how quickly these jobs are moving into technology. Automation is changing everything about the way we live and work. Like, you're going to need to know how to code to survive in the 21st century. That's just a fact. So how do we change the conversation? You and I were talking off-camera a little bit that maybe we need to, we need to start to sell it to girls differently. Yeah. You know, tech is not, it's not making your Lego robot work. Right. Walk, I should say. Right? It's more than that. Right. Well, it's like, you know, we've done a poor job of telling our girls what a computer scientist is. Yes. You know, girls want, seventy-four percent of high school girls want to change the world. They want to pick a career that's about changing the world. And when they turn on the television, or they open up a magazine, or they Netflix, they, and they look at what a computer scientist is, it's like some dorky guy sitting in a basement somewhere by himself typing on his computer. And they're like, I don't want to do that. Right. And so we have to show them the connection between computer science and, you know, building a rocket to send it to Mars, or, you know, helping climate change, you know, figuring out a tool to solve homelessness, like finding a cure to cancer, building an algorithm to find a cure to cancer. You, connecting technology to something in their hearts that they care about and that they're passionate about. I joke all the time at home now. Every time my girls come home and ask for something or if they could do something, I'm like, you should build an app. There should be an app for that. Yeah. And I actually don't know much about tech, but I do know that that is where, that's where it's going for them. And I think we need to talk to them more about how these jobs are lucrative. It's okay to make money. Yeah, it's great. Well, I think the first thing you're saying is so important, because what you're basically saying to them is, figure it out. Yeah. Right? Like, and that's computational thinking. Like, basically, it's like, why are framing an idea? You want to build something? We'll talk it through. Like, how would you do that? And that's, that's what coding is. And in the second part, you're right. I mean, we, you know, we don't teach our girl, like my father used to say to me, Rashmi, you have three choices. You can be a doctor, a lawyer, or an engineer. And even though I was a girl, he wanted me to have financial independence. Right. He wanted me to find a job where I could buy a house, get a mortgage. You know what I mean? I could be self reliant. We're not having that conversation with our young girls today. And so when, when girl, when young boys see Mark Zuckerberg making a billion dollars by the time he's 16 years old or whatever, right? They're like me too. I want to be a billionaire by the time I'm 21 years old. They're moved by the social network, but they're moved by Mark Zuckerberg's story of financial success. Girls hear that story and aren't like, ah, I want to be Mark Zuckerberg because they're not, we haven't raised them that way. And we need to start because we have been seeing more and more in the baby boomer generation. They're about to, and the women are about to inherit all this money from their husbands. And they don't know what to do with it. They haven't been involved all these years. Like the conversation needs to start in the classroom with these kids. Like they, we can't have more women grow up and not be financially independent anymore. It's just not good for America. No, and it's not good for American families. It's also not realistic. Right. So, you know, back, the American dream used to be, you know, a single parent, one income household, right? It used to be that, well, you want to make enough money or be as successful so that your wife can stay home and in our heteronorative society, right? That's changed. That's not happening anymore, right? You need dual incomes and families. And so we better make sure that if we're going to make sure that our women go to work, that they go into careers that they're going to get paid well and they're going to earn their worth. Or, I'm a single mother. So, yeah. Yes, they have to make money. Yeah. They have to get out there and it's okay. Yeah. So, what are you telling young kids these days? You have, by the way, a lot of kids, 40,000 girls. Yes. Yeah. It's amazing. Holy cow, 80 summer immersion programs. Yeah. And 1500 clubs across the country. Well on our way to 5,000. Oh my goodness. Yeah. So, what does that mean, though? What's a summer immersion program like? So, our summer programs are, we have free summer programs for high school girls, rising juniors and seniors in high school, where we essentially embed classrooms and technology companies. So, we run 80 of those programs in 11 different cities and every company from Adobe to AT&T to Prudential to Facebook to Sephora to Pixar to Disney has a Girls Who Code summer program in them. And the value for that company is not only are they building the pipeline of talent, but 50% of women within the first several years will leave their technology job. So, it's a signal to those women, stay. You know what I mean? We are committed to this problem and help us build the future together. And I think that's why you have companies like Microsoft that have five programs in all of their sites because it's helping them with retention. And then we have after school programs clubs in middle school and up and they're at private schools, public schools, charter schools, community centers, libraries. 15% of our clubs are in libraries right now. And they're in towns like Carrollton, Ohio that have no Wi-Fi at home in the schools. But 40 girls in our Girls Who Code club meet at the Carrollton local library and learn how to computer program. Yeah, I mean it's happening. Like we have, one of the best parts of my job is I get to go to college campuses and I'll go to schools like Carnegie Mellon or University of Washington or Purdue or CUNY and I go into computer science classes and the vast majority of the girls that are there are our students, our alumni. And but for Girls Who Code, they would never have decided to major in computer science. You know 37% of our girls in our program took the AP computer science exam. You know we talk a lot about how those numbers are changing. Those numbers are changing because of our girls. Do the teachers have to change to them? Do we need more women teaching this stuff in classrooms? I think we need more teachers teaching this stuff. The problem is the opportunity cost. If you major in computer science, you can go work at Facebook for $120,000. Are you going to work? I mean the opportunity cost is too large. The opportunity cost is too large. Unfortunately it doesn't pay you so much. Right, so we got to change those, we got to change those incentives because we need teachers. One of the proudest things about what we do is we now have our curriculum basically allows non-technical teachers to teach our clubs curriculum. So if you're a gym teacher, an art teacher, history teacher, you're hearing all this stuff like you're like I gotta learn how to code too. And now you can. And now we're helping you basically. Now we teach you to learn how to code. You're paying it forward by teaching at a girls who code once you do that. That's really cool. Yeah, it's really important. You have all these books coming out too. And I love this because it says learn to code and change the world. Yeah. I think that is, I mean you got to put that in like bright lights. I know, right? It's amazing. This was our book, it's basically our curriculum and a primer. New York Times bestseller, first week that I came out. And it basically tells the story of computer science and teaches you some of the basics. And what I love about this book is at the center of it are five girls. Lucy has braids. Maya's Asian and loves fashion. Sophia's Latina and takes selfies and loves sports. Layla wears a hijab. Erin's like the blonde girl next door. I mean these girls look like your daughters. They look like my niece. They look like the girls of America. When I grew up, I grew up reading Sweet Valley High. I love that book, but I didn't look like her. I didn't relate. Right. And it's so important to have a book where our girls can relate to. I'm so proud of this book. And you have more coming out. Yeah. You have a book. 13. I'm crazy. And but your book coming out now. Yeah. I listen to your Ted talk about and I just think, and I'm going to steal it, I have to tell you, I'm stealing the line, that we need to teach our girls to be brave, not perfect. It is unfortunate that society pushes our girls to be perfect and yet our boys can be sloppy messes and still apply for the CEO job. I mean I say this all the time, if you meet my son, he's my little pig pen. He's got a booger in his nose, yesterday's breakfast. He's a hot mess, right? But he's free to be who he is. And when I watched the young girls in his life and I watched their moms or their caretakers fix their bow, straighten their dress. Yeah. They spill on their shirt, they're running the diaper bag in two seconds to change it. If you are picked and fixed and prodded on from 16 months to 16 years old, what happens to you, right? You fall apart when you get your first college rejection letter. You can't take critical feedback during your first job. You gravitate towards the things that you're good at. You don't try things that challenge you anymore because you've been rewarded for being perfect, for being liked, for being nice, for being quiet. And it's killing us. It's literally killing us. You know my friend Rachel Simmons is writing a book about this, but there's a massive mental health crisis. Agreed. You know, for college-age girls. And we got to do something about it. What do you tell them? So I think that we have to teach them how to be brave, how to be imperfect. And it's basic things as, you know, let your daughter get dirty. Let her climb to the top of the jungle gym and jump off and kill, you know, and hurt herself. Not kill herself, but hurt herself. Put a drill in her hand at 12. You know, if she stinks at soccer, don't pull her out and put her into gymnastics. Let her know what it's like to be a C-plus. Right. Let her know what it's like to just try. We need more of that. And for us, right, for us at our age, you know, take that third act in your career. Right? Do the thing you always dreamed about doing. You know, this summer I went surfing for the first time. I don't know how to swim. I hate cold water. And I was literally crying as like the instructor was pulling me out into the water. I'd never been, but I realized like, wow, it had been a long time. Probably, you know, since my race, that I had done something that terrified me, that scared the heck out of me. And I was so joyful for that feeling. Because I hadn't, you know, and I'm like, I want to do that at least once a month. Yeah. It should be like on everyone's list, right? Yeah. More and more women are speaking out today. I know, it's amazing. The Me Too movement is amazing. You know, the Brave Women in Silicon Valley, it's amazing. It's incredible. Which is great for our girls if we are going to put them there. Yeah. God willing, this is fixed. Yeah. By the time they get there. But do you think that that will, you know, move the needle? Lack of women in the boardroom. Lack of women CEOs. I mean, basically, lack of women everywhere. Yeah. Do you feel like the tides are changing? I do. And to me, it's not just, I think the thing is, is women are recognizing their power and they're speaking up and they're being brave and they're not being silenced or shamed. And so I think it's causing a lot of people to wake up. And I think where the, to me, what the change needs to happen is with our sons, with the men in our lives, there are a lot of decent men who also don't behave that way. But there's often silent when they see these behaviors happen. And we need for them to speak out because it's going to be a long time till we flood the gates. Not too long, but we need some time. And in the interim, there's going to be men who are in that boardroom and they need to be the ones that, that, that kind of move over. Right. Right. And speak up. Do they need, and these are my words not yours, does that generation just need to, like, go away and die? I mean, I think that, I don't know. I, maybe I don't, I'm in the camp where I feel like it's never too late to learn from your mistakes or to change your behavior. So I don't want to just write off that generation. I do want to make sure that people are not simply, you know, going to rehabilitation, but they're going to jail. Yeah. Like I want to see real consequences for this stuff. You know, because we see everything else. We see people being either rewarded or not punished. Right. Right. It's high time we see punishment. Yeah. So if I don't have a club near me at home, like, and I'm speaking personally here because I know my school doesn't have one. Let's start one. How do we start one? To go to GirlsWhoCode.com, you know, look at and send an email to Info at Clubs at GirlsWhoCode.com and we will start one for you. Buy this book. All the proceeds go to Girls Who Code. You know, every holiday present should be this book. Agreed. You're awesome. Thank you. Thank you so much. This is great. I appreciate it.