 from Palo Alto, California. It's theCUBE, covering VMware Women Transforming Technology 2019, brought to you by VMware. Hi, Lisa Martin on the ground with theCUBE at VMware in Palo Alto, California. At the fourth annual Women Transforming Technology event, WT squared. Love this event. So excited to welcome to back to theCUBE, Betsy Center, VMware's Chief People Officer. Betsy, this event is incredible year after year. How do you do it? I don't do it, a team of people do it, but I love it and I love it that you're here. You're as passionate about this as I am. Yeah, our fork, and this one's bigger and better than ever. I love it. And you know, it's really all about just connecting women so we can continue to innovate and shape the future. So, super fun. It is super fun. It's one of the things that I love is as soon as you walk onto the campus in the morning ahead of the event, even walking up to registration, you can feel positivity, sharing, collaboration, experiences being shared. This community movement, you literally can feel, and then we walked in your opening keynote this morning. Yeah, wasn't she amazing? Joy Bolamwini, wow. Amazing what she was sharing breakthrough data of all the biases that are being built into just facial recognition software alone, but her passion for highlighting the bias and then identifying it and then mitigating it, that passion was not only coming from her but the entire audience. In person, I can imagine the live stream just got it. Yeah, you know, she is amazing. I mean, she's an innovator. I mean, she's a brainiac. She's funny. She's artsy, but she's an innovator. But what's interesting about her is she's an inclusive innovator, right? It's all about inclusion. And I love her approach to this. I just spent an hour with her in a fireside chat where a number of us got to have a conversation with her. And she's about as interesting as anybody I've ever met in terms of where she's taking this research so that she can create just a better role. And she's doing that. One of the things that was the word inclusivity kind of popped up in intersectionality a number of times where she was showing data, AI data from Microsoft, IBM, Facebook Plus Plus, and just showing the massive differences in those data sets alone. So the whole inclusivity theme is very parallel to my opinion, but she's actually getting these companies to start evaluating their data sets to change that so that Oprah Winfrey, for example, Facebooking this and doesn't come up as a male. That's right. Yeah, she has done some interesting, interesting work and she's not approaching it as if it's a race issue in particular, right? She's taking a completely different, very positive approach to highlighting a real problem. I mean, we know that inclusion is a challenge in technology, but inclusion in artificial intelligence is by far worse. And I love it that she's unpacking that. I also look as a marketer, I loved how she formed the Algorithmic Justice League. I couldn't think of a better name myself, but that she's saying three tenets of that. One is highlight the bias. That's right. And I thought that's awareness. There needs to be more awareness of that because my mind was blown seeing these models today and then she brings in Amazon and shows them, look at your data sets. And so there needs to be more awareness, consistent awareness, it's kind of classic marketing of there are a lot of challenges, but AI is so pervasive. I can imagine a lot of baby boomers who probably have iPhones with facial recognition and don't understand, wow, even that, unlocking my phone is a problem. How deep does this go across emerging technologies that are being developed today? That's right. And then she just talks about in such broad terms, I mean, she has a global mind around the social impact that this is having, whether it's in artwork, whether it's in self-driving car technologies, whatever it is, I mean, it's huge. And she's able to kind of look out and think about it in that light. And given the work that we're doing at VMware around inclusion and diversity, it's kind of a fresh new angle to really unpacking the layers of complexity that face these issues. Yeah, you're right. That was a thing that also caught my attention was there's so many layers of bias. We could think of the numbers of women or lack thereof in technology. One of the things that Joy said that kind of along the parallels of layers was the underrepresented majority, as she says, it's women and people of color. That's right. It's layer upon layer upon layer. It is. Wow, just cracking the surface. She's just scratching things, but the way she's doing her approach, I think just brings a whole new light to this. And yeah, I'm very grateful that she was able to speak to all of us. It's really about bringing women together to have these kinds of conversations so we can start to think about how we want to innovate and shape the future. She also touches on just this aspect of communities, which I love. And I've long said that people join communities, not companies per se. And one of the things that we've done at VMware is try to think about how do you create an inclusive culture, if you will, that embraces all sorts of communities. And Joy just started talking about a whole new dimension to how we think about that, which was fun. So you have been at the helm of people at VMware for a long time, lots of transformation. I'm curious to get your, if you look back at the last four years now of WT squared, how have you learned from even just speakers like Joy and helped to transform, not just WT squared, but VMware, its diversity and inclusion efforts in and of themselves? Yeah, you know, one of the things that I love about VMware and I love about WT squared is that it's really a consortium or a collective of companies coming together. So this is not a VMware brand event or a VMware event in just by itself. It's just a collective. And then we try and broaden that circle so that we can have more and more conversation. And I think that's what I'm most pleased with. I mean, we work hard at making sure that this collective is involved from the get go in terms of what do we want to talk about so we can have the real and relevant conversations about inclusion and diversity, especially as women in tech, which in some regards is getting better, but in many it's just not. And so how do you double down on that in an authentic way and really get business results? Exactly, it's all about getting business results. It's one of the things that surprises me in some cases is when you see whether it's from McKinsey or whatnot, different studies that show how much more profitable businesses are with women at executive levels. And it's just that seems like a no-brainer yet. There's so many, the lack of women in technology, but also the attrition rates really staggering if you look at it compared to any other industry. That's right. And you know, we have a long standing relationship with Stanford, the Clayman Institute, VMware helped found the VMware Stanford women's leadership innovation lab, which I'm exceedingly proud of. But yeah, research shows this over and over. But one of the things that I love about my work is bridging that into how corporations operate and how people just work at work. And so that keeps me intellectually engaged. I'll say that for sure. But yeah, that is the big challenge, yeah. I'm also what I love, just observing the attendees at the event is you see all age levels. Yeah, I love that too. And you have the tracks, the emerging leaders track for those who are younger earlier in their career, the executive track, the technical track. And you've got a track about sharing and best practices, which I also love, or just sharing stories of, how did you face this obstacle? Maybe it wasn't that didn't cause you to churn or to leave the industry. Those are, I think those are so important to help others just share. Yeah. Oh my God, I went through the same thing, for example, that might just help the next, or not just the next generation, but even those of us who might be middle career from not leaving and going, okay, maybe it's a situation I need to get into a different department or a different company, but I love technology and I'm gonna stay no matter what. Yeah, keeping those conversations elevated is one aspect of this, but then to your point, the cross-pollination of all these different kinds of women and what they've experienced in tech, the panel today was amazing, right? We had Ray, we had Lisa, and we had Susan. All different perspectives, different generations, but talking about sort of their challenges they've navigated this and where they all want to see it go. So I do think there's a bit of a common vision for where we want this to go, which is wonderful, but bringing all these different perspectives is the differential, and that's what we do here. We try and replicate that, and what will happen all through the day as I go to those different tracks, all here from these different women and the questions are always just a blast to hear, right, because I learn so much from what's top of mind, what's keeping people up at night as they venture into tech and continue into tech. Anything in particular that surprises you? You know, one young woman asked me about my concern around communication and interaction because of how technology's affected, how people do that, rarely face-to-face like you and I are right now. And there's so many other visual and sensory cues that go into having a conversation with another human being. So we had a great conversation about what's good about it from a technology standpoint and what's bad about it. And I think that's actually what Joy was talking about in her talk today as well. But I was pleased that a very young person asked me that question. I know people of my generation, we talk about it, but it was fun to hear, kind of inspiring to hear a younger person say, is this all good? Well, and you're right, it probably was a nice pleasant refreshing surprise because we think of younger generations as kind of, we say, being, you know, cloud native or born in the cloud, born on a phone. That's right, born on a phone. Who are so used to communicating through different social media platforms to hear that generation saying, you know, or even bringing it to our attention, like shouldn't we actually be talking in person or by using technology like video conferencing and Zoom things for engaging, think of how many people wouldn't fall asleep in meetings if video conferencing was required. That's right, that's exactly right. And another woman a little further along in her career, what was weighing on her was how she stayed, how she stayed being a responsible and ethical person when she doesn't really know all the ingredients of what she's helping to create. And that's just a mindset that I haven't heard before. I thought that was wonderful. That is because we often talk about responsibility and accountability with respect to data science for AI, for example. It's interesting to hear an individual contributor talking about where do I fall in that accountability, responsibility spectrum that is not a common question. No, and we think we're creating a world of more transparency, but really when you're coding, you're not really sure what might happen with that code. And I thought Susan Fowler did a lovely job talking about that today on the panel as well, that there's a huge responsibility in terms of what you're doing. So connecting those dots, understanding all the ingredients. I think corporations like VMware, and VMware does this in large part today. It gets harder, it's more complex, but we're going to have to answer those questions about what kind of pie or cake are we really baking with this? Exactly, exactly. Could you have, if you look back to when you first joined VMware, envisioned all of the transformation and the strength in community and numbers that you're helping to achieve with women transforming technology? I really could. I mean, the industry is amazing. You know, I was at the right place at the right time and got to ride this tech wave and it's been great. No, I couldn't have imagined it. And now things are moving at an unprecedented place. Things are much more complex. I have to call my adult children to get input onto this, that, and the other. But no, and it's a dream come true. It's been an absolute honor and privilege for me to be a part of it, so I love it. When you talk with VMware partners or customers, are they looking to you like, Betsy, how have you been able to build this groundswell and maintain it? Yeah, you know, my focus is primarily on the culture and the environment of the company and I'm a really good listener. So that's the key. It is key. You just listen and pay attention to what people are saying, what matters to them, what's bothering them, and you continue to hold on to sort of those, you know, those North stars of what you're trying to build. And I always knew that I wanted to build a sustainable culture, something that would last the test of time. So we're at 21 years, I've done 19 of them. So it's been great, you know, but you want to make sure you keep that rebar in the ground as you continue to build up. And this community is solid, they're doing it. Yeah, that's great. And it must be receptive. We talked about, you know, companies or leaders or business units being receptive to change. I think I talked about that with Caroline and Shannon. Yeah, yeah. We're part of that panel. And you know, often times we're talking with leaders again, business units, companies who aren't receptive to that change. Cultural change is really difficult. But it's essential, I was talking with Michael Dell a few months ago, got boomy world and said, how have you managed, as Dell has grown so massively, to change the culture in a way that this, you know, enables that growth? It's a really hard thing to do, but for companies to do digital transformation and IT transformation, the culture, the people have to be receptive. I think to one of your strengths, you have to be willing to listen. Yeah. And you never really arrive, right? So you constantly are in beta mode in the world. And so if you never assume that you've arrived and you can pause or that you just constantly wanna beta things, then you have an edge. And I think Michael Dell's clearly got vision around that, right? I know Pat Gelsinger does too. And so I like just partnering with those great minds, those great business and strategic minds, and then just building on the people component or the cultural component. But I too, I'm constantly trying to produce new products and pay attention to what the customer wants. When you see things in the news, like some of the harassment issues, say for example, that Uber has experienced. And I imagine you're watching the news or reading in your thinking, I thought I could just say three things to those people. When you see things like that, what are the top three things you would recommend that not in reaction mode, how can that culture change to deliver the customer experience ultimately that they need to? But what are some of the things that you think these are easy fixes? Yeah, I think in watching a lot of my companies in the industry and how they've responded, for me, my advice would be, you should elevate that conversation. That conversation is not gonna go away. And so you need to elevate it, give it a lot of sunlight and oxygen, really understand it. Don't try and move away from it. Don't push it down. And that's something we do at VM where we're constantly elevating the conversation. And one of the things I love about this culture and it's made me a lot better at what I do is I can always answer the question, why are we doing that? And so that's why are we doing that? And if I can't answer why we have a problem and a why just sort of symbolizes intellectual curiosity, right? So that's what we're trying to keep alive and that's what I tell my other colleagues in the industry is just keep that conversation going. There's no quick fix to this. People are complex. Don't pretend you really know, but so elevate it and let's get to know each other a lot better. And there's so much good that can come from any sort of blight or negativity that really is, but you're right, especially in this day and age with everything being on camera, you can't hide. And it's okay to admit that you made a mistake. It's really okay. And so there's something about that that we've got to get back. I think it's one of the most admirable things of any human trade or corporation is just admitting, this was the wrong turn. I said the wrong thing. You know what? We made a mistake. We've course corrected. Yes, exactly. So we talked about Joy opening things up today and Ashley, Jen. I know I can't wait. I bet you can't wait. She is the closing keynote. What are the things that inspire you about Ashley's work? I just think that she's wicked smart. And I think she's using her platform in a really powerful way. And for her to want to come here and speak to us, just reflects her passion. And the juxtaposition of Joy with Ashley is fabulous, right? Really gives you a lot to think about. So I can't wait to see Ashley. Just even juxtaposing this too, like you said, you can just see massive diversity there in thought, in background, in experience, in life experiences. But both coming from different perspectives and different angles that can be so inspirational to all of us in the audience. Yeah, and positive. You know, they're taking this positive approach to this movement. And yeah, very different women, but both really, really smart, very passionate, resilient clearly, and persistent. They're going to keep moving it forward. Persistence is the key. So great events so far. It's not even over. But what are your dreams for next year's event? Oh, we just have to keep going. I'd love to see more companies join the consortium. We've learned a couple of things about we just are going to start the conversation earlier about what we want the event to be. We love hosting people on the campus, obviously. And luckily, we have terrific weather today. But I would just like to see companies come together and have the conversation. And that was really the impetus for this, is that we wanted to make sure we got a lot of diverse perspectives that we're dealing with these real issues. And let's talk about what women in technology, at all levels, as you pointed out, what's top of mind for them? And what do they need to have the conversation about? Let's bring them together. Let's let them connect and start to innovate and create the future. Well, I'm already looking forward to next year, Betsy. Yeah, me too. It's been such a pleasure to talk to you again. Thank you, Lisa. Thank you so much for spending time with me on the CUBE today. Thank you. Appreciate your time. Super fun. Good. You're watching the CUBE. I'm Lisa Martin on the ground at Women Transforming Technology, the fourth annual. Thanks for watching.