Gadgetory

I'm Ellen Pao I am a pounder of project include which is a non-profit focused on bringing diversity and inclusion in tech and I am the former CEO of Reddit and a former partner at kleiner perkins caufield & byers and i'm excited to be here talking with Connie well thank you so much for joining us I am really interested in how the term the POW effect came to be a thing there's a wikipedia page and it came out of your very high-profile discrimination trial against kleiner perkins but can you talk a little bit about the path that led you to become a Silicon Valley icon now for this concept of inclusion and diversity in Silicon Valley it was not an intentional path so it has been more of a path of trying to do the right thing so I don't know that I'm an icon but I think I think a lot of people see themselves in my experiences and having somebody actually give voice to them and having a lot of people support the idea that this is not the way things should be has been something that people have really rallied around so what was the impetus for project including what do you hope to do with it the impetus was a bunch a series of one-on-one conversations where there are a lot of people who are just frustrated with the state of you know what they call diversity in tech and the lack of inclusion in tech and what people are actually doing about it and from our perspective it wasn't the solutions weren't matching the problem and they weren't solving the right problem so we got together to try to figure out how do we get more education out there there's so much information out there how do we pull it all together and frame it for people and how do we get people focused on like doing the hard work of actually making tech inclusive you are working on a memoir of sorts about the last few years in Silicon Valley and what is it that you want to say that you don't think has been said in them many many stories right about you there are set of narratives about me and I would just like to set the record straight about you know who I am what motivated me to sue and what motivates everything that I do so you know here and you may not like it and that's okay but at least have the real information out there instead of the set of information that's been pushed out there you know I would love this to be a book that inspires people to come into tech and to stay in tech because I think we need to make sure those voices continue to be part of the conversation you said you have a daughter she's eight years old and she's learning how to code would you like her to go into the tech industry at some point I struggle with it I don't want her to go into the tech industry today but I'm hopeful that things will change by the time by the time she gets out there okay thank you very much Ellen Pao for joining us today thank you funny forever