International Women's Day Livestream: Women In Technology For Good

Hello and welcome to Khan Academy's International Women's Day fireside chat! I am Rachel Cook, the Senior Communications Manager here at Khan Academy, and you are in for a treat today because we have an amazing conversation on deck with two badass tech chicks from Khan Academy. Super excited to introduce them and talk to them today!

I wanted to say hello to our international team members in Brazil, Mexico, India, Peru. Thank you! I think that's it, right? Um, so hello to all of you who are watching. Later on, those of you who should be sleeping—go to sleep! Um, I want to let everyone know that you can submit your questions on Facebook if you have questions for this amazing panel here.

So we're going to get right started. To my left, I have Mele Coo, who is our VP of Design here at Khan Academy. She hails from great companies like Apple, LeapFrog, and IBM. We also have Marta—oops, Mars! I always forget how to say your last name—Marta Cosarchen, who's our VP of Engineering. She hails from HP and Intuit.

And in case you don't know, Khan Academy is huge, huge fans of Harry Potter. So, Maylie is representing House Slytherin today, and Marta is representing House Gryffindor. By the end of this chat, you can guess which house I belong to.

Um, so I'm a really big fan of sort of classic movies, right? And one of my favorite lines comes from Casablanca, which is like in, um, all the gin joints, and all the towns, and all of the world—you happen to walk into mine. So, ladies, tell me, what brought you to Khan Academy?

“Should I start? Yeah. What brought me to Khan Academy? Uh, well, a long journey of many different roles and things through my life. Um, Khan Academy is, you know, we've chatted about this just kind of—I always say it feels like full circle to me because I started off studying math and, um, teaching math. Finding out sort of along the journey that I enjoyed teaching, which I didn’t think I would when I was being told that math education was the only thing I could do with mathematics as a girl back in the day. So, uh, I was just a math major, so I had to kind of make it anyway. I found out I did enjoy teaching. Um, eventually found out I love programming, so the story kind of is I’ve then worked in tech for over 20 years, and now full circle I’m back with Khan Academy, where I fell in love with Khan Academy math videos because I could point to them and tell my friends, ‘So there's this guy who can explain all this way better than I can, so don't ask me.’ That's really funny. I remember when I told my mom I was coming to Connecticut, I'm like, ‘So there's this guy.’ And she was like, ‘What? You're moving to California for food?’ I'm like, ‘No, no, no! It's so con! It's legit. It's totally fine.’”

“Alright, alright. Um, yeah, yeah. Also a long and winding road. I studied computer science and electrical engineering as an undergrad, and I had wanted to study art as a high school student, but my parents disapproved, and I thought at the time that I needed to do what they said. So I didn’t study art; I figured I would study engineering and then go study art and do that later. But straight out of school, I insisted on trying to get a design job with an engineering degree. So I went to the only company that let me design stuff and then build it so I could have those sorts of trade-offs with myself, which is hard. But still, I did that. And then had a long journey through other things. I think LeapFrog was another moment where I was kind of combining the design, the engineering, and education. I went on to Microsoft, Apple, and while I was working at Apple on new methods of human input, I kept on prototyping things that had to do with learning. So I was like, ‘Let's play with this fancy new input device for learning.’ And that happened so many times that after a while, I thought, ‘Well, maybe I should just focus on that part.’ Right? That’s amazing!”

“Yeah, I think so. Both of you sort of have these moments when you were learning in school and you just had some kind of spark; something kind of started in you. Um, and I think Women’s History Month is so important because we get to look back at the pioneers and people who have shaped us to kind of where we are today. Um, and so for both of you, is there a teacher or a pioneer that particularly has inspired you to kind of go down this path?”

“Sure, I'll start this one by—I do want to thank—somehow I subconsciously found a lot of female mentors in the department I was in. I don’t think I realized I was doing it at the time; I only realized that in retrospect. Like, wait, how did I wind up with only female-identified advisors in this major, where, I mean, oftentimes, I was one in 60 kind of ratios. Um, so Patty Maest, who was at the Media Lab, who is at the Media Lab, um, Karen Sullins, and Julie Dorsey were all advisors of mine during that time. And I think I didn’t realize I needed it. I think at that time, I was like, I just gotta power through everything on my own; I don’t need any whatevers. But actually, I did and was clearly reaching out to them. Um, and then I think I’ve always been, you know, I really got into both programming and design because I was lucky to get a Mac when I was a kid, and Susan Kare's work obviously has always really inspired me. I think as far as design work, um, there was recently a Charles and Ray Eames exhibit at the Oakland Museum—shout out Chair Museum!—and Ray Eames's work is also really inspiring to me, also very at the intersection of science and design. And Ray is a woman! And Ray is a woman, yes! Important facts, important facts! Yeah, we recently heard somebody say yeah, Charles and his brother were like, ‘No!’ [Laughter]”

“Marta, any pioneers or teachers that have inspired you?”

“Yeah, well, all of the women pioneers certainly have inspired me. You know, again, sort of, I hearken back to studying math first and just devouring histories of women mathematicians because it was so rare. And so that was always super inspirational because they existed, which was something. And, uh, yeah, Grace Hopper certainly is inspirational. I think, uh, the things she accomplished and also just a lot of her famous quotes, like you don’t manage people; you manage things; you lead people. A lot of things that have become philosophy, you know, for me, um, as I've grown in leadership roles. So, yeah, there’s a lot of inspiration in the women who have gone before us.”

“Okay, that’s amazing. We're going to come back to your leadership style later, I promise! Good questions. Um, so I think for anyone who’s probably watching on Facebook or Internet land, or watching here in the room, they might look at you and be like, ‘These two people have it all right! They’re super smart, they’re super talented, they’re in a dream job, they’re super gorgeous!’ What could you tell me maybe a time where something like didn’t go your way and like how did you handle that? Or maybe like a struggle that those of us who are still struggling can relate to? Things like that.”

“Yeah, for sure. I think we probably both have a lot of those stories. Um, I guess one that’s appropriate to share today would be, um, I remember the very first time that I was promoted into a management role, a leadership role, a managing-leading people role, as opposed to just an individual contributor. At least three men came up to me and said, ‘Yeah, you got that job because you’re a woman.’ Oh no! Um, which, you know, as we know, you know, if you’re an underrepresented group in anything, how frustrating that is because the truth is just the opposite, right? Um, so yeah, that’s, you know, hearing those kinds of things and then saying these are my colleagues and these are folks that I have to mobilize and motivate and keep working with and stay positive—that’s a challenge. Uh, so, and so what did you do? Were you just like, ‘I’m just gonna show them you know how talented I am and how amazing I am?’ I just got to do the work. Or did you do? What did you do?”

“Um, yeah, you know, fortunately I was able to just say like, ‘Yeah, that’s not true. I got this job because I was the best person for this job.’ And, uh, yeah, just kept moving forward. And right, hater’s gonna hate!”

“Um, yeah. And Mele, what about you? Tell us like a challenge or a struggle that you faced and kind of how you overcame it.”

“Um, yeah, I was thinking about that. Uh, it was funny; I was—I think the way that we had talked a little bit about the question being like, ‘Well, when did you not get your way?’ And I was talking with my partner about this last night, and he said, ‘Are there times when you don’t get your way?’ I was like, ‘Yeah! I think the two things that came to mind for me were actually being turned down for jobs!’ Um, that definitely hurt; it's happened a bunch of times, especially earlier on in my career. Um, I think there's kind of—there’s a couple things that I do. One of them was I know myself well enough by now to know that I always look back with gratitude, so no matter what happens, I know that I will have a positive hindsight and feel like something happened for a reason, whether or not that’s actually true. I mean, I don’t know, but it feels like it happened for a reason because at the end of the day, I usually wind up being grateful for the experiences that I do have. I think another thing has been just laser focusing on where I might need to learn something and just saying like, ‘Okay, well, you know, were there actually reasons behind this? Is there something that I could have done better?’ And making sure as heck that I’ve gone and filled those things. And so in the instances that I have in mind of being turned down after an interview with a team or something, I know that like several years later, the people that had doubted me were coming after me and saying like, ‘Oh, I really need you for this project!’ Yeah! Um, so that was like, ‘Okay, well, I feel like I’ve filled whatever that gap was or maybe there wasn’t a gap in which case it’s on them and they should just regret not hiring me in the first place!’”

“I kind of feel like both of you might be like a little bit sort of humble about your careers and the challenges you face. I don’t think anyone sort of imagined sort of being a woman in tech might be the easiest thing to do, right? There’s certainly a lot of sort of potholes to navigate, we’ll say that! So sort of in your career, how have you sort of navigated those things? Like how do you sort of keep on the path that you want to go on? Like if you’re like, ‘This is my end goal; this is where I want to get to,’ and so I know that a career is never just always upwards. But maybe you gotta take some left turns or some detours—like can you talk about that? Sort of your overall career experience.”

“I feel like it’s all detours all the time, for sure—it’s a meander! My career has been a meander more than a straight path and discovery and learning, and learning something new about myself, learning something new about what I enjoy doing. Um, you know, we had Khan Academy really believes in a learning mindset, and I think that’s what Maylie was talking about. That’s true and whatever we’re trying to learn, right? Whether it’s a subject we’re studying on Khan Academy, whether it’s learning how to be a better leader—some aspect of leadership. And, uh, one thing that I think is interesting—Maylie just wanted to just kind of double down on what a great learner she is; she’s always asking for like, ‘Well, how do you do that? And can you teach me how to do that?’ And one of the things that I think we both do is we learn from each other and from all of our colleagues a lot here, which is what makes this such an amazing environment for me because we just kind of, at that, you know—we’re meta-learning all the time in every way!”

“Yeah, alright. I like that! Yeah, I think, you know, the wonderful thing about Khan Academy, I think, is like you have this really kind of amazing perception of the organization kind of from the outside, um, and then you kind of come in and you’re like, ‘Well, this is really legit!’ Like people are always trying to learn and do better and kind of improve upon themselves, and it’s always kind of really amazing to me sort of the caliber of human beings that we have collected here. Um, and so, Maylie, any other kind of war stories or anything that you’d like to share from your career experience?”

“War stories? Um, yeah! I think that some of what stands out to me is just being in the environment with such disproportion. Um, I had a long time in my career where I was the only woman and the only non-white person in the room. And whenever we had the larger meetings, it was again, was back to almost like during degree time when I was like, it was 60 men and me. Um, and just this feeling of constantly having to prove that I deserve to be there. Um, I think some of the coping mechanisms—just to share one of them—was I think when I was younger, I tried to blend in and I tried to tone down my femininity, and I tried to tone down anything that made me stand out. And at some point in time, I realized, and this is also as a designer, that I should just enjoy that and play it up. And so I would go into executive meetings, like wearing all of the hardware, biggest earrings I could find, tons of rings—I know, you know, and it’s a lot of it was a lot of demos that involved seeing my hands and it was just like, ‘No, you’re going to get used to this; this is the future! And we’re going to just style it up and enjoy ourselves because I’m not trying to shrink myself!’ No, no! So that was one! And then also, just to be super honest about it, I think there are times when just some of the day-to-day difficulties would be too much, and I would go and cry. I had a place where I went and cried. And I think that’s—you know, we can talk about it a little bit more later, but for me, I think it’s very natural to cry, and I think it’s a natural physical, healthy response. Um, and so now if I have to cry, I just tell people, like, ‘Look, water’s going to come out of my face; we’re going to just keep having this conversation; everything is fine!’ This is like a natural physical response; let’s keep talking!’ For the record, we’re not just like all sobbing here at Khan Academy during meetings, so this is part of my answer to the original question. Although it’s fine to cry if you need to! I mean, yeah, sure you can cry.”

“Uh, yeah, I think it’s so important for women especially to sort of understand sort of the amazing benefits of sort of forging your own path and being a pioneer in your own field, wherever that might be, but also there’s like real sort of challenges and struggles that you have to overcome, and many of us aren’t sort of given, um, like a guidebook of how to navigate it—it’s kind of all kind of a case-by-case basis. And it sounds like both of you have kind of overcome a lot of very different things and I think hopefully have come out better on the other side—so that’s very great as well! Um, and so I guess, uh, from that perspective, what advice would you give to someone who’s coming up in the field now, who is interested in a career in tech, or interested in being an engineer, interested in being an amazing designer? Like how, what advice would you give them today?”

“Yeah, that’s a great question! I’m often asked, of course! Um, you know, what I always answer—sort of two things, two pieces of advice that I share. Um, one is—it’s a cliché, but it’s true—you have to be passionate about what you’re doing. If you really love what you’re doing, if you’re passionate about what you’re doing, it shows in your work, you know, it leads to success, and, you know, just believing in that and the fact that I’m passionate about it, I will get good at this even if I’m not good yet! And just sort of keep going to Maylie’s point of learning all the time. Um, so I think that’s important. Uh, and the second, the second point I make is actually related kind of to the first point: I think for me, I learned you have to be yourself, and you alluded to this a little bit just now kind of with style, and it’s true; you have a style and you can’t become someone else. And I think respecting your style—I can’t tell you how many mentors or folks have told me to add a little gravitas to my style. And, uh, I mean, you know, just more, you know—Haley’s going to do an enactment for us, I believe, at the end of this!”

“So stay tuned! Stay tuned, we’ll punt on that for now. She’s going to give us one. I haven’t been told—I was told in my last job, like, ‘You need to be meaner!’ Like, yeah, that was advice given to me, like, ‘You need—yeah.’ Maybe not meaner, but just maybe more serious, and—and I was told point-blank right now, ‘Yeah, just kind of—yeah!’ So you have to be yourself; big! Because otherwise, if you’re not your authentic self, I mean, you’re not happy, and bottom line is if you’re not happy like you’re not doing anybody any good!”

“Exactly, exactly! Yeah, I think there’s this thing that I’ve been telling a lot of people that I get this question lately, um, and it’s about confidence because I think a lot of people tell me I can’t do this because I don’t have the confidence. There’s a lot of people really struggling with confidence and really struggling with what’s called imposter syndrome. Um, so I have mixed responses and the imposter syndrome thing for me really centers you as the person having the issue, like you are the one with imposter syndrome, but it may be that you’re walking through this world constantly being given cues from the outside world that you’re not good enough somehow, and yet somehow we like center that right on you! So that’s—that’s like the reservation I have about the term. Ah, sure! Um, because I think that it’s not just about you; it’s also about what’s around you, um, so there’s a—there’s a dance there. The confidence thing—the advice I give people is, um, if you are a person who loves learning and loves doing new things, you’re always going to be pushing yourself to be at that learning edge, which means that it’s pretty likely you’re going to be doing something new that you’ve not done before, and so it’s natural to not necessarily have all the confidence in the world because that might actually be false confidence because you are doing something for the first time, and that’s great. Um, and so I tell people don’t worry about the confidence as a prerequisite; it's not a prerequisite! You just need to be able to focus on problem-solving so hard that you’re not distracted by your lack of confidence. It can just stay there. You just, you know, take it to tea; have a little conversation with it, but you know, just be like, ‘You sit right there; we’re gonna get to work solving this problem and you’re not gonna stop me!’”

“That's really good advice, that’s awesome! Uh, kind of follow-up question to that is when do you both feel powerful or how is it that you do feel powerful? And kind of in those moments that you might be insecure or you may not be sure how to do things, how do you guys feel powerful?”

“Well, I believe that we take our power in just being ourselves, right? And recognizing thoughts of um doubt as just thoughts. So, um, I, you know, I, I believe in um, sort of many Buddhist concepts in that area and just sort of being present in the moment of what’s actually happening and realizing that a lot of the framing, which is where the doubts or the confidence comes in—they’re just all thoughts! They’re just, you know, neural transmissions! They’re just thoughts and they can be different thoughts at any moment. And there’s only what’s really there and what’s happening in the moment. And, and I think it’s kind of the same thing Mele was saying, but it’s true, right? I’m here, I’m focused, I’m doing something, I’m learning, and, um, yeah, the rest of it is a framing and I could change that framing at any moment. I can say, ‘I’m really great at this; I’m killing it!’ or I could doubt myself and say, ‘Oh, I’m really screwing this up!’ Right? The first one’s better, really!”

“Yeah, I feel like it’s a bit of a pattern. There’s a book I really like called Art and Fear, and what it talks about is that as an artist—or, you know, anybody that’s pushing yourself on your edge, your bar, your standard for yourself has continued to rise because you learn more. And so you never meet your own standard because your standard moves up as your skill moves up. And so all I've done is basically like, I have these—I talk myself out of anything that might be paralyzing. I’d be like, ‘Okay, well, have you done something you don’t know how to do before?’ Yes. ‘Did it happen? Did it come out okay?’ Yes, it came out okay! Just take a deep breath, count to three, do it anyway!”

“That's also pretty solid advice! Yeah, I love that! So, so we have some really great philosophies, some Buddhist teachings. My power move is listening to a Cardi B track! So, you know, yeah! Different strokes for different folks—whatever works for you! I love that—musical as hell! Um, and I guess kind of looking back at your career and sort of where you've come from, do you think things have changed? And if so, how might they have changed or if not, how have they not changed?”

“Yeah, I feel like—I feel like things have changed a lot! A lot of the conversations that are happening now openly were happening behind closed doors for years. And I remember it’s definitely only in this decade that it feels like they’ve come out. Um, before that, it was see if there’s anybody around you can talk to first of all, which is often not the case. And if there was, hopping into an office, closing the door, and being like, ‘Did you see that? Is it just me?’ And now it doesn’t feel like that anymore. Now it feels like it’s part of the conversation in the greater world, not just behind closed doors.”

“Yeah, I mean, I agree for sure; things have changed. Um, I guess I have a little bit more sobering perspective and I don’t think they’ve changed as much as we’d like for them to have changed or we’d like to think they have. Um, and I think there are pockets of places where it’s wonderful, like where you know we’re here together, and we think we’re—we hope we’re helping to create an environment that’s—that’s a good one and a strong one for that kind of discourse. All the time, I—I don’t know if things have moved; I mean, there’s definitely more conversation, but I think, you know, the powers that be dig in as well, and, uh, so we have a lot more to do, right?”

“That’s true! How, um, perhaps maybe when you started your career, how would you think that it would have changed? Perhaps, you know, what were you thinking like ‘Oh, in 10 years this won’t be a problem because blah blah blah?’ What kind of was that—that you know are being a little bit surprised still that you have to kind of hit your head against?”

“Yeah! Do you want to? Yeah, I feel like I would have—you know when I look at the just the statistics of where we wound up with representation across the industry and in academia, I feel like I would have expected that those needles to move further by now, but I mean, I think we’ve seen the statistics of women in computer science was like at 35% or something in the 80s and it slid to 12% sometime in the last couple of years. So that's just one example; there's many other examples of where representation in Silicon Valley and in our disciplines is just not representative of our population.”

“Very true, good point! Yeah, yeah, I think similarly, I, I think I would have thought 20 years ago that we would have, um, larger representation or equal representation in all kinds of ways in an engineering organization, uh, for example. So I think the pace has been slower than maybe we thought say 20 years ago when we saw things changing a little bit. So yeah, I come back to there’s still a lot of work to do, so none of us should be complacent about that.”

“That’s true, you’ve got it! Yeah! Still more work to do! But I think we’re all kind of hopeful of where things are going, I think. Uh, so definitely the industry is having a lot of good conversations and I think more people are trying to hold them accountable to sort of be more representative of the society in which it serves, so I think that’s great! Um, and, uh, Marta, you spoke about having earlier about sort of when you became a manager and sort of how hard that was kind of for first for people who were maybe a little bit reluctant. And I can imagine for both of you that you didn’t really have many sort of female managers or leaders as you were kind of coming up in this industry! How is it that you developed your own leadership style or management style when you perhaps you didn’t have sort of those kind of role models to go to?”

“Yeah, you know, that’s a great question and definitely emphasis on the word how did you develop it because it’s still a work in progress! Still work in progress! Still a work in progress! So we’re developing all the time; I hope! Uh, but you're right; I mean it’s not like you could see a cookie cutter cardboard cutout and say, ‘Yeah, I want to be like so and so’ because you know so and so didn’t resemble me in any way. So yeah, becoming a leader is hard. Uh, stepping into roles of leading people is incredibly hard; it looks so much easier than than it is. I mean that’s one of those things that I think everybody who’s become a first-time manager, first-time leader thinks, like, ‘Oh, you know, I’m gonna have that people part down because I’m a people person and I love people!’ It’s you know, it’s everything else that’ll be a struggle. And I think we all find out, ‘Oh boy, no, is that not the case?’ Actually helping my folks grow and get—leading and leading from the front, and, uh, you know, eventually you learn that it’s like you’re at the front for all the hard stuff and you’re at the back for all the easy stuff, and, and, uh, yeah, but it’s a work in progress for sure! And, um, seeking out other women from all kinds of functions for me in the working world has been super helpful when there weren’t role models in engineering, for example.”

“Yeah, I think that’s a good strategy! Do you have like a managing chip that you would give someone or like something that you’ve learned? You’re like, ‘Oh, this is it! This is a key to unlocking management style!’ Are you looking for one of my mantras? Always looking for one of your mantras! One of my mantras is no surprises. That’s what I try to teach everyone is we can deal with anything; we can fix anything; we can adjust to anything and will succeed—just please tell me as soon as you know about that! No surprises!”

“Alright, excellent! I, I think one of the things for me—and this is something I noticed when I had a, you know, former director who was surprised when she realized that, um, that was—that she needed to adjust things so that people didn’t have to fight as hard as she did. And I think that’s one of the things that that it takes an extra step to realize! Like just because I’m here doesn’t mean that everybody else should go through what I had to go through to get here, so what is it that I need to change? Um, and just like putting that extra layer of thought on top of things all the time and double checking everything to say, ‘Okay, am I expecting this because this is status quo, or is this something that really should shift?’ So that’s just like an extra layer on top of everything. Um, yeah, it takes two layers of thought.”

“Yeah, it does! It takes like two layers of thought! Yeah! It’s like, okay, here’s the thing; now let me do the double check on it! Yeah, that sounds great. Um, I think kind of one of the things that you just said, Mele, was about kind of making sure people’s voices are represented. And I guess because you two are kind of in senior leadership roles, you often are in meetings or in rooms where many other employees may not be. How is it that you, um, are kind of thinking of those who aren’t in their room when you kind of are in these big meetings? Like how do you make sure you’re kind of bringing along voices who may not usually be heard?”

“Yeah, I mean that’s a great question! Well, you know what we all need to be aware of? What I remind myself to be aware of all the time is we have constituents, so to speak, right? So if I’m in a meeting, I’m not representing myself like 99.9% of the time, right? And so I'm representing others! So, um, yeah, I think that that’s an important sort of general consciousness to take into things, so that when we discuss things about our company, for example, in our senior leadership team meeting, you know, the lens for us always is, you know, we’re representing our function here, so what do my folks feel about this, right? What would work best for my folks? Um, what have I heard? It’s a lot about listening! It’s a lot about listening, which kind of gets back to the voices not being heard. There’s so much you can pick up and just watching body language and watching people. And you can tell when somebody has something to say—I mean, a classic thing that we can do to help with that is to say, ‘Oh, it looks like maybe you have something to say!’ I mean—and you have to find out ahead of time who’s comfortable with that and who isn’t but there are plenty of people who are comfortable with that; they just need that extra little push to be asked to join the conversation!”

“Yeah, I really—that last thing is really important, I think, because it starts so early. Um, I’ve watched this in classrooms too! Who feels like they can speak up and who doesn’t feel like they can speak up? And so it isn’t enough to just say like the door’s open, like you also have to invite people in and being mindful of all of that! Being super mindful of my own reactions—not necessarily expecting somebody to have a perfectly formulated thought coming in. I’ve definitely told people like look, I, it’s okay if you don’t have this thoughtfully formulated; I just—I just want to learn so that I can fix anything that needs fixing, and I can’t do that if I don’t have the data! And the way that I don’t get data is if I make myself unapproachable, or if there aren’t other, or whether it’s me or there aren’t other routes for that information to get to me! So, you know, sometimes I tell people like look, it’s okay if you don’t have, you know, it’s okay if you don’t have this thoughtfully formulated; I just, just tell me what you can, and I’m gonna help you tease it apart!”

“Okay, that sounds really great too! Yeah! Um, and then I guess, uh, I’m trying to try to figure out the best way to formulate this question. When, um, I always feel like when kind of women are in lead or there are women around, kind of, uh, it is part of a more inclusive, uh, it is a more thoughtful sort of work environment, right? What is the opposite of that, right? When, uh, what are the things you notice when there are not women in the room?”

“Well, we don’t talk about our cute skirts sometimes! I was all like, ‘What did she use for the lipstick?’ Um, no, I’m kidding! Do you want to go first? Do you have a thought?”

“Yeah, that looks like—I was, I was kind of—there are two stories! Like one of them, I remember after being the only woman in a room for so long in one of my work environments, another woman joined, and she just up-messaged me quietly; she said, ‘Do you have a safety pin?’ And I just remember feeling overjoyed that we could talk about a safety pin, right? All of a sudden, it was just this relief, like ‘Oh, you use those too!’ Yeah, yeah! Like the men in the room are like, safety pin?! But you literally have no idea how like gold those things are! Those are money! You have to find a safety pin when you need one because your blouse just won’t button for some reason and you’re like, ‘Oh, you’re weird!’”

“I think the other thing I’ve noticed a lot is that there’s a lack of physical gesturings of dominance, and that is something that, um, especially if you’re new to like the office workforce, uh, I’ll just give you some examples to save no time. Say Marta and I were in a disagreement, I might like tip my chin up higher and kind of look down my nose at her; that’s like one way of exerting physical dominance; or I might get a pointy object and do this type of thing. Now everybody in the meeting is like paying more attention to me because I'm waving this object! Or I might get up and just kind of like make myself as big as possible, put my hands on my hips, rock back and forth, or like, you know, like awkwardly stand behind her like this while she’s talking, just like, ‘Why are you still not supporting me, dude?’ Yeah, but this kind of stuff—like every—I sometimes I’ll like leave the, you know, the confines and like see people doing that in some other place, and I’m like, ‘What are you doing?’ Like getting up or sitting on the table to make sure their head is higher! By contrast, you know, like our—I still remember the one like when our manager Jenny started, we were in a meeting with her and she sat on the floor. She was the only person sitting on the floor! She sat on the floor and made herself as small as possible in this meeting of managers! And I was like, ‘Wow! What a contrast!’ because I was used to a lot of the punctuating every point I have to say without, you know, like this kind of stuff. And it was funny because it worked on people! So every once in a while, I felt like I had to do it, but you know, I don’t feel like that here, right?”

“Yeah, yeah—for sure! Yeah, we don’t do that here; we definitely don’t! Not by anyone, but um, yeah, I’ve been on a more subtle fashion. There are things I think, um, with women in the room, there tends to be more of the asking others for their thoughts, I think just—I do feel naturally there’s often a little more inclusion just in the room, um, and, uh, so I think that that’s kind of a characteristic that that is true in a room that’s got a a large kind of fraction of women in it.”

“That’s right! A large fraction of women! Um, let’s see, uh, [Music] actually speaking sort of towards the men of Khan Academy and they’re like all tense up—I just saw it! I just felt it! I just felt you all like, ‘What?! What is she going to say?!’ No, all good things! Um, do you feel sort of—I feel like so much of change is kind of driven in workplaces by women, right? And kind of led by women. Do you feel like it’s on women’s shoulders alone to kind of change work environments? How is it that we sort of work with kind of the men in our lives to kind of make things more equitable?”

“Yeah, that’s a great question! And of course, it’s all of our responsibility, right, to make an environment that is inclusive of everyone! And there are so many things that men can do being in the position that they are! I, you know, I admire Andy Murray, in the tennis world, for example because he did—he’s done so much for women in tennis! He broke away the first kind of of the male to say like, ‘Why are the women making so much less money than the men are? They’re working just as hard!’ Right? They’re playing out here in the same tournaments! Um, he hired a woman coach first; you know, male kind of major winner. Uh, so those kinds of things make a big difference! You know, sometimes I think folks don’t realize maybe—maybe the message that I would send to all men is, you know, do it if you can because you believe in it! You know, show it because it makes a difference! I’d say that the other side is also true—there’s a real benefit both to to everybody across the gender spectrum when we’re operating in this way that’s more inclusive! I mean, I’ve seen a sigh of relief from men and my team join and realize that we’re not doing this dominance game and just telling me like, ‘Oh! This is just such a breath of fresh air because I’ve been in all these environments where you spend all this time doing that stuff instead of just talking about the content!’ And so everybody benefits! I think that’s kind of the curb cut principle of design. It’s like, you know, making it better for groups that are less served makes it better ultimately for everybody!”

“Yeah, I think that’s very true, right? I think everyone just kind of wants to be, uh, kind of seen and reflected in their work and feel that they can contribute in meaningful ways, and I think that the fewer barriers that we can do to do that, I think everyone benefits; the work is better, the people are happy—you’re able to retain your employees because everyone just really feels kind of all part of a bigger thing, which I think is great! Um, so now I’m going to, uh, open it up for questions of anyone in the audience or let me just scroll down to this thing right here [Laughter] let me double check. Okay, sorry! Um, we have a question here which is, um, ‘I gave priority to my family in my 20s: marriage, kids, international relocations, and my career development took a back seat. I worked throughout but didn’t really progress upward; it was more outward in different fields and roles. I love what I do now, and I’m finally enjoying my work even though the path was wayward! However, I want to progress upward now. Any advice?’ And this is a question from Facebook.”

“It’s interesting because we both talked about her how meandering—not focusing on upwards so much; just sort of meandering through the outward. Um, yeah, I think sort of to that question, I think people feel a lot of pressure to sort of do A plus B equals C, and that’s how I am—that’s how I feel successful—and that’s how I build a good sort of life! And I think part of it is letting people know that it’s okay that it doesn’t look like A plus B plus C, that it can look like yeah, all kinds of things! Because the way that I see it is um, the way I see it, and I’ve always seen it, is that you have to decide for yourself what you revere, like what you look up to, and that doesn’t have to be what is dictated by status quo! Either some of the people that you most admire might be somebody who aren’t in some sort of position of leadership; they might be somebody who’s doing something else that you find amazing, and that’s totally cool and awesome! So I just feel like if this person is interested in getting into management than to treat that as a skill, because it’s a different skill! And obviously managing a particular area is great, it’s better if you have craft in that area, but it is a different thing to learn altogether! It’s a totally different skill set, right? And so treating it that way and being interested in that I think helps a lot, recognizing that it’s a totally different thing to learn.”

“Yeah, and I don’t think of it as up! I think of it as just it’s another thing; there’s like many paths and that’s one path! Yeah, yeah! But, but to get back to it, I think I don’t want to sort of pooh-pooh the fact that someone wants to grow upward! So just kind of because I know we both kind of think of it in a similar way; that’s a little bit different! But I think, sure, you have a goal and you want to grow, you know, kind of upward in more senior roles or titles, let’s say. Um, I think some ideas are you find mentors, right? Sign somebody up who’s going to say, ‘I’ll be working with you all the time and if that’s your goal, I’m going to help you!’ And they will then take it apart for you, help you take it apart, ‘Here are skills, right, that I’ve observed when you’re telling me these are the things you know we could work on.’ So there is a way to get there! I don’t want to make light of ambition for anybody because if that’s—that’s yours and, and, uh, you know, going forward! So I would say getting help from others is probably a great tool! I think the other thing that comes to mind is also like, um, putting yourself in the shoes—the empathetic shoes of, um, the person who would hire you or the person who would ask you to do this work and get an idea of like what problems are you solving. Like what, what is it that they’re looking for? So if you have an idea that you’re like, ‘Okay, well, I’m at this organization; there’s this spot open; here’s the big problems that I see right now,’ and I would imagine they need me to jump in and do X, Y, and Z. Just try and get that vantage point! Because then you can start building up the skill in a really empathic way that plugs into like your mentors or whoever it is, and you can say like, ‘Look, I know that you’re probably facing these challenges; is that correct?’”

“Right, exactly! Okay, cool! So here are the things that I feel like are additive instead of it being sort of from you outward; it’s kind of like a design problem, yeah? It’s like, ‘Okay, what does this person explicit about saying?’ Things like, ‘Okay, look, if this is a total trade-off and there isn’t a right answer, I’m going to just say that! I’m not going to just pretend that there’s always a direction that I see because I magically see all directions of everything!’ Um, and then I just speak to that meta and say like, ‘I know that’s a style; that’s not my style!’ And so I think from all sides there’s kind of an image of what leadership looks like, whether you’re the person who’s accepting somebody as your leader or if you’re somebody who’s promoting somebody into a position of leadership and, um, and I think it can be hard sometimes for people to look past that and see different kinds of cues for different styles of leaders!”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah! Like I said, I would love to ask the person asking the question kind of whether they meant external forces, like what do we think is going on right in the world today, if that barriers, those kinds of barriers, or whether we’re talking about, you know, barriers that we’re in control of, let’s say ourselves! So, I mean externally, there are barriers because there are, like if we say tech, for example, you know, or tech—they’re just still plus women, right? Um, so that’s—that’s a barrier! Um, right there! Um, I’d say that there is still an overall perception in the industry that you know, leaders naturally are not women, um, so we have that work to do as I mentioned earlier. Um, so yeah, I would say there’s still some challenges out there.”

“I think—I don’t know if I could pick one out and say, ‘That’s a barrier!’ I recognize, and I think it's also like there’s an importance to being systematic about what criteria actually is, yeah? Instead of just going off of like a feeling—like, ‘I don’t really feel like this person is, you know…’ It’s like, ‘Okay, like what are the things that need to be accomplished and are they happening or not?’ I think that would help go a long way because I do hear stories of people saying like, ‘Oh, we were hiring, or we were considering somebody for promotion and not having those things be clearly spelled out!’ Right? Exactly! Have clear criteria that can apply to anyone! Yeah, that makes sense!”

“Um, another online question: ‘Among women who join the tech industry, 60% leave by mid-career, which is nearly double the attrition rate for men, hence a smaller percentage of women advance to leadership roles. What do you think are possible causes and fixes for this situation?’”

“Yeah, well, that’s a great question; it’s a very sad statistic! Um, and I think there is still hostility in the workplace towards women! I mean, that’s sort of true! So I think that that is probably the biggest contributing factor! I think, uh, seeking finding an environment like the one with the—we feel we have here, um, super important, right? Because find a place you can thrive in, uh, and if—and again, if you’re passionate about doing the work, then just look for changing the environment, so it’s one that you can thrive in and, and that’s sort of the key—the key there! But yeah, I think that’s a sad statistic, and I think that, um, there’s a lot more that we can do to make sure that we’re all always aware of inclusion, not just for women, for everybody, but just all the time kind of listening and reading those signals and making sure that folks aren’t dropping out of this industry because it needs everybody, right?”

“Yeah, yeah! I was thinking about that! I feel like there’s also, um, there’s sort of—there’s still a disproportionate amount of expectation of being like a superwoman in your own life, right? Yeah, yeah! That feels like that’s still a thing too! There’s like layers of the onion skin on this one, it feels like there’s internal, external, like meta, society level! Right? Yeah, yeah! Yeah, women are amazing but we’re still only human sometimes, and, uh, it’s okay sometimes to be mediocre!”

“So, um, okay, those are great questions! I don’t think we have any other—oh, we do! We have a question in the audience! Um, yeah, go ahead, and I’ll repeat it!”

“Okay! So, I want to follow up to the advice about finding a mentor because it can be very difficult to find women that are above you in an industry. Do you have advice on how to find people who could be mentors and then also how do you actually approach them around being a mentor?”

“Yeah, so just to repeat the question for the live stream, uh, there was like ‘How, what advice do you have for kind of finding a mentor and kind of what steps would you do and kind of trying to target the right person for that? That captured?”

“Yeah, cool! Yeah, that’s a great question! I almost followed up when we were talking about it earlier that I didn’t want to sound glib about you know when I said find a mentor because the hard part is doing it, right? The advice is easy to give! So the one thing that I wanted to say then that I thought about that is ask women that you come across anywhere if you feel like they have things that they can teach you! Ask them to be your mentor! I can say that in my career I have never said no to somebody who’s asked me to mentor them! I may have had limited bandwidth at times and said like, ‘Well, this year, you know maybe I can spend a little time with you; you know next year there will be more!’ But I’ve never said no! I don’t think I’m an anomaly! I think that, you know, it’s recognizing the—I think the hard part may be finding a good fit because you need to find someone who you’re going to resonate with! You know what they’re telling you—not just somebody who’s going to give you, you know, their guidebook! Like we said, everybody’s style is different! And, and so on! But I think, you know, you’re out and about, going to talks, going to meetups. When you hear someone who is saying things that you think resonate with you, do not hesitate to go up and ask them if they’ll consider a mentorship opportunity because usually, they’ll say yes! And if—what’s the worst that can happen? If they don’t say no!”

“I think the other thing is like, per you said, the limited bandwidth. Yeah, the other thing that really helps is if you’ve—you figure out like, um, how to make it the best use of their time in a small amount of time! So if you’ve done a little bit of work up front, you know what they’re about, um, what kinds of things interest them, then you can already sort of resonate and chat about those things! And then, um, it kind of goes back to the empathetic thing! Also kind of get an idea of like what are—what are how is this a mutual beneficial relationship? That definitely helps too! I think a lot of what we stand to learn from mentees or what kinds of things are you struggling with as you’re starting out new or coming up through different levels and like we don’t want to lose touch with what those experiences are like because then we can't effectively create systems to help support people, right? Um, but we need to be able to have those conversations in a way that don’t feel like, ‘Cool, so what do you want to talk about now?’ Right? Because I’m like, ‘How do we make this easy to facilitate and plug in?’”

“Yeah! I’m curious to know sort of both of you in your sort of senior roles, do you still have mentors today? You have people who you talk to as kind of your either like advice board or whatever advi—”

“I don’t have a mentor, I would say a one mentor. I learned a lot from all of the women leaders who are here at Khan Academy, so I want to say all the time our senior leadership team has a lot of women leaders on it and I learn a lot from them all the time! Um, our CEO, Jenny, a woman leader from whom I’ve learned a lot, so I’d say more it transitions to having a network of women that you depend on. So it’s not like one network but one mentor, but I think eventually, hopefully, you’ll develop—you’ll keep the relationships with your mentors and you’ll develop a whole network! And now I have more like wise women, a network of wise women to whom I can reach out to, you know, about any particular question that happens to be one that they may be particularly experienced with!”

“I feel like I definitely have! Yeah, I definitely feel like I have mentors, um, whether official relationship or not, uh, both men and women, um, that I’ll reach out to just via text message or calls every so often! And, um, I think I—like you said earlier, that’s a good thing to call out too is that some of, uh, some of my male mentors and allies and friends have been some of the strongest support that I’ve had! And so it’s also good to not forget that that support can come from anybody sometimes in the most unlikely form, right?”

“Yeah, that’s—that’s a great call out too! I’d say more of my mentors have been men right than probably for obvious reasons given the field I’m in, but, um, yeah, so mentor can be anyone! Maybe anyone! Alright, alright! I think that is the end of our chat! I want to thank everyone here in the Khan Academy office for watching! Thank you so much! Let’s give a round of applause for Marta! Thank you! For everyone watching on Facebook and online, uh, that’s the show! Good night! Bye!”