Gentlemen. Welcome to barnes and noble tribeca appeared to not have the pleasure of introducing Heather Cabot and Sam Walravens as they join us to discuss their new book, geek girl rising inside the sisterhood shaping up tech. Heather cabot is a former abc news correspondent. Investor, adjunct professor and a woman at forbes contributed. Sam walravens is an editor, recognize speaker on women, contributed to women at the Huffington Post and disney interactive. Please join me in welcoming Heather Cabot and Sam Walravens. You so much thank you [applause] we really appreciate coming out on a rating i like this. This is a super exciting moment for us because first of all we are in the same city. Which we really are because i live in new york and pam lives in San Francisco. This really is the evening before geek girl rising inside the sisterhood shaping up tech comes out. It is really a special moment for us and to kick things off, to give you a taste of what the book is about, will shave a little trailer. Lets roll the video. [video] i think women now understand we are not going to get ahead unless we help each other to get ahead. I have a fema manager and she advocates for me and pushes may be on my leadership role. Having a new tech path gives women the opportunity to work from home, travel and everything they want. Their mothers but also have a job. I dont think google or any tech company should be the gatekeeper of who gets to take advantage of the amazing opportunities of technology. Does exist because there enough we need more women sharks. I have been in groups of all men and they do not necessarily get my product. When i have groups of all women they automatically see it. They see the value in it and they see the passion that i have for it. And immediately, there offspring how can i help . [music] [music] [music] that taste of geek girl rising inside the sisterhood shaping up tech. A combination of more than five years of reporting and research and more than 250 interviews. I do not know if you want to chime in a little bit about the genesis about the project and how we met. I call myself the first generation Silicon Valley growth. I worked in Silicon Valley 1995, really before or at the beginning of the when people start using the internet for consumer use. It was when netscape was on, Microsoft Windows came out, before that, it was primarily used for academia now it is being used by regular people. So i worked at a magazine as reported for a few years and then i went to work for Silicon Valley software startup. We went public and it, i saw the rise in the fall of the. Com industry. 1999 we went public. The stock shot up to 120 within six months. It was dented to. So we were really rich and then we were all really poor. But it was fun i made some really lasting and wonderful friendships during that time. And for me the inspiration was in 2013 actually. I was having lunch with a girlfriend. Who is been in Silicon Valley, a. Com survivor. She says ive been working in the valley now over 15 years and i decide performance review. She was head of sales by Software Company. Just had a review invite manager tom even though my sales team had hit numbers out of the ballpark he said to me, ive been told by some people in the New York Group and accompany that you are a little too aggressive. And youre even abrasive. Do you mind turning it down a little bit . And by the way, your lipstick is too bright and you are too much jewelry. That is literally what he said to her. And she was horrified. Needless to say she did not state the company very long. But she said sam, it is unbelievable what women are facing in Silicon Valley today. Some are sexism, such unconscious bias. And you need to write about it. And i said before i write about i want to interview a couple more people and see whats going on. So i started reaching out to other women that worked intact. Heather was working for yahoo at the time. I said tell me your story. I want to hear about your experience. Have you really face this kind of bias and discrimination, is it really that bad . Ive been out of the industry for a little while. And she said to me i have been researching this in new york and she said i have been researching a similar topic for yahoo. And she can take her story but i have like Amazing Stories from all of these female founders and it is great. I started talking to female founders and starting at the stories as well. And i said you know we do basic sexism and its in every industry women are facing this. But anything about the technology i am developing. Many say about the company that i am building. Let me tell you about all the positive things. There are a lot more positives than negatives when it comes to women starting companies and working intact. That is the story we decided to tell. Heather was a contributor to my first book which looks at women and worklife balance. And so we came together in 2013 and heather can tell her story. I had been in abc news correspondent and longtime reporter and i had the wonderful opportunity to go to work for yahoo in 2007. Really at the dawn of the iphone and the app store. My job there was to cover digital lifestyles. Essentially to look at how the internet was changing the daytoday lives. And put together stories that i would then present on the today show and Good Morning America and all different kinds of outlets. I was the on air consumer spokesperson. It was really eyeopening because i kept meeting women that were starting companies. And i thought, these women are really bad ass why is nobody telling the story . Im featuring them in the segments and featuring the product but its interesting that they were successful and they were fearless and i knew that because i had worked on a documentary right out of grad school back in the 90s, i knew that it was a problem. And so i thought this was really interesting. Theres a landscape of women were really doing well for themselves in spite of the sexism and in spite of the fact that it is a male dominated industry. I wonder what you know what is it about them that has made them successful there that has enabled them to persist two and what can we learn from them for our daughters . Sam and i both had daughters. I had 11 real twins a girl and a boy. Sam has kids and some daughters. And what is it about these childhoods from all the experiences that gave that resilience to keep going . And so, during the time that i was with yahoo i started curating interviews with these women. And then when sam said she was interested in doing the same kind of mining the same subculture, we realize that we could cover so much more ground if we are working on two coasts. Both were able to do which was so cool at the time that there were so many tech hubs that were starting to bubble up that it really allows us to go out there and spread ourselves as far and wide as possible to be able to track these women and get out of the coast. And get into the middle of the country to find some of the stories. Answer the book to give you you know you saw the trailer. What we really try to do is personal, we are writing for what i like to public Good Morning America audience. We are writing for a mainstream audience to take them inside the subculture of women in tech. And it takes people, takes the artist to the front line with women are working at the Grassroots Level to close the gap. We survey the landscape. Profile activists. Profile entrepreneurs, we profile investors. We profile women and companies are trying to reinvent the culture of work. We take you to College Campuses and then we take inside classrooms and also inside the world of the toy industry. Also trying to solve the problem. So really try to again, preventive mainstream audience that may not really, maybe they love tech in their iphone but they dont necessarily know a lot about the industry or understand the challenges that women and people from diverse backgrounds face. We try to explain that for them and hopefully get them interested. And being part of this digital revolution. I would like to take a few minutes to talk a little bit about confidence and maybe a little bit about the book from the confidence chapter. One of the Things Holding me back in the tech sector and in Many Industries is the fear of failure. Has anyone here heard of the imposter syndrome . Anyone ever experience it . Each and every day . What am i doing up here . The imposter syndrome is that nagging feeling like i am not good enough. I am not smart enough. Everyone in the room with me is smarter what am i doing here . Even Sheryl Sandberg says she feels it to this day after all of her accomplishments. Right . So i want to review, this is from the confidence chapter. The woman i will reach you about her name is donna. She is currently a an engineer, lead engineer at microsoft. She talks about bearing failure. But not just fearing failure but actually failing. She felt the first Computer Science class in college at the university of michigan. And went on to become an Software Engineer at microsoft. If i may, i will read from the chapter. Also give you a taste of what the book, the flavor of the book. This is called agreement, do it, own it. Confidence coaches. Donna was wearing leopard and phoniness. It was midnight in downtown seattle and the renaissance woman was in parliament. She was testing the words first check for 48 hour brainstorming session to try making the first app for microsoft augmented reality device, a futuristic hazard enables 3d images called holograms to go from computer screens into real life or they can be manipulated with the swipe of a finger. At 36 yield up donna is a hardware gate. As well as a Fashion Designer and a novelist. She is leaving the Outreach Program confirming her status as a rising star in microsoft. It is hard to believe that she felt her first Computer Science class. But she did. In her story of resilience is one that she does often as she travels the country inspiring young woman to try to go into engineering studies and hang onto jobs in the male dominated world of tech. And as a developer for the windows operating systems like to think of tech is that visible fairy godmother that makes things happen. As of june 2016, to his oversee Microsoft Windows program with millions of users giving feedback about versions of updates. My biggest successes being a senior woman in one of the Biggest Software companies in the world. Microsoft is a legendary Software Company and being a principal level woman here, really has a huge achievement. When i was growing up in detroit if someone told me donna youll make a really good salary working at microsoft as a senior person i would have historically laughed. That is because they didnt know anyone like the woman like she will become. She grew up in downtown detroit with her parent immigrants walked in the auto industry. Ran a small dress shop. Im sorry her grandmother ran a small dress shop. The computer lab at the high school consisted of ancient pcs and it put the teenage boys that left the room she approached him about joining the Computer Club. She was fascinated by computers ever since she first laid eyes on the old mcintosh in her fifthgrade classroom. Her father heard about all the news in the Tech Industry and encourage it to compete as a checkable programmer. He thought his new industry was not as and that his daughter might have a better shot at life. He scraped the money to sign her up for a coding class at a Community College less you still in high school. But it was not enough to prepare for Computer Science 100. The intro programming class at the university of michigan. Which granted seven complex concepts into one semester. She felt like her male classmates, most of them she later realized had taken ap Computer Science in high school. Something that her school did not offer. Speaking a Foreign Language as they had assignments. And then they would say i cannot believe how easy this step is one of them, why am i even doing this . Who doesnt do this . And i am sitting there like i dont i do not know it at all. I dont even know what this means. And the teacher will Start Talking and the guys would say we already knew this, move on. And then donna felt the course because she was too embarrassed to ask questions but she did not want anyone to think she was an airhead and muddle through on her own. Immediately afterwards she thought about dropping the Computer Science major altogether. Then she started thinking about how she learned to ride her bike and how she would skin her knees. And she would cry a lot and vowed i will never do this again. Only to get back in the saddle two days later. She took the Computer Science class again in this country this time she got a b. She said i just needed to be exposed to this twice. Sounds like they got it the first time. The message she wants to send to them as you cannot give up on your goals because it did not work out the first time. That is like saying, i ran in a race intending to end and i came in second so i will quit running. It is funny the concept is so weird to me. What are people talking about they met a lot of people want guaranteed success. I believe he can get 75 percent of the way and it is far Better Success than zero percent of the way. [applause] love her i know. She is amazing thank you for reading the passage. I think it is really important to point out, people have asked us, why did you choose certain people to be in the book . One of the things that we have said as we have been interviewed recently is the fact that there are really countless numbers of stories. I mean there are so many women we could have put in the book and one of the reasons why we launched the digital platform is to try and highlight these stories. Because there is a visibility gap in tech. The reason we chose donna is because not only does she have this super compelling story about failure and then getting up and becoming incredibly successful. But she is also a Fashion Designer. She is also a writer. She is a maker. She is really kind of the opposite of the stereotype that you would think of who works in technology. And i love that i think we both love that about her. She just, she really kind of questions that stereotype. It was really important to us as we were meeting all of these different women from all different backgrounds and all over the country. To see how creative and collaborative not only their jobs are but how they are in their lives. And a big goal for us was to try and choose people that we felt others in our audience would hopefully feel a connection to in some way. And also to dispel again, in light of the misconceptions about what it means to work in tech. Often times people assume it is lonely. That is called, it is not collaborative. You know these are some of the things that you hear something from young girls we ask them about it. But what we found was that so many of these women that we met is that it was the complete opposite. They were super creative. They were artsy. They care about fashion. They have families you know, they have these incredibly multifaceted lives. And their jobs are very collaborative so that was a really big point for us in terms of the message we wanted to get out. And hopes of maybe Inspiring Women who maybe think twice about going into these types of careers. To see the breadth and depth of the type of people that work in these jobs. And how interesting they are. Has anyone here ever seen the hbo show, Silicon Valley . It is pretty hilarious. But it is very stereotype. There is a packer house. You have the computer genius, the coder guy, the ceo and founder of pied piper. A tech company. I spent a week in Silicon Valley. At an accelerator called the womens start of lab. I spent a week at a hacker house with eight female founders. There were Technology Founders living in a hacker house and really what i learned, researching this book was that female entrepreneurs in tech do not look like richard henderson. They do not affect the program a type that you see on the t. V. Or hear about. These women were from all over the country and one woman in particular, she is from new mexico. Just two little kids at home. She says this is the first time ive actually been able to breathe and not have my kids all over me. She is starting a company which is a baby rental Equipment Company that you want to make into an airbnb of baby equipment. When you go visit your parents across country and have strollers and crabs and toys to carry do not have to. You can go from one state to another and rent the equipment. So she was there for the first time she said i can read and so long and focus on my company with these seven other entrepreneurs. And we spent the week work shopping and training and learning. Building so she can go out and pitch investors for capital to scale her business. So i met carrie and spent the week with her in the other entrepreneurs. And the other thing about the program is that it really is building a network of women entrepreneurs. So we talked about the loneliness and you hear about it is collaborative. Its not. They will be people introduced to advisors, mentors bushes is a cultural competence for she g