a16z Podcast - a16z Podcast: If Coding is the New Literacy, How Can More People Code?

Episode Date: December 8, 2014

Technology can be an equalizer, especially as new tools democratize the expertise that was previously held only by a limited few. But is coding really the new literacy -- the fourth “r” -- after reading, writing and arithmetic? Should it be? Why does this even matter, and how can coding enable more people?

My name is Chrissy Brodigan, and I lead user experience research at GitHub. One of my projects at GitHub is to work on an event called Patchwork, which is an event where we introduce newcomers to Git and GitHub to experts in the field, and we bring them together to learn how to get started in the world of open source. Hi, I'm Susan Mernett. I'm a former Yahoo Nutscape and AOL product development executive, And when I moved to Oakland, I started an organization called Hack the Hood that teaches coding and tech skills to low-income young people of color.

Hi, I'm Laura Widman Powers. I'm the co-founder and CEO of a nonprofit based here in San Francisco called Code 2040. We work on creating pathways into the tech sector for blacks and Latinos. Hi, I'm Rexner, Johnian, the CEO and founder of Girls of Code. or a national nonprofit that's 50-year-closed with gender gap and computer science and education. Excellent. Well, I know the topic that we're talking about today is code literacy, and I thought a really good place to begin would be if we actually give it some meaning. Because when I was first introduced to me, I thought, well, what does that actually mean?

So I'd love to go around and have everyone define what code literacy means to you. I've thought about this a lot because of all of the hype about programming languages and coding and you have to code. And I think I have a broader definition than being able to write C or Ruby on Rails or have one specific language. I think that everyone today more and more is going to need how to need to know how to write basic HTML to understand CSS, to have some of the tools to manipulate environments that they live in, and that includes different kinds of scripting.

So whether it's using some kind of library or assembler, or it's actually learning how to write a specific coding language, I think we're all going to find that more and more those are going to become part of the tool set for being an adult in the world. Yeah, I mean, I think it's, what's interesting to me about this idea of coding literacy is that part of the concept is about being able to be a producer, but even more important, I think and more realistic if we're talking about having this be the fourth R, reading, writing, arithmetic, and writing code is just a familiarity with what it means, even being able to understand kind of the type of language that Susan is using.

A lot of students say a lot of adults today, that would be gibberish, and as technology becomes more and more important in various sectors in the economy as a whole. It's so important that we're able to speak the language, even if we're not able to write in it. Yeah. No, I mean, I think I've turned to some echo what we can say, which is basically that Tony is a 21st century skill set, right? It's just like reading and writing today.

And we see that happens with our girls and the advocacy, users of technology that they are. I mean, I think the other thing, when I think of coding literacy, it's about how technology can be the great equalizer. One of the things that we've really learned through roles to code is that regardless of socioeconomic status, most of our roles are being left behind

and that we have seen entire families being able to be lift up into the middle class by getting access to coding and technology and getting opportunities to work in these companies who are changing the trajectory of their families and their communities. Excellent. Wow, that's really powerful. When I was looking over everyone's backgrounds, one of the things that stuck out to me was we were talking about code literacy, coding literacy today together.

But it looks like we have, you know, none of us actually seem to come from a proper engineering background. So I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about how you actually got started with your organization in this space. Susan? Sure. I spent many years working in New York and in Silicon Valley as a tech executive with a focus on product development. So I was the person who kind of sat between the engineering team, the business team, the user experience team, and really had to come up with what were the opportunities and the

solutions, how could we sequence and ship product where we could afford to build something significant, but do in a way that really addressed the bottom line. And working with engineers and discovering that I really enjoyed product vision and product development and love the ways of a tech could solve problems was very, very motivating to me. And when I moved to Oakland, I was still doing a startup, a commercial startup. And I ended up starting a nonprofit called Oakland Local that was a hyperlocal news site. And I also saw that all my neighbors were so cut off from the capacity to use tech as a solution, that the Google buses and the Yahoo buses would go through the neighborhood,

and they felt so shut off and so alienated because they were. Their kids didn't have classes that were relevant, they didn't know people in the industry. I mean, didn't have any access to understanding what the jobs were, how they would get there. And that was a big part for me of becoming interested in Hack the Hood. It was how can we change the pipeline so these fantastic young people don't end up working in service jobs while other people get their,

these jobs that are really exploding in the Bay Area. Yeah, one of the things that Reshma brought up that we think a lot about at Code 2040 is that wealth gap, that income divide, and how the salary of an average tech worker is more than the median household income of a black family and a Latino family combined. So there's so much power for economic development by connecting communities to tech, particularly communities that have been excluded that for me I worked at a tech startup

I also worked in product development and product management and I find the engineering skill set absolutely fascinating and so valuable but for me it's really about it being a means to an end that this is Mark Andreessen talks about software eats the world and it's totally true

you can just look five 10 years ahead and see that happening and so this is economic development for me, as opposed to being about engineering specifically. Yeah, and this freshman, I'm in the kick of Walter Isaacson's book, you know, the innovators, and it's really interesting for how much progress was made at the intersection of humanities and science. And I think, you know, for me, I personally represent the millions of girls who, when I was

growing up, was terrified of math and science or said I hated math when I really didn't, you know, I had a family, I grew up with a family of engineers, and this, fear haunted me in my entire life and this inability to speak to technical people to really embrace the language. And it's something that when I was running for office in 2010, I really decided I wanted to do something about it because I really saw the gender divide. I'm a, you know, I was a feminist of the capital S. When you look at the trajectory of women, they're the majority of our breadwinners, the majority

of our labor force, but, you know, less than 20% of them are going to be stealing the technical jobs in the future. And there's been a serious reversal in the past 30 or 40 years. And it doesn't make sense, and it has to stop. And that is where my passion for this topic really comes from. So I love we're talking a lot about where we're at right now. And what I'm wondering about is if we go back a little bit in each of your personal histories to a time before you had the organization that you're leading right now,

could you share a story about somebody who helped you get started? I you know I think a lot back to my freshman year of college actually when we were all gathered in kind of the first week of school and the dean stood up and said something that you all should know is that you should never take no for an answer and I thought that was a pretty bold statement given that now there were 1600 freshmen who were going to be running around doing exactly what they wanted on campus and not listening to authority but I've really carried that with me thinking about what is possible and who defines that. And I think that, you know, being an entrepreneur, starting an organization, requires a healthy dose of not taking no for an answer. And so I wish I could even remember the name of that, Dean. I have no idea who the person was that delivered that message, but I remember hearing it, and I remember thinking about it and internalizing it,

and I think it's really impacted how I've made choices in my career at a lot of steps along the way. Yeah, I want to echo that I mean, I think growing to code success is really about who our believers were. It's new very early. You know, when I first started going to code, we couldn't get a foundation to support us. And our first seed money came from Michelle Parham, who was a CMO, eBay, and best contact with

CMO GE, and Dick Hicel at Twitter and Jack Dorsey. And people who just said, you know, Lachman, I know it's an idea in your head, let's think it's a good idea. And it may not work, but I'm going to give you a little bit of a thing. capital, see if it does. And so much of our journey as organization has been people, you know, when we launched Cheryl Sandberg, I don't know how she got my email, sent me an email, being like, oh, my God, this is awesome, how can I help you?

And that's really kind of been the story of our journey in terms of people really saying, like, this is awesome, this needs to happen, and like, what can I do to really make this possible? And I think that that's why over the past three years we've been able to grow from 20 girls in 2012 to 3,000 today. I think I had trouble answering that question because in my own career, while I've had incredible advocates and allies, I don't really feel like that there was anybody who really helped me. I feel like I kind of battled my way into it because there were very hard problems that people had to find someone who had a more synergistic perspective to come in and help solve. So when you asked me that, I can think of lots of wonderful people I love working with.

I don't think I actually have had a mentor in tech or someone who helped me. And in fact, I think that part of the reason I'm doing what I do is as a woman and as an executive in Silicon Valley, I experienced a lot of feelings of being the other. And as someone who wasn't an engineer, I had to really fight for my ability to make the decisions that my role called for. So, you know, I think we need to grow a lot more authentic mentors for women and for young people of color. because I think it can actually be very challenging. Wow, that's really powerful. That plays into something that I personally wonder a lot about

and what we work with at Patchwork, which is helping people to develop confidence. And so maybe another way to ask this question thinking about mentorship is, where does your confidence to run these organizations come from? You know, I think for me, it's interesting to think of it as where does my confidence come from?

Because I think there's often a thin line between when I'm feeling confidence and when I'm feeling fear. And the confidence really comes from other people validating the organization, choices that I've made, my team support. But at the same time, every decision that I make, I'm like, I don't know if this is the right decision.

How do I know if this is the right decision? And so there's this constant kind of back and forth between when I'm feeling confident and when I'm feeling like, you know, I have no idea what I'm doing. And we think about that a lot as an organization. I mean, this field is pretty new, thinking about diversity and tech. When we first started talking about Code 2040, there wasn't a dialogue about this, and now there is. And so a lot of the choices that we were making at the beginning, there wasn't much of a stage. It didn't, you know, it mattered, but nobody was paying attention.

And now that's really different. And so having kind of communities of support is really important to feeling confident because there's a lot of kind of validation in the fields that I feel like I draw strength from now that that wasn't available at the beginning. I think for me it's that I'm very focused on outcomes and on user-centered design. with Hack the Hood, we started to iterate and did a pilot in 2012, got funded in a program in 2013, and I felt this incredible sense of responsibility and opportunity. We've gotten such a tremendous explosion of support in the past six months for what's a very young program. I feel like, you know, I can't screw this up. I can make mistakes, but they have to be mistakes that

we can afford to make. They have to be manageable risks. And I don't want to be the person who had so much opportunity. And then it didn't work. So I'm always looking at, you know, where should we pivot? Are we on the right track? How do we minimize the risk so we can try new things? But at the same time, we're not making fatal errors.

And I think the confidence is really driven by the need to go forward. I liked what Laura said, because I also joke but I'm driven by fear. Like a lot of my drive comes from wanting to avoid certain things that are bad outcomes. So it's like, well, how do I go over there where it's going to be good? Because I don't want to end up over there. Susan and I have already decided to have lunch next week to support one another. I think the real question that we want to ask is when so many women are being accused of being impostors

or people worry about having an imposter syndrome, how do you kind of move forward in that context? of a society might see you that way? So, I mean, I personally think it's about embracing failure. You know, I think that at least I'm a little bit of late in line, and part of what I feel like it's really hoping women back is that we've been taught to not, you know, to not solicit risk and to not fail

and to be afraid of failure. You know, for me personally I've lost two elections. I fail all the time, like every day. You know, I get with, I set myself up for it. And so that, in many ways, I think has really built my confidence because I'm just not afraid to do anything anymore. Like, I know what it's like to, like, be in the ditch

and it feels really bad and, like, question everything about myself and not know what tomorrow's going to look like. And, like, since I've walked that journey, like, everything else feels so much more frightening and, like, some's less frightening. And, like, that's really what I've really tried to teach our girls at Girls Who Code is to fail.

I mean, I'm learning how to code, I've been learning how to code. It is so frustrating, you know, especially the type A woman who wants to get my code right all the time. And that is what I love about the works that we do is that it's almost by learning coding, they're learning how to fail and you learn to accept failure and invite failure, because when you get it right, like there's no other, there's no other off-of-feeling than that. I think it's important to you. I mean, just having conversations like this and understand. understanding our relationships with failure and with risk and with our communities.

A big part of what we try to do at Code 2040 for our students who, you know, some are women, they're all black or Latino, so they're all statistically other in the organizations that they're in is try to build community amongst them so that there is a base of support that allows them to feel like they can go out and try and maybe fail. It's really hard to feel like failing is an option if you don't feel like there's a net to catch you. And so sometimes that's real. That's, you know, it could be an economic safety net or family, but sometimes it's really just perceived. It's feeling like your community is still going to be there for you, even if you don't perform the way that you wish that you did.

Yeah, I'm so sure. But that's what we know is in all. there can close the code, it's about the sisterhood, right? Because there's a community of sisters that will catch you when you fall. I also think that one of the things that happens in our culture is that when people fail, it validates this internal sense of themselves that they're not really qualified to do something or they're not really good at it. And one of the things that we do with the hack the hood young people who come in with a lot

of internalized racism, a lot of feeling of I couldn't do this, they wouldn't fit in, people won't accept me, is really work with them to give them confidence by helping them do web development. And the fact that when they start to meet people who actually are working in tech in companies and real jobs, they can say, wow, that person is writing them as coding language. Well, I'm using Weebly and I'm building websites,

and it's a lot simpler, but it's actually on the same continuum. It's in the same family of skills. It's just more complicated. And I think that we all need that. We all need to have a discipline where you're building a muscle. If you fail and you've done something once,

you failed 100% of it. of a time. So, you know, if you're working at something and you fail, you know, 10% of a time, well, how many times is that? You know, it's a small percentage. And I think that's really, really important for everybody who's fighting obstacles in building a career to know that not only is it okay to fail, but like what percentage is going to be a success and what percentage is going to be get up and do it again. And to expect that you're not going to succeed 100% of the time. Exactly.

I was about to try to make a baseball analogy, but I can't pull it off. But, you know, a good batter is not batting a thousand. And we expect people who are good to bat a thousand in real life. It's just not how it works. And you also

see that there are serial entrepreneurs for me. A giant transformative experience was having my tech stars startup fail. I was one of the most senior experienced people in that class and I was one of the people decided to not take any money and

I spent a lot of time afterwards saying what can I learn from this experience so I don't end up in this spot again and the next two things I did were both really successful by my standards but it was such a painful experience to not end up where I thought

I would. I have to find a way to learn from this or it's just going to be too hard so So one of the things that we do when we're teaching Git and GitHub, actually, like, we're sort of teaching some of these basic skills for people is we have something called a merge conflict, which ends up being a situation, a technical situation where you've actually introduced a conflict into code. And it turns out that that's a thing that people are really afraid of, and it keeps them from feeling like they can succeed when they're trying to actually get involved in an open source project. So what we try and do and what we're hopeful to do is actually teach through guided errors, where we actually take you into a merge conflict, we teach you how to get out of it instead of having you avoid it entirely. So I'm curious when we think about each of your organizations, like what's one thing that you do to help students or to help participants actually build confidence?

You know, we teach a lot of, or we do a lot of public speaking in our program. So we make sure that our girls get up and present. You know, like I'll never forget. Last year, our girls had an opportunity to just, like, basically present Facebook apps that they had built using Facebook's API to Cheryl Sandberg. And I'll never forget watching them. We're sitting on a conference room. You know, Cheryl comes out, just wearing a really cool, like, black leather pants.

The girl starts screening like she's Beyonce. they, you know, and they, and she walked in and they stand up, you know, one by one, two by two, and present, you know, these Facebook apps that they had met to Cheryl Sandberg. And they weren't shaken, they weren't nervous, they were fierce and, like, bold. And it was so amazing to watch the confidence that they had. And they were 16 years old, like, I don't know if I could have done that back then. And it was just, you know, we make sure that we create these opportunities in our program, to get them prepared to, like, you know,

they'll say, they're like, you know, John Donahoe, like, we don't like their API. Like, they'll stand up, like, you know, you know, tech tightens and give them advice on what they think that they can technically do differently. And I think it prepares them for when they get into their CS 101 class

and they're invariably going to be, you know, one in 20% or 30% of the class or when they get to, you know, a tech company and there aren't a lot of women in the room, they have no question about their ability because they've already created and they've built something and they've presented it before.

We focus a lot on using scrum and agile development techniques and teaching teamwork. So the kids learn that they can be play to your strengths participants where they're accountable for their work. They're checking in with what they're doing, but they also can say what they need help with

either from the scrum master or from a teammate. and I think that's been very powerful because most of them are coming from environments where they haven't had a chance to experience teamwork except maybe where it's been kind of foisted on them and kind of monitored, but this is much more organic and much more transparent. And that's been great for the kids to actually see themselves succeeding an environment where they have a lot more control and they're learning how to work with each other. I think we do two main things at Code 2040.

One is try to show the students that there's a large group of people that care about them and want them to succeed. And so over the course of the summer that they spend with us, there's literally a parade of people from the industry, mentoring them, doing workshops, speaker series, hosting them for networking events. And the message that that sends is that there are people out there who care, who want you here, you're welcome. And that is a big confidence booster.

And the second thing is provide some actual tangible tools. So I'll never forget the first summer. We had a coach working with the students who said, how many of you want to succeed in your internship this summer? They all raise their hand. How many of you want to complete all your projects successfully? They all raise their hand. How many of you know what your manager thinks is successful?

success for you, silence. And they suddenly realized that they'd been thinking from their perspective and not from the company's perspective or their manager's perspective. And so the next half hour we spent role-playing what it looks like to have that conversation with your manager to understand the organization's expectations for you, not just your own. And that was a really tangible tool that they could use the next day that led to a really high rate of success in their internships that summer. So Laura, I want to kind of build off of that. I'm wondering about we're talking about different entry points for especially young people or people who are career changing who want to get into the industry, into the tech industry. And I'm wondering, like, what do you

think companies are lacking right now to help newcomers be successful? That's a big, tough question. And it's something that we think a lot about. and that companies, frankly, should be thinking a lot about as well. I think there's a bit of a kind of wild west individualistic culture out here in Silicon Valley and in startups, which is part of what makes Silicon Valley successful and what makes startup successful. But it also means that there's a bit of a reliance on everybody kind of finding their own way to fit in and not a lot of concentrated effort on how do we create a culture or an environment

that is inclusive. I'm going to bungle the statistics, but I read that the percent of Silicon Valley tech startups that actually have an HR function at a point when most organizations elsewhere in the country do is like 6%. There just is very little thought or input early. on put into what is the culture that we're creating and how do we make it inclusive and the burden then becomes on the individual to fit in as opposed to the company to figure out how to create a welcoming environment so I think companies need to really think about how what choices they make on a day-to-day basis whether it's policies or parties or what have you that are thoughtful culture creators as opposed to just a default or what's easy

or what happens because you don't think about it? I just think it's human nature to hire people who look like you or who you're comfortable with or who you want to go grab a beer with. And I think that really being conscious about diversity really means having, you know, Melanie has to do this great TED talk on being color brave rather than color blinds.

But, you know, having a really open, honest conversation about race and gender and setting some goals of figuring out how you get there, And I think, you know, we also don't because you can't see what you cannot see. And so having more people who look like the diversity that you want to seek, actually making those HR decisions and making a lot of those hiring decisions sitting on your board, you know, all of that can really make a difference. And I think if you're intentional about it, these numbers can shift quite quickly

because there isn't an aptitude problem. You know, there isn't an interest problem. You know, but you can build, you know, to the extent there's a supply-side problem when it comes to women and people of color. You know, as you've seen with the legal and medical profession, in 1970s, only 10% of doctors and lawyers were women. And today, that number is 45%. So it's possible to do that in our lifetime.

We just have to be committed to it. I agree with what everyone said, but I have some reservations. Hackthehood is working with very low-income kids of color, and I think it's very important for tech companies to understand, but it's not just about increasing the pool of people of color and women who go to Stanford and get out and have the opportunity to do an internship at Google. I actually think there's a lot of creativity and innovation and talent in people who find it really challenging to go to community college

because they can't get child care. And I'm really focused on how do we create opportunities at elite tech companies and in startups for people who have lives that don't fit into. into a nine to five that is about doing an internship where there is no child care provided and what are you going to do or is about just piping more people into an elite school. I think that's super important, but I also see there are a lot of people who have tremendous ability and I don't want them to get lost. So for Hack the Hood, we're very interested in how do we kind of funnel people from our

program to the right place where they can go, whether that's... a four-year college or it's a training program or it's some kind of apprenticeship but there are too many people who are talented who have the ability to do this work who are just shut out and that's what kind of keeps me up at night um so along those lines Susan I'm curious uh if I were to be able to if I could grant you three wishes for the students in your program what would you how would you use those I'm probably going to pick the three wrong things because this is off the top of my head. But I'd like to have the facility to provide child care for young women who are young parents because I hear over and over how much a lack of stable child care interferes with

internships and training programs in school. That would be one thing. Two, I'd like to see community colleges improve the kinds of certificate programs that they're doing so they're a lot more relevant. So students who don't have the means right now in their view to go to a four-year college can stack up certificates more quickly that are more relevant, and I think a lot of them are not really current. And then three, I think I agree very much with what Laura said about how important relationships showing what you care is. So I would just like every student that I work with to have a mentor who is not only engaged

with them at the moment, but who helps introduce them to other people who really show them that, yes, they can belong in tech, and they have people who want to help. them get there. Laura, I'm curious if I were able to give you three wishes for the students and learners in your program, how would you use them? It's a great, very hard question. You know, I think about the focus of Code 2040 and of our fellows program is career readiness in that last transition from education to employment.

So all of the students that have access to these amazing programs or don't, but kind of come up and know that they're interested in tech, how do we make sure that they actually get in the door at these companies and then succeed once they're in them? And I think we're actually pretty well equipped on that side. When I think about kind of the wishes that I would have, it's about continuing to broaden the pipeline of students that are in that last phase. ready to get an internship. So some of what we're working on is how do you think about what makes you look like an attractive candidate? Going back to what Susan was saying before,

so much of hiring is referral-based here. And our social networks, statistically speaking, are pretty homogenous. There was a really amazing study published after Ferguson showing that white people's social networks are 90 plus percent white. And so, you know, if that's your social network, that's when you get a job description in your inbox. That's who you're going to forward it along to.

So thinking about how to create kind of structural ways to broaden that, I would wish for the ability to do that work for the, you know, nearly 20% of computer science grads each year that are black or Latino around the country, which means creating those networks. at HBCUs, at state schools, at community colleges, which requires a lot of faculty relationships. I'll spend my three wishes on relationships with colleges and universities. Amazing. Reshma. So I think my first wish is confidence. So, you know, all of our girls take a technical survey once they finish our program.

And like a lot of the folks that Susan and more serve, you know, half our girls are from three, reduced lunch, 80% in minority. And what's so incredible is that, you know, the median school on this technical survey, which is the equivalent of basically a college CS 101 exam is an 89%. And so when they're walking out of our class,

and they're so confident and so believe so much in themselves. And I want to make, you know, my gift to them is to have that really continue and to make sure that they are exposed to other women who talk about their own struggles. I mean, what's the powerful

we have Laura in the classroom she seemed to talk to our girls in New York, and she gave a totally authentic talk about her own insecurities and her own struggles and, like, her journey. And watching them look at more and see how this amazing woman who's also struggled, and just like them, you know, made them feel like they could do it too. So, you know, really making sure that they continue their confidence and their believing themselves is really important.

You know, the second thing is really opportunity, you know, a lot. But my biggest fear in life is we have all these amazing goals of code programs, and then the very companies that we're partnering with don't actually go hire them. You know, so we need to make sure that we don't speak of our work as charity, but speak of our work as basically a pipeline of talent. And that the results of that are very evident, you know, very shortly. And so, you know, I want to make sure that these goals are now have real actual opportunity to go work in these places.

And a lot of them, I think, for Susan's point, they're not going to Stanford or MIT to which you can afford it, even if they could get it. So, you know, I think we need to change what it means to, quote, be qualified in this industry in terms of, like, your educational background. And so I think it's actually important. And the last thing is really passion.

You know, so much, you know, I do this work not because of gender parity for the sake of gender parity, because I truly believe that women are going to create products that are going to change the world, and our girls are already doing it. And when I think of the things that they've done, like, acts of health fight obesity or, you know, algorithms to help to detect whether our cancer is benign or malignant, or a game called tampon line that shoots tampons at you instead of guns

because we don't talk enough about menstruation when so many girls across the world drop out of school because of it. You know, that's why we need more women and people of color that have access to technology because of textible skills because they're going to create the products that are going to make our community to do in our world that place. Thank you so much. That was powerful and wonderful, and I'm just so glad to have been a part of this today. When I was researching the conversation, when I was asked if I would talk with

everyone today, I thought, I would love to, but I'm not an engineer, and so I don't know that I'm the right person to have this conversation. And then in researching everyone's backgrounds, I noticed none of us are actually engineers, but we're all in this together, trying to create entry points for other people. And I just want to thank you for your time today. And I want to go do amazing things with all of you right now. Thank you. Sure. Thanks. Thank you.