Into the Impossible With Brian Keating - Julian Guthrie Discusses Alpha Girls (#024)

Episode Date: June 4, 2019

Co-Director of the Clarke Center Professor Brian Keating interviews bestselling author Julian Gurthrie about her latest book Alpha Girls. The stories of 4 women who achieved prominence in the male-dominated world of Silicon Valley venture capital. How did these women do it? What makes them so successful? Julian also reveals how she's written and published 4 successful non-fiction books over the past 8 years. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The only thing we can be sure of about the future is that it will be absolutely fantastic. Five, four, two. Great. Well, this is an special edition of Into the Impossible, the podcast of the Arthur C. Clark Center for Human Imagination, which is a center at the campus of UC San Diego, and the first possibly only of its kind, and certainly we were one of the first podcasts in the University of California system. Very proud of that.

And I'm especially proud to be welcoming our special. guest today, Julianne Guthrie, who has not only been an inspiring mentor to me as a writer, has helped me out with my writing and we'll maybe get into her process a little bit, but she's also a friend and a huge supporter of the mission, which is really to inspire people to the greatest human potential that they have, and that is really one of the deepest missions, both of the Clark Center, of Arthur C. Clark himself and of what we're trying to do at the University of California here in San Diego. So, Julian, it's great pleasure to have you here. so much for coming back to San Diego. It was last time we were together was about three or four

years ago. I cannot believe how time has flown, and you look exactly the same, but I've aged horribly. But it's been fun. Thank you for having me back. It's just phenomenal. So we're having you here on the occasion of the launch of your which book is this. This is my fourth. Fourth book. Wow. Unbelievable. Fourth nonfiction book. That is incredible. And my favorite. That's what you have to say about the newest arrival, right? It's right. Same with children. You have to say each one is your favorite. So this is called Alpha Girls, the Women Upstarts, who took on Silicon Valley's male culture and made the deals of a lifetime.

And I think it's so wonderful about this book, and I had a chance to read it before it came out and really fell in love with it. And to be honest with you, when I first heard that you were writing it, I thought, if anyone could write this book, it's you. But I was curious how you went from this book, pivoting to this book, after having written about the race to privatize spaceflight, and before that, writing about Larry Ellison, and what inspired you to write this book?

It's just such a phenomenal change of pace for you. So I actually was inspired to write Alpha Girls by my experience promoting How to Make a Spaceship. And I would be out at events with Peter Diamandis, the extraordinary, of course, founder of the XPRIZE and really the protagonist of how to make a spaceship. And I would see these, you know, there would be crowds big and small.

and there would be, you know, so few women. And there would be entrepreneurs and there would be startup folks and there would be engineers and, of course, aerospace geeks. I say that fondly. And I was like, where are all the women? You know, these are such dynamic industries. So to see this disparity or this underrepresentation really got me thinking. Like, why are women not represented in equal numbers or any level?

level of parity in these dynamic industries. What does it mean? So I started thinking about it in that way. And then being a journalist in San Francisco for so many years, of course, tech was my backyard. So I wasn't oblivious to this factor of so few women in tech. But I thought it would be really interesting to find a field, kind of a microcosm of this bigger issue and really focus in. and I zeroed in on venture capital as this area where really the venture capitalists have this outsized influence on how we all live, shaping everything from, you know, the way we communicate to the cars we drive, to the medical devices we may one day need. So then I started finding who are the women. Ninety-four percent of all venture capitalists who write the checks,

who control the money are men. But that made me think, well, six percent. are women and who are they? And what does this world look like to them? And to tell their stories. So that's how I got into it. Yeah, and the fact that it took place, amidst this technological million blowing through the valley at that time in the 80s and 90s. But what was so striking to me,

and I know Peter personally as a friend, I feel like this book was more personal than your previous book, maybe than any of your books so far, because you really got to know the characters or the reader starts to get to know the characters. And I don't want to give it. I hate one podcast. I'll just give it an aside to the, you know, when interviewers say, can you tell us exactly what your entire book's about and the entire plot themes and narratives and give away anything so that my readers, listeners don't have to buy it. So I don't want to give way too much. But it's at times, you know, incredibly inspirational. But you get so deeply invested in them that, I mean, some of it is tragic and sad. And I found myself being emotional. I mean, how do you. dissociate kind of the different characters that you got to meet

and they're all four women that are really the main protagonist of this book. How did you keep track of it all? I mean with Peter it's a single focus, he's very dynamic and each one of these women is like a, you know, I don't want to say a female Peter, but they're each as compelling if not more so. So how did you manage that? Well, I felt that

like with how to make a spaceship, while Peter Diamandis is the main character and this is nonfiction, so I say character, I mean he's a true real person. But I did have great secondary characters with that. I had Bert Rattan. I had Eric Lindberg.

I had Mike Melville. I had Brian Benny. So I felt like I wrote many biographies on each of those really incredible individuals for how to make a spaceship. And the similar, The billionaire and the mechanic, my book about Larry Ellison and his quest for the America's Cup, there I had two principal figures of the book. Ellison and the mechanic Norbert Byron. And so I went back and forth in the structure of the book with that. So Alpha Girls was, it was like writing four biographies or helping them with four memoirs, really, because it was so personal. And the structure of it is chronological, but it was really tricky because they come onto the canvas of Silicon Valley at different times.

They're very different women with very different backstories, different investment methodologies, different approaches, and very different challenges, sometimes different betrayals that they faced. So I set it up chronological, alternating from one woman's story to the next. And as you noted, the stories got very personal. But I write in a novelistic way so that I think with how to make a spaceship, you know, you learned about Peter Diamandis's, you know, triumphs and his failures and the challenges. And you learned about the backstory of Bert Rattan. So that's always how, that's my MO. That's how I go about writing is to understand who the people are. They're always very character driven.

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Underdog stories with really cool technology. That unite and have an ultimately very helpful message in culmination. So when you're constructing the book and you're going through the research process, well, I do want to get to your actual process because you're incredibly inspiring and productive. And I think that to produce, you know, consistently extremely high quality, high interest and appealing works is just an extremely rare skill. and it's led up to a movie that we'll talk about based on this book. Hopefully we'll get to by the end. But what were some of the surprising things that you didn't maybe expect along the way

or when you first started with the book proposal and you made a pitch sort of maybe first to yourself, what was surprising and then what maybe surprised others along the process of making this book come to life so vibrantly? This book was the biggest surprise to me. The story was the biggest surprise to me. The research was it really has changed the way I look at the world. I say that with all honesty.

Each book changed me and brought something to me, but this opened my eyes in ways that I hadn't anticipated. In particular, the ridiculous barriers that women face today have faced and how persistent those barriers are. And the challenges that women face, how women are underrepresented at the top levels in so many industries. So that was a revelation to me. It feels like it's a call to action. I mean, I'm a journalist. I didn't get into this as an activist, but I kind of walked out of it with all of these issues and all of these women and all of these struggles and their successes that are very much a part of me. And so that was really surprising. It was it was also surprising to see, in a way, these great success stories because you don't hear about. about them in Silicon Valley. You hear about how inhospitable Silicon Valley and tech, how those fields are, or how that is to women. And here are women who love tech, love venture capital, love as venture capitalists, finding those startups that potentially will become something important,

something that will make the world a better place, that will bring us something new, mentoring the entrepreneurs, you know, how they love that, despite the barriers, despite the hardships, really love the industry and figured out how to succeed in the industry. So that's also a story that's seldom, really seldom told. One thing that surprised me, and I was, you know, confidentially now, hopefully thousands of people watch this, but when you told me the idea for the book, and I got a chance to read it, at first I was worried, you know, hearing these kind of, which I took to be horror stories of Cheryl Sandberg, the reaction to her book, you know, lean in. And I felt she took incredible heat and completely undeservedly so. It ended up

making her stronger. But I find, you know, everything I'm seeing online and social media and elsewhere, people are just reacting with such, you know, warmth to this book. And I wonder, you know, that was pleasantly surprising to me. Because the last thing I wanted is one of my friends to get all this, Well, she doesn't, and so that surprised me. I'm glad it didn't, you know, maybe it didn't happen and so far it didn't surprise you. But were you worried about a backlash at any point to these stories? You know, the whole survivorship bias. Well, these women made it, but most women don't.

So, you know, was there ever concern around those, you know, kind of parameters for you? I wasn't concerned about that, but the women themselves were definitely concerned about that. You know, the hardest thing about this book was getting. the women to be really honest about their stories and their shortcomings. You know, they could talk all day about their successes, although even that, women have held themselves back and not been seekers of the spotlight and have even shunned the spotlight because they didn't want to stand out as women because they were trying to fit in with the guys. But the women had a very, very difficult time, seeing the importance of telling the complete picture. And that is when they were

down, when they were hurt, when they were sick, when they were diagnosed with cancer, when they were getting a divorce, where did they make a mistake, how were they pulled back from the glass ceiling, maybe by someone closest to them? Because unlike hidden figures where you had these incredible women, you know, helping to get John Glenn into space, women mathematicians, you know, that was 50 years ago, 50 plus years ago. And these women are working in the industry today, and it's still a male-dominated industry. So the women were, had great trepidation about their stories being out there and being very honest and on occasion naming names. You know, there are a lot of good guys in the book, and then there's some guys who didn't behave so well.

So there was fear more. The women had fear. I didn't so much, although I was on such a tight deadline that I just had to think about the fear of not finishing the book. That's right. Fear of editor. So there's a, you know, very true trope, in my opinion, you know, the old joke, you know, how do you tell if an engineer is outgoing? It's because he looks at your shoes instead of his when he talks to you. No offense.

anybody out there. I'm kind of like that myself. But did you note similarities? I mean, were these women introverted the way that we think of, you know, this classic stereotypical. I mean, some of them had a financial background, only. Some had a technical background. Some had both, especially the ones in the engineering side that came more from that culture. What kind of commonalities did you note with people like Ellison and other, Diomonde's and the kind of male stereotypical, you know, as I said, introvert, although those guys are not now introverts. But in the past, I think that they were. Well, really different models of success, which is another super interesting thing about that contrasts this book to my prior works that happened to be more male dominated.

And that is with Larry Ellison and with Peter Diamandis, certainly with Elon Musk, with some of the other kind of titans of the industry who I've interviewed, their success was more kind of standing on the outside. not backing down, not particularly a collaborative model, creating something out of nothing, where it was fascinating to me because the women who succeeded, and I can talk about their commonalities, but I just noticed a difference in how they succeeded in this male-dominated industry, they succeeded really one incremental step at a time, but those small victories really added up to something significant. You know, it was as if they had to get in, almost through like Trojan horse, analogy here where they had to get their foot in the door, and they had to learn how to perform.

They had to learn how to play by the rules that were, you know, established by others, in this case, men. And they got really good at that. And they got so good, in fact, that now they're kind of rewriting those rules. But it was more of this, what I now call an everyday radical, or there's a term a tempered radical, where you're affecting change as you go, but you're kind of rocking the boat without being tossed overboard. It is, exactly. It's evolutionary. I like the way you put that.

In terms of what the women had in common with each other and with some of the male visionaries who I've written about is, first of all, a love of what they're doing and a passion and certitude that they're in the right field, even if you're surrounded by naysayers. So they had that. And then the women just among themselves also had a few things in common that were really key to their success. And that may sound somewhat, I don't know about trivial, but that were really, really key tools they used. One was humor, really using humor to. sometimes diffuse tense situations with the guys, knowing when to take issue with something

and when to let it go, like, you know, an off-color joke. Do you take issue with it or do you let it go? So they were brilliant at, like, knowing when to do what. And so there were commonalities like that. humor, when to take issue with something, kind of eyes on the prize mentality of, of, you know, keeping your sense of what your goal is, also specializing. These women really specialized in a field and in investment opportunities. So, you know, for one, it was cybersecurity. For one, it was kind of internet infrastructure stuff, making the internet safer and faster.

So they each figured out, which is a great lesson for women, is really, you know, figure out a specialty, make something your own. And sometimes they found that being a woman in these, you know, like Teresa Gao and cybersecurity, she would go to these conferences and industry events. And she was the only woman in the room. And sometimes because she really knew her stuff and she was a woman, she stood out. And so it wasn't always a disadvantage. to, you know, being a woman. And allowed her to, right, to really be portrayed in the accurate, which is beneficial to the companies and the firms that were hiring them, which is ultimately, I think, one of the biggest penalties for people that do discriminate is it ends up being one of the worst things that they can do for their own cause. And if they had a more, you know, enlightened view, they would never do so in the beginning. But certainly they would, you know, I think it would be a much kinder, gentler culture

for everyone involved. Well, there's also the bottom line financially. That's right. Companies that are more diverse and the top management levels are also more profitable. So if you don't believe in diversifying as a moral or ethical imperative, then there's the bottom line. That it's, you know, research shows that it's, you're more profitable, the more diverse you are at the top management level.

How have things changed now? Besides the obvious sort of new thing to me, at least. was this sort of sisterhood that seems to emerge. And I don't want to give too much away, but now there is this kind of, you know, self-supporting and positive feedback network that's been developed. I wonder, you know, if you had a daughter that was, you know, getting ready or a friend or, you know, your sister, whatever,

that was thinking about going to the valley and thinking about being in venture capital, I mean, is it a place that you would recommend? Have things changed enough to be, you know, I mean, hopefully with the heralding of your book that, you know, eyes have been open. But is it a place that is filled with toxic masculinity? Is it really, or is it something that's fundamentally different from what the struggles that these four women faced? I would absolutely say it's a great place for women, both tech and venture capital. I mean, I think it is exciting. It is, again, you're playing a role in shaping the future. There's an element of journalism to it where you're parachuting into

these different worlds. Let's say you're hearing pitches on all these different companies, and you have to become an expert in that very quickly, gather a lot of information, assimilate the information, understand it pretty readily, make a decision on it, in my case, write a story about it. But it's exciting, you know, intellectually, going into all of these different fields, dealing with entrepreneurs who are generally great optimists and dreamers, and you hope very technologically savvy and market savvy as well. So it's really exciting. I don't think there, I don't think there is that toxic masculinity.

I think that was probably, what happens is there's this, when there is this gender imbalance, there's a power dynamic that is unhealthy, veering on toxic, that has been outed in so many different industries, and it certainly has been in Silicon Valley. But I think it's a great place for women to work. And I know a ton of great guys who are also trying to bring in more women, to bring in more diversity, gender, racial diversity as well. So it can't be a conversation, you know, by her, for her, with her. It has to be a conversation between men and women at the table. And it has to be sincere. Having said all of that, still, to this day, when I started my reporting two years ago is 94% of all investing partners were men. Today it's 92%. So there's been an incremental gain, but still it's going in the right direction.

What the worry is is that there is this tokenism that, oh, we have our one woman partner now, now that the spotlight is on this issue. And so we can check that box. And you don't really start to affect change with only one. You need at least two for a quorum. and to have any sort of institutional cultural change, it requires that. But the sisterhood is fantastic, and that's happening across industries that I see, whether in home building or whether in advertising or law or medicine, you know, I don't know what you see on this, but certainly in venture capital and tech, there's really great sisterhood

networking opportunities that just didn't exist before. And from your kind of insider's glimpse that you got to see. I mean, it's not a major that we offer here, you know, pre-VC, you know, it's not the degree we can get. So it sounds like, you know, to be, if you're giving advice to a woman or a man, what sorts of skill sets, it sounds like being a generalist and knowing a lot and being having a diverse curiosity where you really want to understand different aspects, not only focused on one narrow, but, you know, but very deep aspect of your studies. What advice would you give to people of men and women seeking this field as a profession since it isn't, you know, something you can just take out of the course catalog. If you're chasing data down, instead of seeing it in one place, you need the Intuit ERP. Intuit Enterprise Suite, all your data in one place with built-in AI for real-time insights.

Learn more at intuitt.com slash ERP. Be entrepreneurial yourself. It's ideal if you have some technical skills, specialty. MBA is three of the four of the four of, of my main alpha girls had MBAs. One did not had an electrical engineering degree, but was probably, was of the four, for sure, the most successful entrepreneur,

who also helped Mark Benioff found a kind of a big company called Salesforce.com. But just personality-wise, I think inquisitive, kind of insatiably curious, about the world, about where we're going, voracious reader, and an interest in what's the next technology coming down the pipeline, a sense of globally trends, where are we, what's next? That's why I think it's so dynamic.

I think it's a really incredible field, actually. Yeah, such a broad wealth of expertise. So because I'm selfish, I want to ask some questions, for myself. So I want to know a little bit more if you could explain a little bit more about your process and how do you do all these incredible projects that you're involved with? Do you have a set schedule? Do you work only under deadline at the last minute? How do you work? How does it go for you? So I get my idea and then I write a proposal and then that goes out and hopefully sells and then I start in earnest, although I do a lot of research on the proposal stage just to understand what the

story is and knowing that you have to live with it for a couple of years. And the characters. So it has to have longevity. And for me, I also want books that stand the test of time in terms of the messages and the people. And then I am always, I have this kind of dream where I'll actually do all my reporting and finish my reporting. And then I start writing.

And it's like clean cut like that. but that never happens. I'm always reporting as I'm writing, even up until the very, very end. And I don't have, I mean, I spend more and more time staring at that screen, that formidable white screen. Flashing cursor. Yes, cursing, yeah, cursing the cursor as the deadline nears. But I've been cranking out, you know, I think I've had four books in eight or nine years. and it's pretty grueling.

It's really fantastic to see it start coming together. People ask me if it's fun. It's fun learning. Learning's fun. But it's just, it's, I feel such a sense of drive, personal drive, to do better each time if that's possible. And I put that on myself. And then just, you know, sometimes it's just, it's just time, you know, it's time.

You have to, you can't, it's, it's, you really have to concentrate. As you know, I mean, you've done this and did this very successfully. Takes a lot from you. But it's so rewarding. You'll have to tell me your favorite moment. But my favorite moment of the whole process, the best moment that makes it all worthwhile, is similar, I suppose, to having a child where you get to hold the book when I get that one copy or a few copies delivered. And it's like it goes from this idea, something I was just carrying around in my mind, and then I start putting onto paper.

And then each word adds up to something, and then you're holding a book. And I peel that FedEx open, and I'm like, my book is here. And that's, to me, it's just like, that's a perfect moment. moment. Yeah. I always say, you know, it's the closest men can ever get to having a time because men are such wimps. We can't take the pain. What was your favorite part? I think for me it was a combination of kind of gratification, certainly that moment of getting it and then, you know, showing it to my kids and my wife that it actually existed. But then having people write to me and say things like, you know, my father told me, you know, unless I were to win a Nobel Prize, this young lady told me,

I won't be a good scientist, and so it's not even worth trying to become a scientist, and I wish I had your book 10 years earlier because I would have been a scientist. You would have inspired me to continue with it. Those kind of things are really gratifying. I mean, you hope that there's someone in the future. I've heard it said that most authors will trade, you know, 100 readers a year from now for one reader, 100 years from now. So that kind of perennial, you know, that attitude of longevity that you spoke about,

which I think all of your books, you know, hold up. within them. I want to finish up because you're going to, you're going off to a big speech you're giving here in front of more than 100 people at the UC San Diego's medical school of all places. You'll be surrounding by biotech, hopefully. Hopefully we won't need much medical assistance. But word has it that you're making on a film adaptation or a version of this book, of your most recent book, Alpha Girls. Can you tell us anything about it or are these things top secret? No, no, I can. So Alpha Girls feels like a different sort of book to me. feels like it's a movement or part of a movement.

Yes. Yeah. It feels bigger in a way. Like, it's far bigger than me, than I am. And it feels like the momentum just continues to grow. So very exciting on the adaptation side. So the book is being adapted for television for a multi-season series. I have to get the lingo down.

Yes, yes. But I went with a woman who, a woman, and she's one of three women in history to have won an Academy Award as a producer, which is wrong. Only three women in history. Her name is Kathy Shulman. She's extraordinary. She is an alpha girl. She has lived this, she's lived this story in her own way. As so many women have it cuts across industries.

But in Hollywood, a woman trying to make it again in this male dominated world and she's done so. So she got the story. She gets the story. We'll have a big announcement on the development side any day now, which I'm very excited about. But it's moving forward and talented screenwriter is involved also a woman. So it's been fun introducing those women to the Alpha Girls and seeing this be adapted for a different medium. So it's really an honor. And a lot of fun.

Yeah. I mean, it's all well-deserved. As you said, I think that's really the apt word. I mean, I saw a picture of a senator and presidential candidate Kirsten Gillibrand, holding a coffee of your book with a young lady, supporter of hers and yours. But it's true. You started a movement, and that's pretty rare that you get to start a movement in any field,

but let alone one as competitive and as sort of intense as writing and bringing together not only a work of literature, a work of scholarship and journalism, but also to create passion and have others share in that vision. I really commend you for that. Thank you. It's just such a wonderful experience to get to know you and have you here at UC San Diego. Thank you. I want to thank you again for coming down here from the Bay Area.

And we're really very much looking forward to your talk. And if it's not online by the time you see this, it will be posted on the Arthur C. Clark Center for Human Imaginations website into the Impossible. I'm Professor Brian Keating, and this is Julianne Guthrie. and we thank you for tuning in today. Bye-bye. Thank you. Thank you, Julia. The only thing we can be sure of about the future

is that it will be absolutely fantastic. Five, four.