Software Misadventures - Building Diverse Engineering Teams | Erica Lockheimer

Episode Date: February 20, 2024

Erica is a former VP of Engineering at LinkedIn. Having almost dropped out of college, Erica’s journey in tech is a testament to her perseverance and dedication. In addition to leading engineering teams at LinkedIn, Erica founded WIT (Women In Tech) to empower women within the company as well as the broader tech community. We discuss: How to create incentives for diversity-building work. Building your personal “board of directors”. Balancing mentoring work vs sprint tickets. Structuring a community for long-term success. Much more.   Segments: [0:18:04] building women-in-tech and the importance of leading by example [0:21:17] creating incentives for diversity-building work [0:23:30] examples of building better products with more diverse stakeholders [0:29:48] how to spot red flags during the interview process [0:32:51] do men and women bring different skill sets to the problem or it's all individual based? [0:35:34] building your personal “board of directors” [0:40:21] how to ask people for mentorship if I’m shy? [0:44:21] exploring new projects [0:53:32] how to hold yourself accountable when there’s no structure? [1:03:17] how to structure a community for long-term success [1:10:22] how to balance mentoring work vs sprint tickets [1:14:57] journey to being on the advisory board for SJU   Show Notes: Erica on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericalockheimer/   Stay in touch: 👋 Make Ronak’s day by leaving us a review and let us know who we should talk to next! [e-mail]

In my early days in LinkedIn, one of the first things I created a woman in tech event. And I said, let's flip the ratio. 80% women, 20% men to this event. The men were like, oh, Erica, thank you for inviting. Thank you for inviting me. But what do I say? What do I do? What should I share?

And I said, guess what? Your job is to listen and learn. They're like, oh, you know, and then when they left that event, they were the biggest advocates in the world. I mean, I had them wearing women in tech shirts all over campus. I mean, they were just like, so and it's because now they are aware, they listened, they learned and they changed. Welcome to the Software Misadventures podcast. We are your hosts, Ronak and Guan.

As engineers, we are interested in not just the technologies, but the people and the stories behind them. So on this show, we try to scratch our own edge by sitting down with engineers, founders, and investors to chat about their path, lessons they have learned, and of course, the misadventures along the way. Hi everyone, it's Guang here. In this episode, we're chatting with Erika Lockheimer. Erika was the VP of Engineering at LinkedIn, where in addition to leading engineering teams, she founded

Women in Tech at LinkedIn to empower women within the company as well as the broader tech community. While a lot of people talk about building diverse teams in tech, many fall short on the execution. But Erica is the real deal. And I personally learned a lot in this conversation, like how to create incentives for diversity building work, and how to balance mentoring versus doing sprint tickets. Without further ado, let's get into the conversation. Thanks so much for coming on the show, Erica. No problem. Thank you for having me. So since mentorship will be a recurring theme in this chat, I'd love to start with,

you mentioned in an interview that you almost dropped out of college, if not for your dad, who was an important mentor for you. Could you tell us more about that? Yeah, absolutely. You know, mentorship is a big topic in general, but I've had a lot of mentors in my life, a lot of board of directors, we can talk about that quite a bit. But my, my father, he grew up with a single mother, and he grew up with all boys and him seeing how his mom struggled during that moment of, okay, now I got to get a job. Now I got to have a career.

And, you know, she was a stay at home mom and which is a very huge job. I have children myself, but when he met my mother, he had all girls. So his thing was, I want to make sure that the women in my life and that I raise are independent, have financial freedom, are able to do what they want to do, and nothing could hold them back. So my dad looked at me as like anything's possible. And he never graduated from college. I'm a first gen college graduate. So he was like, hey, just go to school, get a degree. And he always wanted to be an electrical engineer. So I just kind of was like, hey, that seems kind of cool. And I was his tool woman around the house, right? And he just encouraged me entirely all the way. And so I had gone into computer engineering, which is parts of computer science and electrical engineering.

And he was the one that motivated me and i for a long time wasn't interested because it didn't seem like a field that honestly a woman would be interested in because i didn't see anybody that but he did he made me feel not different in in any way and encouraged me in that way so i'm super thankful for that and in the same interview you gave the advice i think this was kind of like a general advice, right to engineers coming up of being persistent and find the right people. And what constitutes like the right people in this context? The right people, if I look back in my, I've been in 25 years in tech, finding the right people has changed over time. So as I learn and gain more

wisdom, but I would say in the early days, we talk about mentorship, sponsorship, all those things, those terms were not coined at the time when I was starting off my career. So when I say the right people, it was more of the people that I felt they knew where I was exactly at. Like I was learning. I was trying to grow. I was trying to figure it out. You know, when you're in your twenties, you don't know what the heck you're doing. Right. So when you, I say, right, people realizing exactly where you're at and then wanting to help you. And that is what really got me through multiple phases of my career. And then when you start getting more confident, you start getting the skills, you start growing in your career, you start getting in to leadership positions, then that's where I'm saying the right people.

Now I get to look around and I have a lot more collective knowledge where I can say, hey, this is the right company, the right type of people I want to work with, the right people I want to lead, the right people I want to hire. So it just has changed over time. But in the beginning, it takes time to figure that out. But I am very opinionated now in my life. I would say that I, in the early days, you know, I just kind of lucky to get a job, right? And just anybody to hire me, please, right? I want to practice my craft.

But now I get to be choosy and I get to build teams. And I built teams with conviction and intentionality of what that team looks like and who I'm around. So for you now, like, what are some like the key attributes that you look for when you are like building a team? So the key attribute I would say is number one, you got to have the skill, right? If you don't have the skill, you know, that's going to be poor.

You can't just like work with nice people and have a good time, right? So skill is, you can do that for so long. So skill is important. And I would say the other thing that I find is really important is that they have a growth mindset. Like you see something, if you think about technology and how fast it moves, you know, what you learned many years ago is very different than it is today. And I've been through that evolution of the dot-com days, the mobile days, and now we have

the AIR. So I think that growth mindset is really key. And then at the end of the day, it's just people that want to have fun and get stuff done, right? You can have all, you can have the skill, you can have a growth mindset. But at the end of the day, if I'm not having a great time with people I work with, guess what? I don't want to work with you. It can be that, that could be the most important thing is, is that, is how you're, how that energy is, how that connection is. And that's okay. Sometimes if that connection within the team with that, those individuals are not there, they can be a great fit for another team, right? Or another culture or another, you know, whatever's created.

My dad always said there's a saucer for every cup, you know, and sometimes it fits and sometimes it doesn't, you know? So I thought it was great and that's okay. Nobody could feel bad about it. And so go find what that right fit is for you. And so that would be a key attribute for me at the end. And I feel like as we'll get into, you have like an incredible knack for like building these very strong communities. So in the context of like attributes, how do you think about like complementary strength

or weaknesses even when you're building up this team or community? Yeah, no, no that that's a great question because this is where i get kind of irritated sorry i think i'm like oh here we go um so so i've been you know around the valley you know and i've been, you know, around the valley, you know, and I've been part of different teams for many years. And I think it's human nature to want to build a team with people that are just like you. Right. And you hire similar because it's easy. It's infectious. Right.

And and then you start realizing that team has a lot of the same qualities as you have. And guess what? That's not a great team. You actually want people to compliment you on your strengths and your weaknesses, right? So you could give some particular examples. I would say that I'm really high on execution. Could I build the most scalable backend system? No, that's not where my strength is. So I'm going to hire the right talent that has that strength. Or maybe there's other people on your team that are very great at strategy, right? I would say I'm really great at high level strategy. I can probably lose a little focus because I want to do all the things and I'm great at execution once I narrow in but

I want that other visionary that strategic person as my partner so I think it's really important for it's not necessarily weaknesses it's like compliments you know play to your strengths I've always been a fan of playing to your strengths and so the other things that are not your strengths get people that compliment those things So then you can have this amazing team and you know how to lean on different people in order to get whatever you want to done achieved. And then that's when I say I get a little irritated because obviously let's talk about the world that we live in and what I've personally lived in for many years is the diversity of these teams are absolutely horrible. And especially when you get to leadership positions, it does. And you know,

it's a diversity of gender, diversity of race. And you can't tell me when you look at the population of the world where 50% of them are women, and then you look at a leadership team, and you're like, what, there's like single digits. What the heck is going on? That's a failure on whoever's leading that team or that higher organization and not taking a look around of like how the world is actually created and developed and what kind of products you need to do to represent the world. So I feel that's where there's like a ton of work to do. And it takes time.

It takes intentionality. And that's where I'm just tired of waiting. Sometimes it's a marathon, not a sprint, but we need to get there. So I think it's really important to talk, to have, you know, you're doing a podcast, right? Who's your audience? Who are the type of people that you have in the show? Anytime you do a panel at all conference, I got asked to, for example, to get on to be a part of a conference on a panel and attend.

And I was like, who are these people? They're all they all look the same. I actually don't want to go. I'm not interested. You just uninvited me unintentional. You know, so, yeah, just things to think about anyways i could i could keep on going so one question i have about this and this may go nowhere and you can blame me on that i'm still trying to phrase it so dei is uh like diversity equity and inclusion is something that most tech companies and not just tech companies i think most big companies have initiative around to make sure they have an inclusive and not just tech companies, I think most big companies have initiative around to make sure they have an inclusive environment,

not just for people at the company, but also people who are going to join. So this becomes part of the hiring process too. And recently, especially in 2024, just this month, you see a lot of chat around social media where you see a bunch of really big investors calling out like well dei was supposed to be a thing but now it didn't materialize the way it was meant to and it becomes more of a this theater where you're trying to represent that yes you have

some initiatives around dei but then you're not doing justice by the candidates in some cases i might be offending a whole lot of people by just even asking this question and that's not my intention but i know you feel strongly about this and i'm curious to get your thoughts on how you see a company trying to be diverse in the right way and you can take this question in the direction you see fit. Yeah, I think there's a lot in that question. And there's also a lot what's going on right now. So we will take it probably in a couple of different directions. And you can push me in a different way as well. So I think one thing that in the industry right now, what's happening is we're seeing a lot of tech layoffs. And I'm seeing a lot of discussion even, oh, we're cutting back on these investments. We're, I saw another, we're cutting back on childcare.

I mean, all this stuff is, I want to know what the numbers are when we kind of come out of it. I am very, very concerned that we are going backwards quite a bit. It's like all this investment that we've done. And you cannot tell me that we have not seen an outcome. It's like all this investment that we've done. And you cannot tell me that we have not seen an outcome. It's always about how you execute. Just because you say, I have this DEI effort, it doesn't mean that I get results. Well, it depends how you're executing and what you're doing, just like any other project. So yes, you will have some things that are successful and

you'll have some things that are failures and i've seen it personally throughout my career and especially at linkedin i started women in tech at linkedin when i joined we were in the single digits of women in tech and we were able to change those numbers we were you know up into the 20 something 25 range i think at its peak and that was intentional because of leadership and they cared from the top and i I feel that those results were successful. Now that is not true because I've helped mentor many other companies in this space and they're struggling because they're not doing it right. Because it's all about action around the end at the end of the day. How is your interview process? How are you searching for candidates? How are you making those selection criteria? So all those things matter, you need to really dissect

it. So I think when you have inequalities, when you have things that have not been fair for many, many years, you have a different starting position and playing field. so i think how do you undo some of those things and it's not about quotas at the end of the day i don't want to know that i've been hired uh because i'm a woman i'm hired because i am the best candidate guess what it's going to take you maybe longer to find someone like me because it's easy in a world of plentiful where the world has been unfair where they've trained they've hired they've done all the all the connections all that that's easy to find how can you actually create a different outcome and change the way that you actually search for people hire for people and I don't think that people mean to be malicious or trying to do the wrong thing. It's just they're unaware.

There's a lot that has to change in that individual. So I very much admire many of the people that are in positions of leadership that are trying to make a more fair and unbiased company. And they're looking at their systems and trying to change that yeah that's really well said and i think ronak duck is hungry with that question uh but i do but jokes aside jokes aside i i do kind of empathize a little bit with what like so i feel like i've been pretty lucky in that i've had quite a few um managers as well as colleagues who are women who are very vocal. So in my last two companies ago, it was a hardware company. So I had this great colleague who like being a woman in hardware, I feel like it's like extra hard comparing to just because like historically, I feel like it's a lot more entrenched.

So then she really kind of helped me see these sort of, right, like from like a man's perspective, it's like things that you don't really think about, right? It doesn't really happen day to day. But to Ashley, it doesn't require you to kind of be in sort of like a safe space, right? Such that it doesn't feel like, oh, wow, you know, like I feel so guilty for like not having done anything right in the past. But I think having the conversation is the first and the very important step to actually kind of be more educated. Right.

So I love that you said that. I love that because I sorry if I cut you off a little bit, but I just wanted to add on to that because what you're saying is something really, really important, which is I have awareness now. It's like, once you see, you can't unsee how you were looking at the world before. Right. And now it makes you want to be an advocate. It makes you want to have create more change. And I think that's a beautiful thing. And I wish more people would get there quicker. But I do see in small examples in my early days in LinkedIn, one of the first things I created a woman in tech event. And I said, let's flip the ratio. 80% women, 20% men to this event. And the men were like, oh, Erica, thank you for inviting me.

But what do I say? What do I do? What should I share? And I said, guess what? Your job is to listen and learn. They're like, oh, you know? And then when they left that event, they were the biggest advocates in the world. I mean, I had them wearing women in tech shirts all over campus. I mean, they were just like, so, and it's because now they are aware, they listened, they learned and they changed. So I think it's just a great story that, that you just, uh, shared. And I just, people need to start exposing themselves.

And because you have a women in tech event, or it doesn't, it doesn't mean it's exclusively women. It's like, actually, if we, you leave it all up to us to try and figure and fix this, that's failure. So please don't do that. So, so on that note so you mentioned that having male allies were really important in the process of building such a great community that is women in tech at linkedin how'd you like go about seeking them out and sort of getting them

on board yeah it's um i didn't think that way at first and I'll be honest. But when I first started Women in Tech, it was because I went to a Grace Hopper conference. It was many, many years ago. And when you go to a conference like that and you see so many women, you're like, geez, there's a ton of women in tech. And then you come back to your company and then you lose that feeling of that belonging and that inclusion. And you're like, wow, this is not a company that I really enjoy. I wish I could be at a company like that where it felt a little bit more diverse. And it was the head of engineering at the time, Kevin Scott. He's now the CTO of Microsoft.

Still friends with him to this day and his family and his wife. Amazing people. And we shared with him to this day and his family and his wife, amazing people. We shared with him this experience. And one of the first things that he said, Erica, why don't you lead this for the company? And here you have a person in this position that wanted to put all in. And I said, that's great, but I'm also, I have my day job. And so this is where I also get a little ear to, you know, these are not volunteer efforts. Hey, I will do this. It'll be part of my job.

20% of my job. I need money. I need funding. I need people just like anything I do. I, in order for it to be successful, he said yes to everything and he announced it to the entire company and our CEO at the time, Jeff Wiener, he all in. Anytime I wanted him to do something, get up on that stage, have a fireside chat with me and talk about some vulnerability and how we want to change things in the company, he showed up. Kevin showed up. Kevin invested in

me. They were so important. So then when you see those examples, that was really a catalyst of, well, there's a lot of amazing men that actually care about this. You lead by example. So when they see their top executives and you see other men in the company, now they're like, Erica, why can't I be part of this? They start asking to want to be part of it too. So I think setting those examples from the top is really, really, really critical. And then how I go out, then it makes it easy to make that ask. I was never afraid to ask, Hey, we're having this event. I want, I want you to go. I

expect you actually, you're a leader in this company. I expect you to show up. It's just a fact. And they know that. And I will pressure them like, Hey, you know, you didn't come or guess what? You need to come to these things. What kind of team are you building at the end of the day? How are you hiring? How are you supporting people? And then I'm not afraid to ask. And then the people that don't show up, you're not going to you're always going to get those those people that don't care.

They don't see it. They don't understand it. That's OK. That's OK. I'll keep on asking them. Maybe I'll click on the second time, third time, but I'll keep on asking. And then sometimes you'll never get there. And that's okay that's okay I'll keep on asking them maybe you'll click on the second time third time but I'll keep on asking and then sometimes you'll never get there and that's okay that's well it's not okay I'm not fine with it but it doesn't stop me from continuing so there's a

a few things that you touched on like one thing so emphasizing the need for that to be a part of your day job right like not just doing it for for free or like adding it to like adding additional responsibilities to your uh to your work do you think that's like one of the critical components of making this work and maybe by extension right like not just adding more diversity but even like for things like mentorship yeah it's i'll be honest that i know i spent a lot of time and effort it's a lot of work it's a lot of work and for i feel it was valued but at some time at some moments i don't feel it was always as valued and I know a lot of women that put so much effort into these organized these type of initiatives

and they're not recognized for it and then you know it's like so it's it's added onto their job so that if you compare it to somebody else that's not doing any of that work you're building a company at the end of the day. And then people create headlines. Like I care about diversity. They create values in their company and you're not doing the work, but you're expecting all these people that are the diverse folks to do the work. It's not fair. And so I, I think we got to a point in LinkedIn where it was, you know, we measured, for instance, leadership execution and craft on talent. Those are leadership qualities. That's a leadership. And so make

sure that you're recognizing that work. When you're talking about a promotion, you're talking about calibrations of how that person is evaluated. That stuff needs to be talked about. That stuff needs to have a value that stuff deserves getting you know to the next level that this person if you compare that person that person that's not doing anything guess what they are a better leader that person is going to go higher up on the rank they're doing all that and that but it's not always thought of it that way and i've seen that mistake plenty of times in companies i've worked at. It's people forget, because guess what, not everybody's doing that. They don't put value on it. I think for a fraction of people, once you

tell them, hey, right, like, say, you know, Kevin Scott, you tell them, hey, if you look at the numbers, right, it's hilariously imbalanced, we need to change this they understand the value of women engineers what they bring to the table i think you i mean you have people in leadership positions men that don't understand why we need to do that have you encountered any examples or experiences where through the efforts that you're building right right? Like they, you know, again, right? It takes them once, twice, three times, maybe like over like two years, they slowly kind of see like,

oh, right, like my team is actually more effective at executing or they're better at doing things now because of that diversity. Like, do you have, do you have like examples of kind of those moments? Yeah, I think I would say that it's more in, where I've seen it is in the creation of some of our products. So more recently, I'll talk about LinkedIn. I would say that there's two prime examples. One I could talk about very, very personal. And then another one that it was, I think, more of a collaboration effort.

I remember in the early days of LinkedIn, abuse and harassment on the platform wasn't really handled that well. I mean, we're still trying to do better at it. We're doing a ton better. But I remember being at Grace Hopper conference and I was with some of my leadership there and I showed them some LinkedIn messages that I get and they were inappropriate. It's like, hey, do you get this? I never get stuff like that. It's like, of course not, right? And like, here I am at the peak of this conference

and feeling high and I'm getting bashed in private messages, in mails, even online. It's like, that is not okay to say those things to another individual. It's just not okay. It's, you know, it's hate. It's, there should be filters that we're engineers and we know how to build it what do you mean this can't be stopped right or at least i shouldn't

have to see it and i remember when some of the leaders saw that and one of there was a woman she's absolutely amazing still works at linkedin today she worked on the abuse team and I reported this. She was, had just so much drive and ambition to resolve it. She's like, finally, I mean, I actually met her about a month ago and she said, and she was in tears. She's like, it was a moment in my life where what I do matters. What I do is helping people. What I do is action and what I feel and what I've seen. This was the momentum. She said, as a leader like you, Erica, that you're like, Hey, this needs to be fit. And it's like, that was a perspective that she had. And she felt strongly. I felt strongly. Do you think everybody else had those same experiences to have that same drive to fix it? And she did. It's like so much better

on the platform. I don't get a lot of this stuff, but that is how I think you start seeing some difference in products because you have different people at the table that are experiencing different things that see the world in a different way that wanted to make a change in a new way. So that's one example. Another example I've seen in products is in our recruiter product. So for many years, a recruiter, they're searching for talent. Right. And you say you want to search for software engineers. Well, the first page of results that are rendered on that platform, guess what? Who would pay attention to the algorithms? And they're all men. But is it is that the population of candidates on LinkedIn? No. If it's 60-40, 60% men, 40% women, what do you think that first rendering of those page results should be? Equal representation of what you have. But if you don't pay attention to those things,

or if you're the same people and you're looking at it and it's different, you're blind. You don't mean to be malicious. It's just, gosh, what? That's how I see the world and at it and it's different. You just, you're blind. You don't mean to be malicious. It's just, gosh, what? That's, that's how I see the world. And that's how it's been. And that looks normal to me. You show me that like, what the hell? You're going to hire all the wrong people. You're not even trying to create a diverse set of folks in your, in your team. You're actually missing out on a big part of the population because of the software that you built. And that's when you have a platform and you start looking at all these things of like, how am I unintentionally voiding people out and not including people and creating those out?

And that's why I get nervous about technology and AI and all these algorithms that are built, they're built off of data, right? And if it just gets worse, worse, and worse, and then how it's gonna take decades to reverse that. So I think ethics is really important. And humanity and all those things when you're building products. So have I seen examples? Yes, I've seen a lot. I've seen a lot more incorrect examples. And that's why you need to have different people at the table building to get it right. In this case, like when you have engineers, just let's say looking for a job, and they want to identify that a company aligns with these values too. And when you're interviewing, you're doing like whiteboarding sessions or design sessions, and maybe a couple

conversations where you're not talking about technology. In your opinion, what are ways to identify some of these red flags early on when a candidate is interviewing at a company like, hey, this company doesn't value diversity the way I do, or they don't line up with some of my values. And I would rather not work there. Have you found ways where people can identify some of this? The best way to do is to talk to different people in the company and ask those exact questions. We are all adults. We're all trying to go after what we want. Ask those direct questions. These things are really important to me. I need to understand if this company and you share the same values. Ask. Simply ask. And I will tell you that when you are in a company that's in the middle of change where they're trying to create a company that represents those better values,

the same people that I got tapped on so many times. And it's like, is Erica the only person in this company in the early days? And it could be a lot of work and taxing, but that's why it's so important when you start companies early, early on, do it early on that you're creating a company that represents those values because then when you're trying to do it later,

it's a little harder, it's more taxing and all those things. But I would say the best thing to do is to ask, say, I want to talk. If you're interviewing at a company and you're not seeing and your interviewers all look the same, you're not interviewing with diverse folks, you're asking these questions, then you'll keep blanking the face and you're asking directly. I mean, that's a problem. That's a huge problem. And there's other ways to also do your research, right? You talk to other people that are working there. They're most likely part of a community of a value that you share. I know on LinkedIn, I was also part of building this is creating those values on the company and showcasing them. If the company really cares about it, they're going to be talking about it. It's going to be on their company page. They're going to have people that are going to be advocates for that company. And you will see that you'll see people celebrating

all those wonderful things. So if you don't see that, and it's like radio silence, that's a big flag. Because you also could say that there's you ask and people will say, Yeah, we care about it. But okay, well, what are you actually doing? Like, show me how you care. And so you got to dig just like anything, you're researching that company, their profitability, and what's what the culture is, and the value. You've got to do all the things. They're all so important. You have equal value on it.

Because at the end of the day, people leave. It's not the company. They leave the people. And if you're not in a place, you just wasted all that time. Wasted a ton of time. You maybe wasted a year or two. It's a lesson. When I say it's a waste, it's a lesson and when i say it's a

waste it's a lesson i'm not gonna do that again but you got to do the research before you make that move it's really important um going back sorry about kind of building diverse teams have you noticed so ashley asked so my my female colleague so one of the things she mentioned i thought was super interesting was like so have you noticed that men and women bring different skill sets to the problem uh or contribute differently to the problem or do you feel like it's all individual based i think i'm not always a big fan of generalizing uh everyone because i think it is a lot of individual based but i think there's just a fact of what different genders or race or what are exposed to. So then

if you're exposed to that, and you're living a different experience than other folks, then of course, you're going to bring different skills or different perspective to the table. So I definitely have seen that for sure. I think even maybe this might be a little bit controversy as well. So I think about, I've been thinking about this lately is I, especially where I'm at in this phase of my life and my career, looking back, the world, the workforce was designed for many years of this, I think generalization it's changing, but men went to work, women stayed home with the family and took care of all their, of the children, right? And cooked and did all those things. The workforce was designed that way. It hasn't changed. It hasn't changed, but it has changed

in small ways, but women are, more women are in the workforce. More women want to have careers. They want it the child care like all these things have changed over time and now you you have this other thing that needs to be fixed and so I look at flexibility right and how can you have a different workforce that you have maybe more flexible hours you have child care and then you have more I know some stay-at-home dads right and and then they're feeling like oh wow how does childcare, and then you have more, I know some stay at home dads, right? And then they're feeling like, oh, wow, how does this work? And then there's, and then if you have two working parents, like my husband and I were fortunate enough to then have extra care, but I think we have to redesign the workforce. But you when you talk about

different skills and perspectives, absolutely. I think there's definitely a difference there. I just talked about some other examples of, you know, how you want to build products. And I just, I think I would like to see the workforce change. I think it's wonderful that we have remote work and an unfortunate event of COVID that taught everybody that we can actually be more hybrid in, in, in the workforce. But then I do see, I, I, I get a little scared right now because there's such a ask for everybody to return to work. Like our, what about those lessons that we learned? Right. And I think that both are important. You could do both. So I hybrid. So I worry that is so, so much of a focus because things are tightening up that, um, I worry that it's going backwards a focus because things are tightening up that I worry that

it's going backwards. I really, really do. But I feel that's also going to eliminate some of the amazing changes that we also saw. And then maybe we're not going to have as many diverse folks in the workforce, too, because people are realizing, you know, they have kids. They need child care. They need to do all these things. They want to work, they still want to work, but they want to have a family and live. I mean, we're humans at the end of the day, right? We want to have, we want to

have friends, we want to have family, we want to do things. Work is not everything. It's a big part of us, but it does not define who we are entirely and our entire value into society. So a lot of, I know I kind of went on a tangent on, or a little off from what your question actually was, but I just did, I just think it's, yeah, it's different. It's different. It's something that has to change. So I want to switch gears just so slightly.

And I want to go back to something you said earlier. You mentioned board of directors and I've heard this somewhere else too, about like having a mentioned board of directors. And I've heard this somewhere else too about like having a personal board of directors. I've heard about this, but I don't know exactly what it means. And I don't know how can one go about building a personal board of directors. So can you elaborate on this idea? Yeah, I've heard board of directors, board of mentors, because I don't think that there's one person that you're going to learn from, right? You're going to get something from a whole bunch of different people. So

that's why I'm not usually a big fan. Like, will you be my mentor? I mean, that's like asking someone to get married and you're like committed for like a long, like, I don't even know if it's going to work out. Right. So, so, so I think that it's important that maybe there's something like more of intentionality. There's something that you want to work on. Say you want to get better at presenting your strategy. You know, who's real look around. Who's really good at that. Go ask them for coffee for 30 minutes or so and start picking their brains and be intentional. Like, hey, I'm trying to work on this. Can you help me? And then maybe I need to go to someone else to have a huge project and I need to execute on it. And I, you know, actually

you, I was introduced to you from David Hinckley, who is like, I love that guy. He's amazing. He interviewed me when I came to LinkedIn. He said hi. Sorry. Oh, he said hi. Good. Tell him I said hi back.

Talk about someone that was truly an advocate from like early on. He is. And he still is to this day. And that's what? How many years later? 15, 13 years later. But he was someone that he was no longer at the company. And I learned so much from him at my time at LinkedIn

that I was working on a huge migration at the time at LinkedIn. And he was just always so great at those things. And so I said, I'm going to call him because I had number one, a reason. Of course, I always just want to talk to him, but it's always good to at those things. And so I said, I'm going to call him because I had number one, a reason. Of course, I always just want to talk to him, but you know, it's always good to have a reason. So I had a reason and I said, Hey, I know you did this in your early days at Yahoo, a big migration. Can you tell me how you did it? How was it successful? Any pointers? And we hung out on

the phone for like an hour and they sent me all this follow-up information. But that, guess what, is another notch of like a board of directors of mentors that I was able to get in that moment. So I think when you're trying to solve something or when you're trying to grow in a certain way or you're being stretched in a new way, look around, see who you could ask for help. And if you don't know that individual, there's tons of times where I will introduce someone else that they know, hey, Eric, I know you know this person. Can you do an intro? I do it all the time. Don't be afraid to ask. So I think if anything, be more afraid that you didn't ask because now you're just sitting and spinning and not making any progress. So bad on you. So I would say that would be, that's the way I look at it. And I have so, my network of individuals that have helped me is massive. And it's interesting,

because I'm in this pause, I need a new word. It's not a career break because I'm busier than ever. But I'm doing more passion projects. But I'm looking back at all those moments that I have gave so much with nothing in return. And I find myself in this new phase. And I didn't think about, wow, that relationship that I had 10 years ago, 13 years ago, two years ago. It's like, I can easily ask them for something for help in that moment. And they remember what you did for them many years ago. So I think if we can be on this world of plentiful and paying it forward and giving back, guess what? We're all going to be better for it. And you never know

when you're going to need that mentor moment or when you're struggling. And also we struggle. I have two kids in teenage years. God help me. But they're amazing. But it's a lot of work. So not only career advice, but I need personal parenting advice. And I've been through stuff. Other parents have been through stuff, working, juggling, doing it all. all it's a lot of work so being able to just lean on people lean on humans lean on caring and loving people that help you get through this thing called life uh is hard so yeah so that's why i look at it all around i need them all i need all these people a bit of a meta question so like for people sorry if this is like repeating it but like for people that are maybe like really shy about asking for help and for mentorship like do you have any

i'm sure you've like worked also with uh those type of people as well so like are there any just yeah like pro tips that you have about like getting them out of their shell? You know, I think when it comes to people that are a bit more reserved, I feel that one-on-one time is even more important. I know when I get that message, I tend to see some similar characteristics. Like there's this really long message a lot of you know explaining and like okay do you just have some time like you could tell that there was so much angst to even ask oh I was like absolutely let's get on give them that 15 minutes and I think I think that's one way is when you know when someone actually did make that ask it was a huge thing for them to do give back you can give 15 minutes. Come on. You can

do that. So I think there's one thing, but the actual act of asking, I have seen that too often. And that's where I think it goes back to us as teachers and as leaders in those moments that when you see someone struggling, you may not always see it, but especially in your company, if you see that, ask them, how are they doing? It's your job to actually ask for them because they're not able to yet. I've seen people struggle and be like, hey, how's it going? And then you'd be surprised. Once you ask, just go. There's tons of things to say, right? And all of a sudden, wow, I didn't even know that was all behind that person. Because I did a simple thing of asking for them. Because I knew they needed that.

So I think that's the more that as individuals, when we talk about awareness, it's so easy. I think about how, I don't know if that's the right word, but selfish I was in my early days in my career, because it's like me, me, me, me, me. I need to grow, grow, grow, grow, grow. I need to get that job. You know, you're just so, so into yourself, right? You're just like, because you're just trying to succeed. You're trying to get into life. And I think it's such a beautiful gift when you can get to that different stage of your career and your life, and it's not just about you. I think that's the biggest thing that you could do.

And you can look around and try and help other people, make you a greater human being, make you a greater leader, you'll create a better society, you'll do all those things. So I think that is something that I would put, you asked that question, it's what are you doing? What are you doing to help in that moment? What are you doing to ask? I used to be a shy kid. One of the things my dad would always say is, he would actually push me to just, let's say we go out to get ice cream.

He would just make me buy ice cream just to get me out of that chill. And one thing that I remember was, he told me, if you don't ask, you don't get. And like, that's one thing that has stuck with me. Even today, like even today, the instinct is, no, let it be. I'll bother them. Don't ask. And then I hear his voice in my head. If you don't ask, you don't get.

The worst thing is they'll say no. So it's okay. Just go ask. You're absolutely right. What is the worst thing that's going to happen? They'll say no or guess what you know for sure that you missed out you missed out on that opportunity when that person said yes so if anything it's actually it's really really bad and then people you know they if they can't they can't they say no they say no and then you even think about i remember just recently i was

trying to raise money for a political event I was hosting my house I mean to ask for money I was like oh that is really hard really strange I really are and but getting and and so just thinking about all those things I mean it's it's some people's time people's money all those things takes quite a bit so you mentioned you're working on something new so some of your passion projects. Can you tell us about that? Well, it would be pretty premature because it's all fairly new. But I could tell you more of what my passions are and where it's stemming from.

And then what I'm going to create out of that. We'll see. And so I'm in ideation phase I'm oh I always love ideas one of the things that I've been always passionate about is how you actually you know build companies and build teams and support women and diverse, um, communities and, and, and everything. So I created Women in Tech at LinkedIn and I was able to scale it and it became just like a force, uh, of its own. And then after leaving LinkedIn, I was like, does this have to end? This doesn't have to end. And it, I, I love LinkedIn as a company, but it was the people who I created and I built and I learned from and how we supported one another that I was just more, why does this have to

end? And can we keep it going? So I thought about it and I was like, it doesn't. And what if I created a local community where we can keep that going? Because what I realized is when you're in technology for a long time, and it's obvious is people leave companies, they go to different places, you created those bonds. And I'm looking at my network of women, I'm like, wow, we're all over the place. And even the male allies that I have met along the way. So how do we keep that

community going and those learnings going so that we can actually make a change in this world in a more global way because now we all scattered and went everywhere so i want to keep that going so that's why i'm working on i bought two domains start playing with my technology skills that i haven't played with in a long time which is kind of fun i was up until like two in the morning i was trying to build i'm like oh my oh my God, back in the day, this is so hard. Now you have all these templates and these tools. I'm like, it's a lot easier, but it was just fun. I was able to build. And so I want to get back to building a little bit more and hands-on. So number one is I want to create a community. And then at the end of the day, what does that community do? What does it actually create? What

does it, what kind of impact it has? So I am thinking about what that means. And I'm thinking in a whole bunch of different scenarios. One is not only the awareness and community that is there, but two, it could be a resource group for folks. I've already connected some people that are trying to start companies and they need to hire, you know, individuals or they need advice on how to how to do something. I'm also thinking about creating a fund. And I'm talking to another woman about that. Like, how do we we think about all VC funding? Guess what? Those numbers are not great for women at all. They're like in crazy single digits. So women founders, women and then women investors, women

investing in those companies. And so that's important, too. So how do we get to a world where, again, we get this more even playing field of not just for the fact of being fair, but the fact of what society needs? And so that's where I think about things that I'd like to do and create. So this is where I need, you talk about that board of mentors. I need someone to rein me in and a little bit more focused. I'm like, I want to do a podcast. I'm going to do a conference. I want to do this. I have so many things that I in my head, I'm like, okay, slow down. Uh, and so I need to get a little bit more focused. And then other things that I'm doing is not just, uh, women in tech, it's women entrepreneurs of, and also just women in politics.

I'm actually hosting an event in a couple of weeks at my home. This will be the second one. I did one for Congresswoman Anna Eshoo, became an amazing friend of mine. I'm also doing it for a recent candidate that's running for supervisor. And I'm doing it with a partner that used to work at LinkedIn hosting my house. And what does it mean for a woman to be in politics? Why are there not enough women that are running for office and leading this country? So how do you actually create balance there? I mean, there's just so much imbalance. And that's another, so I think it's important for us to care about our local communities. And what are we doing for that? Not only in the workforce, but also in the society that we're creating as well. So you asked me a loaded question that

I'm trying to figure out, but the one thing that I am enjoying right now is exploring. And so I'm going to narrow in a little bit, but I'm going to give my time to myself to figure it out. Am I excited to go back into corporate soon? It would have to be something really, really special. I'm on, I'm not interviewing. I want to take this time. I'll take the call. Cause like, you know, you have, you never know you plant seeds in this world everywhere. And if that opportunity comes, that opportunity comes and it's a fit, but I'm not excited for any of that right now. I want to kind of do my own, uh, thing. And then I also have kids that I have one more year left toward my son before he turns 18.

And my other daughter who's has, she's going to be 15 in two days. And I want to have that flexibility to be around with them. Because at the end of the day, when you're on your deathbed, what are you going to think? Like I worked for the whole time.

No, I did this kind of impact in society, this impact to my family, this impact to my friends. I want to have all those things. I want to have a full impactful life. So that's where I'm at this phase of my life and this awareness that I, and I am lucky that I worked my butt off in the early part of my career to have some financial freedom for a choice and so what motivated me then to compare to what motivates me now is very very different as you're doing the exploration like what are some um i guess metrics that you're thinking about in terms of like the sorry i didn't run a car no you're asking a good question because as anything like what are your milestones like if you're just sitting and spinning and thinking and

exploring and you have nothing for outcome so that that is in my mind right now it's like okay uh what do you what do you do so i think about i want to do more public i've done public speaking for for so long uh so a long time. But I want to make sure that that's part of my regular cadence. So how many events am I doing? How many speaking engagements? I'm sitting here with you. Thank you for asking me very much.

But how am I doing those things that I want to continue to do? So to make sure that there's awareness out there. And then what how many events am I going to create that awareness? So I need to figure out those KPIs for myself, those milestones, those metrics. And so I think there's phases of anything. And I was, I had a woman at my house, she's starting a company and I also just signed up to be on an advisory board. So I, those are some, you know, talking, I didn't mention those other things that I'm doing as well, but I, you know, what are these things that I'm part of and what kind of impact? And so I'm focusing on female founded companies quite a bit. And how am I giving back

that time to help them be successful? And do you, at the end of the day, if those companies that I'm helping and if they are successful, that's amazing. If they wind up not being successful, you know, most startups, the numbers aren't that great. You learn something in that way. So that's like pretty much for me, the best version of business school that I'm getting is going through this. So I think you can measure metrics in different ways

of what success is. So I'm figuring that out, but those are some things that I think about of what success success is so i'm figuring that out but those are some things that i think about of what success will look like so i want to look back hey what did i do for the last six months and that would be a spectrum of things it'd be my what impact did i have my family and what activities did i do my son and i are going to get our racing license i'm gonna go to lugano seca i going to get my car racing license. Yeah, I started learning how to ride a dirt bike with him. He got his motorcycle.

So there's like all these other personal ambitions that I'm doing. So, okay, I can say I did all those things. And then on the technology side, what have I learned? What have I done? And then also how I communicate. I'm creating my KPIs and metrics with you right now. This is great. And then, uh, you know, how am I impacting society? And so that would probably be another one. And then also just what, what areas of skills that I've grown. So I need to figure

that out, but you're, you're helping me explore those, uh, as well. So if you have any tips, let me know. I've never taken a career break in 25 years this is like the first time and it's pretty it was scary and scary because you're like work defined all those things for me I define those metrics of success but a lot of it is tied to a company right so to be in a position and you probably all familiar with this a little bit more it's a bet on yourself it's scary and then creating your own things for yourself it's a it's a new world it's a new muscle it's a new growth so figure it out yeah that's very relatable like i quit my job like a little bit over a year ago and then trying to kind of figure out things and one thing so you're kind of going from this right

like very highly structured environment to zero structure. And you mentioned KPIs quite a bit. I was kind of curious, as you were thinking through things, as you were adjusting to this new world of zero structure, what frameworks or tools have proven to be the most useful that you're borrowing from work? Or are you thinking about trying to come up with new things? It's a good question. And I probably can learn a lot from you too,

since we're going through the same thing. So, but there's some things that I'm still creating what that new structure is, but what I've seen, what I didn't like at work, making sure I don't repeat some of those things, what I did like at work. So I would say there's some things that are still true, right? Your meetings, your calendar, right? It rules your life. The more you say yes to, the more it just like pack. And then you're like back to back. And it's like, what am I accomplishing at the end of the day if I'm just like reactive? Because everybody will want to spend time and people want to spend time with you and

such. So I'm still making sure that I'm creating some of that structured think time. Yes, I'm meeting so many people, which is amazing. It's like, oh, Erica, you're taking a quick break. Let's hang out, right? Let's have coffee. And then those conversations are not just like a 30-minute meeting compared to like work. It's like all of a sudden they're like two-hour meetings and you're really learning from each other and exploring.

So I'm having to create a structure of my time a little bit differently. So making sure I create that think time still that I, for some reason, I just feel that I'm busier in different way more now, but I need to understand like even managing my calendar. I mean, I love all the admins out there. I don't have an admin. I'm doing all this stuff myself. I, it's a lot of work. I'm like, how did you do this? And so I'm asking them, I'm like, I just said yes to like five other people for these time slots and they all came back and then I didn't reserve the time and now I'm overbooked. Oh my God, what am I doing? So I'm like, I know first world problems, but I appreciate all the help that I used to get managing my life. Oh, I love those people. Uh, so I'm learning to bring, you know, learning some of those things to manage

my life and get things in order. And so I'm not burning my myself out and then reserving the time. There's a reason I decided to take the somewhat shift in my life to create space for my family more. So making sure I'm creating, Hey, my daughter gets out of school at this time, making sure that I'm going to be around and present. That was one of my goals. How am I structuring my life to match that? Because I could easily book over that time. So is it a hundred percent of the time? No, sometimes I do it like, Hey, 80, 20. And I, so I feel some of those things that when I was working, I need in a corporate world that they do still apply. It's just, I think you have to have even more intentionality to do it for yourself. Because I used to have it kind of done for me in different ways.

Or someone else set that meeting. Or were they my meetings or their meetings? So I think learning to say no, learning to spread things out is really key. And then also if that doesn't align with your mission or vision of what you're trying to do for yourself, then be honest. It's, I've had to say no to people. It's like, can we do that in an email? Those are things I've learned at work. Not everything has to be a meeting, right? Or I could still help them. You know, if you've made everything a meeting, gosh, go put that in a Google doc and let's just work from there. Right. Even us, right? I think we only, we, this is the first time we're meeting and I was like,

Hey, I kind of like this style. Just like, bam, let's meet an hour and a half and figure it out. I think it's great. So I think efficiency is probably even more, uh, important and that I'm learning in this new way. And then focus, I think focus is really important and I'm having to do that a little bit more. I can't, I didn't even tell you the other things. I'm also into real estate. I've just bought more properties. I do. I do a ton of different things. I just I can't even tell you. So many questions to ask. That's a whole that's a whole other episode. I've been doing investing in real estate since 2009. And so I just picked up a couple more properties and I'm doing more actually have a call today so I'm just yeah focus focus would be the new thing I need to work on but I'm actually really good at multitasking so but yeah no that's incredible so you mentioned a lot of these goals this is probably first year after

many years I don't even remember the last time I started with like this year I want to hit these goals so this year during the new year fortunately we had a relaxing weekend and like okay most of the time we are traveling so this time my wife i we wrote down our goals and we're trying to figure out how to be accountable and these goals are not just work goals meaning like make sure this project succeeds or make sure you your review is so andand-so. These are more personal goals. And you also mentioned goals that are like you spending more time with family, having an impact on the society, building a community and all of the other stuff that you're doing.

Do you have a way to track that you're actually making progress and we all tend to start with a long list, but then how the things kind of drop off? You've been doing it all. So I'm very curious. How do you make sure you're staying with it? Look, we create these goals for ourself, right? I mean, you only have so many hours in a day. So I think try and be realistic to yourself.

Like, is this actually achievable? You know what I mean? I think about you're you're in the corporate world and you set up to do you know ship x by this time and you get all this input like can i come up with that delivery date why wouldn't you be doing the same thing with your life and talking to your spouse and talking to your friends around like is this achievable or else that's also not very exciting that you keep on setting these goals that you keep on missing. Like, that's not good for you, right?

And it doesn't feel great. And it won't make you feel like, hey, I'm real confident that you could do the next one. So, I think be, like, aware. Is it actually possible? Is this achievable? And have an honest conversation with yourself. So, I think that's probably one. Because, like you said, we're so ambitious. Like I have other things that personally, I'm

like, Oh, maybe I'll do a book. You know, I'm like, Oh wait, okay. Get, get, get clear with yourself, Erica. This is, that's a lot of work. I was just listening to Brotopia the other day, and she was having all these acknowledgements, uh, of what it took to write her book. And then all, Oh, it's like, Oh my God. Okay. All right. Reality check. So I think you need to make sure you do a little bit of research of what it would take and how much time that would be. Uh, maybe not now, but maybe later. Right. So understand what it actually takes. And then the accountability part, I mean, either you're getting the, you're getting it done or you're not. And, and then you ask yourself, why didn't it get done? Well, guess what? There could be a whole bunch of different things. Like you said, you're like, I want all these things

to happen this year. Well, did life have an unexpected wrench that was thrown into you where it's like, that's not possible anymore? Okay. Give yourself some grace. That's not, you know, life is going to happen. We're not robots and things just automatically move forward all the time and figure it out. Like we are humans and we're going to have life happen to us. So I think there's recognizing when there's reasons why, but if you're procrastinating, look, we're all procrastinators. Trust me. Like everybody's like, well, why didn't you give me enough time to do that? Well, guess what? If I still made the date the other day, you're going to still take it. You're going to be like ramming up to the date and figuring it out the last minute. I mean, we, I would, I still, there's people that are just not in all aspects

of life, but I think by nature, most of us are procrastinators and we'll, you'll use the time. If you give us the time and we'll fill it in with other stuff. And all of a sudden you're like packed and you're, you're behind. So I think carve out that time. Today's the day that I'm going to do X, write it on a piece of paper, write it on a notepad, schedule that time, block out that time. Today's the day that I'm going to do X, write it on a piece of paper, write it on a notepad, schedule that time, block out that time. You need to commit to yourself and either you're deciding to do that or not. So commit to yourself, but not everybody's going to know that you set that thing for yourself. Like I don't know what your personal goals are, but, but so you're going to only let yourself down.

Right. So, so be fair to yourself and, and make those, those choices wisely and learn. It's okay. You may, you know, I even like, I started getting into weightlifting and I've always been a runner. I'm like, I need to do this, you know, balance out and my strength for your bones, everything I'm reading. And I'm like, gosh, I failed those reps.

You know, I was disappointed. Right. But that's OK. But I'm sticking with it and I'm going to do better. I'm going to get stronger. And that's my personal, very individualized goal to do more of. But yeah, I have a similar goal, by the way, but it's the opposite. I need to get into a little more running.

You know, I know I research everything. It's like you need to do both. So yeah, running, I listen to a podcast, listen to music, make it functional as you're running and get in the zone. That's what has always helped me. So anyways, good luck with that. And you don't have to be fast. Don't worry about speed. Just worry about getting it done so makes sense so guang's gonna hate me

because i'm doing a hard lift and this is some this is a question i was trying to figure out how to ask so you mentioned building the community like women in tech at linkedin and now you're also thinking about how can you build a community beyond that job anytime i've thought about communities and one question that i haven't been able to figure out is like how do you put a structure there where the community can grow can succeed without you being present at all times when it comes to yeah let's say a team at a company who are trying to achieve a goal there is a recipe that you can. The blueprints exist and there's a hierarchy of sorts. When it comes to community, people are there not because they have to be, because they want to be, but still having some structure results in some communities succeeding way more than others. So I'm curious to get your thoughts

on like, how do you think about structuring a community when you're thinking about building it? Yeah, it's a great question. I think in the beginning, I think it is important to be there. You're setting the tone, you're setting the vision, you're setting the mission. So I think right now, like for instance, feel that I need to be quite present. Now, as it grows, you want it to have its own wings and the whole point of scale. I mean, think about as technology, if you need to scale whatever you started, if you want it to have larger impact. So I think in the beginning,

you definitely need to set the tone and create it. And then after that, it has wings. But in order to do that, then you having to be the leaders of those leaf nodes of that community, right? So just like you build a team, who are those ambassadors that you have similar shared values, similar shared agendas, and you're doing the exact same thing. I had a similar thing. I'll give you an example. When you talk about a community at LinkedIn, I started women in Tech and for about seven years, I was always the face of it. I was a leader. I was there. That's a long time. One thing that I realized and also when I listened to other folks is after a certain period of time and growth, the company gets bigger. And if you're still that same community that's trying to reach out to the same number of

people, you're not going to be successful. You're actually going to start failing. And that's where I realized with other folks is, guess what? We need, like revving software, Women in Tech 2.0. What we created was ambassadors and leaders of every single part of the organization. Not only a WIT lead at the top. Yes, you need something there, but then a WIT lead in the infrastructure team, the recruiting team, the job seeker team, the consumer team. And you have leaders in every part of the organization. And then they create their own localized communities. Because sometimes what you also need to understand is a community at a very high level may not be solving all the

problems at the local and ground level. So you actually wind up not being successful. So I think just like any team that you would build in an organization, you need to have the right talent at every single level of the organization, which means every single level of the community. So you have to recruit, you have to search, you have to make sure you have continuous syncs that you have the same vision and mission and all those things. So it's all about scale at that time. And I think you have to figure out when that particular point is where you need to pivot and expand. So you're not the person that's always there it's vital and that's an exciting thing it's a sign of growth it's a sign of more potential impact that people want so um that that that's where i would

say it is but in the beginning it's important to yeah keep it protected a bit yeah and along those lines so like do you have for other people that are also trying to build like communities at their respective companies do you have any tips for both getting started as well as like thinking about how to structure it yeah i think when i actually have a playbook that i've created around some of this but i feel that you know you want to start off with what are you trying to solve? Just like anything, like what is your ultimate vision, you know, which is the big, big goal. And then also, you know, your mission of how you're actually going to do that. So I think being clear of what you want to solve and then the tactical things of what you're going to sign up for to do that.

And then also who's going to lead them, who's going to execute on them, how are they going to be accountable for them? So just like any other project, like get a people, get a group of people together and figure out what those things are. I, when you talk about community or ERGs, you know, it's very similar to a project. I remember when I first started Women Tech. Okay. Well, what do you want to do? You want to impact young girls that need to, that they should be thinking about getting into STEM. Well, guess what? We create a high school training program and bring them into LinkedIn and teach them how to code. And guess what? What is going to be the measured results? You won't see that impact probably until five years down the road, right? So you need to understand some of these

metrics will be later, but some immediate metrics was, one, did they enjoy it? Two, did it change their perspective? Three, the people that were mentoring them, guess what? You just scaled impact for all those other folks to realize this is important to pay it forward. So how are you actually measuring that? And then I've had some really great stories where some of these women that were part of these high school training, they reach out to me and they're like, Erica, guess what?

I'm going to Berkeley and I'm a computer science major and I'm graduating. I'm like, OK, let me help you get a job. Right. So it's it's it's so cool. And so sometimes you don't see those things until much later. But make sure like this is this goal. That's a long term goal. And these are some signals I'm going to get along the way. Like, OK, the program's continuing to be invested in and people are, you know, happy.

And then there's some other immediate things where I brought a gathering together and we talked about some really challenging things. And you do simple NPS scores. Like everything should be measurable, right? How was that experience? Would you go back? Would you recommend to a friend? So you always are asking for some signal of feedback that was successful.

And then guess what? It wasn't great. This is how we're going to change it next time. So I think whatever it is, whatever you design, just like software, A-B test it, try it. We are A-B testing ourselves as human beings, right? So I'm going to try this. Guess what? This wasn't great. Let me try it a different way. I'm A-B testing ourselves as human beings right so it you know i i'm gonna try this guess what this wasn't great let me try it a different way i'm a b testing myself as a parent i'm doing all kinds of things with a b testing everything so you're trying to build this

community what may work at another company may not work the same for you so figure out what those things are and try it and be measurable and then be honest and pivot and change and do something different if it's not working it's it seems like you talk about it and seems pretty basic but when you're in the middle of it and you're actually executing it you it's it's you not you don't always see that so just kind of take a step back and for the the high school trainee program, so I saw the interview and one thing that caught my attention was when you mentioned that some of the team members on your team, when you pair them up, right, to do the mentoring, they were spending so much time on mentoring, they didn't have the time to do their own work. So my view on this has been kind of like

oxygen masks on the airplane, you should first put on your own mask before you help others, which doesn't sound that smart now that I say it out loud. But what are your views on sort of balancing mentoring versus doing your own sprint tickets? Yeah, you're absolutely right. And at the end of the day, we need results to do all the things that you want to do, like give back and mentorship. If we're just only doing those things, how are we moving results forward?

So you have companies that are successful and that you can house those individuals that want to grow and have those next positions be part of that company. At the end of the day, you need to get the job done. You need to hit revenue. You need to get those projects out the door. You need to get results and feedback. So no matter what, you have to do your job. Now, it's a lot, that's why I go back. It's a lot easier said than done. So number one, make space for it. Like, hey, 80% of my job is doing all this primary work. Maybe this other 20% is revert. Do you have the right balance? And it's so easy. Sometimes maybe you're in a position, you're not really excited about your job. And then you over index on all this other feel good work.

It's so easy. And I've seen people do that. And I've had honest conversation. I go, you are so great at this effort, you know, this ERG effort or whatever. It's like amazing. But you're spending too much time. This is not your 100% of your day job. You need to be doing X. So that means, guess what? How are you going to solve it? You could still be doing that.

But carve, go delegate, go give that gift to somebody else that there's plenty of people around that can help. Why are you doing all the work? If anything, give that gifting, let other people do it as well and make it fill it. So I think that we can easily get caught up on in doing that all the time. And I think there's also spikes, right? Just like anything, even if you're shipping a project, like all of a sudden you're 100%. Like I don't have any room for any of that, right? And then all of a sudden things are kind of, I'm going to ride the wave.

It's a little lower right now. We just launched a product. We're trying to get feedback. Everything's good. Maybe you can bump it up a little bit. So I think everything goes in cycles potentially but yeah if you're if that's a hundred percent of your job and you have this other job you're failing yourself and you're failing what the company needs and you need to have an honest conversation with yourself that's so smart because at first i thought this 80 20

or just being precise about how much time allocation was a way to justify sort of the need to do this mentoring work but now i'm realizing it's not just that but it's also a way to measure if you're doing too much of it right because if you don't write that down it's zero and 100 so it doesn't matter if you're spending so much time on it you can still be like well there's no expectation of me to do it so the more i do you know it's it's very right right intractable uh that's super interesting okay erica we're we're running towards getting to the end of our conversation we have one one more question to ask we saw that you're on the advisory board for san jose state how did that come about so i just had this conversation yesterday with the previous dean of

engineering at san jose state and because she reached out to me she's like oh you're taking a break let's chat i want to know what you're doing you have so much impact let's talk about it so we were resonate we were trying to like how did how did we get together and i she had to remind me that this is when a seed is just planted so long ago that you don't even, you don't even realize. I mean, I graduated from San Jose state first person, my family to graduate. I took seven years to graduate. I went to junior college first. Uh, I was like, I don't, don't look at my grades. I wasn't a perfect student, but I graduated and I was working 30 hours a week at the same time. I was hustling. So, but when I worked at LinkedIn and I was leading women in tech, this woman, Bell,

she reached out to, it kind of all circles back of some of the stuff that we just recently talked about she reached out to Jeff Wiener our CEO saying I want to create a women in engineering conference would you all want to help be sponsors for it and he's just well okay guess what this seems like a job that Eric because she's now leading it she could go figure out if this is something we want to do or not right uh so he's like oh let me introduce you to erica so uh she and we were she came in and we were taught she's like i remember the exact meeting that i had with you we met in person and i gave you my whole pitch deck and she's like i used to be a professor and talk about like asking for money this is like a new skill and i'm trying to create a conference it's just it's just so familiar now. And she said, then I found out you were an alum from San Jose state. Like this just makes so much sense. And I said, so we donated a small

amount that we could give at the time. And she asked me to be part of the conference. And so I said, yes. And I ended up speaking at the conference. And then after that, she said, there's just, you care about this so much. Why don't you be part of the advisory board of this conference? And so I said, sure. And I didn't know what that meant. Right. I was like, I'll just be part of this. And so here I'm helping design it. And then the more I learned about it, I was like, I want to be a personal sponsor. So I funded it a big, a good portion of it with my own money and and then i've been through it i was the keynote last year and so many fast forward many years i've been part

of it but then through that this is how it's all related it's through that connection i met another woman and a and this guy that's head of the innovation advisory board of san jose state and they said hey you're already doing this other stuff. Are you interested in this advisory board? So I said, sure, why not? I'm a big fan. Like, I don't, sure, I'll say yes. And so now I've been part of that advisory board for the last like several years. And I've met amazing people through that. And I met amazing students. And it just feels so good to give back because I remember how much of a lost student I really was. And I just needed people to learn from. And I didn't have any of those meetups where I'm meeting students in small venues

or sometimes large venues, and I get to share my experience. And now, give me your pitch deck. I'm talking to these folks. Like I have, you know, and maybe I'll invest in your company and just having these really rich conversations. And then from there there then they were

like hey why don't you do the commencement speech for all of engineering for san jose state and i'm like okay did they check my grades did they really that was like that that was that was like the first thing i thought in my mind i'm like you know it's like i still i still have pts Did I study for that exam? Did I really graduate from college? They checked your LinkedIn profile. They checked my LinkedIn? Okay. Thank God.

That's all they looked at. And then this was at the PayPal Stadium. It's huge in San Jose. I've never spoken in front of so many people in my life, and I was scared as hell. But I said yes, and it was a great experience. And I just, I was so thankful. I would have never have thought that opportunity would come. And then from all those relationships, I've just met so many different people given opportunities. And then some people say, Hey, Erica, I know you're

so close with San Jose state. I need some help. I'm thinking about education in this way. So now all of a sudden I'm a connector. It's just you never, I would have never. And then I'm like, oh, maybe I need to get into the education system or something and understand this a little bit better and get more. You know, it's just now you talk about focus, Erica, focus. I just think there's so much to give there. And I had just met the president in a from san jose state she's amazing she knew her president san jose state she met with all of us

on the advisory board and we started talking about ai and you can now i'm like what are you doing in the curriculum i mean by the time you graduate everything is fast forward are you changing the curriculum are you doing things differently she is so she is embracing AI and looking at how they need to change. And then she's talking to all technology experts that are in the field and seeing it rapidly. She's like, you got to get your students ready at the same pace of innovation, right? So that impact I would have never, ever imagined. And it feels fabulous from the, you know, thinking of a student that could barely go to college first gen in their family to now be at a seat at the table and say come on i couldn't even dreamt that so that is an incredible journey and this has been an amazing conversation erica thank you so

much for joining us today we had a lot of fun yeah i had a great time with you guys and so fun and thank you for having me it was was a very authentic, fun conversation. So, and learned a lot from you too. So appreciate it. Thanks so much. Hey, thank you so much for listening to the show. You can subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and learn more about us at softwaremisadventures.com.

You can also write to us at hello at softwaremisadventures.com. We would love to hear from you. Until next time, take care.