The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Rebooting Tech Culture: How to Ignite Innovation and Build Organizations Where Everyone Can Thrive by Telle Whitney

Episode Date: June 11, 2025

Rebooting Tech Culture: How to Ignite Innovation and Build Organizations Where Everyone Can Thrive by Telle Whitney Amazon.com Drive a more innovative, inclusive culture that welcomes all talent. Many technology leaders believe in having more women and people of color in technical and leadership positions throughout their organizations. In truth, though, they just fall back on exclusionary behaviors, like revering the typically male "lone genius" who is essential to their innovative future. Why the disconnect? According to Telle Whitney, cofounder of the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing, while tech leaders may want to talk about inclusivity, few actually change their cultures to dismantle the unwelcoming environment, fearful that doing so will compromise innovation. Women and people of color pay the price, facing exclusive and even hostile workplaces. They're held back from professional growth and, in many cases, choose to leave the industry altogether. But there is a solution. In Rebooting Tech Culture, Whitney argues that the same values at the heart of innovation—creativity, courage, confidence, curiosity, communication, and community—can also foster a culture that’s welcoming to all employees. Drawing on more than fifty interviews with tech executives and a survey of a thousand people in tech, she shows how these "six Cs" can power real change in technology organizations, creating workplaces where anyone can be successful and where innovation thrives. Today, every company is a tech company. By understanding how to apply these values and reinvigorate their cultures, leaders will learn how to eliminate the behaviors holding their teams back from true belonging, growth, and innovation. About the author Telle Whitney is a senior executive leader, an entrepreneur, and a recognized advocate and expert on women and technology. She has over 30 years of leadership experience and was named one of Fast Company’s Most Influential Women in Technology. She is a frequent speaker on the topic of Women and Technology. She is an accomplished technologist who spent twenty years in the semiconductor industry in Silicon Valley. Telle has been called “a pioneer for the promotion of women technologists” and “one of the most inspirational leaders I have ever known.”

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Tik Tok and all those crazy places on the internet. Today we're talking to a fine young lady where her new book has just come out May 27th 2025. It is entitled Rebooting Tech Culture. How to Ignite Innovation and Build Organizations Where Everyone Can Thrive. Telly Whitney is joining us on the show today. We're going to get into with her. She's a senior executive leader and entrepreneur and is a recognized advocate and expert on women and technology. She has over 30 years of leadership experience and was named one of the fast companies most influential women in technology.

She's a frequent speaker on the topic of women and technology. She is an accomplished technologist who spent 20 years in the semiconductor industry in Silicon Valley. She has been called a pioneer for the promotion of women's technologists and one of the most inspirational leaders I've ever known. So, that's a great quote and endorsement

there. So, telly, give us your dot coms. Where can people find you on the interwebs? Telly Whitney Well, thank you. It's nice to be here, Chris. And thank you so much for inviting me. I'm easily available on the internet if you go to telewhitney.com. There's a direct link to my book. I also have a LinkedIn presence and I post a lot on LinkedIn. Pete Slauson So, give us a 30,000 overview of what's inside your new book. Annita Borg Okay, well, I'm a computer scientist and I have worked for the last 20 years. I led an organization called the Anita Borg Institute. We had a conference called the Grace Hopper Celebration

and it was all and there I met so many young women that were starting out on their technology journey and I could see the passion in their eyes as they tried to think about contributing to the technology that's changing our lives. And I also saw that fire go out often after about five years in the tech industry. And so that's what led me to write the book. Is the book kind of centered or targeted towards women or just everybody in the tech field? It's for everybody. I mean, as I spent 20 years of my career bringing more women into technology,

but really what you want is men, women, everyone to come together and create cultures where innovation and inclusion thrive. Yeah, I mean, we see a lot of that under attack right now, the D.I. situation, but having inclusion where everybody feels like they have a seat at the table and everybody, or at least, you know, whatever they've earned in Mera. And you know, they have a function and feel like they're making a difference. You know, people lead, as you probably know, with leaders, people leave workplaces over poor leadership. So, if they can't find it, they're going to do it.

What are some of the issues that you see in tech culture that need to be rebooted that you talk about in your book? I mean, I've had some, I had one friend, I forget his name, but he wrote a book about some of the tech bro culture and some of the tech culture that was kind of toxic in Silicon Valley, you know, having having like alcohol carts wander around during the day and sexual harassment problems. So what are the things that you address in your book that is kind of toxic there? Yes, well, I mean, so I came to Silicon Valley many years ago. And I mean, I love being here. And what's really positively unique about Silicon Valley

is the entrepreneur culture, the feeling like you can do anything. But I also, I mean, as part of the book, I interviewed 50 people, and I saw the difference between people who led cultures that were very inclusive, but also focused on innovation and those that weren't. So a lot of what you see in the book is about 50

executives who I talked to who are making a difference, people that you would know who they are, talking about how they do it differently. The book is centered around six of the six C's and we can talk more about that later, but it's creativity, courage, confidence, curiosity, communication, and community. And I observe that leaders that really want to have a truly innovative but inclusive culture create, you know, allow people to speak their mind who feel heard, they feel respected, and they feel like they're being listened to. Yeah. And that seems to be a core tenet that what a lot of employees want nowadays. They want, you know, they want to make, they want to feel respected, they want to feel cared

for. I think, I think that's kind of a human condition as it were in and of itself. We all kind of want to feel like we're respected and we have a say and we have input and we make a difference in our life and we're contributing sometimes to some things better. So in the book you talk about how to ignite the innovation where everyone can thrive. What are some techniques you advise in the book that leaders can institute? Well, I mean there's a there's quite a few different stories. I mean let me start with creativity because if you don't have a truly creative culture then the products that you're creating are just not going to make a difference in the marketplace. And one example I talk about

in the book is at AMD. I come from the semiconductor industry and AMD was always second place for so many years and they hired a new CEO Lisa Su. But then she brought on somebody named Mark Papermaster and together they turned around the culture. I mean this was really a turnaround and they they simplified the overall way that they approach building the product and In a few years, they really created a new product and that changed the market and they are Considered number one at least in some markets today So that's an example of how the culture actually drove the product, which drove the business.

Wow, that's pretty interesting. And yeah, I mean, having a healthy culture is real important. I know I've talked about this ad nauseum on the show, but years ago, when I was young, before I got my big company started, I read Peter Senge's, I want to say thriving, chaos, but that's Tom Peters, Peter Senge's The Fifth Discipline, which basically talks about establishing a learning organization. And so I focused on building my future companies initially with that culture of having a learning organization.

One of our rules was the only stupid question is the unasked question. So please ask the questions. The more educated our employees were, the more likely it was that everybody would do fine and no one would break a $30,000 machine, which they eventually did. Someone actually did, just slept through freaking the orientation and training. And so we try to have that culture. I've always been known to over explain to my employees and like, why, why when we ask you a question, do you explain why you came

to that conclusion, the history behind it? And only because if you understand how we built it, you might be able to innovate it. And I want you to be transparent. I want you to have a working knowledge of why it's built that way. And we also want you to feel free to come to us and go, hey, I think I have some better ideas on how this can be done. Because I know, I learned a long time ago being a CEO, probably the first couple of years in, that I was not the purveyor of every great idea. And I learned that the hard way financially.

So being able to get input and have your team feel like there's a culture there where, you know, what they say can matter and make a difference is really important. Well, yeah, I mean, what you said, Chris, is so important. And I think that many leaders don't actually get this. I mean, first of all, being open to new ideas. So you're setting up structures where people feel like they can contribute to innovate and not just the final product, but also the process by which you get there. There's many

ways that the people who are working on the front lines can suggest innovations that really make a difference. The other thing that I found that was interesting as I researched my book is that many, as companies grow, they become more of a command and control, and that does not create a creative environment, whereas what you just described often does. Pete Yeah. It's really just, it's really a difference of, you know, I've seen environments where if you say maybe you slept through something, the training, or a meeting, you know, I've seen environments where if you say, maybe you slept through something, the training or a meeting or whatever, and you're like, oh crap, I know I'm not up to speed on this given thing that I'm supposed to be doing. And I really have questions. But in our culture, if we're asked questions, we're kind of treated like a high school hazing

thing where everyone's going to make fun of me or call me stupid or my boss is going to, you know, I have bosses that do that. They have a pre-supposition towards you and no matter what you do that's good, they'll never see the good. But every time you make a mistake, oh boy, do they make a note of it and let you know that they know. And so you can make 50 million right choices, but it's almost, I don't know, sometimes I think they just want you to fail

or they're sick of you. Well, I just want to point out that failure is actually one of the most important lessons that you can learn. I mean, shutting people down when they've made a mistake, it just doesn't help anybody, including them. But failure is really often how we learned a real lesson and we can integrate those lessons into a future decision.

Yeah. And if people don't feel like it's an environment, you know, I've seen high school environments where they're, you know, it's just whoever can kiss ass on the boss the best and it's a popularity contest and like no one's really doing any work. And usually the people who are doing the real work are the people who, you know, they're the good workers, but they're the ones who usually get punished and left out. You know, it's an interesting thing. So how did you develop this? Is it the six C's I believe?

Mary F. Kennedy 6 C's, yes. Yes. Pete Slauson How did you develop these when you were studying this and researching it? Dr. Kirsten Kiehl Well, as I prepared to write the book, you know, I had been talking to, especially students for quite some time on what I called the five Cs. I added a sixth, the communities, and it was geared towards what can I do differently to have the career of my dreams. But as I looked more into what does success look like, it's often the culture. I mean, if you are working in a place where your opinion is respected and where you can influence the outcomes, that

makes a very powerful engagement with you and with all of your peers. And I also observed that there was a real difference between leaders who had a culture that was welcoming and those that did not. And so I asked them, I started out by talking to about 50 people, 36 of them were engineering executives. And I listened to what, and these were people who I knew personally and who were doing great things at their company. And so that's how I approached it.

Hmm. Uh, so give us a little history on you. How did you grow up? How did you get influenced into this field? Talking about these issues and everything else. So it's kind of a little bit about your journey. Okay. Well, I'm from Salt Lake City.

My family lives in Salt Lake City. I went to the University of Utah for my undergraduate. To be honest, I had no idea what I wanted to do. This was a long time ago. But the University of Utah was one of the few early schools that had a computer science degree. So I got my bachelor's at University of Utah, and then I went to Caltech for my PhD. I mean, first of all, I love technology. I just loved what I was doing. And I was around some of

the most brilliant minds on the planet, people who today, their technology is what we use every day. But I also, at times, didn't feel like I belonged. And so, through coming to, I came to Silicon Valley and I created a community. So the first thing I did was create my own community that allowed me to work in the semiconductor field, but also had people I could talk to. In 2002, I took over the Anita Borg Institute, which is a nonprofit organization to bring more women into technology. And the reason I took it over Chris was because the founder and one of my best friends was dying. She had brain cancer. And so she had started this

nonprofit but then could not see it through. And I was very ambivalent about leaving full-time technology, but I took over this nonprofit. I grew it to, when I stepped down in 2017, we had 30,000 people coming to the Grace Hopper celebration. We had a pretty significant budget. And so, I was proud. I'm an entrepreneur. I did it first in the semiconductor and then I did it with a nonprofit. Pete Slauson Congratulations. And so, when did you, what kind of drove you to want to write the book? What was the proponent behind that? Was there any sort of, did you were seeing things that really need to get fixed there?

Dr. Margaret Lowe Well, so, through my work at the Anita Borg Institute, I saw, I had the opportunity to make all these young students and they were so excited. They just felt like this was where the future was and their eyes were on fire. And then I watched them and I would watch the fire die in their eyes about five years after they joined these toxic workplaces that you were talking about a few minutes ago. And so I saw the real differences between places that were really welcoming and soliciting ideas and listening as you described in your own company and those that it was just do what I tell you, I don't want to hear from you. And so I just felt

like we should hear the stories from the people who are doing it right. Yeah, yeah, most definitely. I mean, you know, these are important aspects of a business. And when you look at what the cost is to hire employees now, employees leave if they don't find good leadership, they don't find that they have a say or an input, or if they're just ignored or disrespected. I mean, it's a big deal for them, right? And I also saw that as companies embraced what was called DEI, it was a checkbox. It was really, let's go out and hire all these people. But once again, they were not having all these people that they'd done all this trouble

to hire really integrated into their products and, you know, leadership, the product leadership. And that's what is the key to doing it differently. Pete It's all about leadership. Leadership is really important. And of course, you got to have some followers too to lead, but you know, leadership is really important. Because it sets the tone. It's the way, you know, I think there's a reference they have from the military, the man on the white horse, you can say a woman too. But it's the one that people look up to, they look to lead and have the vision and

everything else. And you know, so many companies nowadays, they try and rule by fiat via the So many companies nowadays, they try and rule by fiat via the PR department. Like we're going to be a moral company, we're going to do good, we care about our employees, we love our employees, our employees are family, oh and 10,000 you're fired tomorrow. You know, you're like, wait, it's not really, normally I think you understand how to care about employees and family work. Do you do that at Thanksgiving with your family or what's going on? You see people behaving, CEOs or boards or companies generally being led and behaving in a way.

Finally, Google, if you remember, had to give up their don't be evil thing because they just got too evil. And they're like, we really should do something about this because there's a bad look for us to be hypocrites. So they're like, we should stop the, we should take that down. And I guess the new mantra is, I don't know. But it certainly is don't be evil. Well, I mean, it was great that they said that, but I do know that they got rid of

it because I mean, I assume because they, as they got really large, it was too hard to really be able to say that. It's true. We got too large to not be evil anymore. I thought I should have told my mom when I was a child. I was like, mom, you told me not to lie and not to spill the milk all over the floor, but you know, it was fun and I'm large enough to where it's okay to be evil. I wonder what that would have gone on.

So I've known Google, I mean, I live in Silicon Valley and so I've known Google. They were a big supporter of our work for many years and so I've watched them grow significantly. And I do think that leadership becomes increasingly complex when you become large, but I was sad that they got rid of the don't be evil. Yeah. Well, they're probably up to something. So, you know, be evil. Pete Slauson Well, they're probably up to something, so, you know. I'm just teasing you, Google, don't shut off my Gmail. But no, I mean, you know, I thought it was interesting, you know, and maybe that's a

lesson to business people that people should take in a book. Maybe don't be hypocrites or number two, like, you know, know that you're eventually going to be a hypocrite. So try not to, try not to have this. What's that? What is that called where you try and paint yourself as a saint and you're really not? I don't know. Jesus. Anyway, so give us your final pitch out to people to write the book as we go out and all the good stuff. Well, if you want to think about innovation, and I do think that technology innovation is changing our world. I mean, every place that we go, technology is fundamentally changing what we do. And we want the best and the brightest minds to be part of that technology revolution. And my book, The Sixties, can help you get there, and it's important.

Pete Slauson Mm hmm. And we need all the smartness we can get. Give us your dot coms as we go out so people can find you on the interwebs. Okay, so my web page is telewhittney.com and the book is listed there. I'm also fairly active on LinkedIn, so you can easily find me on LinkedIn. I have a unique enough name that it's really easy to find me. Well, thank you very much for coming to the show. This has been very enlightening and also thought-provoking. So we'll put it in the bag and have people order the book. It's called Rebooting Tech Culture,

How to Ignite Innovation and Build Organizations Where Everyone Can Thrive. Thanks, Deli, for coming on the show. Thank you, Chris, for the invitation. Thank you. And thanks, Jaron, for tuning in. Go to Goodreads.com, Forge S. Cris Foss, LinkedIn.com, Forge S. Cris Foss, Cris Foss 1, on the TikTok, the animals crazy place on the internet. If you

go to each other, stay safe. We'll see you guys next time.