Have you ever heard of Raye Montague? Like most people, I hadn’t either- not until I read her obituary. What she did was amazing. During the Vietnam War, the Navy spent 2 years unsuccessfully trying to create a computer program to design ships. Raye was charged with completing that task in 6 months. [She said Read the full article…
This week there were two notable demonstrations of men dismissing what women have to say. The first was a comment by David Bonderman, an Uber Director. The second was Senators McCain and Burr’s stopping Senator Kamala Harris from completing her questioning of Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Bonderman’s misstep was responding to Uber Director Arianna Huffington’s Read the full article…
Based on what we see in the media, work-life balance is a woman’s problem. It’s one of the reasons given for why women can’t hold executive positions. When they do make it to the top, they are questioned on how they will handle it. (For example, Matt Lauer asked GM’s CEO Mary Barra how she was going Read the full article…
Catmull’s had two childhood idols: Einstein and Disney. Both, he said, do work based on acute observation. His original ambition in life was to be an illustrator- a dream that was crushed when he discovered he couldn’t draw. That’s when he turned to CS and physics for his studies, eventually earning a Ph.D. in Computer Science. Read the full article…
Dr. Laura Esserman, Director of the UCSF Carol Franc Buck Breast Care Center is a physician, researcher, and innovator who is changing the future of treatment for breast cancer. With her combination of brains, passion, tenacity, empathy and energy- she’s unstoppable. I originally met Laura through Jeff Pfeffer, Professor of Organization Behavior at Stanford’s Graduate Read the full article…
When I ask someone -who is Helen Greiner?- the response is usually a blank stare. Helen who? OK- have you heard of Roomba? Now that’s a familiar name. Well, Helen Greiner is the woman behind that invention. It is just one of the products produced by iRobot, the company she co-founded in 1990. Other household-friendly Read the full article…
Having decided to really focus on helping build women’s confidence, I keep wandering back to the topic of women and innovation. Mind you, the two are related. One of the factors inhibiting women’s ability to innovate is lack of confidence and its cousin, fear of failure. In a previous post, I had written about Female Interaction, a Read the full article…
Yesterday I had the opportunity to meet Peter Salovey, President-Elect of Yale University. The reception was held on the Stanford campus- where Salovey earned his BA and MA degrees. I was invited to attend because I’m an alum- having received my MA and PhD from Yale. [I actually was on the faculty of the Stanford Read the full article…
This Time cover image says it all. When male executives write books, it’s rare to hear someone criticize them if they suggest others take their advice on how to be successful. Sheryl Sandberg writes a book encouraging women to “lean in” and she spends her own money to create a non-profit organization to support other Read the full article…
Last week SpaceX launched its most recent flight to supply the International Space Station (ISS). Following a flawless launch, there was a problem with the thrusters on the Dragon capsule itself. Thanks to a quick analysis of the failure and rapid problem solving, the engineers were able to fix the problem, enabling completion of the Read the full article…