October 8, 2020 • 33 mins
What’s Her Story talks with tech giant and entrepreneur Padmasree Warrior. Padmasree speaks about her experience paving the way for women in tech, her pride in raising an independent son, and how she carves out time for herself with books and puzzles.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, I'm Sam Edith and I'm Amy Nelson, and welcome
to What's Her Story? With Sam and Amy. Every week
we talked to remarkable women about their stories. We are
both so passionate about making sure that we delivered to
you stories of the world's most remarkable women. Whether it's
(00:23):
in sports, or medicine or business, every single woman has
a story to tell and we want to share those
with you. Now, Amy, speaking of women with stories to tell,
how is your weekend? My weekend was interesting. So you know,
I have these four little girls and we have really
been just homebound since the middle of March. We haven't
(00:44):
gone anywhere. The farthest to field we've gone so far
was kind of to the to the park and walking outside.
But this weekend we finally went to an airbnb about
ninety minutes south of Seattle where we live. And we
were so excited because my little girls are little ishes.
They love to swim, they want to be in the water,
and so we just wanted to go to a place
that had a pool because they couldn't swim all summer
(01:06):
except in lake surround Seattle. So we found this great
airbnb and like the biggest part of it was it
had a pool that because swimming, so I made sure
to check with the host of the pool is open.
And we get there and it wasn't heated, and it
was sixty five degrees outside, but we made the best
of it. I hope you've got our money back or something,
because that seems just wrong to say to people. I
(01:26):
really want to make sure that the big feature here's
the pool, and they don't even mention, by the way,
it won't be heated. Ultimately, here's the thing, Sam, like
the girls basically once they got in the water, they
didn't care, and I just kind of sucked it up.
And I'm like, look, I used to be a wilderness
guy at the camp in northern Minnesota, and this is
not as cold as northern Minnesota, which is like my
bar in life. Yeah, but that Midwestern girl is long
(01:48):
gone from your It was very cold, but we had
a good time, and then we also went to a
pumpkin patch mass of course. Um, but how was your weekend?
You know that Ruby turned thirteen on Friday, and I
know that you relate to being a mom who's trying
to jump through hoops to make a pandemic birthday fun,
which has its own challenges when your child's turning six,
(02:10):
and a different kind of challenge when they're turning thirteen.
But um, on Sunday or Saturday, she told me it
was her best birthday ever. So I felt like I'd
win one, like an Olympic Old Medal of momm ng
because I worked so hard to make her birthday fun.
But she's someone who is so appreciative of the little things.
I mean even the only people who celebrated the birthday
with her were my dad and his girlfriend and my
(02:31):
brother's family. And when she received a gift from them,
I mean, no matter how small it was, she truly
looks at it and like spends time like she's so
enjoyed every single gift she We played Ruby Jeopardy. I
made a jeopardy game of Ruby Trivia, and I made teams,
and then I on Etsy a one on made these
hats called Ruby Time, and everyone had a trucker's hat
(02:51):
that said Ruby Time, and we all played the game
and people were so competitive, and it was you know,
I'll take stories for three hundred or I'll take you know,
fun facts for hundreds. So anyway, we had such a
good time. It was really fun. I mean, it's really
interesting when I think of this time, like there's a
lot of grief, but you and I have been fortunate
that we haven't lost anyone in our families to COVID.
But when we look back at this time, it'll be
(03:13):
really interesting what our kids remember. And I was just
thinking about camp, right, because it is just like closed
circle of who you're with and who you spend time with,
and hopefully it's a moment in time. Yes, I do
think it's weird though for like teenagers. I mean, my
girls don't see anyone. The other day, ellis that I
met some new friends last night. I'm like, where do
you go? She's like, mom, my bedroom, Like it was
(03:34):
on a group call, and you know, my friend added
some other friends to our call. It's just such a
strange childhood. I think we just have to adjust to
this is their normal. Ruby gets really mad at me
when I say, like, this is such a strange time.
She's like, no, it's that mom, that was a long
time ago. This is just what it is. And I
think she's it's a good perspective. Yeah, she's like a
just I mean, it's we have such different challenges, right
(03:55):
because my kids are six to one, and I think
I was telling you this the other day, Like I
think my four year old like forgets that she had friends.
She just as her sisters, has built in three friends. Yeah,
I mean who needs them? Right, It'll be very strange
when my kids can start seeing other kids again, but
we'll see. So today we are talking to pad Master Warrior.
Pod Master has had an incredible career. She immigrated from
(04:19):
India in her twenties and then she has been an
executive at some of the most amazing tech companies in
the world, from Cisco to China's equivalent of Tesla, and
it's so incredible to hear her story. Sam, how do
you know pod Master? Years ago we were introduced. We
have a bunch of mutual friends and pad Mastery was
at a point in her career. I think she had
(04:40):
just moved to celcm value was trying to meet women
in different fields who were doing cool things. And we
were introduced, and then I ended up interviewing her a
couple of times for Forbes and we've just always kept
in touch. And as her career has, you know, basically boomed.
I mean she's kind of skyrocketed, uh into a top
woman in in engineering and technology, and she's just become
(05:04):
this enormous figure. She has I think three million Twitter followers.
I mean, she's she's wildly successful. But also people are
drawn to her, and I think today you will find
out why. I know that. You know, when Amy and
I were talking about you, one of the things we
were marveling at is just how extraordinary it is that
(05:28):
you are not only a woman, but an Indian woman
in a in a field that is so um ramping
with white men. How did this all happen? How did
your career evolve? Yeah? So I am from India originally,
and I grew up in the southern part of India
in a in a fairly small town. I was always
(05:50):
interested in math and science, but I can say it
was like, I don't know when I was a kid
if I wanted to be an engineer. I think I
really wanted to be a scientist. My my interests were
in physics when I was a kid. Um, so I
actually started my academics in in being a physics major
and then switched after a year into doing engineering because
(06:12):
I really wanted to apply what I was learning more
and I got interested in how things got built and
how things get built to a scale. So I went
to a pretty hardcore engineering school in India called the
Union Situte of Technology, where the admission rate is like
really really low. It's a very competitive school to get into.
And they were very very few women. I think when
(06:32):
I went there was five women in a class of
two d and fifty. Uh So it's sort of like
a very daunting experience. I would say I was sixteen
or seventeen when I went to the school. I left
my hometown to go to a new Delhi, so a
different city where they speak a different language. Um, you know,
they speak India. I grew up speaking Telugu, so I
(06:53):
didn't know the language. I was like saying, very few women,
and yeah, I learned to survive I think in a
very tough, male dominated environment there. But I think I
learned two important lessons I would say that have stayed
with me throughout throughout my career. Since they were only
five women, and we kind of really stuck together and
(07:15):
supported each other. We were not only really good friends,
but we like looked out for each other, We got
each other's back, we pumped each other up. I think
that's where I really learned the importance of supporting other
women and really creating a community and belonging to that
community and making it a priority to do that. I
honestly don't think I could have gotten through iety without
(07:37):
my my my women friends who are my sort of
like my community. So tell us about Fable. Yeah, so Fable.
I started the company roughly a year ago. I started
to get interested in mental wellness and how we could
use technology to improve mental well being for millions of
people around the world. Because when I left my previous company,
(07:59):
I was building autonomous electric cars, so completely different. The
company that I was working at is sort of like
Tesla and China. It's now a public company. So we
took the company public, and I felt like, Okay, I
did what I came there to do. And I started
to really get interested in the fact that anxiety, depression, burnout,
(08:19):
loneliness are all going the wrong way for many, many people,
across all eight groups, across every country. Almost it's all
trending the wrong way. Um, perhaps social media is a
contributor to it, perhaps technologies are contributed to it. But
regardless of the cause, what could we do to help
give people tools to alleviate and manage their own stress.
(08:42):
So I started to research that, and then I came
upon a lot of research that talked about how reading
and reading fiction helps us relax. Right. You know, when
you are reading a story, your mind is occupied and
you sort of like it improves your empathy, improves your
understanding of something. Books can make you laugh and books
that can make you cry. They take you to different places. Um,
(09:04):
And I'm an avid reader, and but I think a
lot of people don't associate reading to have value or
improve your mental wellness. They think of it, they don't
connect the two. We had a lot of science points
to it. It's so funny because I always, no matter
how busy I am, I'm always reading a fiction book.
I'm obsessed with always being part of a book. And
(09:25):
people will say how do you do it all? And
I'm like, it's just such a big part. I would
you know? For me, that is my mental health break
is to always be involved in a book. Because you know, hey, listen,
right now, we all make time to do something for
physical wellness, right we go on our calendar, going for
a walk or if you have a palleton, getting on
a paloton or going for a run, walking your dog,
(09:47):
it's on our calendar. And physical fitness is now a
four trillion dollar industry ten years ago was a pair
of sneakers. And that's because people are aware that we
have to take care of our bodies. But the same
is not true for men for well and as yet.
So I would love for this to be a priority
for most people because sam, as you're saying, it doesn't
take a lot. If we read fifteen minutes a day,
(10:09):
will finish your book in a month. And but it's
just like people say, I don't have time to read,
but like you have fifteen minutes to read, And it's
helping people realize break it out into micro goals. And
the other problem people say is I don't know what
to read. There's so many book out there. So what
we do at fable is help curate. We go to
(10:30):
experts in the industry and have them select great books.
Um and so it's sort of lessers more is what
we believe. Can we offer you like thirty great books
every month to read and you pick one of those
that has been selected by an expert and then you
read with your friends, So it's like the book club concept.
So I would love for you guys to have your
(10:50):
community of uh what's her story? Uh community or your
women's groups to read together because when we read together,
we share experiences. Right like you would say, watched the
story about us sharing our stories. Another way of doing
it is through a book. I think that's so true.
I think too, and Sam and I talked about this
a lot. A lot. Women's stories remain untold in so
(11:13):
many ways. Even fictional characters for women provide representation and
give us ideas, and we get to see different ways
you can live your life, and it's so important. Yeah,
I am generally always a reader and a voracious reader,
but it's interesting. Over the past few years, I focused
my reading on when I'm on planes, and I used
to be on planes multiple times a week, and now
(11:35):
I need to re calibrate to find a way to
read in the madness of my home with my forces
all children. But the same is true for me. I
used to read primarily when I was on a plane
because I was so busy with work and I was
traveling so much. What I've done now is I don't
know if this will work for you, uh, Like I normally,
because I'm back to back in zoom calls. I make
(11:56):
it a point to take a lunch break every day
for half an hour and usually doesn't take me thirty
minutes to grab a sandwich or whatever I'm eating a hold,
so I read them like I grab a sandwich for
ten minutes and I read for like twenty minutes. So
at least like it's sort of like, yeah, it's bring
it every day for small amounts of time that has
it's sunny. It's study that you mentioned peloton, because I
(12:17):
have a peloton and I do I often will do. Okay,
it's just to go to a twenty minute class because
it's just twenty minutes. It's a very digestible amount of time.
But I had a follow up question. So you mentioned
earlier that you were more in your marriage, you were
more of the perfect athlete, where your husband was a
serial entrepreneur. So what has it been like starting a company. Yeah,
it's he's he's helping me a lot now and so
(12:39):
now the roles are reversed. You know, he's an investor now.
He primarily does a lot of angel investments. Um, so yeah,
I I go to my husband quite a bit. He's
in a way, I would say, a silent partner, like I,
I go to him to get advised. He's helping me
a lot with things related to financing, things related to
legal staff, all of things. All of those things we've
(13:01):
never really liked worked together. We've make it a point
not to work together. We sort of like have our
our interests. Um. But yeah, we usually consult with each
other like and so he's been cout and put a
great advisor and a silent partner at table. So I
know that you have a son and through a lot
(13:22):
of your big jobs in life. I remember you were
working for a factory. Is that right? You were running
a factory when you gave birth to your son. Yeah. Yeah,
I was running a semiconductor factory at Motor a Semiconductor,
and I was pregnant and I had my son. It
was probably the hardest few years of my life. Um
and yeah, I often talk about it. I think I
(13:44):
learned they important. I actually don't like the word balance
because I think I was striving to get balance at
the time and found that I was actually being so
hard on myself that I would never find happiness because
I would feel guilty no matter what I did. For example,
when I when I had my baby, and I was
running a factory, I would feel really guilty because that
(14:06):
factory was seven by twenty four. I had responsibility to
keep it going seven by twenty four because the semiconductor
fab right so very capital intensive. So um I would
feel guilty for being home with my baby even though
I was on calls, you know, leading my team, that
I wasn't there in the factory, and so I would
feel guilty for staying home. So I would go to
(14:28):
work and you know, leave my child with a daycare,
and then I would feel guilty that I wasn't with
with my baby and I was at work, and I
would like, oh, I'm a terrible mom, I'm not a
good mom, and I've left my son a child care.
And then I would bring and try to work at
home with my baby, and I would be on called,
and then I would feel guilty because I wasn't working
out or something or the other. So the fact that
(14:50):
I was always guilty no matter what I decided to
do was causing me stress versus the decision I made.
So often when especially women, when they talked about how
do I do both? How do I have a great
family life and I have a great career. Always tell
people decide, you know, I mean, we make decisions based
on the best information we have. I don't feel guilty
(15:12):
about whatever you've decided. In the end, it all works
out fine, you know. I think my son is quite independent,
and the fact that I was a working mom, I
take pride that he became more independent because of that,
Like because he had to help himself. He had to
go make his own dinner and make his own lunch,
eat when he's hungry, so he's not reliant on someone
else doing those things for him. He'll make a really
(15:33):
good husband one day. He's actually as more of a
feminist than even I am. I love that. How does
he feel right now when he talks about your career?
What does your son say? Yeah, he's a writer. He's
a creative writer, and he just graduated with his m
s a m f A from USC So he's very
different from from me from a personality perspective. He's one
(15:58):
of those people that's very creative if that's very thoughtful,
that's very observant, whereas I am more logical. But I'm
also not artist, So I think he got I got
my artistic side. I think, um, I think as children
grow up, they become more more your partners, right, Like
it's sort of like a brainstorm ideas. With him, it's
always supportive. Like even when I was starting a company, um,
(16:22):
he was like, yeah, you should do this because you're
very passionate about this. Because I turned down many, many
big jobs to do this. I had a lot of
CEO offers from very big companies, and I chose to
start my own company. Um. And so my son, I
would say, has been like my husband. I think they've
both are being fortunate. They've always encouraged me, like you
should do what you really believe in. You know, of
(16:44):
course there's constraints, right, Like starting a company is not easy.
It's a lot of work. Um In. You guys know this, right,
you know, being a founder is a lot of work
and you need to be very resilient. And so it's uh.
People always ask me what is hard being a C
suite executive in a fortune hundred company or being an entrepreneur.
(17:06):
I would say, be well, we all like to choose
the heart thing when you raising yourself. When he was
a little how did you think about wellness in the beginning,
I was trying really hard. I think I was almost
trying too hard because I was thinking about balance and
(17:28):
to me, that word itself, it's sort of like forces
you to try to make everything equal, and that's not life.
You know, like in life things are not equal. It's
about integrating things that matter to you into your life. Actually,
one of my boss is once asked me, so, tell
me about your family life and your work life. And
I said, I don't have two lives. I only have
one life. And in my life, I have worked in
(17:50):
my family, UM, and both are important to me. UM.
So yeah, I started to when he was little. Actually,
I was telling you this thing about I suddenly realized, Hey,
no matter what I do, I feel guilty and that's
what's causing me stress. So I need to stop that. UM.
And I think about integrating, and because of maybe I'm
an engineer, I think of it as like four quadrons,
like this family, there's your work, uh, there's your community,
(18:14):
and there's yourself, and it's important to to focus on
all four, not necessarily spend equal amounts of time, but
focus on outpor um. And I really tried to do
that because what I found was I was focusing on
work a lot in my family a lot I was
ignoring my friends and my community, and I was totally
ignoring myself. And so I started meditating as as a
(18:38):
way which would help me relax when my son was
less than a year old, like, because I lost my
mom when he was very young, and it was sort
of like a very sudden way that she passed away,
and so it was sort of I think, up until
this point, I knew what death was and what deep
grief was intellectually, but I never experienced it emotionally. I
(18:59):
think it was the first I'm I realized that, um,
you know, there's a big emotional tool, and how to
deal with grief is is not something very simple and straightforward. Um.
And I had a young baby and I had my career,
so there was a lot going on, and so I
felt like I needed to just be calm and figure
out how to get all the thoughts out of my head.
(19:21):
And so I kind of taught myself how to do it.
You know, in the beginning, I would just try to
sit still for a minute, and I couldn't get my
my weren't wander everywhere. Um. But again, you know, it
goes back to how we're thinking about people. I tried
to make a daily habit of it, Like every day
I would force myself to sit still for a minute,
and you know, slowly increased it to two minutes and
(19:43):
five minutes and yeah, now I do it for twenty
five minutes every day. Wow. But it took me a
long time to get here. And so but it's something
that truly helps me. It helps me I think, um,
make better decisions, be calmer, deal with stress overall in
a different way. By the way, for me, reading books
is meditative to when I'm reading a book, I sort
(20:04):
of like get very emerged. I almost. I am so
happy you said that, because I am not a traditional meditator.
But I always say, like doing a jigsaw puzzle or
reading a book for me is my own meditation. And
so I'm going to now say that you said, that's okay,
that that counts. Yeah. I actually paint too, and when
I'm painting, that's another way to meditate. And for some
(20:26):
people it's running. I mean, it's whatever. It is right
that anything you do could be meditative. But yeah, that's
kind of hard. Were the lightning round? I have two
more questions in me. How do you make decisions? I
am a decisive person. By nature. Um, you know, I
go into things with an opinion. I I do feel
like I have opinions. I mean I usually tell if
(20:47):
it's a business thing, if it's my team, I let
them know that, hey, I have strong opinions about this,
or I don't have a strong opinion about it. I
can be I can go either way. Um, So there's
no hidden thing, Like I am pretty explicit in telling
them like I'm strong opinions about this, and he has
why and he has my opinions. But I can definitely
change my mind. Um. I do listen to input from everyone,
(21:09):
and then I gather as much data as I can
and make a call. I think I am one of
those people that believes in making more decisions and correcting
if they're wrong, versus delaying too much to to get
all the information you can because that could go on forever. Um. Yeah,
and once I decide if I've made a wrong decision
and somebody points that out or they come with better data,
(21:31):
I'm happy to change that. And I will always say, Okay,
yeah I made that call, but there was not the
right call. We should do this other way. I love
that now. Now, in terms of women in tech, Obviously
it's such a big topic. What is your philosophy in
terms of how we can increase the numbers and get
more equality in intech? There's many many reasons that contribute
(21:53):
to that, right, you know, I think, um, first of all,
like making sure women pursue technical feel in college and school.
That's important. But even when people start their career, they leave,
and more women leave from companies just because they build there.
It's not a comfortable environment. They can't be who they are,
who they truly can They can't be true to themselves.
(22:15):
And so I think companies have to do a much
better job of letting people be authentic to what they
truly believe in. And you know, I think we should not.
Even when I started my career, and this was years ago,
you know, I had to dress almost to be look
more like a guy than like a woman. And so
they were all these sort of like unspoken rules about
(22:35):
the culture that made it very uncomfortable for me. Um.
And you know, as I was saying, I came from India,
I loved color, I love jewelry, and so there were
so many things that I loved that I couldn't carry
that part of me to work which was very stifling
in its own way, and and none of that, by
the way, it was necessary. It had nothing to do
with my work or who I was as an engineer.
(22:58):
So I think we have to first in companies, allow
people to be truly themselves, like you know, be whoever
you want to be. It really doesn't affect how you
do your work. Um, and how we behave and defining
the culture in a company and being explicit about that
is important because unless you tell people how they should
behave at work, they won't know. But that has nothing
(23:21):
to do with what you wear or how you act
and you know. So I think we have to remove
all these unnecessary barriers for women to be successful. That's great,
that's great. Okay, Amy, ready for the late round. What
is your morning routine? Okay, My morning routine is a
(23:42):
cup of coffee and catching up with news. I have
two cups of coffees, so I'll trump her one cup.
When was the last time you cried? Oh? Wow, mm hmmm.
Last time I cried was um, when I kind in happiness,
(24:06):
I cried inside. I'm assuming you mean sad. I meant sad,
but I'm kind of curious to hear when you cried
in happiness too. I think I always cry in sadness.
My sister passed away very suddenly, and whenever her birthday comes,
I cried. So that was the end of way. I'm
(24:26):
so sorry. I'm so sorry. That's so hard. My sister
actually lives in a bay, and it's so hard because
I don't know when I'll see her again. But I'm
so sorry for your lost. Yeah. Yeah, it was years ago,
but still I still remember on her birthday. I always
remember her. It used to be a happy occasion. Now
(24:47):
it's not. Yeah, and what about the last time it happened.
That's when my son graduated from USC. It was sort
of like the virtual commencement and I was was watching
and I saw his name. I'm like, oh, you know,
I love that. I think I think this is a
bitting question. What book are you reading right now? Yeah?
(25:09):
I just finished reading Where Did You Go? Benedette? That
was cute. I love that one. Yeah, that was fun.
I actually read it and it was my pick, and
so we we started a table reading club and we
were all reading. Now. I just started reading Lovecraft Country. Um, yeah,
Matt Cuff's book. I'm a newt fan of Waually Lovecraft
(25:30):
and so I just HBO just started a show, and
I want to read the books. I'm also reading that
out table. Do you want to try to read the
book before you watch the movie or the show. Yeah? Typically,
typically I do, and I usually read many books at
the same time. So I read like two three books together. Well,
there was a book Normal People that I loved. I
(25:52):
don't know if you read that. I loved that quo
It's excellent. And now then it was made into a
TV show and I don't want to watch it because
I loved it so much that I don't want it
to to you know, I don't want to spoil it.
Sometimes that happens. And one last question for you, um,
what do you watch TV? I feel like someone like
you wouldn't watch TV, do you? Yeah? I do. I
(26:15):
watch TV. I watched I started watching more TV than
movies now because I feel like TV shows have really improved. Um. Actually,
this is something my husband and I do together. Every night.
We will watch an hour of TV and we will
watch a show that we both like. What are you
watching right now? Right now, we are actually watching battle
(26:35):
Stock Galactically, watching Battlestar. We're both science fiction fans, so
we usually want science fiction. You're like Amy, she re
watches things that that's a very Amy thing to do,
it is, I mean, well, especially in this moment, I'm
trying to save some of the new stuff. I want
to watch Lovecraft Country, but I want to save some
of the new stuff because I don't think there's going
(26:55):
to be new stuff for like two years. So I'm
watching ned stuff. I just finished watching Perrymates and Remake Ones.
We all love that. I am watching that. It is
very good. I'm also watching Succession Succession because I've never
watched it. You know, I didn't watch I usually watched
science fictions for that. Before b s G. I was
watching Debs. Did you watch Debs? That's a great show
(27:21):
kind of yeah, but it's it's also philosophical. So for
our final question, we are going to give our final
question to Lou who has been listening intently to this interview,
and he comes on with our final questions. There's a
(27:41):
quote that you have. It's a the ability to learn
is the most is the most important quality of a leader.
Uh And I fancy myself a leader, but I like
to to know what other people think and what they're learning.
So my question to you is is, in this time
now where the world is literally turned up I down,
what are you learning about yourself and everything around you. Oh,
(28:05):
that's such a great question. What I'm learning about myself
is how to be more disciplined about where I spend
my time, because it's very easy when you're working. In
the beginning, when we were working from home and when
we were doing the quarantine, I was just working all
(28:26):
the time. I was actually working more than I was
when I was physically going to an office because it's
just so easy to just stay on zoom calls. Um,
And I found that I really was not taking time
for anything else right like as at least before, when
I was going to work and coming back from work,
I had like breaks in my day, whereas if I
was working from home, I never had those breaks. Um.
(28:48):
I'm now much more disciplined. I was saying earlier about
taking a lunch break every day. I blocked thirty minutes
to go grab lunch and read something for fifteen minutes.
The same thing I take a break in the evening
at fri thir dy to sixth thirdy to go work
out and then come back and so I'm really trying
to be more disciplined in how I structure this. The
(29:08):
big challenge for me as I'm building a company is
actually to unlearn things that I've learned before before when
I was an entrepreneur at my previous company or at Cisco.
I pride myself in really being really a great leader
in being able to bring people together, getting everybody aligned,
(29:29):
getting everybody going in the same direction. At Cisco at
a team of twenty six thousand people. At Neoways scaled
a company from zero to seven hundred people in two
short years. It was all about bringing people together. But
there was a lot of things I did physically, like
having offsites and doing fun things team activities together, like
you know, we would make pizzas together, whatever it was
(29:50):
that allowed us to be human UM outside of work.
Really hard to do that remotely when people around Zoom called.
So I'm having to unlearned the techniques I learned about
bringing teams together and getting them aligned to figure out
how we are going to do this remotely, UM and
everybody is in a different place. So that's something I'm learning.
(30:12):
As I'm learning from the things that worked for me before,
I'm not going to work for me now, and so
how do we do this? Um so, yeah, that's such
a great question. Awesome, thank you, so thank you. One
of the things I loved about this interview if that
pet Mastery gave me permission to count my you know,
jigsaw puzzles and book reading as my own form of meditation.
(30:36):
And I always say, like, I'd never be good, you know,
saying my mantra and sitting in a yoga pose. But
I do find, you know, sitting there doing my crossword
puzzle or whatever it is super relaxing. I agree. I
don't think either of us are the kind that can
kind of sit quietly with our minds for five or
even one minute. But um, I really loved that she
(30:56):
gave us permission to do that as well. I also
loved talking about just the joy of reading and what
it gives us. You and I are both big readers,
and I think it's we don't often talk about books
and what they're doing for us and what they're giving us.
What are you reading right now? So right now I
am plung plugging, or I guess trudging my way through
(31:16):
a book called Splendid and the Vial, which my college
friends and I are all over the country, but we
have a big group chat and we had for a
while had this book club that we would do virtually.
But they're always giving me book recommendations there. Most of
them are far more intellectual than I am. I would say,
and so when I read Splendid in the Vial, which
(31:38):
is historical fiction, it's all brand new information to me.
I think for them it wasn't. So I think that's
why it's taking me so long to get through it.
But I'm committed. I'm halfway through and I'm going to
get there. I'm actually Samue'll probably kill me. But when
we had Glenn and Doyle on the podcast a few
weeks ago, which you should listen to if you haven't. UM,
I read through Untamed very quick. So I'm actually going
(32:01):
back and reading it and savoring every page because it's
just so relevant to my life right now. I'm going
to decode what you just said and assume that you
had not read it before we interviewed her. I went
through it and I read as much as I could. Um,
it's hard. It's hard. There's not enough time, and I
don't have enough childcare. But I would say I would
(32:22):
recommend Untamed by Glennon Doyle to absolutely anybody. Yeah, it's
great and I also really enjoyed Abby's book wolf Pack,
So we are so thrilled that you have joined us today.
We would love to hear about your book recommendations. We've
just launched a YouTube channel and you can comment and
engage with us there where we chat every morning or
(32:42):
almost every morning, about what's going on in the world
in our own lives. It's like kind of just chit
chat with Salmon amis, So we would love to talk
to you there. And once again we want to thank
our production team, Large Media, who is women owned and
we love working with them. We also want to thank
our podcast associate, Emma Hard and our male perspective Lou Burns.
(33:06):
And we're powered by my company, The Riveter, you can
find at www dot The Riveter dot co. And Sam's company,
park Place Payments, which you can find at www Dot
park place Payments dot com. You're so cute that you
include the www. Love Its Tennis ww
Hi, I'm Sam Edith and I'm Amy Nelson, and welcome
to What's Her Story? With Sam and Amy. Every week
we talked to remarkable women about their stories. We are
both so passionate about making sure that we delivered to
you stories of the world's most remarkable women. Whether it's
(00:23):
in sports, or medicine or business, every single woman has
a story to tell and we want to share those
with you. Now, Amy, speaking of women with stories to tell,
how is your weekend? My weekend was interesting. So you know,
I have these four little girls and we have really
been just homebound since the middle of March. We haven't
(00:44):
gone anywhere. The farthest to field we've gone so far
was kind of to the to the park and walking outside.
But this weekend we finally went to an airbnb about
ninety minutes south of Seattle where we live. And we
were so excited because my little girls are little ishes.
They love to swim, they want to be in the water,
and so we just wanted to go to a place
that had a pool because they couldn't swim all summer
(01:06):
except in lake surround Seattle. So we found this great
airbnb and like the biggest part of it was it
had a pool that because swimming, so I made sure
to check with the host of the pool is open.
And we get there and it wasn't heated, and it
was sixty five degrees outside, but we made the best
of it. I hope you've got our money back or something,
because that seems just wrong to say to people. I
(01:26):
really want to make sure that the big feature here's
the pool, and they don't even mention, by the way,
it won't be heated. Ultimately, here's the thing, Sam, like
the girls basically once they got in the water, they
didn't care, and I just kind of sucked it up.
And I'm like, look, I used to be a wilderness
guy at the camp in northern Minnesota, and this is
not as cold as northern Minnesota, which is like my
bar in life. Yeah, but that Midwestern girl is long
(01:48):
gone from your It was very cold, but we had
a good time, and then we also went to a
pumpkin patch mass of course. Um, but how was your weekend?
You know that Ruby turned thirteen on Friday, and I
know that you relate to being a mom who's trying
to jump through hoops to make a pandemic birthday fun,
which has its own challenges when your child's turning six,
(02:10):
and a different kind of challenge when they're turning thirteen.
But um, on Sunday or Saturday, she told me it
was her best birthday ever. So I felt like I'd
win one, like an Olympic Old Medal of momm ng
because I worked so hard to make her birthday fun.
But she's someone who is so appreciative of the little things.
I mean even the only people who celebrated the birthday
with her were my dad and his girlfriend and my
(02:31):
brother's family. And when she received a gift from them,
I mean, no matter how small it was, she truly
looks at it and like spends time like she's so
enjoyed every single gift she We played Ruby Jeopardy. I
made a jeopardy game of Ruby Trivia, and I made teams,
and then I on Etsy a one on made these
hats called Ruby Time, and everyone had a trucker's hat
(02:51):
that said Ruby Time, and we all played the game
and people were so competitive, and it was you know,
I'll take stories for three hundred or I'll take you know,
fun facts for hundreds. So anyway, we had such a
good time. It was really fun. I mean, it's really
interesting when I think of this time, like there's a
lot of grief, but you and I have been fortunate
that we haven't lost anyone in our families to COVID.
But when we look back at this time, it'll be
(03:13):
really interesting what our kids remember. And I was just
thinking about camp, right, because it is just like closed
circle of who you're with and who you spend time with,
and hopefully it's a moment in time. Yes, I do
think it's weird though for like teenagers. I mean, my
girls don't see anyone. The other day, ellis that I
met some new friends last night. I'm like, where do
you go? She's like, mom, my bedroom, Like it was
(03:34):
on a group call, and you know, my friend added
some other friends to our call. It's just such a
strange childhood. I think we just have to adjust to
this is their normal. Ruby gets really mad at me
when I say, like, this is such a strange time.
She's like, no, it's that mom, that was a long
time ago. This is just what it is. And I
think she's it's a good perspective. Yeah, she's like a
just I mean, it's we have such different challenges, right
(03:55):
because my kids are six to one, and I think
I was telling you this the other day, Like I
think my four year old like forgets that she had friends.
She just as her sisters, has built in three friends. Yeah,
I mean who needs them? Right, It'll be very strange
when my kids can start seeing other kids again, but
we'll see. So today we are talking to pad Master Warrior.
Pod Master has had an incredible career. She immigrated from
(04:19):
India in her twenties and then she has been an
executive at some of the most amazing tech companies in
the world, from Cisco to China's equivalent of Tesla, and
it's so incredible to hear her story. Sam, how do
you know pod Master? Years ago we were introduced. We
have a bunch of mutual friends and pad Mastery was
at a point in her career. I think she had
(04:40):
just moved to celcm value was trying to meet women
in different fields who were doing cool things. And we
were introduced, and then I ended up interviewing her a
couple of times for Forbes and we've just always kept
in touch. And as her career has, you know, basically boomed.
I mean she's kind of skyrocketed, uh into a top
woman in in engineering and technology, and she's just become
(05:04):
this enormous figure. She has I think three million Twitter followers.
I mean, she's she's wildly successful. But also people are
drawn to her, and I think today you will find
out why. I know that. You know, when Amy and
I were talking about you, one of the things we
were marveling at is just how extraordinary it is that
(05:28):
you are not only a woman, but an Indian woman
in a in a field that is so um ramping
with white men. How did this all happen? How did
your career evolve? Yeah? So I am from India originally,
and I grew up in the southern part of India
in a in a fairly small town. I was always
(05:50):
interested in math and science, but I can say it
was like, I don't know when I was a kid
if I wanted to be an engineer. I think I
really wanted to be a scientist. My my interests were
in physics when I was a kid. Um, so I
actually started my academics in in being a physics major
and then switched after a year into doing engineering because
(06:12):
I really wanted to apply what I was learning more
and I got interested in how things got built and
how things get built to a scale. So I went
to a pretty hardcore engineering school in India called the
Union Situte of Technology, where the admission rate is like
really really low. It's a very competitive school to get into.
And they were very very few women. I think when
(06:32):
I went there was five women in a class of
two d and fifty. Uh So it's sort of like
a very daunting experience. I would say I was sixteen
or seventeen when I went to the school. I left
my hometown to go to a new Delhi, so a
different city where they speak a different language. Um, you know,
they speak India. I grew up speaking Telugu, so I
(06:53):
didn't know the language. I was like saying, very few women,
and yeah, I learned to survive I think in a
very tough, male dominated environment there. But I think I
learned two important lessons I would say that have stayed
with me throughout throughout my career. Since they were only
five women, and we kind of really stuck together and
(07:15):
supported each other. We were not only really good friends,
but we like looked out for each other, We got
each other's back, we pumped each other up. I think
that's where I really learned the importance of supporting other
women and really creating a community and belonging to that
community and making it a priority to do that. I
honestly don't think I could have gotten through iety without
(07:37):
my my my women friends who are my sort of
like my community. So tell us about Fable. Yeah, so Fable.
I started the company roughly a year ago. I started
to get interested in mental wellness and how we could
use technology to improve mental well being for millions of
people around the world. Because when I left my previous company,
(07:59):
I was building autonomous electric cars, so completely different. The
company that I was working at is sort of like
Tesla and China. It's now a public company. So we
took the company public, and I felt like, Okay, I
did what I came there to do. And I started
to really get interested in the fact that anxiety, depression, burnout,
(08:19):
loneliness are all going the wrong way for many, many people,
across all eight groups, across every country. Almost it's all
trending the wrong way. Um, perhaps social media is a
contributor to it, perhaps technologies are contributed to it. But
regardless of the cause, what could we do to help
give people tools to alleviate and manage their own stress.
(08:42):
So I started to research that, and then I came
upon a lot of research that talked about how reading
and reading fiction helps us relax. Right. You know, when
you are reading a story, your mind is occupied and
you sort of like it improves your empathy, improves your
understanding of something. Books can make you laugh and books
that can make you cry. They take you to different places. Um,
(09:04):
And I'm an avid reader, and but I think a
lot of people don't associate reading to have value or
improve your mental wellness. They think of it, they don't
connect the two. We had a lot of science points
to it. It's so funny because I always, no matter
how busy I am, I'm always reading a fiction book.
I'm obsessed with always being part of a book. And
(09:25):
people will say how do you do it all? And
I'm like, it's just such a big part. I would
you know? For me, that is my mental health break
is to always be involved in a book. Because you know, hey, listen,
right now, we all make time to do something for
physical wellness, right we go on our calendar, going for
a walk or if you have a palleton, getting on
a paloton or going for a run, walking your dog,
(09:47):
it's on our calendar. And physical fitness is now a
four trillion dollar industry ten years ago was a pair
of sneakers. And that's because people are aware that we
have to take care of our bodies. But the same
is not true for men for well and as yet.
So I would love for this to be a priority
for most people because sam, as you're saying, it doesn't
take a lot. If we read fifteen minutes a day,
(10:09):
will finish your book in a month. And but it's
just like people say, I don't have time to read,
but like you have fifteen minutes to read, And it's
helping people realize break it out into micro goals. And
the other problem people say is I don't know what
to read. There's so many book out there. So what
we do at fable is help curate. We go to
(10:30):
experts in the industry and have them select great books.
Um and so it's sort of lessers more is what
we believe. Can we offer you like thirty great books
every month to read and you pick one of those
that has been selected by an expert and then you
read with your friends, So it's like the book club concept.
So I would love for you guys to have your
(10:50):
community of uh what's her story? Uh community or your
women's groups to read together because when we read together,
we share experiences. Right like you would say, watched the
story about us sharing our stories. Another way of doing
it is through a book. I think that's so true.
I think too, and Sam and I talked about this
a lot. A lot. Women's stories remain untold in so
(11:13):
many ways. Even fictional characters for women provide representation and
give us ideas, and we get to see different ways
you can live your life, and it's so important. Yeah,
I am generally always a reader and a voracious reader,
but it's interesting. Over the past few years, I focused
my reading on when I'm on planes, and I used
to be on planes multiple times a week, and now
(11:35):
I need to re calibrate to find a way to
read in the madness of my home with my forces
all children. But the same is true for me. I
used to read primarily when I was on a plane
because I was so busy with work and I was
traveling so much. What I've done now is I don't
know if this will work for you, uh, Like I normally,
because I'm back to back in zoom calls. I make
(11:56):
it a point to take a lunch break every day
for half an hour and usually doesn't take me thirty
minutes to grab a sandwich or whatever I'm eating a hold,
so I read them like I grab a sandwich for
ten minutes and I read for like twenty minutes. So
at least like it's sort of like, yeah, it's bring
it every day for small amounts of time that has
it's sunny. It's study that you mentioned peloton, because I
(12:17):
have a peloton and I do I often will do. Okay,
it's just to go to a twenty minute class because
it's just twenty minutes. It's a very digestible amount of time.
But I had a follow up question. So you mentioned
earlier that you were more in your marriage, you were
more of the perfect athlete, where your husband was a
serial entrepreneur. So what has it been like starting a company. Yeah,
it's he's he's helping me a lot now and so
(12:39):
now the roles are reversed. You know, he's an investor now.
He primarily does a lot of angel investments. Um, so yeah,
I I go to my husband quite a bit. He's
in a way, I would say, a silent partner, like I,
I go to him to get advised. He's helping me
a lot with things related to financing, things related to
legal staff, all of things. All of those things we've
(13:01):
never really liked worked together. We've make it a point
not to work together. We sort of like have our
our interests. Um. But yeah, we usually consult with each
other like and so he's been cout and put a
great advisor and a silent partner at table. So I
know that you have a son and through a lot
(13:22):
of your big jobs in life. I remember you were
working for a factory. Is that right? You were running
a factory when you gave birth to your son. Yeah. Yeah,
I was running a semiconductor factory at Motor a Semiconductor,
and I was pregnant and I had my son. It
was probably the hardest few years of my life. Um
and yeah, I often talk about it. I think I
(13:44):
learned they important. I actually don't like the word balance
because I think I was striving to get balance at
the time and found that I was actually being so
hard on myself that I would never find happiness because
I would feel guilty no matter what I did. For example,
when I when I had my baby, and I was
running a factory, I would feel really guilty because that
(14:06):
factory was seven by twenty four. I had responsibility to
keep it going seven by twenty four because the semiconductor
fab right so very capital intensive. So um I would
feel guilty for being home with my baby even though
I was on calls, you know, leading my team, that
I wasn't there in the factory, and so I would
feel guilty for staying home. So I would go to
(14:28):
work and you know, leave my child with a daycare,
and then I would feel guilty that I wasn't with
with my baby and I was at work, and I
would like, oh, I'm a terrible mom, I'm not a
good mom, and I've left my son a child care.
And then I would bring and try to work at
home with my baby, and I would be on called,
and then I would feel guilty because I wasn't working
out or something or the other. So the fact that
(14:50):
I was always guilty no matter what I decided to
do was causing me stress versus the decision I made.
So often when especially women, when they talked about how
do I do both? How do I have a great
family life and I have a great career. Always tell
people decide, you know, I mean, we make decisions based
on the best information we have. I don't feel guilty
(15:12):
about whatever you've decided. In the end, it all works
out fine, you know. I think my son is quite independent,
and the fact that I was a working mom, I
take pride that he became more independent because of that,
Like because he had to help himself. He had to
go make his own dinner and make his own lunch,
eat when he's hungry, so he's not reliant on someone
else doing those things for him. He'll make a really
(15:33):
good husband one day. He's actually as more of a
feminist than even I am. I love that. How does
he feel right now when he talks about your career?
What does your son say? Yeah, he's a writer. He's
a creative writer, and he just graduated with his m
s a m f A from USC So he's very
different from from me from a personality perspective. He's one
(15:58):
of those people that's very creative if that's very thoughtful,
that's very observant, whereas I am more logical. But I'm
also not artist, So I think he got I got
my artistic side. I think, um, I think as children
grow up, they become more more your partners, right, Like
it's sort of like a brainstorm ideas. With him, it's
always supportive. Like even when I was starting a company, um,
(16:22):
he was like, yeah, you should do this because you're
very passionate about this. Because I turned down many, many
big jobs to do this. I had a lot of
CEO offers from very big companies, and I chose to
start my own company. Um. And so my son, I
would say, has been like my husband. I think they've
both are being fortunate. They've always encouraged me, like you
should do what you really believe in. You know, of
(16:44):
course there's constraints, right, Like starting a company is not easy.
It's a lot of work. Um In. You guys know this, right,
you know, being a founder is a lot of work
and you need to be very resilient. And so it's uh.
People always ask me what is hard being a C
suite executive in a fortune hundred company or being an entrepreneur.
(17:06):
I would say, be well, we all like to choose
the heart thing when you raising yourself. When he was
a little how did you think about wellness in the beginning,
I was trying really hard. I think I was almost
trying too hard because I was thinking about balance and
(17:28):
to me, that word itself, it's sort of like forces
you to try to make everything equal, and that's not life.
You know, like in life things are not equal. It's
about integrating things that matter to you into your life. Actually,
one of my boss is once asked me, so, tell
me about your family life and your work life. And
I said, I don't have two lives. I only have
one life. And in my life, I have worked in
(17:50):
my family, UM, and both are important to me. UM.
So yeah, I started to when he was little. Actually,
I was telling you this thing about I suddenly realized, Hey,
no matter what I do, I feel guilty and that's
what's causing me stress. So I need to stop that. UM.
And I think about integrating, and because of maybe I'm
an engineer, I think of it as like four quadrons,
like this family, there's your work, uh, there's your community,
(18:14):
and there's yourself, and it's important to to focus on
all four, not necessarily spend equal amounts of time, but
focus on outpor um. And I really tried to do
that because what I found was I was focusing on
work a lot in my family a lot I was
ignoring my friends and my community, and I was totally
ignoring myself. And so I started meditating as as a
(18:38):
way which would help me relax when my son was
less than a year old, like, because I lost my
mom when he was very young, and it was sort
of like a very sudden way that she passed away,
and so it was sort of I think, up until
this point, I knew what death was and what deep
grief was intellectually, but I never experienced it emotionally. I
(18:59):
think it was the first I'm I realized that, um,
you know, there's a big emotional tool, and how to
deal with grief is is not something very simple and straightforward. Um.
And I had a young baby and I had my career,
so there was a lot going on, and so I
felt like I needed to just be calm and figure
out how to get all the thoughts out of my head.
(19:21):
And so I kind of taught myself how to do it.
You know, in the beginning, I would just try to
sit still for a minute, and I couldn't get my
my weren't wander everywhere. Um. But again, you know, it
goes back to how we're thinking about people. I tried
to make a daily habit of it, Like every day
I would force myself to sit still for a minute,
and you know, slowly increased it to two minutes and
(19:43):
five minutes and yeah, now I do it for twenty
five minutes every day. Wow. But it took me a
long time to get here. And so but it's something
that truly helps me. It helps me I think, um,
make better decisions, be calmer, deal with stress overall in
a different way. By the way, for me, reading books
is meditative to when I'm reading a book, I sort
(20:04):
of like get very emerged. I almost. I am so
happy you said that, because I am not a traditional meditator.
But I always say, like doing a jigsaw puzzle or
reading a book for me is my own meditation. And
so I'm going to now say that you said, that's okay,
that that counts. Yeah. I actually paint too, and when
I'm painting, that's another way to meditate. And for some
(20:26):
people it's running. I mean, it's whatever. It is right
that anything you do could be meditative. But yeah, that's
kind of hard. Were the lightning round? I have two
more questions in me. How do you make decisions? I
am a decisive person. By nature. Um, you know, I
go into things with an opinion. I I do feel
like I have opinions. I mean I usually tell if
(20:47):
it's a business thing, if it's my team, I let
them know that, hey, I have strong opinions about this,
or I don't have a strong opinion about it. I
can be I can go either way. Um, So there's
no hidden thing, Like I am pretty explicit in telling
them like I'm strong opinions about this, and he has
why and he has my opinions. But I can definitely
change my mind. Um. I do listen to input from everyone,
(21:09):
and then I gather as much data as I can
and make a call. I think I am one of
those people that believes in making more decisions and correcting
if they're wrong, versus delaying too much to to get
all the information you can because that could go on forever. Um. Yeah,
and once I decide if I've made a wrong decision
and somebody points that out or they come with better data,
(21:31):
I'm happy to change that. And I will always say, Okay,
yeah I made that call, but there was not the
right call. We should do this other way. I love
that now. Now, in terms of women in tech, Obviously
it's such a big topic. What is your philosophy in
terms of how we can increase the numbers and get
more equality in intech? There's many many reasons that contribute
(21:53):
to that, right, you know, I think, um, first of all,
like making sure women pursue technical feel in college and school.
That's important. But even when people start their career, they leave,
and more women leave from companies just because they build there.
It's not a comfortable environment. They can't be who they are,
who they truly can They can't be true to themselves.
(22:15):
And so I think companies have to do a much
better job of letting people be authentic to what they
truly believe in. And you know, I think we should not.
Even when I started my career, and this was years ago,
you know, I had to dress almost to be look
more like a guy than like a woman. And so
they were all these sort of like unspoken rules about
(22:35):
the culture that made it very uncomfortable for me. Um.
And you know, as I was saying, I came from India,
I loved color, I love jewelry, and so there were
so many things that I loved that I couldn't carry
that part of me to work which was very stifling
in its own way, and and none of that, by
the way, it was necessary. It had nothing to do
with my work or who I was as an engineer.
(22:58):
So I think we have to first in companies, allow
people to be truly themselves, like you know, be whoever
you want to be. It really doesn't affect how you
do your work. Um, and how we behave and defining
the culture in a company and being explicit about that
is important because unless you tell people how they should
behave at work, they won't know. But that has nothing
(23:21):
to do with what you wear or how you act
and you know. So I think we have to remove
all these unnecessary barriers for women to be successful. That's great,
that's great. Okay, Amy, ready for the late round. What
is your morning routine? Okay, My morning routine is a
(23:42):
cup of coffee and catching up with news. I have
two cups of coffees, so I'll trump her one cup.
When was the last time you cried? Oh? Wow, mm hmmm.
Last time I cried was um, when I kind in happiness,
(24:06):
I cried inside. I'm assuming you mean sad. I meant sad,
but I'm kind of curious to hear when you cried
in happiness too. I think I always cry in sadness.
My sister passed away very suddenly, and whenever her birthday comes,
I cried. So that was the end of way. I'm
(24:26):
so sorry. I'm so sorry. That's so hard. My sister
actually lives in a bay, and it's so hard because
I don't know when I'll see her again. But I'm
so sorry for your lost. Yeah. Yeah, it was years ago,
but still I still remember on her birthday. I always
remember her. It used to be a happy occasion. Now
(24:47):
it's not. Yeah, and what about the last time it happened.
That's when my son graduated from USC. It was sort
of like the virtual commencement and I was was watching
and I saw his name. I'm like, oh, you know,
I love that. I think I think this is a
bitting question. What book are you reading right now? Yeah?
(25:09):
I just finished reading Where Did You Go? Benedette? That
was cute. I love that one. Yeah, that was fun.
I actually read it and it was my pick, and
so we we started a table reading club and we
were all reading. Now. I just started reading Lovecraft Country. Um, yeah,
Matt Cuff's book. I'm a newt fan of Waually Lovecraft
(25:30):
and so I just HBO just started a show, and
I want to read the books. I'm also reading that
out table. Do you want to try to read the
book before you watch the movie or the show. Yeah? Typically,
typically I do, and I usually read many books at
the same time. So I read like two three books together. Well,
there was a book Normal People that I loved. I
(25:52):
don't know if you read that. I loved that quo
It's excellent. And now then it was made into a
TV show and I don't want to watch it because
I loved it so much that I don't want it
to to you know, I don't want to spoil it.
Sometimes that happens. And one last question for you, um,
what do you watch TV? I feel like someone like
you wouldn't watch TV, do you? Yeah? I do. I
(26:15):
watch TV. I watched I started watching more TV than
movies now because I feel like TV shows have really improved. Um. Actually,
this is something my husband and I do together. Every night.
We will watch an hour of TV and we will
watch a show that we both like. What are you
watching right now? Right now, we are actually watching battle
(26:35):
Stock Galactically, watching Battlestar. We're both science fiction fans, so
we usually want science fiction. You're like Amy, she re
watches things that that's a very Amy thing to do,
it is, I mean, well, especially in this moment, I'm
trying to save some of the new stuff. I want
to watch Lovecraft Country, but I want to save some
of the new stuff because I don't think there's going
(26:55):
to be new stuff for like two years. So I'm
watching ned stuff. I just finished watching Perrymates and Remake Ones.
We all love that. I am watching that. It is
very good. I'm also watching Succession Succession because I've never
watched it. You know, I didn't watch I usually watched
science fictions for that. Before b s G. I was
watching Debs. Did you watch Debs? That's a great show
(27:21):
kind of yeah, but it's it's also philosophical. So for
our final question, we are going to give our final
question to Lou who has been listening intently to this interview,
and he comes on with our final questions. There's a
(27:41):
quote that you have. It's a the ability to learn
is the most is the most important quality of a leader.
Uh And I fancy myself a leader, but I like
to to know what other people think and what they're learning.
So my question to you is is, in this time
now where the world is literally turned up I down,
what are you learning about yourself and everything around you. Oh,
(28:05):
that's such a great question. What I'm learning about myself
is how to be more disciplined about where I spend
my time, because it's very easy when you're working. In
the beginning, when we were working from home and when
we were doing the quarantine, I was just working all
(28:26):
the time. I was actually working more than I was
when I was physically going to an office because it's
just so easy to just stay on zoom calls. Um,
And I found that I really was not taking time
for anything else right like as at least before, when
I was going to work and coming back from work,
I had like breaks in my day, whereas if I
was working from home, I never had those breaks. Um.
(28:48):
I'm now much more disciplined. I was saying earlier about
taking a lunch break every day. I blocked thirty minutes
to go grab lunch and read something for fifteen minutes.
The same thing I take a break in the evening
at fri thir dy to sixth thirdy to go work
out and then come back and so I'm really trying
to be more disciplined in how I structure this. The
(29:08):
big challenge for me as I'm building a company is
actually to unlearn things that I've learned before before when
I was an entrepreneur at my previous company or at Cisco.
I pride myself in really being really a great leader
in being able to bring people together, getting everybody aligned,
(29:29):
getting everybody going in the same direction. At Cisco at
a team of twenty six thousand people. At Neoways scaled
a company from zero to seven hundred people in two
short years. It was all about bringing people together. But
there was a lot of things I did physically, like
having offsites and doing fun things team activities together, like
you know, we would make pizzas together, whatever it was
(29:50):
that allowed us to be human UM outside of work.
Really hard to do that remotely when people around Zoom called.
So I'm having to unlearned the techniques I learned about
bringing teams together and getting them aligned to figure out
how we are going to do this remotely, UM and
everybody is in a different place. So that's something I'm learning.
(30:12):
As I'm learning from the things that worked for me before,
I'm not going to work for me now, and so
how do we do this? Um so, yeah, that's such
a great question. Awesome, thank you, so thank you. One
of the things I loved about this interview if that
pet Mastery gave me permission to count my you know,
jigsaw puzzles and book reading as my own form of meditation.
(30:36):
And I always say, like, I'd never be good, you know,
saying my mantra and sitting in a yoga pose. But
I do find, you know, sitting there doing my crossword
puzzle or whatever it is super relaxing. I agree. I
don't think either of us are the kind that can
kind of sit quietly with our minds for five or
even one minute. But um, I really loved that she
(30:56):
gave us permission to do that as well. I also
loved talking about just the joy of reading and what
it gives us. You and I are both big readers,
and I think it's we don't often talk about books
and what they're doing for us and what they're giving us.
What are you reading right now? So right now I
am plung plugging, or I guess trudging my way through
(31:16):
a book called Splendid and the Vial, which my college
friends and I are all over the country, but we
have a big group chat and we had for a
while had this book club that we would do virtually.
But they're always giving me book recommendations there. Most of
them are far more intellectual than I am. I would say,
and so when I read Splendid in the Vial, which
(31:38):
is historical fiction, it's all brand new information to me.
I think for them it wasn't. So I think that's
why it's taking me so long to get through it.
But I'm committed. I'm halfway through and I'm going to
get there. I'm actually Samue'll probably kill me. But when
we had Glenn and Doyle on the podcast a few
weeks ago, which you should listen to if you haven't. UM,
I read through Untamed very quick. So I'm actually going
(32:01):
back and reading it and savoring every page because it's
just so relevant to my life right now. I'm going
to decode what you just said and assume that you
had not read it before we interviewed her. I went
through it and I read as much as I could. Um,
it's hard. It's hard. There's not enough time, and I
don't have enough childcare. But I would say I would
(32:22):
recommend Untamed by Glennon Doyle to absolutely anybody. Yeah, it's
great and I also really enjoyed Abby's book wolf Pack,
So we are so thrilled that you have joined us today.
We would love to hear about your book recommendations. We've
just launched a YouTube channel and you can comment and
engage with us there where we chat every morning or
(32:42):
almost every morning, about what's going on in the world
in our own lives. It's like kind of just chit
chat with Salmon amis, So we would love to talk
to you there. And once again we want to thank
our production team, Large Media, who is women owned and
we love working with them. We also want to thank
our podcast associate, Emma Hard and our male perspective Lou Burns.
(33:06):
And we're powered by my company, The Riveter, you can
find at www dot The Riveter dot co. And Sam's company,
park Place Payments, which you can find at www Dot
park place Payments dot com. You're so cute that you
include the www. Love Its Tennis ww
Hosts And Creators
Samantha Ettus
Amy Nelson
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