There were so many people in my life who told me that I could have any job I wanted.
But I still rack my brain thinking if there was even one person in my life
who ever told me I could create any job I wanted.
You've authored four books. You've started a media company.
You were at Facebook. You created Facebook Live.
You've been on Broadway.
Who are you?
My dream was actually to be a professional singer.
And then I got flat-out rejected from the music major.
Luckily, I discovered marketing.
And so, I always thought, okay, I'll go out to California for a few months,
I'll check out what my brother is doing with this company,
and ten years later I was still there.
How would you describe it? You were one of the only women in the room
for about a decade when you were out there.
What was it like?
I remember having these conversations with my mom growing up, where she would say,
“Randi, at some point you're going to hit this glass ceiling.”
And I would be like, “Mom, it's 1996. The glass ceiling is done.”
And then I got out to Silicon Valley and I was like,
Oh my gosh. How are there no women in the room, no people of color?
No diversity in an entire industry?
I also think having the last name Zuckerberg, there was such a bullseye,
I felt like I had to work ten times as hard to show that I was there on my own merit.
For women in general, there's kind of this view that you should only prioritize your family or your career,
and anything else you would do is frivolous, or self-indulgent, or gets in the way of you being serious.
Whereas I would often see the guys, you know,
"Oh, we're all going to Coachella, we're going skiing, we're doing this, we're doing that,"
it was viewed as like, cool, and well-rounded, and having other interests.
And it is funny, I mean I often tell people that my best advice to succeed as a woman in tech
is to have a man's name, like Randi.
They would take my emails because they thought they were getting an email from a dude.
So when you did leave Facebook, what was your impetus?
During a hackathon, I sort of created this thing called “Facebook Live With Randi Zuckerberg,”
where we interviewed engineers,
and it rekindled that spark in me to perform, and to tell stories, and to create things.
I think the lessons that I learned, being in theater as a young girl, set me up for so much success in life,
I think the lessons that I learned, being in theater as a young girl, set me up for so much success in life, because if at eight or nine years old, you can go audition for a part,
because if at eight or nine years old, you can go audition for a part,
get flat-out rejected, and pick yourself up and audition for that next role,
you can handle anything that business and life throws at you.
When I went out to Silicon Valley, and I was pitching investors,
or pitching new partnerships for Facebook and things like that, getting "no's" didn't even faze me.
That’s why I think it's so important for children to participate in sports, in theater,
in things where you are forced to face rejection on a regular basis.
What were some of the primary takeaways from your book "Dot Complicated"
about how we navigate the boundary of being too connected?
Parents are fearful.
We view tech as something that comes in between us and the people we love,
not something that brings families together.
I have two sons now, it's completely changed my life, and completely changed
how I view technology, how I view education.
They don't view "Dot" as a show for girls.
It's just a show that's on TV that happens to have a female leading character.
So I think from a young age, that's given me an opportunity
to create a household that doesn't have those gender boundaries and differences.
It can't just be women talking to women.
We need to include men in these conversations if we’re going to make any progress and have allies.
So the dedication in my book was to Asher, and Simi,
and all the awesome women they’re going to work for.