[MUSIC]
[APPLAUSE] >> Let's
start with a bit of a visualization exercise.
Who comes to mind when I say the word coder?
Think of someone who can whip up a quick computer program, or
knows multiple different programming languages.
Do you have someone in mind?
Maybe, okay.
Who pictured Mark Zuckerberg?
Quick show of hands, anyone.
Who pictured some other Silicon Valley geeks?
>> [LAUGH] >> Me too.
>> Who pictured Lyndsey Scott, she's a top model, a Victoria's Secret Angel?
Yet, she's coded several popular mobile apps.
Who pictured Nji Collins Gbah?
A 17 year old Cameroonian boy who's self taught coder,
yet just won a huge international competition run by Google.
One more question.
Why didn't you picture yourself?
When it comes to coding we're all plagued with self-doubt.
I'm not good enough at math, I can't get the syntax right.
I'm way too old to start coding now.
These are exactly the myths I'm here to dispel.
I'm confident you can learn how to code,
and that your professional life will be better for it.
Regardless of whether you're an executive assistant, senior executive, or
NBA student, you can make it through the ups and downs and become a true coder.
For me, self doubt was a familiar feeling.
In the fall of 2015,
I enrolled in Stanford's intermediate computer science class, CS 107.
The class was over capacity, so
we met in an extra large auditorium in the business school, Cemex.
>> [LAUGH] >> The seats were filled with young
sophomores who waved their hands at the professor, pick me,
pick me, as they tried to answer every single question.
This is even more frightening because computer science classes
do not have participation grades.
>> [LAUGH] >> In the back of the room there was me,
the recovering investment banker.
[LAUGH] Who felt ancient and out of place in this crowd.
Among Stanford's brightest geniuses, I was really learning how to code for
the first time.
The first assignments in that class nearly broke me.
It seemed at 3 AM every night, I'd be reading through my code
trying to find that one bug, one error, that was preventing it from running.
I read, I searched.
I questioned whether I should just give up.
Throw in the towel and go back to my old job making pretty stock price charts.
>> [LAUGH] >> CS 107,
that intermediate computer science class ends with a big assignment.
It's called the heap allocator.
The heap both stores and retrieves data.
The class assignment evaluated both on accuracy and time benchmarks.
I was convinced that I was going to build the best heap that I could.
I wanted to prove to myself, I belonged in that class.
So I set out over Thanksgiving break to optimize my heap.
Keep coding, keep trying.
And I couldn't have been more pleased by the results.
If I were to compare my heap to an Olympic hurdler, it not only would have been in
the final heap, but it would have won a bright, shining medal.
It ran through the assigned tasks without making a single mistake.
I couldn't have been prouder.
All of those late nights were paying off, I was becoming a true coder.
A similar victory is available to you, you can make it through the ups and
downs and achieve an incredibly worthy goal, becoming a coder.
I've talked with a lot of my friends at Stanford about learning how to code.
Through those conversations I've identified three common questions.
The first common question is, what really is coding?
Coding is how humans boss computers around.
>> [LAUGH] >> We often talk about writing code,
but I like to think about it as collecting code.
There's so many great programs online today.
These can be combined together to create something that's bigger than the sum
of its parts.
What that means for
you, is that you can get a lot of mileage out of a basic understanding of coding.
You can stand on the shoulders of giants.
And with the basic understanding use the latest machine learning algorithms or
impress your friends with whatever else you want to make up.
The second question I'm often ask is, why is this important?
Technology has had the power to continuously improve our lives.
Yet, our skill set has needed to keep up
to be able to take advantage of those advances.
For example, think about typing like on a typewriter.
In the 1950s only specialists secretaries typed.
They sat in the middle of the office and processed everyone's documents.
But time passed and in the 1980s personal computers became prevalent.
Then it was no longer sufficient for
just secretaries to type everyone in the office needed to learn how.
That's brought us to today where typing is an omnipresent skill.
I expect we'll go through the same trajectory with with coding.
We're already past the point where only engineers, or
specialists in this case, code.
Out of the top quartile by ranked by salary,
50% already require some sort of coding or technical skills.
So that means that there are the marketers, data scientists,
biz ops people.
Those beyond engineers who are already coding.
To me it's inevitable that this trend continues.
That we'll reach a point where all people in all roles are coding.
You may be thinking to yourself at this point, I'm going to be a manager.
I'll have my engineers to do all the coding.
What a good wishful thinking.
>> [LAUGH] >> To be able to
effectively communicate with engineers, an understanding of code is critical.
It helps you speak the same language, and be able to do your work faster and
more effectively.
The third question I'm often asked is, how do I get started?
We are incredibly fortunate Stanford to have incredible
encoding resources available to us.
It's as if we stumbled into Stanford's Sistine Chapel of computer science.
We can look up and learn a ton from Michelangelo's ceiling.
CS 106A one of the most popular classes for
MBA students is being offered this spring.
Of course there are online resources too.
One of my favorites is Codecademy's Python class.
In under ten hours you can go from knowing nothing about Python, to having a solid
understanding of the language and being able to build your own programs.
You may be thinking at this point, when am I going to make time to code.
I can barely do my laundry as it is, me too.
>> [LAUGH] >> I completely understand.
We have so many special opportunities available to us here.
However, if you are at all interested in coding, now is the best time to learn.
We have access to unparalleled resources at Stanford.
CS classes are pass fail for MBA students, and there will be more distractions.
Whether that's starting a company or starting a family post graduation.
Picture yourself as a coder humor me with one more visualization exercise.
Come on, so picture yourself.
It's a Wednesday afternoon you are sipping on your favorite caffeinated beverage, you
are in the office and your laptop is toiling away, taking care of your chores.
Updating sales statistics, scraping down customer data and
then there is you doing really what matters.
You're mentoring a high potential new employee, or
you're thinking through your company's next strategic moves.
You're doing the things you came to Stanford GSP to learn how to do.
What an incredible vision.
Don't let the opportunity to make this a reality slip by.
With confidence in your own abilities take a class and start coding.
>> [APPLAUSE]
[MUSIC]