AVNI SHAH: Thanks to all of you for being here today.
Especially, I know taking time out of your weekend
is a big deal.
And I also want to say thanks for sharing snippets
of your personal story, for those of you that just got up
a few minutes ago.
I was just sitting in the back, and it
was pretty inspiring to hear.
So I'm really excited to be here.
I'm really honored to be helping kick off
the day with all of you.
I thought I would just talk a little bit
about my own personal story, how I ended up
where I am, and some of the things
that I've learned along the way.
And I guess I'll start off by making a confession.
I was not one of those kids that wanted
to study computer science from the day I came out of the womb.
I actually didn't even touch a computer probably
until I was 10.
And even then, it was to play games.
I was playing "Oregon Trail" or "Lemmings"
or something like that.
I didn't teach myself to code in my spare time.
I was probably running around with the neighborhood
kids or something like that.
So I wasn't one of those kids that
had computer science in their blood from the early days.
But there was something that I liked
to do from when I was young, and that was
to build things with my hands.
It started with Legos, and then I
graduated to building shelves or furniture with my dad,
to wiring our media cabinet, to fixing things around the house.
So I guess I knew from an early age
that I wanted to be able to create things.
And, in fact, we took this test in third grade
that was supposed to tell us what we were
going to be when we grew up.
And it was one of those tests that was totally see through,
so you could tell exactly how the questions and the answers
were going to correlate to what occupation you
were going to end up with.
And so like any seven-year-old, I decided to game the system.
And so I picked the exact answers
that I thought correlated with building or engineering,
though I might not have called it that at the time.
And I think my test results came back,
and it said I should be a carpenter or a watchmaker.
I might have over-corrected a little bit.
But I was happy about that, because the essence was there.
The career that said I should use my hands to build things.
And I have to admit this was much
to my parents', in particular my father's, dismay.
He was, like most parents of his generation
who had immigrated from elsewhere
in the world-- India in his case-- job stability
was really top of mind.
And I mean, I think it's understandable
from their viewpoint.
My dad is actually an engineer.
My mom's an accountant.
And the economy hadn't always been nice to them.
So when they looked at me and what they wanted for me,
they really wanted me to have an occupation or a career that
was really recession-proof.
And for them, that was medicine.
So my dad really wanted me to be a doctor.
And honestly, I can't even use the past tense there
because he will still call me up and ask me
if I want to take the MCAT just in case, over the weekend,
because I can just do that.
So if my dad had had his way, my path
wouldn't have consisted of MIT.
It wouldn't have consisted studying computer science
and electrical engineering.
It wouldn't have consisted of Google.
But to be fair, my third grade rebellion
was not the only reason my path ended up the way it was.
As I was looking back and just thinking
through all of the major moments and, I guess, decisions
that led to where I am today, I realized that there
was another common thread.
And that was this.
When faced with a decision where one of the choices
is really uncomfortable or scary, do that thing.
Because those are the moments and those
are the times where you actually learn and grow the most.
And to be fair, I've done the opposite, too.
So I can compare and contrast.
And, of course, that fear is not the only reason
to do something.
But it should go in the pros column and not the cons column.
And that's what I thought I'd talk a little bit about today.
So the first really difficult decision I remember making
was where to go to college.
I think at the time my dad was still
partially convinced I would come to my senses
and go to med school, at least stay home close to Alabama.
But I was fortunate enough to get into MIT, although I
wasn't sure if I wanted to go.
It was really far away.
It was supposed to be really hard.
And I didn't know if I could cut it, to be honest.
I was used to being the top of my class
or near the top of my class in Alabama,
and I knew that wasn't going to be the case if I went to MIT.
So I was scared to make that leap.
And then the more I thought about it,
the more I realized that I was going to college to learn.
And if I was going there to learn,
I might as well surround myself with people
that I can learn from.
I might as well be a small fish in a big pond learning
from everyone around me.
And so I went to MIT.
And over the four years, I learned a whole bunch
of interesting CS-y things.
But I also learned that I could do it,
that I could cut it there.
And that actually gave me a lot of confidence
for the next steps in my life.
And the next step in my life was deciding
what to do after college.
So this was back in 2003, and it was
after a little mini economic turn
down, like a little mini bubble burst.
I remember a lot of my friends who
had graduated the year before were given job
offers that were then rescinded before they even
started their jobs.
So a lot of people actually across the country
were staying in school because that was advisable, I guess,
at the time.
And MIT in particular is pretty research
and academic focused, so most of the people I knew,
especially CS students, were staying on to do research,
get their PhDs, Masters, whatever.
So first of all, the decision to go into industry
was leaving everything I knew behind.
Leaving all my friends, leaving research, leaving academia,
leaving school for the first time, behind.
And then that was compounded when I was trying
to decide where to go to work.
So back then, Google was not the household name
that it is today.
In fact, when I told my parents about it,
they called it Goofle.
So I was deciding between that and Microsoft, which
of course was very well known.
And so for them, thinking again about job stability,
they were like, absolutely, hands down you
should go to Microsoft.
Absolutely.
And many of the people I talked to gave me that same advice.
And I guess from that perspective, it makes sense.
Like, how stable could a company called Goofle be, right?
Doesn't seem wise.
But I wasn't so convinced.
I wasn't so sure, and I debated back and forth for three weeks.
I lost so much sleep just trying to think
about where I should go work.
One day I would be like, yes, Microsoft, clearly
the right choice.
And then the next day, I would be like, no.
Maybe I should try it.
Maybe I should do Google.
And I was just really torn.
And in the end, there was one thing
that I just couldn't let go of.
I remember after my interviews at Microsoft--
it was a full day of interviews.
I was exhausted like you would expect.
Interviews are really draining.
So I got back to the hotel, and I
think I just slept for like 12 hours after those interviews.
But after my interviews at Google, I was energized.
12 years later, I can still remember
how I felt after a full day of interviews at Google.
It was, I don't know.
It was tingly.
I could feel it in my body, and I couldn't let that go.
I just couldn't let that feeling go.
And so ultimately, I decided to come to Google.
And it has been an amazing 11 and 1/2 years since.
I joined when Google was pretty young,
so I got to see it grow, go through immense periods
of growth.
I think we have 50 times the number of employees
now than we did when I joined.
I got to work on a ton of interesting projects
from Search to Google Toolbar to Maps to Chrome, where I am now.
I got to work with a lot of amazing people.
Again, I'm a small fish in a big pond,
and it's really great to be able to learn
from everyone around me.
It's also where I met my husband, so it all worked out,
I guess, in the end.
As a quick side note, actually, in making that decision
I learned this tactic for how to make hard decisions that I
thought I would share because I found it extremely useful.
So what I do is I try on the decision
before I actually commit.
Kind of like you would try on a dress or a pair of pants
before you buy them, right?
So what I do is I tell myself I've made the decision,
but I don't tell anyone else.
I don't actually send any emails or formally accept,
but I tell myself I've made it.
I sleep as though I made it, and then I wake up
and I see how I feel.
And if I don't regret it, I know I've made the right decision.
And I have used that for many of the tough decisions
I've made since then and told other people about it,
and it tends to get positive reviews.
So I thought I would pass that along.
In fact, I used it to name my first kid.
I would call my belly different names every day
until one just stuck and felt right.
Having a little less luck this time.
But I am trying on multiple names,
so I'm still trying on to see what works.
The next really difficult decision
came about six years later.
So the summer of 2009, where I had the opportunity
to go to Zurich, lead a new project for Google Maps,
and manage a team for the very first time.
In addition to that, I had just gotten married,
so I would be living with somebody
for the first time in my life in a new country with no friends
or family working at a job that I was 100%
convinced I was totally unqualified for.
I was going to be expected to lead a team I had never met,
work on a product I had never worked on,
and manage a team of people, many of whom were older than me
and considerably more experienced than me.
And I remember being on our honeymoon,
the last week of our honeymoon in Bora Bora, of all places.
Just thinking to myself, like, I can't do it.
This is crazy.
I'm under-qualified.
I have been somehow fooling people for six years,
and they're going to finally find me out.
It's over.
The gig is up.
I'm done.
And I thought about it some more.
And I have to admit with the help
of a very supportive husband, I came to realize three things.
First, if I had indeed been fooling people for six years,
I had done a pretty damn convincing job.
So maybe I could keep it up for a couple more years.
But more importantly, that the feeling
I was having, this impostor syndrome,
is something that is shared with people at all levels, men
and women alike.
So I wasn't alone.
It was completely natural to have that feeling.
Second, that I had a bunch of people that believed in me.
My husband believed in me.
My manager at the time and mentor, Marissa Mayer,
believed in me.
My new manager believed in me.
And honestly, if they all believed in me, maybe
I should believe in me just a little bit.
And then third, this was the path I had chosen.
I had chosen product management.
I knew one day I was going to be in a position where
I was going to end up managing people if I did well.
So I might as well try it, right?
And if I fail, I fail.
At least I will have learned something in the process.
And so I went.
And it turned out to be one of the best experiences.
I have learned things I couldn't have even predicted if I tried
to write them down on paper.
I learned that I really like managing people,
and I'm actually OK at it.
I learned how to come on to a new team and gain credibility.
I learned about myself, that when I do come on to a new team
I feel miserable and incompetent for about six months.
And then magically, it seems to get better after that point.
I learned about building products
for users with completely different perspectives
than the one that I was used to.
And I learned about being a better coworker.
Being nine time zones away from Mountain View for two years,
I brought back with me a lot of empathy
about working with people in different offices
that has been really useful ever since.
On a personal level, my husband and I traveled the world.
We got introduced to new countries and cultures
and cuisines.
We got to know each other much better
during our first two years of marriage
because we were isolated together with each other.
So it was amazing, and I almost didn't do it.
I almost let fear and uncertainty
and insecurity keep me from what turned out
to be one of the biggest learning experiences
I've had in the last decade.
So I guess I will end with another confession.
Doing this talk wasn't an easy decision for me.
I mean, obviously not as hard as deciding
to move to another country for a couple of years.
But it still wasn't easy.
While I've done a decent amount of public speaking,
I guess I've never gotten up in front of a bunch of people
and talked about myself or my experiences or things
like that.
So this was pretty uncomfortable.
And I remember when Natalie asked me
if I would be willing to do it.
I immediately thought, I don't know.
I don't know what I'm going to say to hundreds of people.
I don't know if I have an interesting story
or something I can talk about.
And to be honest, oh my god, it was so much easier
just to say no.
I mean, I have a good excuse, right?
I'm 6 and 1/2 months pregnant.
I'm tired.
I have migraines.
I have a two-year-old at home.
I have a full-time job.
It was so much easier to just say no and not
push myself to go that extra bit and work on this and do this.
And I realize, though, that this,
this engaging with other professional women,
getting together and building a community where
we support and we celebrate each other, this is important to me.
This is worth-- this is something
that I want to take part in.
And so before I went to sleep at night,
I told myself I was going to do it.
I didn't tell Natalie yet.
I told myself I was going to do it.
I slept on it.
I woke up.
I felt good about it.
I really did that to make this decision.
And it felt right.
So I emailed her, and I told her I would do it, and here I am.
And in the process, at least I've learned a few things.
I've learned a little bit about myself.
I've gotten some time to reflect on my path.
I've learned a bit about taking risks
in the face of fear and uncertainty.
In fact, especially in the face of fear and uncertainty
because from my experience what I've found
is it's those times where you not only have a steep learning
curve, but you have the step function learning curve.
It's where you grow and you thrive
and you flourish the most.
And it makes it worthwhile.
So I hope the next time any of you
are faced with such a decision, one of which
feels really uncomfortable or scary
or pushes you out of your comfort zone,
I hope you take the time and the opportunity
to try it on and ultimately go for it.
Thank you again for being here today.
[APPLAUSE]