Making an Impact in the VC Space – Tech.Strong.Women. EP 19

Hi, everybody. Thanks for joining us for another episode of Techstrong Women, where we feature amazing women doing amazing things in tech. I'm Jodi Ashley, executive producer here at Techstrong, and I'm here with my co-host Tracy Ragan, creator and c e of Deploy Hub.

And in her free time, she's busy working with the Linux Foundation, where she sits on the boards of the open S s F and the C D F Technical Oversight Committee. Before I introduce today's guest, I wanna give you a quick update about what's happening here at Textron. Be sure to register for Textron Cloud Native now on July EV 11th.

Speaker submissions are still open, and as you know, we always love sponsors. com, and be sure to tune in every day to techstrong TV for great shows and interviews. Hey, Tracy, what's on your mind today?

Well, thank you so much for reminding us about, uh, getting our talks in. I think the ladies out there, we need you to do talks. Um, in fact, next week we have CD Con, uh, is May 8th and ninth, um, open s s f is the 10th, and between the, I think it's the ninth and the 11th is Open Source Summit, and that's all happening in Vancouver.

So if you are able to make it, please come. I get to do a keynote for the, um, open Source Summit. Super excited about that.

So I hope to see you all there. But on another note, uh, some interesting things have happened in the world of SBOs. And, um, for most of you who have attended shows that I've been at, you know that I like to talk about SBOs.

I've been talking about them since 1995. I called them Build Audit Reports at the time. Uh, but this happened back in December in a very quiet way.

Um, all of you, uh, may know about the, uh, Biden Administration's requirement. If you deliver software to the government, you have to include a software bill of material report. Uh, it's, it's always been a very controversial topic, um, and one that I have talked about many times indicating that SBOs are useless if we don't consume the data.

And there's so much data in an SBO m that just having an SBO m doesn't necessarily solve the problem. It begins to solve the problem, but it's only the first step. It's the data.

Sitting in a text file is kind of useless, to be quite honest. Well, in December, somebody finally agreed with me the, um, information Technology Industry Council to lobbying group for the big companies like Google, Amazon, um, I'm assuming I b m was part of it. They actually wrote a letter to the Biden administration and said, Hey, you know what?

Maybe this is a premature idea and I'm just gonna, I'm gonna read what they, I put this little note in here. It said, given the current level of immaturity, we believe that SBO requirements, um, are too soon. Yet, the SBO M conversation needs more time to standardize SBOs to make sure they're scalable for all software categories, um, and agencies.

So we as a community, need to continue this conversation about consuming SBOs. Now, um, you know, I'm, I'm in charge of a, a community for an open source project, athletics foundation called TIUs. Deploy Hub is based on it.

And that's what, that's the everything that we do. So I was very happy to see this. You know, validation helps, right?

Sometimes I think I'm not taken serious, and I'm saying, yeah, you create, create an sbo. Good. Is it sitting in a text file?

And a bill directory does absolutely no good unless we begin to consume the data. And the thing about SBOs is that they have a enormous amount of data in them, enormous. And if we think about ai, you can't do AI without data.

So we have a massive amount of data that we collectively as a group are, are generating in these SBOs, and we're leaving it in a text file. Breaks my heart. But now the, now the Information Technology Industry Council has brought it up and said, Hey, Biden administration maybe oughta put some pressure on the government figuring out how to consume as bomb information before we bother sending it to you.

Because it may be an, an onerous requirement if you're not gonna do anything with it, except check off a box doesn't solve our cyber security by checking off a box. So it's out there, everybody, we gotta start consuming SBOs. That's my, that's my tip for the week.

Always a good tip for the week from Tracy. All right, well, let's get rolling into our interview. I'd like to introduce you all to Kathy Park with Andre Capital.

Kathy, jump in, introduce yourself. Tell us, tell us a little bit about what you're up to. Sure.

Thanks. Um, and thanks for having me on. Um, so I am a partner at Andre Capital.

We're a Silicon Valley based, um, growth and late stage technology investment firm. Uh, we focus on companies primarily raising Series E for later. So ideally one to three years prior to I p O, we tend to focus a bit more on enterprise related technologies, so things like, um, cybersecurity, ai, big data, SaaS, cloud computing, um, and other business enablement technology, including things like and, and then sectors like FinTech.

Um, I came to Andra, actually, I had originally met the team back in 2018 when they were just founding the firm. Um, I was at Goldman at the time where I spent 18 years of my career and, uh, ended up just staying in touch with the team and being really impressed by the progress that they've made over the last few years, including during, um, a ti a, a global pandemic. And one of the rockiest was volatile tech markets that I think we've seen in, um, the better part of a decade.

So, um, I'm excited to be there. I'm a partner. I'm responsible for business development and also sit on the investment committee at Andre.

That's a handful. So, So you are, then you have a background in both finance and technology, which is impressive. Um, I was a geek from the very beginning, but I, in the school that I went to, we had to take business classes if we were gonna be in, in the computer sciences.

Uh, and I hated finance. I was terrible at it. Of course, now I use it all the time.

Um, I appreciated balance sheet today, but in college I didn't so much. How did you get yourself into both technology and finances? So it's, they're very different.

Maybe they both have math associated to 'em, but that's about it. Yeah, I mean, I, I fell into finance by accident, so, um, I grew up in Virginia. Uh, you know, I was surrounded by normal professions.

Um, didn't know anything about finance or banking. My assumption was that I was going to be, I had three choices in life. I was either gonna be a doctor, a lawyer, or an engineer.

Um, and so I was at, uh, my high school was a science and technology focused high school. Um, it's pretty well known. It's called, uh, Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology.

So, needless to say, I assumed I was going to be either, um, uh, you know, some sort of a scientist, a doctor engineer, that type of thing. Um, and then when I was in college, um, I, I ended up, I was re it was a liberal arts college. And so, um, I was required to take lots of different types of classes.

And, um, I ended up taking economics, thinking that that was really interesting. Um, I'd always done debate in high school of all things. And so, um, sort of really liked the juxtaposition of quantitative with qualitative, um, and then my junior.

And so I was sort of trucking along, um, not really knowing what I was gonna do. Um, but my junior year, a friend of mine suggested that, uh, I actually, it was the summer before my junior year, he had suggested that I applied for this, uh, internship on Wall Street. Um, and it's, uh, by a group called Sponsors for Educational Opportunity.

It's a really fantastic program. Um, and the, the goal is really to help, um, minorities really, uh, underrepresented minorities get jobs in finance. Um, so I did that and I just, I loved it.

I really loved, I was placed on a trading floor in debt capital markets and thought it was so exciting. I'd never seen so many people and so much going on. And I also realized it was a really nice combination of things that I knew how to do.

So sort of the math and the quantitative aspects, um, and then also the ability to just interact with people. And so that just, you know, it's sort of one thing led to another. And, uh, that's how I got started in finance.

But, but I'm a spoiled scientist at heart. That is really cool though, that you got that opportunity. I do.

At that young of age, being on that floor, I, I mean, I worked out on Wall Street as a programmer. I never was on the floor, but I worked with traders. Oh my goodness, I'm sorry.

I'm All Of that. Everything's nothing done. I'm writing software for every trader ever.

They're just me. Let's just put it that way. They're wound up, they have had too much coffee in their meeting, but what are eyeopening experience for you, really at that young of an age?

It's, that's a do they, is that opportunity still out there for, for, uh, it is. It is. And, um, you know, and that's, you know, it's one of these, um, interesting things where there are, so there's a greater awareness of trying to create, um, programs, uh, including for women and minorities at an earlier stage to try to recruit more folks, um, that are typically underrepresented in certain fields.

And so now these companies are reaching down at an earlier stage, um, and really structuring internships, not just at, for folks in their junior and senior year, but even as early as freshmen and sophomores and things like that. And so SEO is still very much alive and kicking, and they've expanded the program. So it's not just Wall Street.

Now. They have a law program. They also have, um, an investment, uh, professionals program as well.

Um, and actually a lot of that, all of that actually goes towards funding a high school program that SEO sponsors, which is really to help again, um, underrepresented minorities essentially get into schools. And so they offer, um, a lot of, uh, prep college preparation classes and things like that. So, um, yeah, I think it's, it's still exists.

And if anything, the good news is these programs have started to expand and proliferate. They absolutely have here in col. I live in Denver, and we have a, a STEM high school in Denver that's open enrollment to any kids that can qualify.

I mean, they have kind of an entrance program because they wanna make sure the kids wanna be there. And, um, it's a, it's a really great program and it's in a very underrepresented part of Denver. So I love that they're, I just, it's so important for our schools to realize that even at the high school level, these kids have made up their mind.

Or if you give them a taste of these things, they'll, they'll figure them out very quickly. I think tech is something that they kids figure out. They're, they're into it pretty quickly and early on.

Whereas, you know, some of us slugged through college trying to figure out what we wanted to major in. I don't feel like tech is like that. I feel like it, from everybody we've interviewed Tracy, you're the same way.

Like, you, you got into it and you were just, you were there, you were all in, you were ready to do it. So I love the idea of the, the high school level being expanded more and focused more on these STEM programs. Yeah, we, uh, New Mexico tries very hard to build, to build their STEM program, but, uh, there's always challenges around it though.

Mm-hmm. Uh, and so much of it is cultural. Um, and I, in working with some of these programs, uh, I find that it also has to do with your econo, your, your parents' economic profile.

Wow. Uh, that and their belief in what is possible, right? So what they have seen is what they pass on to their kids, and oftentimes they don't see college, they don't see themselves being an engineer or a, or a programmer.

Uh, and so they don't pass it on to their kids. So it has to come from education. It has to come from programs that can open the, the, the student's eyes, even though their parents' eyes might be shut.

Uh, and that is one of the bigger problems, especially with, uh, in, uh, in the areas that I'm in, especially in the more rural areas, they don't even consider girls. Uh, they don't even think about sending girls to college. Mm-hmm.

You know, it's, that's still a, that's, that's still a hurdle to overcome. Um, and, uh, thinking about a girl going into STEM is even a bigger deal, right? For some of these populations and not some of these cultures.

So we have a lot of cultural things to kind of overcome, um, in, in terms of getting more girls into more girls and minorities and, uh, people below the poverty, poverty line to get them thinking about, Hey, maybe, uh, maybe getting my kid into school is important. That's why community colleges are so important. Absolutely.

You know, if we could get, if we have more focus on STEM in the community colleges, uh, we'll do really well. They, they have a great one at, at, uh, the community college in Albuquerque, and they produce a lot of good, uh, entry level programmers. So let's move on to things about, uh, what you're doing with your career now.

Um, so tell us a little bit about some of the, uh, companies that you are, um, investing in. Uh, what's cool, what's coming up, what the, what you're looking at, you know, what's, what makes you excited? What's the, what's the new technology that you, that is really getting your interest?

Sure. Um, and so I would say, you know, just big picture for me. I, as I mentioned, I'm more of a finance professional, but when I was, um, at Goldman, and even after that, um, in the role that I've had since I've, technology is incredibly exciting.

It is, people used to talk about technology as if it were a vertical, and it's a horizontal. It encompasses every single sector and every single industry. And it will increasingly become an important part of our ecosystem to the point where I think Tracy, you, um, had mentioned with various communities that don't really, you know, that, that don't support co college, much less women in technology.

I think it's so incredibly important for, um, for, for young girls in particular to feel excited and understand how jobs or careers of technology are relevant for them in particular. And so, um, for me, I was starting to see technology really in the financial services sector. And then I realized the exciting things that are happening, um, in, uh, healthcare as well as other sectors that previously you hadn't really seen a lot of technology.

And in particular, you're starting to see the, a focus on AI and, uh, big data and data analytics in particular. And that permeates every single industry. And there are lots of industries that are, um, relatively inefficient.

What's interesting as well, I know everybody has been talking about AI in the context of chat, GPT, but that's just the most recent manifestation. So at Andra, we believe that, um, AI and big data are going to be incredibly important. And so, um, we've invested in companies including, um, a, you know, we, we tend to invest in these private companies that are a bit under the radar.

Um, but we look at companies such as, um, orbit, which is a, um, natural language processing, um, and machine learning based transcription service. But what they're doing is they've applied it first to the legal sector, but now they're really able to, uh, you know, as you get these data sets and, um, you, you, uh, you get better and better at essentially processing this information. You're able to apply to all sorts of different sectors.

And, um, and the beauty of machine learning, of course, is that the machine gets smarter and smarter, um, more data it has and the more data points, um, and training points, if you will, that, that they have. So we invest in that. Um, not surprisingly, just given this current environment, cybersecurity is something that's, uh, very much front and center.

And so we've invested in a number of cybersecurity companies as well. Um, and actually you can look at our website. I don't know how much I'm supposed to talk about the, the companies that we've invested in.

Um, but you can get a sense for the types of companies that, that we've also invested in. So that's the, that's also incredibly exciting. And if you think, again about cyber security, it used to be something that, um, was something, you know, it was like in movies and espionage and, um, and you always thought of like these male hackers and stuff.

But now we're starting to realize that it's just a basic layer of everything that we do. Um, and so it's, again, it's something that no matter what sector you are in, um, and this includes everything from hospitals, schools, you, uh, government institutions as well as corporations and other places, you do need to have an acute awareness of, of what, what cybersecurity and other, um, and, and, um, sort of technology as a whole has as an impact on the companies that you're working in or the fields that you're working in. And so, again, people need to be much more sophisticated about things like that.

Um, in the past, like we talked a little bit about the companies that we've, um, exited. So, um, we have, Andra has successfully exited from two companies that are now public companies. So, um, so far, um, in the FinTech space and Palantir, um, you know, which is in the SaaS space.

And those are both very exciting. Um, you know, it, for us, it's, it's exciting to see those companies go public. We think, again, going forward in the future for us, there are certain sectors that essentially could go in and out of favor, but we're, we're relatively agnostic as to what we're focusing on.

For us, it's really more about finding the right company with the right management team that's set up to succeed. Um, in particular, also finding management teams that are able to scale these companies from essentially what we think of as more late stage growth companies to public companies that are able to be a standalone entities that are profitable, that are able to continue to grow, um, and, and grow their market share. So, um, sorry, that's a bit of a longer answer than I intended, but, um, just to give you a little bit of a sense of some of the types of areas that, that we've been focused on a little bit more recently and why I think that big data is important.

And, uh, you know, I started my talk saying we don't have enough data, centralized data around SBOs to do anything important or intelligent around the cybersecurity issue. And the many industries are like that. Uh, for, for example, if we think about our, what, what we're excited about in AI right now is chat, GPT, and, you know, uh, codex.

So we can start creating code snippets. They both have some pretty big data, uh, uh, lakes. They have Google.

They can search a Google and pull out anything el anything you want. I mean, that's a pretty simple ai, um, application. You can, you can do the search yourself, and they're, it's just searching it all for you and putting it together in a nice grammarly way, let's say.

Um, and that's the same way with, uh, codex. So looking at the GitHub open source repositories, and they're pulling code snippets, but we don't have a good centralized place, for example, for healthcare because we, there is a division between, there's a risk reward balance between protecting our security mm-hmm. And having the data available to us.

And we haven't done a good job so far of being able to do that separate the, the persona that is associated to the data and the data. Uh, and you know, it's probably gonna be that Google's gonna come up with algorithms to do better healthcare searches, be based on what people have written about healthcare in the same way as we sit there and look at, uh, you know, why is my potassium high in all those kinds of things. So we're a, we're asking for that information now, but in some of these industries, we really lack in a huge way, centralized data that can really provide the ai, um, the intelligence that we're looking for.

How do you see us at any time in the future? I, I, it is a very important area. It's the same way in, in, in law.

It's the same way in, um, in many of our, um, how do you carve problems? I, you know, I have a rattle in my car, I wanna be able to ask Google that. So we're asking for the information, but we don't necessarily centralize it.

That's right. And, you know, a lot of it is, it, it's the centralization, it's cleaning up of data. So when you think about data, you're totally right, Tracy.

I mean, we collect so much data, um, but what we don't do is figure out essentially how to catalog it. You know, if you think about books in a library, imagine if you just had a giant pile of books and you didn't know, you had no system for how to search. And so in the same way that it's what Google did for the internet and for data that's available out there now, but as, as, and this is also I think where the overlay of, excuse me, artificial intelligence comes in as well, because it's still an incredibly intensive process to be able to think about how do we draw all these connections?

How do we see the patterns? So healthcare data, um, some of the exciting things, you know, on, on the Andra side, we're not healthcare specialists, but we, and when we focus on health tech, we focus more, less on the health and more on the technology and the software applications. And so what we're excited and interested to see are the number of companies that essentially take, um, the same forms of pattern recognition and data analytics and understanding correlations, for example, between the fact that, um, Tracy, you've had a cold multiple times and you also ha are allergic to X, Y, z.

And by the way, we gave you antibiotics. Is there something where we can figure out, is there predictive power or are there certain correlations, and can we compare you and your health record versus everybody else? And so you're absolutely right.

Um, and what's going to be really amazing is, um, so on the ultra side, we're very much focused on b2b, but then there's the angle of B2B to C. And so at some point, you're gonna need a medical pr, you will gen, you know, today your doctor and the hospital system that you're involved in will have access to those, to that information and be able to provide a diagnosis for you. But it's really not that much longer before you will have those tools in your hand where you're, where you'll be able to take, you know, put in your own data, your symptoms into your iPhone and have it give you information.

Um, and so it's really exciting. And, you know, there's a, there are a lot of things that are getting us to this point. So again, it's big data, data analytics, um, computing power.

So I mentioned that we look at, um, you know, sort of cloud and, but there's, you know, that plus, you know, everything from just having, um, faster, uh, you know, uh, technology as well. And so having devices that can actually ha have that, that power. And so it's this convergence.

And so people, you know, it's not really a step function. I think it's one of those interesting things where you start to see things go up and then all of a sudden we, there will be a breakthrough of some sort and, you know, we see a, a spike. So it's pretty exciting.

Um, very, it is. Sometimes it's, and really the, it, the, the IT community has finally fixed the, uh, computing power problem, right? Nice.

This is the whole idea of Kubernetes and microservices. We have small functions that you can spin up, um, go from, you know, what we would call a C one, you know, a 10 CPUs to 15,000 CPUs in a matter of seconds in order to have that ability, that brain power that allows you to do, do this massive pattern matching and a matter of minutes instead of several days. Yeah.

So it has co has arrived. And that's partly why this is starting to be driven so hard is because now we have the power. Um, I, I always was interested in, um, artificial intelligence.

And way back in the nineties, I took a job with, uh, with farmer's insurance. I was a I B M, uh, consultant, and they had a product called Tier, which was a, a platform built for building ai. And we got to the point where we realized we don't have the processing power is no, there's no way that this is possible today with the kind of computers we have today.

Not even on the mainframe. Mainframe wasn't powerful enough. And that was the big machine right?

Back then. Uh, but now we've arrived, we've arrived to a point where we can do it. We have the technology now to build these massive systems.

That's why now it's a big, the question is the data, the how, how clean the data is, how complete the data is. Because if you're just looking at data from one insurance company, you're not getting a, a really accurate picture of the general population. You're getting a picture of your demographics.

Your demographics may only serve a particular area. So you don't get the, the broader picture. And somehow we're gonna have to solve that problem.

I don't know if it's a function of government. And that's a problem because so many people have suspicious, uh, you know, they're suspicious about government. But somewhere we have to start pulling this kind of data together.

And I don't know how it's gonna get solved, but it's literally holding us back, uh, from what we need to achieve. We could do so much more if we had those big places to store data and have it safe so it didn't have personal information in it, at the same time. Might have demographics, but it doesn't have your name and phone number and you know where you were born.

And that tends to be what everybody wants to gather, right? They want all your, your personal, uh, data. Because we're focused on marketing.

We, you know, the, we've always wanted, like, I need their email, I want their, I wanna be able to reach out to 'em, let's do, you know, remarketing on Google so we can get in their face. We haven't thought about it in terms of, uh, improving people's quality of lives, uh, health making legal questions easier. Uh, uh, for God's sakes.

Tell me right now, don't you think that the government should do my taxes? Yes, They should be able to, they Have the data. Why are They asking me to fill The form out?

Just send me the form and I'll look at it and agree or disagree. And if I disagree, I'll go to, you know, my h and r block guy and let 'em fix it. Well, not only that, but how much more complicated can they make it?

Right? Like, you can't, it's not like you can learn how to do it because they change it, and you can't figure out what those changes are. My daughter is an actor and a director, and she called us last night and she's like, oh my God, how do I do my taxes?

I have six W nine s and four W two s and I worked in three different states last year. What am I do? What do I do?

And she shouldn't have to pay for a tax professional at 26 to get her taxes done. And if We should just Yeah, right now it should just be emailed to us. Yeah, exactly.

I love that. So I wanna shift a little, Kathy, you've spent so much time in so many different spots, and right now you're exposed to so many different industries. Um, let's talk a little bit about what, what we see as far as minorities and women in these roles that people are coming to you.

I'm obviously, we all know as women that we're not represented nearly as much as we'd like to be and people of color as well. Um, what do you see in these, in these small private companies and folks that are coming to you? So it's interesting.

Um, it, it's, you know, the, the statistic that I always come to is that even if you look at the general workforce population, um, you know, women comprise just under 50% and we we're not even gonna get into pay disparities and things like that. That'll set us down a completely different rabbit hole. Exactly.

But when you think about, um, the technology space, women are less than a third of the overall workforce, and that's at every level in these companies. And that it's not surprising, um, whether it's technology or finance or other, other industries that have traditionally been more, more male dominated at every level of the career progression, you see women drop off. And so candidly, the number of women CEOs that we see is, um, you know, I think less than a hand, a handful at any given time.

Um, on the Andra side, we're an incredibly diverse team. So, um, if you look at our, our team, um, in addition to myself, um, they're the, my, the rest of my team, while they're men, um, they're also very, they're, they're diverse. They're other people of color.

And so it's not lost on me that I joined a team that just looked a little bit different from other firms. Um, and when we work with founders, we want to, we, we are much, I think we're less willing. We, we people have un um, these unconscious or hidden biases, um, which have been, I, I think is really interesting.

I think we tend to be much more open-minded as to what a tech c e o or a tech C-suite is supposed to look like. If anything, what we're looking for is diversity. We're not necessarily looking for diversity just for, you know, physical appearances, but really diversity of thinking, diversity of experience.

Because what we wanna see is a really well-rounded team, and we aren't as likely, I think, um, just again, because we are a diverse team, to have preconceived notions around what, you know, management teams are supposed to look like. And I think that's really important. Um, another interesting fact, for example, for on the investing side, we know for a fact that increasingly more investors are looking for diversity.

Um, and frankly they're not finding it. But, you know, I had, um, it was really great yesterday, uh, I ended up, um, having an initial meeting with an investment team. It's a multi-family office, and on the screen were two other women.

And I'm not saying that they, it, it, it, for me that's exciting just because it is so rare to see other women investors mm-hmm. Other women who are allocating capital. And so I think the more women though that we can get into these positions where they are allocating the capital and frankly demanding to see diversity, um, whether it's a core part of someone's investment strategy or one of the factors that go into our, our analysis, that's how we're gonna be able to push for greater diversity on teams.

And so, um, you know, it's, I think it's just incumbent in all of us to focus on this and, and keep talking about it. And it's why, frankly, Jodi and Tracy, I love the fact that you're doing this series, um, to focus on women, because I think it's important the more, the more people talk about this and the more people shine a light on this, it's, it's just only gonna help everybody else, even if it's indirect. Um, where people start to have different conceptions around what does a woman technology entrepreneur look like?

What does a woman investor look like? And that goes all the way back to what we were talking about at the beginning is so often you hear young women, especially, they see this woman doing something who looks like her, right? Mm-hmm.

You, we hear about it most in acting, right? And the, the Academy awards that just happened. And, and you see little girls seeing an Asian woman who got the biggest award there is to get after a massively amazing career Michelle had.

And, you know, it's important, it's important for people to see people that look like them doing something that they're excited about. So I think, I think that's amazing that you guys have created a, a workplace that's diverse to start. And so you kind of, you're, you're already well on your path cuz your minds are so open to the possibilities of what you're doing.

It, It's totally the case. And you know, a lot of times these young women, this goes back Tracy, I think to your comment around your local community, they often don't see these role models mm-hmm. In their day-to-day lives or in their communities.

They're not an everyday part of their life. But then when you watch, whether it's the Academy Awards or something else, or you're on the internet and you see though that outside of your community there are lots of butt kicking women doing really amazing things that you even thought were conceivable is pretty impressive. And then back to Tracy, your point about parents too, I think it's awesome.

Like, I would've loved if my parents had seen, you know, um, someone like Michelle Yo receive an Academy Award, because then for them they're like, oh, wow, it is possible for someone who looks like my daughter to achieve success in this area. Um, right. Because when you don't see those role models, you think, oh, those doors are closed off to me.

Mm-hmm. Um, so, you know, it's, it's that that whole idea of seeing role models is, is really important. Otherwise, it's really hard.

I mean, I would say this as someone who, when I started out in finance, there were so few women at senior levels and it's, it just wasn't something that, so for me, I sort of thought, oh, you have to be extraordinarily special. I mean, you still do have to be extraordinarily special. Mm-hmm.

But it was almost so insurmountable that I, I couldn't relate, uh, if, if that makes sense. And so it's only as I've gotten older and you've also started to see more women and you've seen more women helping other women that, um, that these sorts of things become more normalized. Right.

Um, so There's one thing that's good about the internet. Um, there's a lot of bad things. Um, but one good thing is kids and diversity.

Kids that are diverse, kids in underserved communities, girls, they can go on YouTube, they can go on places and outside of their community cuz they're not seeing it and find people that can represent them. So it's, it's pretty important. There's a lot of other garbage on the internet that is not helpful to women.

And that's a whole, again, a whole nother, uh, episode about all the stereotypes that mess with our heads. But I think it's, it's amazing what you're doing. And, and, um, do you guys have a, a mentorship program or do you do that, any of that kind of thing?

And how does, you know, how do you help women that are, you know, come up and coming, overcome some of these stereotypes and feel comfortable? Tracy always says, I suffer from imposter syndrome sometimes cuz I do. And, uh, and it's important for them to, I think so many younger women, I see it in my daughter and my, my both my daughters, you know, they grew up, they're younger for them.

They're just like, you know, we can do whatever we want. And I love that we're, we're raising our girls to be more and more like not coming and feeling like they're gonna hit a wall, right. Because they don't see someone, they're like, well, I can do that, but I'll just dive in with both feet.

So what, what are you able to do to help kind of that process? So, and Andra, we're, we're relatively small. We're an eight person firm, so we don't have a formal mentorship program.

That said, um, it's interesting, we, um, we, I I, I personally still have a number of, um, mentees that, um, I guess I adopted, um, or maybe they adopted me, um, back when I was, uh, I was in finance. And, um, I also have some incredible mentors by the way, who, um, I still speak with and get lots of career advice about and who are amazing sounding boards. And so, you know, people often just contextualize mentorship relationships, um, as something for that particular job or firm.

Right. And that's not the case at all. Um, it's important to, those are lifelong relationships.

Then ideally over time they become friendships. Um, and, and you as a mentee are also able to provide insight and help. And so I'll give you an example more recently, um, one of our partners had asked me to, um, mentor a young woman, um, who, um, of all things is working at a very interesting lighting, industrial lighting company, um, but is very interested in technology.

Um, her family, uh, uh, she's from Taiwan, had lived in Vancouver and was educated in Vancouver, um, thoughtful about the conference. Um, but, um, she, uh, so, um, part of it is for me, I'm trying to help her better understand the technology landscape and understand, um, you know, sort of areas that could be parti particularly interesting to her. And so we're having that conversation, and I'll give you an example of how m mentee can help a mentor.

So I know nothing about search and optimization. And so we're going through a project and it turns out that she does a lot of the, um, the media and online, um, you know, sort of presentations and things for the company that she's at. And so I have very happily looped her in.

Um, and so we'll integrate her into that process to help us. But, um, you know, so it, like I said, it's a two-way street, but, um, we try to do it informally. And I think for, for me personally, I draw a lot of energy from interacting with people because, especially younger people, because they have such awesome ideas, different perspectives, and frankly, they're seeing so much more speaking of like all the, they're, they're good influences and other things are great influences out there, but they are so much more on top of it, um, than, than I am.

Absolutely. Absolutely. And so, you know, it's, um, a lot of it is just informal, but I, you know, I think for everybody, these relationships can be so rewarding.

Um, and then last but not least, people often think of mentors as, you know, older, more senior person, younger, more junior person. Um, and that's not the case. They're also pure relationships.

So, um, you know, everybody has, um, whether you call it this or not, a, a personal board of directors, and so my girlfriends and so that's awesome. No, it's possy of people where, and they've seen, they've seen a lot of what you've seen. Maybe they've navigated in a different context, but you have got to have that group.

You, you know, you need to have your, you need to have your own personal board too, um, to help you out and help you sound out stuff in, in a safe space where you know that when you say something, they're not gonna settle. You know, that, that it's not somehow gonna be used against you, if that makes sense. Or to practice saying, well, if I said it this way, how does that sound?

And they can tell you, Kathy, that is a crap idea. You know, so, um, try it again. Um, so things like that.

So, um, you know, I think it's important to think about mentorship, uh, in sort of a 360 context versus just, you know, up down that kind of thing. That is the takeaway for today for sure. Your personal board of directors.

That's amazing. I call the people in my front row. Oh yeah.

Yep. People Who I feel like are cheering me on, right. They're, they are my mentors because they're the ones that are gonna be most honest and they're the ones that are gonna be giving me the most praise and keep me going.

But, you know, I have to say, this is a women in technology discussion. I don't find, uh, at, at where I am at my level, I find that the women that I do meet are super competitive and they're, they're not good at mentoring other women. In fact, they're terrible at it.

They're absolutely terrible at it. And sometimes I feel that there's a, that competitive edge, they're, uh, they just, they don't wanna do it. And it, um, makes me sad.

Really Does, I have some amazing men in my life now who are, I would consider my mentors, but I haven't found a, um, uh, you know, women who are at the higher levels, uh, make really good mentors. And then the ones that do, they're so busy. Yeah.

Yeah. Because, you know, I have a few of those that I'm working on. Uh, and they're, they're amazing, uh, mentors because they have that nurturing, um, capability.

If they can let, let down their competitive edge and just say, this is not about me, this is about this person right now. So I'm hoping that we see more women take those mentorship roles, whether it be within the company, growing younger women to get 'em up to the higher levels or, you know, it's, uh, or more of a community, broader based, where people are reaching out to women who are coming up the ranks. And on our open source community, I, there's a, a handful of women that I am working with, and it's what part of my, it's my favorite part of my job.

It really is. So be a mentor. Absolutely.

Yeah. Tracy, that, that term, have you heard the term Queen bee? Oh Yeah.

Oh yes. Yeah. Yeah.

We, we don't need any queen bees. We really don't. No.

It's like Diva. It can't, and we can't have 'em because it holds everybody back. It's at some point in your career, you've already reached a certain level.

You don't have to have that competitive edge anymore. And I understand it, you have to have a serious competitive edge to get ahead in a male dominated field. You, you do.

But there is a balance. Everything is moderation, right? And so somehow women have to figure out that balance.

Um, you know, they're so driven, driven, driven, driven. They have to be able to back off and say, now I need to help somebody else drive, right? Yeah.

Well, they have to, because otherwise, you know, I saw this at, at larger firms, um, such as at Goldman, the most best leaders are the ones that create their own armies. And so it's not necessarily women, but I've seen the, the very successful men are very smart because they keep pulling up their people and over time, and they put those people in really important roles. And so over time, you've got your people in all the seats, and so you control the chess board, if you will.

Um, and so I just think it's, it's a shame when people lose sight of the fact that by pulling people up, you're, you're creating more allies, right? Versus someone who's gonna quote take you down. Um, it's a really, that's a really toxic, toxic, um, mentality.

And um, you know, I just feel like sometimes frankly, women and men need to do a better job of calling out and something like that happens. Um, because I think actually that's even worse because it, it, you know, to continue the analogy, it sort of destroys the hive, right? Yes.

And it, it's actually even more discouraging as a woman. And, and I've, I've totally seen it and I totally know what you're talking about. It's even more discouraging because it causes other women to, to leave or just do you know.

Absolutely. Because you just think, okay, well this is not the role model that I'm looking for. Um, Yeah.

And you're, then you're stuck behind somebody who isn't necessarily looking at, looking out for you to raise you up and put you in one of those seats along with them. Right, exactly. They're looking at it from a very, in this is an individual battle.

This is my battle getting rising up through the ranks, and I don't have the, the strength to carry anybody with me. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Yeah. So We're Getting, we're getting close to the end of our, our amazing time together here. And I just wanna ask you, what kind of advice do you have for aspiring women and people of color, um, that are young and trying to get, get into the, the industry of tech or whatever industry it is that they wanna be part of?

Um, I would say two things. I would say network like mad, um, uh, you know, and these are, this is advice I wish I could give my younger self. Yeah.

Um, it is, it is using those networks, being thoughtful about it, finding net mentors, um, whether they are other women or not, whether they are other people of color or not, but just finding people that you have something in common with who seem to have an interest in helping you or at least guiding you because you don't know what you don't know. Um, and then I also think it's incredibly important take risks as a junior person. Um, and I think if, for example, again, if I hadn't tried for this internship and hadn't tried it out, I would never have been on the career path that I'm on now, um, for better or for worse.

Um, but I think, I think, I think it's been for the better. And so, um, and especially earlier on, you have much more latitude to try lots of different things and fail, um, versus later in your career where it's a little bit harder, it's harder, it's more public, there's more at stake because you manage bigger teams, you manage bigger budgets and things like that. And so, um, you know, again, just thinking about it from the perspective of, um, of why I think tech is so interesting and why I love what Andra does, you know, if you don't try, you're never gonna know.

Um, and again, you also have to kiss a lot of frogs to find your prince, so, um, or princess, right? So, exactly. Um, so I think that that stuff is important for people.

Um, I would concur learning to knowing how to fail is probably one of the most, um, important, uh, skills that anybody can have. Uh, and knowing that you don't know everything and it's okay not to know all the answers, and it's okay to ask, that's important too. And I, I think that's probably women are afraid to ask, you know, men and woman driving in a car and they get lost.

The man's gonna be the one that's gonna stop and ask where they're at the moment will say, no, let's figure it out. Oh, we gotta, we gotta figure out how to roll down an the window and ask where, what the, the correct direction. And it's okay to be wrong.

Absolutely. Right. Well, thank you so much for being with us.

This was just an amazing conversation and we're so happy that we got to spend some time with you and, and learn about what you're doing. And, um, you know, it just sounds, it's, it's been a crazy time with markets and investing and all that. So it's good to see all the positive that's really going on.

Sometimes our news floods us with the negative. So it's, it's important. It's important to Tracy and I to really bring folks like you in and, and have great conversations about the good stuff and the positive.

Then I'm a cup half full kind of girl. I, that's how I have to see the world. So it's nice to, to uh, get together with, uh, like-minded folks to do that.

So thank you so much for joining us today. Tracy, as always, love hanging out with Thank you, you for an hour or so. And Kathy was great meeting you.

It was great to meet you both, and thank you so much and thank you for, for doing this, this program, Julie. I think it's great. And I love just the name says it all tech strong women, so it's fantastic.

Thank you so much. And hey, thanks for everybody watching today. Um, we're excited to, to bring you another episode of Text Strong Women.

Be sure and tune in to text Strong TV every day for lots of great interviews and all sorts of, um, great people you can meet and things you can learn. Have a great day.