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She Raised a YouTube CEO and a Billion-Dollar Founder | Esther Wojcicki, Godmother of Silicon Valley

📌 Launch your dream business with the best designs the world has to offer — Design.com: https://go.design.com/cd5msoz Join me for an inspiring conversation with Esther Wojcicki, the "godmother of silicon valley," whose wisdom on parenting tips and education has guided countless families. I share my personal journey of how her parenting advice helped me navigate the challenges of new motherhood. This discussion highlights crucial teaching methods and life lessons for the future of learning, applicable to all. Timestamps: 0:00 — Why I've wanted this guest for years 3:02 — How to use AI without losing your critical thinking 4:36 — Steve Jobs and the computers that changed everything 8:30 — Will AI take your kids' jobs? Esther's honest answer 10:17 — The TRICK system: Trust, Respect, Independence, Collaboration, Kindness 14:13 — How to rebuild self-trust as an adult 17:08 — What Esther told Anne during the 23andMe crisis 23:21 — How each daughter went a completely different direction 26:44 — How to raise kids when you were brought up differently 29:29 — Should you still push for college in the AI age? 31:05 — What parents should do more of right now 35:24 — Women in Silicon Valley: the price of success nobody talks about 38:52 — "Fail fast and revise" — and what Zuckerberg got wrong 40:33 — The $1.1 billion bet that created YouTube 42:54 — The Godmother of Silicon Valley documentary is coming Links: 📩 Follow my Newsletter: https://siliconvalleygirl.beehiiv.com/ 🔗 My Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/siliconvalleygirl/ 📌 My Companies & Products: https://partnerships.marinamogilko.co

Marina MogilkohostEsther Wojcickiguest
Jun 9, 202643mWatch on YouTube ↗

EVERY SPOKEN WORD

  1. 0:00 – 3:02

    Why I've wanted this guest for years

    1. MM

      Hey, guys. Welcome back to my channel. Today, we have a very special dream guest. She is so, so close to my heart. Back in 2022, my older daughter was two, my younger was one, and I was running on no sleep for almost three years. I was forgetting who I was, and it was really hard to function because I was exhausted, and I still had to work. That's when my friend recommended a book by Esther Wojcicki, The Woj Way, or How to Raise Successful Kids. I started reading about her difficult childhood, how she raised three daughters in Silicon Valley as a teacher. [record scratch] So the... See? This is the reality of working from home with the kids. So she was that teacher who knocked on Steve Jobs' door asking for computers and walked out with Macs. And I kept thinking, "If she was able to pull it off, then I will be able to do it, too." So we sat down, I took some of her principles, and bought them into how I parent. And today, we're sitting down with Esther. She's known as the Godmother of Silicon Valley. She raised three amazing daughters. Susan Wojcicki was the YouTube CEO. She actually convinced Google to buy YouTube. Uh, unfortunately, she passed away two years ago from lung cancer at 56. Janet, her second daughter, is a researcher at UCSF, and Anne is the founder of 23andMe. She was Sergey Brin's first wife. Her company was once valued at billions of dollars, and then it went through bankruptcy, and then she bought it back. Three daughters, three completely different lives, one mom. I really want to know, how do you raise kids who know how to fight for what they believe in? I really wanna know how I can use her upbringing principles not only to raise them, but also, how do I stand up after mistakes? How do I keep trying? Let's do it. You've seen so many revolutions being here in Silicon Valley, from, like, analog to internet, uh, from computers to devices. Now you're seeing this AI revolution. Do you think it's different from what you've seen before?

    2. EW

      Well, it's different because the device is different, but it's actually not different in the sense that it's a technological device that we have to learn how to use.

    3. MM

      Mm-hmm.

    4. EW

      And, um, I still don't think they've done the cellphones correctly with kids because what they're trying to do is ban them.

    5. MM

      Mm-hmm.

    6. EW

      And so then I have to ask, what in history has been a successful ban? Okay, so they banned alcohol in the 1920s. How did that work? And then they tried to ban drugs in the 1980s. Just Say No. How did that work? So these bans just don't work, and now they've banned, uh, social media in Australia.

    7. MM

      Mm-hmm.

    8. EW

      And did you know what's going on now?

    9. MM

      No, what's, what's happening?

    10. EW

      The kids are all using VPN, and so they're thinking of banning VPN. It's, it's just crazy.

    11. MM

      Instead of bans.

    12. EW

      Instead of doing that-

    13. MM

      Yeah

    14. EW

      ... they should teach the kids how to use it intelligently. The main thing you should know is how to use AI to ask good questions and not to use AI to do your math homework for you, 'cause then you're just cheating yourself.

  2. 3:02 – 4:36

    How to use AI without losing your critical thinking

    1. MM

      Yeah. It's just tough. Like, how do you teach your kids to navigate that? Because it's so easy to just replace your critical thinking with AI. Like, just tell me what to do, and it tells you.

    2. EW

      They need to know. They, they... No one tells them that.

    3. MM

      Mm.

    4. EW

      No one says, you know, "You're cheating yourself." Why, why don't they tell them that? I don't know.

    5. MM

      Mm-hmm.

    6. EW

      But you are cheating yourself. What you should do, if you wanna do it, is you should try to do whatever problem it is, write an essay or, you know, do a math problem. Try to do it yourself, then put it into the AI and ask the AI to give you feedback.

    7. MM

      Yeah.

    8. EW

      Then it can be... act like a teacher.

    9. MM

      Mm-hmm.

    10. EW

      But just to have the AI do it for you, I mean, what a crazy thing. Do you want AI to live your life for you? So the reason I don't think so is just let's look at the skills that we're looking for when we hire. You're looking for people that can solve problems, creative thinkers, people that get along well with other people. And so if you don't train kids to work collaboratively in groups and to think creatively, then what kind of employees are you training for the future? So that's how I use AI in the classroom-

    11. MM

      Mm

    12. EW

      ... as a collaborative device.

    13. MM

      Mm-hmm.

    14. EW

      And that's how I've been using computers in the classroom since I first started. You know, I started in the 19- it's shocking, 1980s. [laughs]

    15. MM

      Yeah. The 1980, '86, yeah.

    16. EW

      I mean, I was the first teacher in California, I think, to use computers in

  3. 4:36 – 8:30

    Steve Jobs and the computers that changed everything

    1. EW

      the classroom. [laughs]

    2. MM

      Wow. And did Steve Jobs give you those computers, right?

    3. EW

      Steve Jobs, I am forever grateful to Steve Jobs because he gave me computers. I'm also grateful to some of the parents in the program, who also donated money for me to buy more computers. So I had, you know, a lot of computers when, when nobody in the schools anywhere was using, were using computers, and I was using computers, and I looked like an odd duck. [laughs]

    4. MM

      And so were, were you the f- one of the first... You're one of the first to start using AI, right?

    5. EW

      I was one of the first to start using AI also.

    6. MM

      How, how would you use that, especially, like, for adults who are watching, who have been brought up in a different system, no collaboration, no communication? How can they use w- how you are teaching the kids in their adult life to learn those skills?

    7. EW

      So one of the things they should do is think about using AI to ask questions. If they ask a question, or you can ask AI to do something for you and compare that with how you would've done that skill yourself.

    8. MM

      Mm-hmm.

    9. EW

      And, um, so I ask AI sometimes to write something for me. I say, "I have to give a speech to an elementary school. You know, what do you think would be the most engaging thing for me to talk about?" So then AI will tell me what they think is the most engaging thing, so then I'll take that, whatever they talk To give me, and I will then expand on it

    10. MM

      Mm-hmm

    11. EW

      So, I mean, you can use AI kind of like, you know, a well-known teacher-

    12. MM

      Yeah

    13. EW

      ... who would be there in place of AI, that would be there to help you be the best you can be.

    14. MM

      Absolutely.

    15. EW

      And so that's the way I think of AI. And, [clears throat] and you don't want it just to do things that you, you know, just for you. Like, crazy, the other thing I did recently is I asked AI to find me the best automobile insurance for my cars-

    16. MM

      Mm

    17. EW

      ... in a particular area. Why doesn't everybody else do that? It's so simple.

    18. MM

      Yeah.

    19. EW

      And it comes up with all these answers, and then it gives you the sources, so you can look back yourself and find it. So, um, I think AI is like a, a good, smart friend.

    20. MM

      Uh, it's great that you have this positive relationship with AI, 'cause a lot of people are like, "Oh, it's gonna take away critical thinking. It's gonna take away our jobs." When you think about your grandkids that are growing up now, and, like, in 10 years, AI gonna, is gonna be so advanced, like, are you ever worried it's gonna take their jobs or take opportunities from them?

    21. EW

      You know, I don't think AI will ever take the jobs of being a human being.

    22. MM

      Mm-hmm.

    23. EW

      Because humans have agency, and they can think creatively, and AI cannot do that. So I think you need to be realistic. You want AI to support you, but you don't want it to be in place of you.

    24. MM

      Yeah.

    25. EW

      So there, there's a lot of kind of silly things that people ask AI to do. But I think one of the other things that I've found really useful, there's all these medical AI sites, you know? And so you can ask a medical question, and it's actually incredibly interesting because it gives you the sources-

    26. MM

      Mm-hmm

    27. EW

      ... of where it comes up with that answer. Instead of calling your doctor and asking some question, poor doctor is overloaded with silly questions.

    28. MM

      Yeah.

    29. EW

      Okay, they're not silly to the patient, but the doctor's probably repeating themselves 20 times. So this would really help doctors be able to answer these questions.

  4. 8:30 – 10:17

    Will AI take your kids' jobs? Esther's honest answer

    1. MM

      Esther was the first teacher in California to bring computers into her classroom back in the '80s when that wasn't a thing, and she never told her kids to fear new technology. She taught them to use it, to ask smarter questions with it, and to stay creative. The same is true for anyone building something of their own today. You pick up the new tools, and you just start. You let yourself get it wrong and fix it as you go. That's exactly why I want to show you Design.com. It's an AI design platform, and the part I actually use is the logo creation because the logo is usually where a lot of people freeze. So let me show you. I built a logo for my free newsletter, Future Proof by Silicon Valley Girl, right here. I type in the name and hit Generate. The AI instantly creates a full set of logos built around my brand, not generic ones, designs tailored to what Future Proof actually is. Then I guide it. I add my brand red. I give it keywords, newsletter, AI, career. I pick a direction, abstract, mascot, classic, and it refines around that. From there, I can tune everything through the AI chat. Move, "By Silicon Valley Girl," as a tagline below the name. Make the background white and the text red and a small red circle like a red icon next to the text. I write with simple prompts, no design skills needed. In a couple of minutes, I have a logo that's 100% commercially safe and exclusive to me. Set your brand once, the platform carries it across every new asset. If branding has been the thing you keep putting off, try it yourself first. The link is in the description, and it's free to start. Talk to me about your, um, TRICK system, Trust, Respect, Independence, Collaboration, Kindness. How can someone who's a grown-up now trying to adjust, uh, their career for this AI world, how should they use this system?

  5. 10:17 – 14:13

    The TRICK system: Trust, Respect, Independence, Collaboration, Kindness

    1. EW

      So if you're an adult, um, unfortunately, what it usually means is that you were brought up in a system where you're not trusted. And so when you're not trusted, you don't believe in yourself. Because what happens with kids is the, when you trust them, they then think, "Oh, I'm pretty good. I can trust myself and my own instincts." So adults are always looking for outside confirmation-

    2. MM

      100%

    3. EW

      ... that they're good.

    4. MM

      Yeah.

    5. EW

      And, you know, and if they don't get that, then they feel, you know, depressed, I'm sorry to say. And so one of the companies that does a really good job with the TRICK formula is Google, and Google does because basically what they do is they trust their employees. They hire what they consider the best.

    6. MM

      Mm-hmm.

    7. EW

      And then they trust them.

    8. MM

      Mm-hmm.

    9. EW

      So once the employee feels trusted and respected, in other words, you can speak up, say what you think, and nobody's gonna make fun of you. The, it makes a huge difference in the culture of the company.

    10. MM

      Yeah.

    11. EW

      And that's how all these creative ideas come through Google, and they have this thing called the 20% time.

    12. MM

      Mm-hmm.

    13. EW

      Have you heard about that?

    14. MM

      Absolutely, and you can do anything you want, any project.

    15. EW

      Well, you apply for a 20% project, and then you can work on whatever it is that you want. So let me tell you two very famous 20% projects. Number one, Gmail. [laughs]

    16. MM

      Oh, wow.

    17. EW

      What could we do-

    18. MM

      Yeah

    19. EW

      ... without Gmail?

    20. MM

      Yeah.

    21. EW

      Yeah. Another one is Maps.

    22. MM

      That's amazing.

    23. EW

      Can you believe it? So these are employees that were like, "Oh, I'm not doing anything as, you know, creative as I wish I could, and I'm not afraid to make a mistake." And so I'm gonna try something new and creative, and that's how it happened

    24. MM

      This is fascinating

    25. EW

      So, you know, most companies are very rigid. You know, "This is your job. Do what I tell you. This is the day it's due. Um, and if, if you can't finish it, well, that's too bad for you."

    26. MM

      Mm.

    27. EW

      I think if companies want to be productive, creative, and have a really supportive workforce, they should embody this TRICK principle of mine because TRICK is Trust, Respect, then giving people Independence to work on projects. Collaboration, the C is collaboration, collaborate. You know, in schools in the 1980s and '90s and even early 2000, if you look back historically, kids were never supposed to collaborate. It was always do it yourself.

    28. MM

      Mm.

    29. EW

      As a matter of fact, at the beginning of every school year, they sent out a notice to parents, "Never help your kid. Never let them talk to their friends about what they're doing."

    30. MM

      Wow.

  6. 14:13 – 17:08

    How to rebuild self-trust as an adult

    1. EW

      Well, first of all, you have to be aware, first thing, that, you know, you aren't trusting yourself, and you have to be aware of the fact that you're relying on other people's validation to make you feel good about yourself, and that puts you in a very dependent position. And if you don't get validated by other people all the time, then you get depressed, and the depression usually leads to s- alcohol or drugs or, you know, ov- overly dependent on other people or other things. And so the first thing you need to do is to appreciate yourself and to stop blaming yourself all the time for everything that goes wrong.

    2. MM

      How w- how do you do that? 'Cause I was just... I was, uh, reading, uh, when I was preparing for this interview that you taught your daughters to be very easy with mistakes, like, and your students as well, like, as part of the process.

    3. EW

      Well, first of all, you need to realize that that's how you were brought up and so that that's your natural instinct-

    4. MM

      Mm

    5. EW

      ... is to go back and blame yourself.

    6. MM

      Yeah.

    7. EW

      And then you have to stop it. You personally have to stop it. Stop blaming yourself. And n- you know, that's... A- all these drug addicts that go to these, you know, rehab places, do you know what, do you know what the success rate of those rehab centers is? 10%. 90% failure, and it's because they don't help those people understand themselves and believe in themselves. They're, they're just try- it's kind of like trying to fix the problem without getting to the essence of it.

    8. MM

      Mm-hmm.

    9. EW

      Because they, all those people, they just, they feel bad about themselves. They learned that in childhood. That's why I focus on the childhood because, you know, we want the next generation of people to be happier, more supportive, more collaborative, kinder to each other, and we, we just need that because for the s- for the world, we all need to work together on the climate issue.

    10. MM

      Mm-hmm.

    11. EW

      And we're not doing it now, as you noticed, and actually it's somehow in the US it's-

    12. MM

      Yeah

    13. EW

      ... getting worse.

    14. MM

      Yeah, it's just tough. E- exactly what you brought up. We were raised this way. Like-

    15. EW

      You were raised to beat yourself up

    16. MM

      ... because the teacher would tell you, "Why didn't you think more?"

    17. EW

      That's right.

    18. MM

      And you're like, "Oh, why didn't I think more?" So next time y- you probably won't make another step to improving your students.

    19. EW

      So the next time you're afraid to even make a single step-

    20. MM

      Exactly

    21. EW

      ... for fear that you're going to fail again.

    22. MM

      Mm-hmm. Okay. Um, how-

    23. EW

      [laughs]

    24. MM

      What would, what do you tell your daughters? Like, I wonder, 'cause all your three daughters, super successful, but of course they've had tough moments. If one of them came to you, I know Anne has this huge problem with FDA and then, you know, this scandal. When she came to you, what did you tell her?

  7. 17:08 – 23:21

    What Esther told Anne during the 23andMe crisis

    1. MM

      Um-

    2. EW

      Number one thing is don't give up. Figure out a way of out of this. You know, figure out how you can get what you want without spending any time and energy beating yourself up.

    3. MM

      Mm.

    4. EW

      And she did. You know, she accomplished what nobody thought was possible.

    5. MM

      Yeah.

    6. EW

      And, you know, 23andMe, you know, Research Institute, that's what she's going to do. She wants to use your DNA to improve disease outcome and protect everybody from all the diseases that they get. And, uh, of course, one of them that we're working on a lot is non-small cell lung cancer because that impacted Susan.

    7. MM

      Yeah.

    8. EW

      And so we have a foundation called the Susan Wojcicki Foundation.

    9. MM

      You just launched it, right? Yeah.

    10. EW

      We just launched, and, um, the, we've got millions of dollars working on it. We need more donations, of course, but I don't know if you know, non-small cell lung cancer is the number one killer of women in the world. I bet you would never know.

    11. MM

      Wow.

    12. EW

      That's crazy

    13. MM

      Yeah, I think the reason, um, I've been so... I've been doing so many podcasts because Susan was on my list.

    14. EW

      Oh.

    15. MM

      Um, but then she passed away.

    16. EW

      Oh, yeah.

    17. MM

      And then I told myself, like, "I just have to start." Um-

    18. EW

      Yes. Good.

    19. MM

      Yeah. So-

    20. EW

      I'm very proud of you

    21. MM

      ... very emotional, and YouTube is the reason I'm here. So-

    22. EW

      [laughs]

    23. MM

      ... um, yeah. Thank you for raising your daughter the way you did.

    24. EW

      Oh, you're... So, you know, they were just little girls, and I always made sure that whatever they did, if it didn't work out, it didn't matter. They could just do it again. But that's what I did in my classes too, which was actually revolutionary in a... So an English class, or social studies, or math, or journalism, those are the classes I taught. If you failed a test or you did poorly on an essay, no problem. Just do it again.

    25. MM

      Yeah.

    26. EW

      Just do it again, revise until you get it right.

    27. MM

      Yeah.

    28. EW

      And so, you know, I never tried to make kids feel bad. I'm just like, "Well, you know, you didn't think about this," or, "You didn't write this properly," or, "You spent too much time on this part."

    29. MM

      Mm-hmm.

    30. EW

      And so that's why they all s- did so well after they graduated, because they were believing in themselves.

  8. 23:21 – 26:44

    How each daughter went a completely different direction

    1. MM

      they just do-

    2. EW

      They, they all got to do whatever they wanted to do. I mean, Janet's career is probably the most interesting because she's first started out, um, as an international relations major. She actually first started out in a house called Ujamaa at Stanford. It was the Black students' house.

    3. MM

      Mm-hmm.

    4. EW

      And then she wasn't Black, so this was kind of interesting. Then after her degree in international relations, she went on to UCLA and got another degree in African American studies. What are you gonna do with that? [laughs] I mean, I have no idea what she-

    5. MM

      Mm-hmm

    6. EW

      ... but then, you know, then she went on to get another degree in, in medical anthropology. I mean, she just, she has more degrees than you can believe.

    7. MM

      Was there a... When she came to you saying, like, "I'm gonna get another degree, another," have you ever had thoughts like, "This is unnecessary. She shouldn't be doing that"?

    8. EW

      No.

    9. MM

      Did you ev- for any of your daughters, have you ever had these thoughts, like, eh-

    10. EW

      No

    11. MM

      ... I don't think it's a good decision?

    12. EW

      No, not really. I never did. So Anne, for example, majored in molecular biophysics at Yale. But anyway, it didn't matter because then y- I mean, when she graduated, she didn't have a job. Most parents would freak out.

    13. MM

      Yeah.

    14. EW

      As a matter of fact, she came home, and then I said, "So now what are you gonna do?" And she's like, "I think I wanna babysit." Can you believe that?

    15. MM

      What was your reaction? What was your reaction to that?

    16. EW

      I was like, "My God, really? I mean, perhaps you could have done that before you went to Yale." [laughs]

    17. MM

      [laughs] Wow.

    18. EW

      And so she babysat for three months, and I was like, "Oh my God, is... How long is this gonna go on?" [laughs]

    19. MM

      Oh, did you tell her that, or was it just 'cause-

    20. EW

      No, y- I didn't tell her.

    21. MM

      No.

    22. EW

      But what I said one day is I, "You know, there's job fair at Santa Clara-

    23. MM

      [laughs] You're like, "Maybe-"

    24. EW

      ... Convention Center. May- maybe you would like to check it out."

    25. MM

      [laughs] Interesting.

    26. EW

      And so she went and came back the same day, of course, and then I said, "Well, did you find anything?" And she's like, "No, don't like anything. Oh, never mind. I did find one company that might be a little interesting." Sure enough, that company called her, and then theys like, "We'd like to bring you to New York for an interview." And she was like, "I don't know about that. You know, I have all these babies I'm taking care of, you know. Go to New York for an interview?" So anyway, the reason she went is they put her up at this fancy hotel.

    27. MM

      [laughs] That's a good reason.

    28. EW

      And she wanted to go to the hotel. [laughs]

    29. MM

      [laughs] Nice.

    30. EW

      And then finally she got there, and they interviewed her, and they're like, "Yes, we like you." And turns out she liked them, too. So that's how she got her first job.

  9. 26:44 – 29:29

    How to raise kids when you were brought up differently

    1. MM

      [laughs]

    2. EW

      Well, what you do is you can make suggestions.

    3. MM

      Mm-hmm.

    4. EW

      But then they're just suggestions. They're not you have to do it my way. So the suggestions, you know, you can give them lots of different opportunities. Again, with Janet, Janet was, was, she was in the middle, so I think she was more demanding a little bit. She decided when she was four years old that she wanted to go to kindergarten even though it was, you had to be five years old to go.

    5. MM

      Hmm.

    6. EW

      And I didn't know what to do. I was like, "You can't go to public school, you know, 'cause they won't take you." She was very persistent.

    7. MM

      Wow.

    8. EW

      So I let her go to a private school in Los Altos Hills for kindergarten, and I thought, "Oh my God, she's gonna be the youngest in the class. Is she ever gonna be... I don't know." She turned out to be the best student in the class at four.

    9. MM

      And you followed her ins- instinct.

    10. EW

      I followed her instinct. So of course, when you do something like that for a child, they then s- believe in themselves.

    11. MM

      Yeah.

    12. EW

      And you know, she, she continued to break all these milestones or have all these milestones that were kind of remarkable, and she just believed in herself, and it worked out.

    13. MM

      This is so fascinating, trusting your four-year-old with a decision.

    14. EW

      Trusting a four-year-old with that. Yeah.

    15. MM

      Investing money in that.

    16. EW

      That's right. It cost me a lot-

    17. MM

      Yeah

    18. EW

      ... to do that, and then she moved right into first grade and turned out to be the smartest kid in the class in first grade. And it's like, okay, maybe you were right and I was wrong, right?

    19. MM

      Yeah.

    20. EW

      So give your child an opportunity to make a statement and to try things that they wanna try.

    21. MM

      If somebody was raised in a different way, like most of us [laughs] were raised in a different way, is there a chance to reinvent yourself even if you were taught a completely different thing?

    22. EW

      Yes, there's a w- a chance, but the main thing you have to do is put it on the conscious level. You have to realize that whenever, you know, you start to feel bad about yourself making a decision, it's because of how you were trained when you were young.

    23. MM

      Hmm.

    24. EW

      And so you, like, gonna say to yourself, "I am going to believe in myself. You know, even if I make a mistake here or make a mistake there, I'm still going to give myself credit for trying."

    25. MM

      Yeah.

    26. EW

      You just have to be nice to yourself. Most people don't even think of themselves, honestly. They're worried about, you know, what the neighbor says, what-

    27. MM

      Metrics

    28. EW

      ... the relatives are gonna say.

    29. MM

      Yeah.

    30. EW

      You know, what the teacher's gonna say, and that was what was rele- revolutionary about me, about as a teacher, is you could never do it wrong. You just had to revise.

  10. 29:29 – 31:05

    Should you still push for college in the AI age?

    1. MM

      This is absolutely fascinating, and I hope that people who are listening are gonna deploy that mindset-

    2. EW

      Uh-huh

    3. MM

      ... 'cause definitely, like, I'm thinking about the way I think about my mistakes. Uh, this is... Yeah. This is an interesting exercise. When it comes to education and with what you're seeing in AI, do you think parents should be saving or pushing for college in today's age?

    4. EW

      So the reason I think college is still important, because people think, oh, we don't need college anymore. They can get it all online. College is an opportunity for you to hone your interaction with other human beings skills. It, it's an opportunity for you to grow. Between the ages of 18 and 22, you have a lot of growing to do, and if you don't interact with other people, you aren't gonna get those skills.

    5. MM

      Mm-hmm.

    6. EW

      So you're never going to be able to substitute college with an AI education.

    7. MM

      Yeah.

    8. EW

      It's just never gonna work. It's just like, for example, you know, as an older person, and you wanna have somebody help you, do you want a robot to help you? Or do you want somebody with feelings to help you?

    9. MM

      Yeah.

    10. EW

      I mean, I personally don't want a robot. You know? I'd like to have somebody who I can talk to. But it's the same thing in a company, you don't wanna just work with robots, you wanna work with other human beings.

    11. MM

      Mm-hmm.

    12. EW

      So that's what college is for. It's an opportunity to grow, and those four years are really important in your life.

  11. 31:05 – 35:24

    What parents should do more of right now

    1. MM

      What, what do you think parents should be doing more with their kids?

    2. EW

      Letting them try all different kinds of activities. They wanna play soccer, tennis, or, you know, d- it doesn't matter. Ice- Anne decided to do ice skating by herself, and she became a competitive ice skater. I mean, this wasn't my idea. This was her idea.

    3. MM

      Did she ever want to give up, though? 'Cause my, my kids also started taking ice skating, but then five classes in, they're like, "Eh, we're done."

    4. EW

      If they wanna continue, I encourage them to continue, but if they decided they really don't wanna do it, it's their life.

    5. MM

      Just start another thing.

    6. EW

      They start another thing.

    7. MM

      I feel like my kids, they want a lot of things. They start them, and then they give up after class four. 'Cause they either don't like a teacher, or it's too competitive, or, like, my daughter will always find something [laughs] that she doesn't like.

    8. EW

      Well, so you can talk to her about, you know, sometimes it's really competitive, but you personally are learning to do it for you.

    9. MM

      Mm-hmm.

    10. EW

      Not because, you know, the little girl down the street is doing it.

    11. MM

      All of these years, has your approach to raising kids changed at all with new technology, or do you think it's still the same as it was?

    12. EW

      I think it's pretty much the same as it was, only technology helps me more.

    13. MM

      Mm.

    14. EW

      'Cause it gives kids more opportunities. You know, there's a lot of choice, um, but I wouldn't... I'm against letting little kids use iPads or phones before the age of five.

    15. MM

      Mm-hmm.

    16. EW

      Because they need to learn to interact with each other and need to learn to interact with the environment. And I also, I've done research myself, and I realize that, you know, in order to really learn to write and to read, you know, you have to write on paper.

    17. MM

      Mm-hmm.

    18. EW

      Um, if you type answers on an iPad, you don't remember. You remember when you write it. Did you know there's a difference?

    19. MM

      Yeah, it's a very, it's a very important skill for our brains.

    20. EW

      It is. So I, I'm not in favor of using iPads or any of those things in the early years. I think it's better to use paper and pencil and books and things like that. But if you have a child that has, like, um, dyslexia, has problems reading, the great thing about technology is that that book that they're struggling with, it can actually be read out loud to them.

    21. MM

      As a cartoon. [laughs]

    22. EW

      As a cartoon.

    23. MM

      Yeah.

    24. EW

      And so, but it can also just be read as a text, and you can follow along and learn how to, if you have dyslexia, for example, or ADD, or ADHD, or whatever, all those designations.

    25. MM

      Yeah.

    26. EW

      So I think it's, it's easier to cope with those learning differences now.

    27. MM

      And I really liked what you said, that some parents think that their kids should go to the best school ever. And again, this in my culture, like, there were a couple schools in St. Petersburg that were, like, mind-blowingly strong academics. But then it comes to kids losing trust in themselves.

    28. EW

      I think the best school is a school where the kids learn to believe in themselves, not learn to do, perform all these tricks, you know, which are [laughs] really, I can do algebra in first grade, you know? Honestly, you have a whole lifetime. You can learn it, you know? But let me tell you, with an adult, you can teach them all these academic skills, but you cannot change their personality.

    29. MM

      Mm-hmm.

    30. EW

      You cannot teach them to believe in themselves.

  12. 35:24 – 38:52

    Women in Silicon Valley: the price of success nobody talks about

    1. MM

      about?

    2. EW

      So, like, an unfair price? Like-

    3. MM

      Like if you're a woman, 'cause I don't know, I feel like kids, they still lean towards the mother, right? But you actually, but at work, you're competing with men.

    4. EW

      Yeah.

    5. MM

      Do you ever feel that there's disbalance, and what would you tell to women who feel that they have to put extra work because they have family and, like, they're built in a different way? Or you never talk about that with your daughters?

    6. EW

      No, I did talk about that. You know, the m- like, for example, the first job Anne had, she was the head of a biotech fund. She came into the room. There were all men in the room. And this is in New York City.

    7. MM

      Mm-hmm.

    8. EW

      And they, one of the guys said to her, "Um, we need more coffee." They assumed that she was the waitress.

    9. MM

      Yeah.

    10. EW

      So how does that make you feel, right?

    11. MM

      Yeah.

    12. EW

      So Anne said right then and there, "I'm one of your colleagues. I am not the waitress."

    13. MM

      What was their reaction? Did she tell you? [laughs]

    14. EW

      They were kinda sh- shocked.

    15. MM

      Yeah.

    16. EW

      But the, it worked.

    17. MM

      Yeah.

    18. EW

      And I think you need to realize as a woman that the majority of the world is, work world, is still men, and you need to be able to work with men. And in today's world, men are much more accepting. I mean, back when I first started- As a journalist in the 1970s, do you know I could not get into the San Francisco Press Club? I couldn't get into any of the press clubs in the US.

    19. MM

      Oh, wow.

    20. EW

      Women were banned. Journalism was a man's profession.

    21. MM

      Oh, wow.

    22. EW

      So, you know, that was just the way it was. I would like to have fought that, but instead, the way I fought it is I said, "Okay, I can't be a journalist. I'll teach all these kids journalism, and they can all do what I really wanted to do," and it worked.

    23. MM

      Mm. So you, you found a way.

    24. EW

      I was gonna say, you can find a way in most situations as long as you're not, your first reaction is how terrible I am.

    25. MM

      Mm.

    26. EW

      You s- stop beating up yourself and then think about a creative way to solve the problem.

    27. MM

      What would you say to women, uh, who want to have more kids or want to start a family, but they think it's almost impossible to combine both? Like I'm thinking about a third kid. My kids are four and six, but I'm like, they're already so much. Uh, and sometimes, like my mom tells me, "Just don't. Like live a life." [laughs]

    28. EW

      [laughs]

    29. MM

      Just why, why do you need another one? What would you say to women like me?

    30. EW

      Well, if you want to have another one, this is an opportunity that you can't pass up because you can't do it 10 years from now.

  13. 38:52 – 40:33

    "Fail fast and revise" — and what Zuckerberg got wrong

    1. EW

      So I think the main way that is different is the adult community is very condemning when you make a mistake.

    2. MM

      Oh, totally.

    3. EW

      Because they grew up with that culture, and so whenever there's a mistake, whoever made the mistake gets sort of, you know, in trouble. And I think this culture of Silicon Valley is it's okay to fail and revise, so that my philosophy was fail fast and revise, and then Mark Zuckerberg took it and he said, I think it was, "Fail fast and fail..." Uh, no.

    4. MM

      "Move fast, break things."

    5. EW

      "Move fast, break things." So the break things I removed-

    6. MM

      [laughs]

    7. EW

      ... or actually he added it, but I didn't agree with that.

    8. MM

      Mm-hmm.

    9. EW

      Because I think it's okay to f- move quickly, make a mistake, and then revise, and re- continue to revise until you get it right.

    10. MM

      Yeah.

    11. EW

      I mean, just look what Anne did with 23andMe. Continue to revise until you get it right.

    12. MM

      Yeah.

    13. EW

      And then Susan also did the same thing, revised with the how to make money for Google until she got it right. And I mean, YouTube is an incredible example of that. Before YouTube, she had what was called Google Video. I bet you never heard of it.

    14. MM

      No.

    15. EW

      No one heard of it.

    16. MM

      Mm-hmm.

    17. EW

      But she spent, they spent a billion dollars making Google Video, and then she had to admit to the board that it didn't work, never would work, and she had found another company that was perfect, and she wanted to buy it for $1.1 billion. Can you imagine? That is a mistake. Can you imagine the size of that mistake?

  14. 40:33 – 42:54

    The $1.1 billion bet that created YouTube

    1. MM

      Yeah.

    2. EW

      And she-

    3. MM

      But it turned out the best bet. Mm-hmm

    4. EW

      ... she did it.

    5. MM

      Yeah.

    6. EW

      And she convinced them, and that was the best bet ever-

    7. MM

      100%

    8. EW

      ... 'cause it's the largest video platform in the world.

    9. MM

      Yeah.

    10. EW

      There's a billion downloads per day.

    11. MM

      Yeah, and so many careers built.

    12. EW

      And so many careers, so many people that are influencers and YouTube, you know, stars and things. It, it changed the world.

    13. MM

      And I think a lot of your upbringing principles are w- woven into that platform because how the platform cares about creators, it's the best caring platform.

    14. EW

      Right.

    15. MM

      The kindness. And I think Google is the only company where I meet people and they tell me, "I've been working for this company for 20-plus years." It's just the incredible amount of people who stay loyal to the company just because of the values inside the company.

    16. EW

      Because it's kind. They, Google actually cares about people, you know. They have food 24 hours a day. They have a doctor on site if you're sick. They have a dentist on site. They have dry cleaning on site. I mean, they've got all this stuff on site to help you, and if you have a problem, they'll also help you. They don't condemn you like other companies do.

    17. MM

      By the way, do you speak Russian at all? Can you say-

    18. EW

      "Nemnozhko".

    19. MM

      "Nemnozhko"?

    20. EW

      My, my mother spoke Russian-

    21. MM

      Oh, okay

    22. EW

      ... to me.

    23. MM

      You are from, uh, Kras- Krasnod-

    24. EW

      Novos- Novosibirsk

    25. MM

      Novosibirsk. Okay.

    26. EW

      [laughs]

    27. MM

      Yeah, I wanted to see if you could, um, say something in Russian to, uh, Russian-speaking moms-

    28. EW

      Oh

    29. MM

      ... who are afraid of their kids' future, but no?

    30. EW

      I can't.

  15. 42:54 – 43:48

    The Godmother of Silicon Valley documentary is coming

    1. MM

      you for coming.

    2. EW

      I am very happy, too. If I can just help a few people, I'll be very happy.

    3. MM

      Thank you.

    4. EW

      I'd like to help even more.

    5. MM

      Please.

    6. EW

      [laughs]

    7. MM

      And let, let... Please do another book-

    8. EW

      Yeah. [laughs]

    9. MM

      ... if you ever have time for it. I know you c- Oh, I know you have a documentary coming out. Um-

    10. EW

      Oh, I have a documentary. It's called The Godmother of Silicon Valley, and, um, so now it's entering competitions-

    11. MM

      Mm-hmm

    12. EW

      ... so it can't be shown all over Europe yet. Um, but it's coming out, and it's... What's good about this documentary is it's n- it's really me, but then it's also my students talking about what I did in the class that changed their lives.

    13. MM

      If you know someone raising kids right now and wondering what actually matters, send them this, or someone at work who stopped trusting themselves. Same conversation, different problem.

Episode duration: 43:48

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