Friends, family and Geek Girl Rising fans came out in force at this week’s book talk at Book Passage Corte Madera, California where an amazing panel of women in tech– Sona Dolasia, UC Berkeley computer science student and founder of Reaching Out with Robotics, Jamie Corley, co-founder of TheBridge, and Kristen Koh Goldstein, CEO and co-founder of HireAthena, talked about the need for more women in the startup world, and strategies for inspiring the next generation of girls to pursue STEM studies and careers, particularly in computer science and engineering.

17-year-old Dolasia,  who is graduating from Tam High School this week and heading to UC Berkeley to study computer science in the fall, started Reaching Out With Robotics in 2014, during her sophomore year. ROWR is a STEM program where she and a group of  teen mentors teach middle schoolers how to program semi-autonomous machines.  A fan of math and puzzles since she was a kid, Dolasia said she was introduced to STEM and technology through her middle school robotics club. But when she got to high school, she realized that not everyone had had those same opportunities. “Bayside MLK (a local middle school) does not have a very strong science and math department. By introducing them to different aspects of engineering, like robotics, we hoped to get the students more engaged in interested in these subjects.”

Jamie Corley, a relative newcomer to Silicon Valley and the tech world, started her career in politics as a staffer on Capitol Hill, as national press secretary for U.S. Senator Bob Corker and communications director and spokesperson for Congresswoman Shelley Moore Capito. She founded TheBridge to connect Silicon Valley and Washington, DC. The bi-weekly newsletter and jobs board reaches inboxes at the world’s top tech firms and political power houses, including Google, Facebook, Slack, The White House, U.S. Senate and political campaigns. ncisco, C

Kristen Koh Goldstein, co-founder and CEO of HireAthena, an accounting and human resources platform for small businesses, talked about the challenges facing women in our society and her mission to “bring a million moms back to work.”  “To initiate  change in our society, we need options for moms (and dads) to work flexible hours while their children are young. Today moms often leave the workforce just as they hit their professional stride.” Her San Francisco-based startup matches small and medium sized business with stay-at-home talent.

The event included a hands-on “makers stations” where kids played with Goldieblox engineering toys for girls, Blink Blink electronic circuits kits, and MagnaTiles.

Watch out, Silicon Valley, the Geek Girls are here!

We couldn’t have asked for a better way to celebrate the launch of our new book, Geek Girl Rising, than last night’s gathering of friends, family and “geek girls” from across the country at Manhattan’s Civic Hall.

Good Housekeeping Editor-in-Chief Jane Francisco led us in a lively fireside chat, where we discussed the rise of the “sisterhood” in the tech industry and the grassroots movement of women blazing a trail through the male-dominated startup world.

We were thrilled to have a number of the “geek girls” featured in the book with us to raise a glass, including Bea Arthur, founder of In Your Corner, Ayna Agarwal, founder of she++, Stanford University’s women in tech group, Adda Birnir, founder and CEO of SkillCrush, Nicole Messier, founder and CEO of Blink Blink, and BBG Ventures founder and partner, Susan Lyne. Check out our gallery of photos from the evening here.

Thank you to our event sponsors, Good Housekeeping magazine, Perkins Coie, Civic Hall, and Francis Coppola Winery for donating its wonderful new Sofia Rose sparkling wine.

If you’re wondering how you, too, can join the digital revolution, start by buying a copy of Geek Girl Rising and posting a review on Amazon.

In sisterhood,

Sam and Heather

Do you ever feel like everyone around you is smarter and more accomplished? Don’t worry, you’re in good company. Even rock star women like Sheryl Sandberg suffer from self-doubt and what has been dubbed the “impostor syndrome” — the nagging fear that plagues many high-achieving women (and men) that they aren’t as smart or talented as the people around them. The good news is that confidence is not a fixed state, but more like a muscle that can be strengthened with regular workouts, as shown by authors Katty Kay and Claire Shipman in their book, The Confidence Code.

Here, we share 5 exercises that Sheryl Sandberg and other Silicon Valley do each day to build their self-confidence.

1. Write down 3 things you did well that day before going to bed.
After the tragic death of her husband in 2015, Sheryl Sandberg felt like she would never be able to bounce back and accomplish the things she had done in the past. Her friend Adam Grant, a psychologist and professor at the Wharton School, convinced her otherwise. He suggested she make a daily practice of writing down 3 things she did well every day, at night before she went to bed. “Focusing on things I’d done well helped me rebuild my confidence. Even if it was small, I could record something positive each day,” she explains. Now, instead of focusing on what went wrong, she ends the day by reflecting on her successes.

2. Push yourself outside your comfort zone. 
Carol Carpenter, VP of Product Marketing at Google, had gotten used to being the second-hand person in her role as Chief Marketing Officer at ClearSlide. So when she was tapped to be the CEO of ElasticBox, a cloud computing company, the negative voices began to creep into her head. “Taking the CEO role was uncomfortable for me. I had convinced myself that I was a great supporting actor, never the final decision maker, in spite of my prior experience running a $580 million global business with over 400 people.” Carpenter exercises her confidence muscle by pushing herself into uncomfortable situations on a regular basis. “Both success and failure contribute to muscle growth, ” she explains, “My mom-in-law has a saying, ‘Fly into the teeth of the shark.’ I remind myself of that every day!”

3. Speak up in the first 15 minutes of a meeting.
Alison Wagonfeld, Vice President of Marketing at Google and a former venture capitalist, was used to being one of the only women in the room. For her, speaking up early on in meetings helps her combat her fears and feel more comfortable participating in the conversation. “In group discussions, like board meetings and investment team meetings, I try to speak up in the first fifteen minutes,” she says. “If I get involved in the discussion early, I feel more confident contributing throughout.”

4. Get a pep talk from your peeps.
Karen Catlin, a former vice president of Adobe Systems and advocate for women in tech, relies on what she calls her “myth-busting posse” – her husband, good friends, and trusted co-workers – “to stop her impostor syndrome in its tracks.” “These are the people I can be vulnerable with, those I confide in when I’m lacking confidence,” she explains. “They help me check my insecurities at the door by reminding me of past accomplishments and why they know I’ll be great at whatever I’m struggling with.”

5. Don’t let failure stop you.
Dona Sarkar, a software engineer at Microsoft, failed her first computer science class at the University of Michigan. As one of the only women in the class, she was afraid to raise her hand and ask questions for fear that her classmates would think she was stupid. Surrounded by guys who had taken AP CS in high school and who were far ahead of her in their coding skills, she felt deflated. But she didn’t let failure stop her from pursuing her dream. “I told myself, I’m not going to let one failure hold me back,” she said. “It took me a long time to ride a bike, too. I fell off. I skinned my knees. I cried a bunch and said I’d never do it again. Then I got back on two days later and did fine.” Sarkar re-took the class, got a B+, and landed her dream job at Microsoft She discovered that exposure is the key to learning, whether it’s computer science or any field. Most people don’t grasp a concept on first try. They need to be exposed to an idea three times to fully get it. Her advice?  Try something. Fail. And do it again.

Read the full story on Forbes.

#BUILTBYGIRLS, which runs a national pitch competition for high school girls with startup dreams, just announced a new mobile platform, Wave, that connects teen girls with professional mentors in the tech world. So far, more than 150 men and women have signed up to be mentors, including leaders at companies like Rent the Runway and Spotify.  According to Victoria Marlin, Custom Solutions Manager at #BUILTBYGIRLS, “Wave came out of this very personal revelation on our end that all the best jobs we’ve gotten, and all the best candidates we’ve gotten for open jobs, have come from referrals. There really is this network that you need to get started in a tech career.”  To hear from girls who participated in the beta of Wave, check out our full story on Forbes.

November 17, 2016

In the wake of Hillary Clinton’s defeat in the 2016 U.S. Presidential election, Silicon Valley women are vowing not to give up the fight for gender equality and greater diversity in the technology industry.  They call on others to “help protect women’s rights during the uncertain years to come” (Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, CEO, Joyus) and to “band together to help other women succeed” (Jenny Lefcourt, Venture Partner, Freestyle Capital).  Read their advice on what more needs to be done to shatter the glass ceiling for women and how you can get involved.

September 19, 2016

Cloudflare co-founder Michelle Zatlyn fills us in on how she grew her business school project into a billion-dollar tech business. Zatlyn is part of a unique and very small group of female founders who have founded “unicorns,” or private companies valued at over $1 billion. Here, Zatlyn shares the three essential ingredients for building a billion-dollar business and tells us what it take to survive and thrive in the Silicon Valley startup world.

February 2, 2016

New crowdsourcing efforts seek to reveal the truth about workplace culture and policies that affect women.

Georgene Huang never expected to be fired from her job in a management shake up when she was two months pregnant. Nor did she expect to be in the awkward position of interviewing for a new job with a baby on the way.

“I had a lot of questions in my interviews that I didn’t feel I could ask, even though it was 2014– like, what the hours are really like and what work-life balance really looks like,” Huang told us.

She turned to employer review sites including, Glassdoor, for information, but she was disappointed with the lack of focus on workplace issues that affect women.  She wanted to get the inside scoop on what the likelihood of promotion might look like for women at a particular firm or if the management truly respected family commitments and how that might play out.

So she decided to chase down the real answers by asking women to anonymously share their experiences. Then she and her business partner Romy Newman began to dig into the data. Their efforts gave way to Fairygodboss, a new tool pulling the curtain back on company culture through the first-hand accounts of women in the trenches.  Launched last March,  Fairygodboss has already been hailed in the media as the “Yelp for maternity leave.”  With more than 20,000 reviews and tips gathered to date, the site offers women a platform to candidly review and rate their employers on compensation, benefits, leave, opportunities for advancement and work environment.

“I think lots of women want to help other women and they embrace this idea of a forum,” says Huang, who is proud of the rapid growth and the in-depth detail of the reviews.

These two are not alone in their mission to provide transparency around workplace cultures and policies.

Ursula Mead started InHerSight to give users a way to rate companies across 14 female-friendly metrics, including female representation in top leadership and family growth support. “A great company culture is not the same thing as a great environment for women,” says Mead.

Mead was inspired, in part, by Anne-Marie Slaughter’s 2012 article in The Atlantic, “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All.”

“There’s a whole movement underway to better understand what women are facing at work and figure out how to improve the situation,” Mead explains. “More than ever, women are such top talent that organizations are going to be competing for them. We need to use that as an opportunity to make the change we need to be successful.”

Many of the issues that have prompted discussions around female-friendliness, such as parental leave and work/life balance, affect all workers, especially as half of American employees now work over 40 hours a week.

In an effort to promote equality for women and men, Melissa Sandgren, a Yahoo manager, is crowdsourcing parental leave data.

“Companies can play a pivotal role in breaking gender confines and redefining gender norms, and one way to alter this dynamic is by offering equal parental leave, regardless of gender norms, gender identity, leave status (birth or adoptive), or sex,” Sandgren wrote in a recent Medium post.

In her view, equal parental leave—the same time off for new moms and dads—will translate to a more equitable workplace.

“Unequal parental leave disproportionately affects women, creating a dynamic where the person with the longer parental leave (usually the female) will be more familiar with the new child’s habits, needs, expressions; thus, quickly becoming the ‘lead parent,” she writes.

This leads to the “double shift” effect where women continue to be double-bound by dual duties- at home and at the office.

Fairygodboss also plans to crowdsource data on leave for both moms and dads.

“If you have parental leave in a culture then you are much more inclined to have gender equality in the workplace,” says Newman.

Many companies are already catching on. Netflix lets new moms and dads take unlimited time off for a year after a birth or adoption. Facebook gives new parents $4,000 in “baby cash” in addition to 17 weeks of paid leave.

Parental leave is not just a woman’s issue, but many women, especially those in male-dominated industries, may not feel comfortable speaking up. By providing transparency and data points around workplace culture, the founders of these crowdsourcing efforts hope to make a difference.

“We’ve zoned in on what women say when they’re happy or unhappy at work. We think it highlights some ways that employers can focus their energy,” Newman of Fairygodboss says.