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From YouTube: Passion Projects (Live) 8: Ligaya Tichy (Giving Charitably)

Description

The 8th episode of the Passion Projects Live series, featuring Ligaya Tichy. Ligaya loves the early stages of startups. She launched new markets for Yelp in their early days, built the Airbnb community from the ground up, and now advises and invests in a number of wonderful companies such as Skillshare, Threadflip, and Microryza. You can find Ligaya on Twitter at https://twitter.com/ligayaya

Yelp - http://yelp.com
AirBnb - https://airbnb.com
Skillshare - http://skillshare.com
Threadflip - http://threadflip.com
Microryza - https://microryza.com

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A

Passion projects, ligaya tichy.

A

Welcome to passion, projects!, my name is julie and I'm the creator and organizer of passion, projects,.

A

And I'm also a designer right here at git hub..

A

I just wanna, welcome you guys, all, and also welcome ligaya tichy,.

A

Who is a gut follower? Developer,, a community developer.

A

And an ozzy pop lover., so I just want you all to join me in welcoming her to the stage.

A

B

So first off, thanks for joining me in this awesome, venue.

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Git hub,, thank you for hosting.. This place is amazing!

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and there's a burger truck.. How could it get any better?.

B

That's my name up. There, ligaya, like papaya,.

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If you need a mnemonic device., I'm pretty thrilled to see.

B

Some familiar faces in the crowd,: what's up the yelpers,.

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From past lives, in here.

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As well as git hub folks,, so a special thank you to julie.

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For wrangling everyone together and starting this awesome, series.

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I am actually the opening act for a group.

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Called "emily, jane white and co.".

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So you'll see her later. yeah. all right.

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We're gonna go to the next slide., so you can hear what I'm talking about.

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and it worked! sweet..

B

So if you're wondering why I was asked to speak here today,.

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It's probably because of this slide.

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In the past,, I'm also part of the startup world.

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I've done marketing and community development for companies like yelp and airbnb,, and I also do some advising.

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And mentorship in the community realm for 500 startups and skillshare.

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And soundcloud and threadflip and other awesome startups, that I am a big fan, of,.

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As well as some early stage angel investments for companies like maven,.

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True and co., and circa. but,, that's what I do for a living,.

B

And julie said I can talk about anything I wanted,, so it's not gonna be this,, because I talk about this. All the time.

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Here's a few pictures to prove to you that I actually had jobs.

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(Laughter), I have been really lucky to work for companies that were very.

B

Mission driven,, they had ethoses that I deeply believed in,.

B

And yelp, as you probably know,, directed consumer dollars to small businesses,.

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Which was incredibly important to me at the time and still is,.

B

An airbnb is a place where you can rent people's homes all around the world,.

B

And instead of padding the hilton chain's pockets,,.

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You can give money to local residents and stay at a really cool local place.

B

I'm sure probably a lot of you...

B

raise your hand if you're part of a startup whose mission you deeply believe in.

B

please,, hopefully everyone..., that's pretty awesome..

B

That's a good percentage of people.

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We are so incredibly fortunate., yes. okay.

B

That's not what I'm gonna talk about..

B

This one is much more of a sort of personal pursuit that I've been thinking about as of late, and given the sort of devastation.

B

Brought on by the typhoon,, I've been thinking a lot more about it.

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In the past few days. and so,, I don't think.

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That there will be a more appropriate time to talk about it.

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What I'm talking about is giving..

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This is really my inquiry into how we can spend our time.

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And our money that we have limited, sort of finite amounts, of,.

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And put it to the best use.

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You'd think that would be really easy to do,, because there's thousands.

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Of organizations out there that are just, "give us money,, give us money".

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And they're very eager for people to lend a hand or give a dollar,.

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But as you start digging,, then you realize how many of those.

B

Are maybe not as effective as you would hope,.

B

And it sort of leads to a certain dissatisfaction and disappointment.

B

Because we want our money to go as far as possible,.

B

To be "impactful", if you will., that's, not a word,, but during this talk, that's gonna be a word,. It's like my word.

B

There is a sort of confusing web of information out there about charitable giving,, and all these questions have arisen,, and I thought that maybe I would walk you.

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Through those, so you could see some of the illuminating things.

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That I have learned- and hopefully it will be helpful to you in charting your giving path.

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I'm gonna start by showing a little bit of my story.

B

And then also a few of the problems in the world that most demand attention right, now, and that are not on the news. Every day.

B

And then, some findings about poverty and the poor that totally blew my fucking mind. (whispers). Can I say that here?.

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This place looks like a club,, I can say that!

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okay, and very actionable steps to give more.

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So,, hopefully, this presentation will make us all a little bit more mindful.

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About how and what we give and when we do it.

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Are you guys game for that?? Is this okay? 'cause? I could talk about.

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A whole number of things. I chose this one 'cause. I thought it would be most fun.

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So, relevant? good? okay. here we go. yeah.

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They say that charity starts at home.. I certainly believe it does.

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I've been sort of privy to a lot of friends' cultures, religions,.

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Sort of like muslim culture, they give 10% to the poor,. That's a standard.

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I grew up in the us, in sort of a lower middle class, family,.

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And I had immigrant parents, so they're kind of from these places.

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In the world where they didn't have much,.

B

And so there was always this sort of feeling of scarcity.

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I think it followed them here to the us. it sort of permeated our minds.

B

When we were growing up., my first images or memories of extreme poverty.

B

Was when I went back to the philippines when I was 12, and I was looking out the window in manila and I saw all these ramshackle homes.

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Made of tin and cardboard on the side of the road- and I remember feeling incredibly sad,.

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But completely powerless as to how I could help.

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I'm sure that all of us have had similar experiences at some point.

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In our lives,, where we've felt galvanized to want to contribute,, but we don't really know how.

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So it just sits. it like just sits with us.

B

So through college, I volunteered, I delivered these thanksgiving turkeys.

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And I worked at soup kitchens, like I'm sure many of you did,, but I didn't feel like I was able to donate significant funds,.

B

I didn't feel like I had enough personally..

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I realized at different phases in my life,, not giving more.

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Was really because of three reasons. the first was,? I don't have any time,.

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So I can't volunteer. okay,. So when I had time, I was able to volunteer, but I didn't have any money, so I couldn't give money, or,. I was just really skeptical about whether or not the whole system even worked and could I, as one little person, make any real impact.

B

So yeah, that was a bummer. when I started working here in san francisco.

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And I had more disposable income,, I'm kind of ashamed to say.

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That I was mostly a reactive giver,, which meant that like,.

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Every year or so there would be some incredible tragedy.

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Of such a huge magnitude that it would shock you into action,.

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And I would donate this big lump sum, and then I would forget about it,.

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Or somebody would run a marathon and like spam me on facebook.

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And I'd be like really excited to participate. sound familiar?.

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Or,, if somebody had a charity banquet, or when I got cornered on the street,.

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By the guys in the vests, but, you know...

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And I think this is sort of because we're not exposed to poverty.

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On an everyday basis, beside the homeless people we see on the street.

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And you see all these ads, you're bombarded all the time--.

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Maybe that's not true,. We can talk about that. Later--.

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With these very sad looking people, these destitute, looking people,.

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These kids, with kwashiorkor bellies, who look really starving.

B

And you cannot help but be desensitized every time you see one of those ads.

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Or it just hurts so much that you would be a total wreck. All the time.

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So thinking back on that,, I realized that when I did donate,.

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It was basically rewarding organizations that had the best marketing,.

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Or the most visible donor recognition, programs,.

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Or the most persistent canvassers.

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and that's definitely not an excellent way to choose the most impactful charity.

B

So,, how can we get ahead of that?? How can we be more proactive?

B

is the question that I want to ask. and the feelings that I felt were just kind of like,, just incredible disappointment and frustration., you guys with me?.

B

All right., so around this time I started volunteering at this homeless, shelter.

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In oakland,- and there was this little girl there in kindergarden and I would go there.

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And we would do all these worksheets for her homework,.

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And this was like one day a week, 6 hours.

B

I remember feeling particularly sad that we couldn't really make.

B

Any strides forward because we were just doing her homework- and this was part of an educational system that I didn't think was working.

B

And I got sort of demotivated to help. I thought, okay,. How do we balance this,.

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Spending time deeply with one individual versus wanting to make a broader impact.

B

I started thinking about what are the most pressing problems,.

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Where do I go to find what are the most pressing problems?, I don't even know,, and how can I uniquely,? How can all of us uniquely.

B

Help the people that need it, the most.- this is maslow's pyramid.,.

B

Get a little deeper in the pyramid., I went to a source that I thought.

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Had thought about the world's need more than I had,.

B

Which was the united nations., they started this fund, or, I should say, a program,.

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In 2002 called the millennium development goals.

B

Which outlined the world's most pressing problems.

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I thought if I was able to contribute to the organizations.

B

That were tackling these things,. Then I would be doing my part.

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So what are we talking? About? we're talking about eradicating extreme poverty,, achieving universal primary education,.

B

Promoting gender equality and empowering women,.

B

Reducing child mortality, things of that nature.

B

But what really interested me was not what these organizations deemed.

B

Were the problems in the developing world,, what did the developing world.

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Have to say about that?, so I put on this startup hat, and thought like if the un was a product,.

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And the poor people were their community,.

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Like, let's hear feedback about what the real issues are,.

B

So we can fix those, and they actually had a survey in sub-saharan africa.

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About, they could rank all those things that the dg's had laid out.

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The number one pressing problem was poverty.

B

Secondly, was hunger,, then the spread of hiv and aids;.

B

Jobs for youth, death rate for children under 5,.

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And so forth, you can see on the slide.. Can you see the slides? okay, cool.

B

This is kind of obvious,, I mean this is obvious,.

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But what struck me as most unjust about this.

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Is that people were dying from things that were preventable.

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Like, people were dying from things where proven solutions existed.

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And there was no sense in that for me. like,. These may be.

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These massive intractable problems,, so they say, that poverty.

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Is really complicated,, but we're talking about really basic needs,.

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Not financial or human capital, that are solved by access to $6 bed-nets,.

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Or 50 cent nutrition packets., so I thought, okay,. Here's a way.

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That my donations might be able to apply to something,.

B

But what are the root causes of poverty?? Any ideas? root causes of poverty?.

B

Not having enough money. true., thank you. Skandar.

B

There are two experts who talked about this in ways.

B

That I thought were particularly illuminating,.

B

Paul callier boils it down to basically four traps that a country can fall into.

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There's some pattern of civil war that they just cannot break,.

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There's these resource curses,, where they're rich in natural resources.

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But people are struggling to gain control of them,, which probably feeds into the civil wars,.

B

There are limited trade capabilities because they're landlocked countries.

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And they don't have access to ports to get their resources out. There,.

B

So they just have these neighbors that are not enabling them.

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To develop their economies, or they have some corrupt government.

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So they can't focus on building infrastructure or addressing the needs of their people, because they're fighting,, simply put, in the bottom billion..

B

His answers are free, trade,, international.

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Law holding governments accountable, and military intervention,, but I personally cannot help with those things,.

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So I turned to this guy, jeffrey sachs,, who wrote this book called the end of poverty, and he says that the crux issue.

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Is that when people and governments have low income,, then they can't make.

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The necessary investments for future growth.

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exactly,, they don't have any money,, so they can't build.

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The necessary infrastructure.

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well, that we can do something about., that's something that's worth exploring.

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Do you guys recognize this site? kiva. good.

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When I found kiva a couple of years ago, I got really excited.

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The idea of empowering people in the developing world, creating these sort of sustainable businesses and a sustainable future.

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Very much appealed, similarly to all of you,. I think.

B

Initially, I got excited about all of these micro-finance organizations as an idea.

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The way they work is they give interest free loans to budding entrepreneurs, and they have field partners on the ground.

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To distribute the funds and check up on them and make sure that they do what they've promised to do.

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Shortly after a lot of them launched and gained a lot of attention,.

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There were all these follow up. Reports of corruption and embezzlement.

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In their field partners,- and I was.

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Disappointed and my participation waned over time.. I started thinking. Maybe there's something about the first world.

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That we might be able to learn, and apply to the developing world.

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I was introduced to this guy by my fiancee.. Does anyone know.

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Who this guy is? bonus, points, I'll, give you an extra burger.

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Yes., it's a guy named milton friedman. rock on!.

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Well, done. milton friedman is a fiscally conservative,.

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Nobel prize winning economist that had a bunch of really radical theories.

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He says that if you put the federal government in charge of the saharan desert,in five years, there'd be a shortage of sand.

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Maybe not a huge fan of the us government,.

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But had some ideas that really shaped how I thought about poverty,.

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And perhaps you as well. he basically said,.

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Or he felt that the existing system of welfare in this country.

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With all of the forms to determine elegibility,.

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And the home visits and the reporting structure were basically inefficient.

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Also, incredibly degrading to poor people., they basically treated them.

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As though they couldn't be trusted to make any sort of rational,.

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Responsible decisions about how to spend their money. there are implications there.

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Among many of his sort of radical ideas,, he proposed this idea about 40 years ago.

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Of a basic income floor. that is,, if people earned less.

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Than a certain amount,, the government would top them up, so they could reach.

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That basic level. is that a crazy idea?? How do we feel about that idea?.

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Have we thought about it? Before? yeah,, we have. okay.

B

I see some thumbs up., that's good., okay.,.

B

I can just see at a high level view it's pretty crazy,.

B

That the government would just give handouts to people with your hard-earned tax dollars,. That seems bizarre.

B

Okay, say you had $100 bucks.. Would you give it to a guy.

B

That was begging on the street in soma.. Would you give that person--.

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Raise your hand if you would give that guy a hundred bucks on the street. all right, well, I like you., I probably wouldn't.

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But what if you found out that your neighbor,, who had four kids.

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And three jobs was struggling to make her rent,.

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Would you give her a hundred bucks?

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yes,, you would.? Of course you would,, because you have hearts.

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I wasn't presuming otherwise.. This really begs the question.

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Of does it make a difference who these people are,.

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And does that affect how we feel about giving?.

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So the question is,, who are these poor people anyway?

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right?? A lot of sources, went into that infographic.?

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I didn't make it,. I got it off of visually, but I'm gonna sum it up for you.. These people are young, they're, disabled,, mentally ill,.

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And they're lawful immigrants with jobs. they're, not trying to suck.

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At our economic teats. sorry,, that was a weird visual.

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Oh god,, I'm gonna have to watch this video later..

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It's gonna be really embarrassing... (laughter), but back to the slide.. How did these people get poor?.

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Like, a)they were born into a poor family.

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They lost their jobs, or there was some serious illness that put them into debt.

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What we can sort of emphasize here is that for many of these people,.

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This poverty was not of their making.. There was not a set of poor choices,.

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That they made in their lives to lead up to this point,.

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Which is how I had been thinking about poverty until I did more research.. Why would I want to give money.

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To people who are lazy and who don't earn it?.

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Who don't deserve it?? So this really changed the way.

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That I thought about it.

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Friedman's ideas were basically driven by the belief that individuals.

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Are better able to assess their needs and manage their money?.

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Than any sort of well-meaning government bureaucrat.

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Well-Meaning,, even people who want to do good,.

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He thinks that the individuals are better arbiters over their dollars.

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Than people who intend to do good., could this also be true.

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For well-intentioned philanthropy, organizations?.

B

Do we really know what people need better than they do?.

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Are we being ethnocentrically presumptuous in assuming.

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That we know what they need?. I don't know.

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Could we be seeing things through this sort of ethnocentric lens,.

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Particularly when looking at the developing world?.

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That planted a seed for me,, but I still didn't figure out which charities.

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I should devote resources to,, which is the whole point in the first place.

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I turned to two sites.. The first one is charitynavigator.org,.

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You guys have probably heard of that one, because it's one of the largest.

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On the internet,, these guys evaluate charities based on financial efficiency,.

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Which takes into account the program costs,.

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Administrative costs, and fundraising expenses.

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I thought, okay,. Now I just need to find the organization.

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That spends,, a higher percentage, goes to the actual program.

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And not the administrative costs. but wait, that doesn't actually mean.

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That they're more effective,, it means that they spend less money on administration..

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The assumption there that I made is one that probably a lot of you made,, which is that just because they spend.

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Less money on their expenses, doesn't mean that they're more effective.

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Or impactful. I was talking to my fiancee about this,.

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And he was like,. "This is like the blackberry vs. iphone thing,.

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What, if you found out that blackberrys were so much cheaper.

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To manufacture and to distribute? well,, the iphone is still a better phone...".

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I was like, "yeah, thanks babe,, that's really illuminating.".

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But it's true. so, anyway,, I figured this was probably worth investigating,.

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So I found givewell.com and actually he found that,.

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So I should negate what you probably think about him from that previous comment.

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By saying that he's the one who found givewell.

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givewell is a san francisco organization that evaluates what the programs actually do per dollar.

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They break it down, they do a full analysis, and they focus on proven,, cost-effective,, scalable international aid.

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Have you guys heard of these folks before?, okay, rad.

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There are some no's,, so this presentation is worth giving by that point: alone., I'm so excited! okay, givewell.

B

Here's what they look at: empirical evidence of impact,.

B

They look at bang for the buck, and they look at whether these organizations actually... can they use the funds that you're giving them?.

B

They might be a small operation and perhaps they get $4million in their coffers and all of a sudden, they don't know how to scale.

B

And they don't know what to do with it and they can't be efficient with that.

B

So they look at those types of questions.

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Each year, they recommend a donor allocation to three charities.

B

And they actually break down the allocation,. 70% should go here,.

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20% should go, here, 10% should go here.

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That's how I was introduced to a charity called give directly.

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Give directly has this approach.

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That milton friedman,, I think what he would get behind,. Basically, they find poor households.

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In kenya, and now in other countries,, they're expanding,.

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And they donate cash transfers through the recipient's cell phone.

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These people get to determine what they do with these donations.

B

Is this a ludicrous idea?? I don't know.

B

to give cash to poor people with no strings attached, that are somewhere in kenya and who you'll never see,.

B

It seems like a really wild idea and in an interview with npr,.

B

A former director of unicef actually said what a lot of you probably are. Thinking,.

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Which is that these people are probably gonna blow it on booze.

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And gambling. I mean, sure. but,, I'm gonna tell you a little story.

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Are you guys in a story mood??

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This is bernard. bernard lives in rural kenya.,.

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He lives with his family of four.. He's got two sons and his family lives on two dollars: a day.

B

It's not very uncommon that his children go hungry.

B

Two dollars a day doesn't go far. bernard lives in a village that was chosen.

B

By givedirectly, because it was one of the poorest in kenya.

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There is basically little commercial agriculture, people grow vegetables.

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On these little plots of land,, all of their houses have dirt floors,.

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Nobody has consistent work, and so,. They gave the poorest people.

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In the village, a thousand dollars,, which is basically a year's income.

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For an entire family in two lump sum: payments, like, "here, you go! a thousand bucks.".

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The villagers were incredulous., they were like,.

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"Who, do we need to vote for?" "what? Do we have to do for this?"? They were completely untrusting.

B

Bernard himself was very skeptical.. People thought it was a trick.

B

But the money came, and they took it, and over the period of six months.

B

What happened? well, the first thing that many of the villagers did.

B

Was to buy metal roofs., see that has a metal roof?.

B

That didn't before, it used to be this thatched grass roof.

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That basically disintegrated quickly and you had to replace it every couple of months, and it was a total pain because you had to get the grass from villages that were far far away,.

B

People didn't have modes of transport,, so metal, roofs.

B

Were like a real upgrade in the quality of life.

B

Other people started small businesses, one man bought a mill.

B

And he charged all the other villagers to sort of grind their corn.

B

Also, a few people became these micro-retailers,.

B

They would go to markets and buy stuff, goods, provisions, stuff, like that, soaps,.

B

And then go back to the village and then sell it.

B

Bernard actually bought a motorcycle., so that's the motorcycle that he bought.

B

He shuttles people around from village to village., so he takes people from one market,. He takes people to get their corn ground,.

B

And there was sort of a network effect that happened.

B

I should say there was a ripple effect, where, because he was able.

B

To take people from one village to another. all of the businesses.

B

In each of the villages benefited because they had such a broader consumer pool.

B

From which to draw upon. so,, he actually makes 6 to 9 dollars per day.

B

On average now,, which is 3 to 4 times as much as he was earning before,.

B

And he works almost every day., so this notion of the gambling,.

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Beer swilling poor person that we might have conjured up.

B

At least in this one case is not true.

B

Perhaps,, poor people are responsible and enterprising,.

B

But they just need a little support. Getting started.

B

Obviously, there are larger issues: here., there's infrastructure and there's corrupt.

B

Governments and undeveloped financial systems that hold people like bernard back, and it's not gonna, be solved by a one time.

B

Windfall, but his kids are less hungry, and they are a great deal more empowered.

B

So that gave me hope. and it kind of blew my mind.

B

So,, if you're interested in this actually,, there are scores of other.

B

Cash transfer programs to look up. give directly was actually inspired.

B

By one that happened by this guy named santiago levi in mexico.

B

This was when they were in sort of a financial recession.

B

He ended up giving people cash transfers under the condition.

B

That they send their kids to school, and they had regular health care. Checkups.

B

The results were super promising., they had control groups and they found that children in the program were more likely to stay in school, that their families were healthier, and that people overall ate better,.

B

And to this day, there are 6 million mexican families.

B

That still get cash transfers. to this day., pretty awesome.

B

So,, let's get to the actionable stuff.

B

What needs attention most right, now?.

B

What is the state of the nation?? We've got: 46.2 million us citizens.

B

Who live below the poverty line.? That is less than $24,000 a year?.

B

For a family of four. right now, there's political unrest, happening,.

B

Obviously, 100,000 people have died in syria.

B

And the fighting continues.

B

natural disasters,, the typhoon,- you guys have seen the news.

B

You know over 10,000 people are dead and millions of people have been displaced.

B

So now is the time.. Now is really the time.

B

Now,, I'm sure we're thinking, okay; we're.

B

Part of this sort of technology industry.

B

what we can do,, we can sort of leverage at greater and greater magnitudes.

B

How do we do that?, I'm not sure.

B

until you have an idea that you're convinced will change the world,? What do you do in the meantime?? You can give.

B

You can keep noodling on that and keep talking to your friends about that,, but in the meantime,, let's give.

B

So you're not alone., there was $317 billion.

B

That went to charity in 2013, and, as you can see,.

B

227 of those billion came from individual donors,.

B

So please don't feel like this is something that, if you give it's not gonna make a difference,, because you are certainly not alone.

B

You're with like a massive army.

B

Charitable giving represents 2.2% of our gdp.

B

That's great. and 90% of those gifts are in the form of cash.

B

We can talk more about options in a minute.

B

who gives? this was a survey of high net worth households.

B

Probably a lot of people in this room fall under that category.

B

90% of people give to charity. 60% serve on non-profit boards.

B

71% of people have a strategy, and 60% of people have a budget.

B

I didn't. until two weeks ago.. It had never occurred to me to plan.

B

My financial giving,, like my career, or like my relationships.,.

B

Somehow, I had missed that.. Do you guys have giving strategies?.

B

Who, in this room, has a giving strategy.?

B

I commend you., you guys are leagues, ahead.,.

B

For the rest of you,, I have made a very easy.

B

Five-Step program! all right..

B

I actually made this for myself and I then I thought maybe other people could benefit.

B

Which is why I highjacked the mic and came here today.

B

So, thanksgiving, we're all gonna get a couple of days. Off,.

B

Let's build out our plans., the first thing,, obviously.

B

You're gonna consider your cash and your assets, for next year, you're gonna. Take into account your expected salary.

B

And your expenses and all that stuff.

B

A good tip that I got was basically to review the spending.

B

Of the past year,, because basically, the difference between your income.

B

And your savings are your expenses. right? or your expenses, and your consumption.

B

So if you take out your expenses, what's left, is your consumption.

B

Take that number and go, "how many pairs of shoes.

B

Is this equivalent to?" and "how many pairs of shoes? Do I actually need?".

B

So it doesn't feel like you're sacrificing something in the beginning,.

B

You're, just sacrificing the selfish things, and that's okay., we should be. does that make sense? okay. cool.

B

Second thing., I'm all about putting stuff in a place that I never have.

B

To think about again., so the easiest thing.

B

To do here is to open a charitable account.

B

There are some awesome benefits,, particularly for you, stock-holding people.

B

A), it's an immediate tax deduction.. You can avoid capital gains tax.

B

When you donate stock., I'm gonna say that again.

B

you can avoid capital gains tax when you donate stock.

B

So, yeah. anyway,, you get the point. and then any growth in those accounts.

B

Is tax free. and we're not talking like you have to have $250,000.

B

To put into this thing, scwab, for example,, which is what I use,.

B

Has a $5k, minimum,, so,, very actionable.

B

Ant then, you can just set these little automatic payment deductions.

B

From your paycheck and it just whittles it away, and you don't have to see it and you don't have to update it, and it's great until it gets to the end of the year and your financial adviser, goes, "hey,. Where do you want to give this?".

B

B

so, choosing the charities.. I talked a lot about this sort of thing.

B

Earlier in the presentation, but... when... obviously,, you have.

B

To start with, the heart, figure out the causes that are most meaningful,.

B

Most important to you, but think about the implementation.

B

And not just the cause., how do they actually make a difference?.

B

It costs about $150 to prevent a case of aids or hiv.

B

Through contraception,, but it costs a grand and a half to treat it.

B

For ten years., do you care about whether you're treating it or preventing it?.

B

Do you have that 1500 or are you gonna, do the 150?.

B

Choose your charity accordingly by how they implement their solutions.

B

So, second point.: the efficacy instead of the marketing.

B

And the expense ratio., so don't just select charities because they speak.

B

The loudest,, or because they spend the least on implementing,.

B

But because they're most impactful. give well. give well. give well.

B

Also, keep in mind that your dollar goes further overseas.

B

Here in the states, it costs ten grand to send a kid to a high school in nyc,.

B

In the phillippines, for example,, you can pay for someone's entire senior year with $125.

B

So use that to our advantage,, it's like you know...

B

anyway., just to underscore a point,. You can literally save a life.

B

In the developing world with $2500.- and I say literally not the way, people.

B

Use the word literally when they're just talking,, you can actually save a life. and there's a really fantastic article.

B

On the givewell blog about how they broke down, this number,.

B

But 2500 bucks., I mean,. If you saw somebody.

B

And they were dying and you could pay 2500 to save them and they were sitting right in front of you,. You would do it.

B

So let's do that!

B

okay. cool. then, sign up for automatic, regular donations.

B

Once you've got this, so you never have to worry about it. Again.

B

So the aclu, every charity out there has this membership program.

B

Where they just deduct stuff, and what's great about that is you'll get a little email every month that says "yay! you donated!".

B

And you get a little like blip of love every time you get one of those emails.

B

It's magical!: it's like a present that you're giving to your future self.

B

When you do this,, which is a really awesome, present.

B

Okay. engage your network.. A lot of friends have started doing this.

B

Thanks to charity water,, and I think that this was one of those really good marketing campaigns,.

B

Which is this annual birthday sort of campaign.

B

Where it's like "hey,, I'm turning x,, please give money.

B

To something that I believe in." you know,, it's getting really popular.. We can do it., it's cool.

B

You can buy people a round of drinks if they donate to your fund,, whatever. and then,. I think something else.

B

That is worth mentioning is how talking about giving is sort of taboo.

B

And you don't want to make people feel bad, or you don't wanna feel bad, or you have a lot of guilt, around doing it or not doing it, and the only times that people.

B

Talk about it are, when they get a little badge for donating,.

B

But that's not the only time we should talk about it..

B

So just ask your friends what charities there are that they care about, and it's a really great entry point to a conversation.

B

About how we can be better, or how we can be more strategic if they have any sort of tips about how to be more effective.

B

in fact,. I did this at dinner. The other night with a friend of mine.

B

She runs this media ad company, where they sell ads to different websites,, and the unsold ads are donated.

B

At the end of every month to charity water., they just formed a partnership with charity, water and charity. Water is happy to do this,, so any unsold ads.

B

It's just charity, water, up,, up,, up, front and center, and they've giving them millions of impressions, and these would have just gone to waste.

B

so think about. If there are any creative solutions that you might be able to implement. and give,, not just money.

B

And lastly, get your business involved.. Perhaps there's a bunch.

B

Of other colleagues of yours that feel passionately about the same cause,.

B

Maybe talk to your founder, see if they'll do matching donations.

B

For some particular campaign, doesn't have to be for its entirety,.

B

Forever,, but if there's a cause that you care about, see if you can get them on board.

B

That's it,, that's five.! So I'm gonna leave you.

B

With a quote from bill gates,- and I say that hesitantly,.

B

Because, while I am not maybe the hugest fan of his products,, he is a thought leader when it comes to philanthropy.

B

He says, "I believe that every life is valuable.

B

That we can make things better., that innovation is the key.

B

To a bright future. that we're just getting started.

B

Thanks guys! (applause).

B

♪ (soft jazz, music), ♪.

A

So, thank you all for--. Can we give ligaya a round of applause, one more time, that was an awesome--.

B

Oh,, that's actually for julie's birthday,, yay!, julie's birthday!.

A

I'll take it. (laughter). So my first question for you.

A

Is what was your first job. first job ever.

A

oooh, wow.? First job ever?, ever., first job.

B

Can I give you my first one in san francisco 'cause, that's way more interesting? no.

A

Oh. that one will come next, but...

B

Every job in san francisco is interesting,. If you know what I mean.

B

So my first job ever was for $2.50 an hour.

B

I baby sat a girl across the pond from me,. I grew up in iowa, and her name.

B

Was joy, joy, and my name means joy,, so we were joy, joy, joy, and yeah.

B

So I would sit in her attic when she would go to sleep.

B

I lived in like a hippy meditation community.

B

So I would have to make paneer cheese after I put her to bed.

B

And then I would sneak up into the attic where her dad had the one tv in the house- and I didn't have a tv at my house,. So this was amazing..

B

I was like twelve.. I would watch like skee-lo videos on mtv.

B

That was my first job.

A

When mtv still played music, videos? yeah.

A

must have been nice., it was fun!

A

so,. How did you stumble into tech,, or how did you get your first job.

A

In san francisco?.

B

So there was this website called yelp.

B

And I didn't know about it. yeah,, yelpers! hey!.

B

I was riding a bus, one day. I'd moved here on a whim to san francisco,. I'd come here from a random island with a backpack.

B

And no job and no money or whatever,, and I knew nothing about tech,, I'm a total luddite to this day,.

B

But I saw a sticker on a bus, and it said yelp on it.

B

And I'm like, "what is this thing?" and I was in that curious, mode,.

B

That you're in when you first move to cities.

B

like everything, is great! yeah. everything is great. and I need friends, and I have no friends.

B

This is sad., so I looked it up and like, yelp., oh wow!,.

B

There's so much information about places to go!.

B

This is so useful! and it kind of became my bible for the city.

B

And it was quite small at that point, so I recognized the same faces.

B

On the website and I started to write., I had a boring insurance, temp job.

B

At that time,, so I would just spend all my time, don't tell my boss,.

B

Writing yelp, reviews. and then the marketing guy at that point,.

B

This guy named nish nadaraja, he's not here, but he should be.

B

'cause he's awesome, pinned me and said, "hey!. We have these parties for our most active writers.

B

Like,, you have reached that echelon, come and party with us.".

B

I was like, beyond excited, right?. This was my first exposure to any sort.

B

Of tech company,- and this was 2004,, so there wasn't a lot happening.

B

In the consumer tech scene at that point.

B

So anyway, I went to this party, I met jeremy,, who was one of the founders.

B

I also met my future fiancee,, but I had a boyfriend at the time.

B

And he had a girlfriend, so..., that's a different story.

B

yeah.. So I got really obsessed with yelp and I bugged jeremy, for like six months, straight, every week,, I'd say, "jeremy,. Do you have a job for me?" and he was like, "if. You can't code,.

B

We don't have a job.. If you can't code,, we don't have a job.".

B

I was so relentless that, finally, he buckled.

B

he was like, "well,. We need somebody to do office, work and hr. Stuff, and finance,. Can you do that?"?

B

I was like, "I'll. Do anything, I'll scrub, your floor,? I don't care.".

B

I was so into it., so he gave me a job, and--.

B

It wasn't scrubbing the floor, right?, it wasn't scrubbing the floor,, but I did.

B

Actually, one day end up putting the wrong, I'd bought like this new dish. Soap.

B

And I wasn't looking closely and I put the wrong dish: soap.

B

In the dishwasher and I filled the entire office in suds,.

B

And we had this dog at the time named darwin, and he came into the kitchen and he was knee high in suds,.

B

And jeremy was like, "ligaya,. What did you do?" and then I stopped doing that? Job. (laughter) and I got a marketing job.. There's no soap involved in marketing.

B

Yeah but lots of foam parties. oh. the deep dark secret past of yelp.

B

Oh, no, no,, I'm just kidding., although I would have liked to throw one.

A

The night's still young. and it's your birthday.

A

It is my birthday. ah. there's lots of soap.

A

lots of soap. there's soap around here.. This has taken a weird turn.

B

Sorry. everything that I do happens to go this way.

A

So, that kind of answers my next question,, which was, "what, was your a-ha moment with technology,".

A

I mean, you say: you're a luddite,, but you've worked at a lot of technology startups.. So how to you marry those two parts of your life?.

B

Well,: here's the thing., I mean, the technology that I fall in love with.

B

Are the products that change my real life.? I was able, through yelp.

B

I found all these really amazing businesses that I didn't know existed,.

B

And I felt good about supporting those, because they were these small business.

B

Owners and they got to have a chance against the big bucks chain, restaurants.

B

So,, I very much believed in that, and I realized I think, for the first time,.

B

That, even though I was a real world person,, I could contribute.

B

In a way that could impact other people's lives,.

B

Their every day lives, and that's valid.- you don't have to be the ones.

B

Who just create., you can be the ones to champion., and that was meaningful.

B

For me,, because I had never before recognized how I could play a part.

A

The internet does this cool thing where it gives all of us a voice,.

A

Yeah. and independent of how big the checks we write, are,, it's pretty awesome., certainly,, yes., short answer,, yes.,.

A

Oh, god,: what have I done. okay.? What qualities do you look for.

A

In the people you work, with, or the people, you want to work, with?.

B

I think I'm attracted to people that are passionate,.

B

People who have conviction about what they do,.

B

I like to work with people who have dissenting opinions,.

B

People that are like much smarter than me in most every way.

B

Except for enthusiasm,, which is what I think I have as an edge on the world,.

B

And I've been pretty lucky to have a great deal of trust and faith.

B

In the founders of these companies,- and it's because I feel like they have.

B

Really great intentions. yeah. does that answer your question?.

B

Absolutely. okay.

A

You're doing really well. thanks, I've passed...

A

So, what's you're ideal, besides the people that you work, with,.

A

What do you look for in a company? like what's the ideal working environment for you?.

B

Oh, environment. has to look like a bar.

B

Let's see. ideal working environment., I can't have clocks.

B

And I don't like many windows., I get distracted.

B

It has to be like a casino,. You know,, like you, don't know how time is passing.

B

And all that. (laughter) no,, I'm kidding.

B

I, like environments, where there's not a lot of meetings, and those meetings happen when people are standing up or they're doing, walk and talks around the block.

B

I, like periods of the day where you're able to chat with people.

B

And it's totally fine to go up to people's desk and ask them questions,.

B

And it's sort of collaborative,, but I also like days.

B

Where there's sort of set times where people don't say anything.

B

And you just get to focus., it was mind blowing to me that,.

B

When I started working at startups, that there were like dogs in the office and ping pong tables and kegerators,, and it felt so much more like a frat house.

B

Than an office environment that I'd worked in previously.

B

What I liked about that was that there wasn't the sort of market hierarchy.

B

That in some ways there was a sort of democratization, of...

B

Almost like a meritocracy of ideas.

B

In many of the places where I've worked, the ideas that we've implemented,.

B

Whether it has to do with product features or marketing,.

B

Were suggested by people that weren't necessarily within that domain,.

B

And that's great. that people should be able to stretch their minds.

B

In different ways, and we should welcome that. yeah.

B

That's probably the core.

A

Sounds like a cool place to me.. I don't know.

B

I just have to start a company now.

A

How important is having a mentor to you?.

B

Wow. that's... I've been thinking a lot about that.

B

In terms of at-risk communities, and the lack of positive role, models.

B

If you don't have positive role models, you don't really know what's possible.

B

And what to strive for.? I certainly didn't either, in certain ways.

B

I've had a lot of mentors on my path,, both personally and professionally.,.

B

They've been women who have basically taught me how to act.

B

And really shaped my ideas of my world views, and the cool thing.

B

About being a mentor, is you don't have to be that knowledgeable.

B

You just have to be more knowledgeable than one person.

B

and you just have to find that one person.

B

like,, you don't have to be somebody. That's done life changing things,.

B

It doesn't matter. as long as you're able to extract the lessons that you've learned and articulate them to somebody else,.

B

And the cool thing about mentoring is that you learn so much more.

B

As a mentor,, hopefully the other person learns as much as you do.

B

But I feel like oftentimes I've gotten more out of it.

A

So,, do you mentor anyone currently?.

B

I do. I mentor a bunch of community marketing folks.

B

In different startups,, both officially and informally.,.

B

I'm also part of this program called "tech women",, which was started by hillary clinton when she was secretary of state.

B

A couple of years back, and what they do is they bridge.

B

All of these emerging markets, so women in subsaharan, africa and the middle east.

B

And connect them to people that are right here in the bay area.

B

We are recruiting actively for next year and all of the women in this room,.

B

I'm looking at you. and we're not talking about technology.

B

Like consumer technology,, it could be anything., it could be semiconductor technology,, it could be hardware stuff,.

B

It could be renewable energy technology,, and I value that so much.

B

Because I'm talking to people where they're lacking.

B

Basic infrastructure, stuff and my view of the world and what I think.

B

Are our real problems has shifted dramatically through their influence.

B

So yeah, it's a great program.

A

What were a few of the biggest changes you saw with these companies as they grew?.

B

You know, in the early stages, like when I started at yelp,.

B

It was like ten people. at airbnb. It was twelvish,, something like that.

B

The passion index is high when companies are young.

B

Because they can't pay anybody market salaries,.

B

So the people that want to work there are people that love these products.

B

And so, there's just this incredible excitement and this sort of energy.

B

In these offices. as the company scales and there's more pressure.

B

To prove the product and grow,, then you need sort of operations. People,.

B

And a sort of hierarchy, emerges, and operations, people.

B

Are really obviously good at executing and incredibly smart,.

B

But they don't necessarily.... At this point you're past your series, c,.

B

Maybe you're series b or something like that., you can afford salaries, so they're, not necessarily doing it because they love your company, so much, they're doing it because it's a great career opportunity or they like the product and they see some long term potential.

B

And then the company keeps scaling and you just need workhorses,.

B

You need people to do jobs,, so you fill those roles and you're growing very quickly. So you just hire people.

B

That are really good at fulfilling one particular function..

B

They may not necessarily be the sort of crazy creative people.

B

That you have at the beginning, wearing multiple hats.

B

What happens is that there's this sort of like, your role, changes.

B

Before it was really creative, kind of chaotic and some people.

B

Really like that, and as the company gets larger,, your role gets more and more.

B

Structured., it gets narrower, and some people like that because they like to focus, and other people go like "hey, wait.. This isn't what I signed up. For.".

B

And there's this attrition. new classes of people that come in and some people drop out. as an early person. It sucks.

B

When the people that you love so much leave, because they're, what sort of galvanized you everyday to be, there.

B

Because you were building something together.

B

But,, this is the natural course of things, and me personally,.

B

I figured out that I'm very much an early stage person.

B

when the company gets big, it's great,, but I don't know what to do.

B

In those kind of environments., I don't want to be a middle manager.

B

I, like the chaos a little bit.. I like building foundations.

B

I, like the unknowns, and I like to experiment.- you don't get to do that,. The company becomes much less risk averse.

B

In some ways... anyway.

A

Well, you kind of answered my next question,, which was: how did your role at these companies change as the company grew?.

B

So, once I started doing community at yelp,.

B

Community and marketing were sort of synonymous at yelp,.

B

We did a lot of offline stuff, a lot of online engagement, but basically,. We were evangelists for this company.

B

And it was our job to grow these communities.

B

And all these different markets, and so yelp would dispatch me and I'd start up a couple of different markets for them and I loved my job.

B

Interacting with community members requires an incredible amount of energy.

B

And enthusiasm and resilience,, because not all the time is it fun.

B

Sometimes,, it's like you're dealing with the shit too, why people are unhappy?.

B

Why did you change this feature? and this sucks and you want to advocate for these people,? I mean this: is your job.

B

To sort of represent them, and help give the company feedback.

B

On where the users think it could go,, but it's taxing,, it's emotional.

B

Because these people are your friends and you're, very close to them.

B

I think what happened to me over time is, I didn't, have the fight in me, anymore.

B

When I got to airbnb, we were at this sort of growth phase.

B

And I started out doing community stuff and we scaled.

B

Incredibly rapidly., I mean, we opened like seven offices in a period of four months,. So what started out as just me.

B

Became like 25 people within eight months or something like that.

B

So I was hiring people in all of these countries that I did not speak the language,. I did not know where to recruit.

B

People from, there were so many unknowns, and it was so incredibly exciting.

B

But it's one of those things where you just get thrown in the water.

B

And you have to figure it out., you sink or you float.

A

Would you say you sank,, or did you float?.

B

I would ask my team.

A

That's a really good answer.

B

Yeah., I don't know., I mean,, I think they're awesome.

B

And most of them are still there even after I left,. So I think.

B

That I built something, that's sustainable and I'm really happy with that.

A

That's an awesome thing to be proud: of.

B

Yeah. they're great people.

A

So now you are an advisor for a couple of wonderful companies,.

A

And you're also an investor.. Do you want to talk a little bit about your transition.

A

From being an employee at a startup to investing in rising companies?.

B

Not really. (laughter).

B

How did that happen? so...? Do I want to tell you guys?.

B

I guess I will. I'm writing a manual right now on community development.

B

For startups. and I hate to say that out loud because I actually.

B

Have to write it.

A

This is recorded, by the way.

B

Yeah,, I know! that's why I'm like, cringing.

B

but so,! I'm writing this manual, and in order to make this manual.

B

As useful to community people and marketing people as possible,.

B

I wanted to get exposure to lots of different companies,, not just this sort of small data set of companies that I have personally been a part. Of.

B

like, are these universal principles?? Can they apply?, and so I started doing this advising thing..

B

That's actually how I got involved. in talking to all these startups.

B

I got really enthusiastic about what they were doing, some of them,.

B

And I said, "well,: how can I help you?" and they're like, "well...? We really need money.".

B

And I was kind of like,: "I am really maybe not the person.

B

That knows how to do that.", but I'd been toying with the idea of going to business school.

B

I thought, "if, I'm gonna spend all this money on business. School,.

B

Why don't I just take that and put it into companies that I believed in, give back to the ecosystem,, maybe get some returns out of it, and learn a whole bunch in the process.

B

And so,, I started going to all these angel investing seminars,.

B

Through 37 angels and pipeline fellowships,.

B

And then seeing all the super angels talk about this stuff and I went through this period of learning.

B

That was kind of like my own patchwork, mba.

B

Then I started investing, and I was pretty aggressive.

B

I hadn't seen my first term sheet until, like eight months, ago.

B

And since then, I've invested in six companies., one of which is in this room. and I'm incredibly proud to be on their team.. They're called microryza, and they are an investment platform,. Basically like a kickstarter for scientific research.,.

B

So yeah. and there's other ones., I told you guys before.

B

I don't really know what I'm doing,, but I'm figuring it out.

B

I just don't want people telling me what to do.

A

So,, feminism is a word: that's been thrown around in social media.

B

Quite a lot lately, and my theory is that it means something different.

A

To everyone,, especially relative to their experience.

A

in your experience,, what does the "f" word mean to you?.

B

The "f" word: feminism. huh.

B

You know, honestly,, I don't think about it.

B

I notice that some people treat me differently.

B

Maybe it's because I'm a woman., I actually see women treat me more differently.

B

When I talk in certain ways or dress in certain ways.

B

I prefer to just do what we are all doing as best as we possibly can,.

B

And it doesn't really enter in my mind unless somebody points it out.

B

So,, I don't want to butcher like sheryl sandberg's, whole "lean, in" thing.

B

Or say something wrong,, but I don't... is it really... anyway.

A

So you do your job, and that's much more. A thing.

B

We should all do our jobs. dogs have jobs.

B

You know? good segue., that's pretty excellent.

B

I love puppies., but seriously.

B

just do well, and people will stop saying that we aren't doing well.

B

Yeah. absolutely. is that a myopic view?.

B

Women in the audience:, it is myopic?.

B

Please tell me how to think about this in a more evolved way.

B

Okay. (laughter and chatter).

A

Do you have any advice for anyone working in a male dominated industry?.

A

What would your advice be to like, a younger version of you?.

B

I'll tell you some advice that I got. I had a mentor.

B

Who was in her forties and she said, never wear a full suit.

B

To a tech interview, but wear a blazer and don't look weird,.

B

Or don't look as weird as you really are., I was like, "are. You just saying that to me, or do you say that to everyone?".

B

And you have to be the most prepared person in the room.

B

And you have to think about what you say twice before you say: it.

B

because,, whether or not you realize it,. If you're, the only woman in the room.

B

You're, representing all of the other women that aren't there.

B

I've thought about that a lot., that's amazing, advice.

A

So, my last question for you, we'll take a few from the audience, is:.

A

What's next for ligaya?, what's next for you?.

B

So I gotta write this manual now. right.

B

It's coming along., I have another passion, and that passion.

B

Is actually childbirth in developing countries.

B

Actually, what I was gonna talk to you guys about before the typhoon.

B

Was birth and how to make it your own and how women shouldn't be scared of it?.

B

And how it can be incredibly moving and beautiful, and only half of the world gets to do it.

B

So,, I think I'm going..., I'm a certified doula,, which means.

B

That I can coach women through the birthing process,.

B

So I'm stopping doing tech probably next year.

B

And I'm considering going to nursing school,. But if not,.

B

I'm gonna be delivering a lot of babies with a lot of midwives.

B

So that's what I'm gonna be doing.

B

So, yeah, go feminism!, I don't know.

A

Is jake boxer around?? Is there a jake boxer?.

A

Melissa's ready with the microphone. amazing.

A

For those of you who don't know, melissa, yeah, we're gonna do this.

B

Oh, she's nodding her head.

A

This is melissa, severini, and she was git hub's first employee.

A

First employee! (applause).

A

She has been here four and a half, or five and a half?.

A

Four and a half years, and today is her last day at git, hub.

A

She represented all women in the room for two years.

A

How long was that? two years...?

A

Thank you, melissa, from all the ladies of git hub.,.

A

A

And now she's moving on to be my microphone woman..

A

So that's an exciting career move for her.

A

Okay. anyone have a question for ligaya?.

A

A

She's bringing the microphone for you., I can scream real loud. do it!.

A

You spoke a lot to your passion and enthusiasm for giving.

B

And helping people --- oh okay., sorry guys.,.

C

Should I start over? yeah., you spoke a lot to your passion and enthusiasm for giving and helping people,.

C

And how it all kind of starts there. sure..

C

What is your almost approach, or passion or enthusiasm or advice.

C

To people that have grown up in an extremely poor environment.

C

But without help of other people, gained monetary success.

C

And they're so afraid, and they're, so almost phobic of giving money.

C

Because they don't ever want to be in that position, again.

B

I think I can certainly relate to that.. My mother is from the developing world.

B

She comes from a really really poor, village.

B

So,, I think she had this sort of feeling of scarcity. Too,.

B

Like there would never be enough, and no matter how much she had,.

B

This was so entrenched, and the way that she thought about the world.

B

She wasn't able to get past the monetary hurdle,.

B

But there are ways that you can help.: they don't have to just be money.

B

You know,, you can help with your time,. You can help with your votes,.

B

You can contribute, even if you're, not in the financial sort of place,.

B

To be able to. and if you find the right organization.

B

That is working overseas,. Then you can donate $20.

B

And still get three bed nets for malaria,, one of the biggest killers in the world.

B

So three families might not die.

B

there's something to be said for those little donations as well.

B

If I understand your question, correctly, you're basically saying.

B

That they're afraid that if they give they'll get to that place again,.

B

Where they have nothing?.

B

I think that if they were able to work themselves up.

B

From that place of nothing,, they have the gumption.

B

And the smarts to do it again. it's almost a matter of believing.

B

In yourself and knowing that, if you hit rock bottom,, you can pull yourself out of it.

B

like when I first moved here,, I ate ten for ten pasta,.

B

And like ramen, noodles and cabbage., I had no money.

B

As long as you're willing to work, you're going to have money, again.

B

As long as you don't have pride about what sort of job you're gonna take,.

B

Or, like whatever, is beneath you., I mean,, I did some horrendous jobs.

B

I don't know. does that address your question?.

A

I think also you can mentor someone..

A

I've only been in tech, four years,, so I'm still broke.

A

One of the things that I do is that I coached high school cross-country teams and I've been there for girls. Like me,.

A

Who were going to face some of the same challenges that I faced,.

A

Going to college and also getting into tech,, be there for, like ligaya, said one person,. You only have to be smarter.

A

Or more successful than one person, and you get a ton out of it as well.

A

And it is just giving your time. it's a great way to give when you can't give money.

A

Do you have another question?.

A

There's so many of you in here., you've all had so many drinks by now.

B

I wanna hear about the feminism from the feminism duo.

B

You don't have to ask a question,, you can make a point...

D

I don't have a feminism, question. oh,, that's okay.,.

D

It sounds like maybe a discussion afterwards.

A

I don't know how to begin the question.

D

But my question was more about this idea: of, when you can see what your dollars get you, in the sense of where that money's going, okay,. That makes a lot of sense.

D

But I think at least for me personally,, it's been hard...

D

One of the reasons I like to volunteer, but only specific things,.

D

Like coaching, a basketball, team, or teaching girls how to code, that kind of thing,, it feels very personal.

D

it does. and yeah,. It's a limited number of people,. It's also potentially not.

D

The developing world,, but it feels very personal and I feel like.

D

Connected to people., have you experienced any type of monetary, giving site.

D

Or whatever it is, that also allows you to get that kind of personal connection.

D

Because you can see photos, whatever,, but I think that's a barrier,.

B

For many people, yeah. right., I totally agree.

B

And actually it's funny,. I took the sort of monetary approach.

B

Because I figured you guys were working in fast growing startups.

B

And what you don't have is time.

B

But if you do,, I find volunteering to be particularly rewarding.

B

In that you can see people's progress over time.

B

And you do develop these sort of personal relationships with those people.

B

That are just incredibly gratifying.. You can see how.

B

You're, making a difference., it's so much more real., and so there is a question.

B

Of depth versus broad. the sites that I think have done, it.

B

Particularly well in terms of telling those stories, not necessarily.

B

Facilitating the interaction but telling the stories, have been sites like kiva,.

B

Because you're listening to the story about how somebody wants.

B

To start their business, and you see photos of them and all that sort of stuff.

B

And you can interact with them. now I know kiva is under some sort of scrutiny,, which I'm not blind to.

B

But I do like that aspect of it.

B

I think there is an opportunity for somebody and the space to do that.

B

To facilitate those connections between people across borders.

B

And I'm not sure what form that would take.

B

Or what that sort of, like crux interaction, would look like,.

B

But something that I've been passionate about for a long time,.

B

And just haven't found the right person to build it with me,.

B

Is this mentorship platform., so it's basically where people anywhere in the world.

B

Can put up their interest, and then find people,.

B

Almost like a clarity fm, for kids.

B

so find people who have those same interests,, you would connect to them.. You could either do a text message. Exchange,.

B

A phone call through skype or some sort of email, exchange,.

B

And they would get to ask questions in a finite period of time.

B

Do I think that there is potential? absolutely. like I said, somebody needs to build it.

B

yeah.. Have I heard of levo league? no!.

A

The founder,, the cto, was one of our first passion projects, speakers,.

A

And it's similar to like a mentorship platform.

B

Awesome!, so what is it called?.

A

Levo league. oh,, levo league!.

B

Oh yes,, I have heard of this,, although I didn't realize that's what it was. thank you!. That's awesome.,.

A

Yeah,, it's pretty great., I mean, it has a long way to go, and especially.

A

As far as reaching people in the developing world...

B

Have you guys used it?, I have. yeah.

B

awesome! yeah., it's pretty cool.

A

Like sheryl sandberg and a few other... so for me,, a really big part of mentorship is being able to connect.

A

With that person,, as far as where they come from, like re-spies and also like,, is it a woman...? Those things are really important.

E

To me personally., so they do a really great job.

A

Of matching you up, based on your interests.

B

Oh,, so they match you. oh, interesting.

B

yeah,. It's like a data, thing. sort of like an ok keepit but from pinterest., which I think is fantastic..

A

Wow,, this totally answers your question. thanks, guys!, boom!, done., solving problems. nicely done.

A

any more questions for ligaya?.

E

...Yelp and airbnb,: do you feel they share a defining quality.

E

That has helped lead them to this success, or have you worked with any startups that have...

E

failed? and is there a clear difference between them?.

B

It's a good question., it's so hard to generalize.

B

I think there have been defining moments at both companies.

B

Where yelp and airbnb,, where it was either make it or break it,.

B

And without going too deep into what those things were,.

B

I would say that so much about it is when to put the fuel on the fire for growth.

B

And when to keep iterating on the product.

B

So in the beginning,, a lot of startups that I see.

B

Try to just go to market with a bang and they spend tons of money.

B

On sem or ads or whatever before, their product has really demonstrated.

B

That there is a good product/market fit.

B

And they blow through a lot of money and they crash.

B

Identifying what those point-- inflection point I guess?.

B

Of when you are ready to hit that rapid growth stage and give it your all.

B

At airbnb there was a lot of discussion around whether or not it was.

B

The right time to open nine, seven,, whatever it was international offices.

B

Within such a short period of time., do we put our stake in the ground or do we not?

B

and that's gonna, be incredibly expensive, and think about the operational overhead.

B

Everyone went back and forth.. Is this something that's gonna work.

B

Or are we terrified that we're gonna blow hundreds of millions of dollars?.

B

Or,, because the competitive landscape is getting so,, so hot.

B

And it's scary that we just need to expand our territory.

B

Those are the kind of questions that are hard questions to ask.

B

And you can't really predict the answers. To,.

B

Even amongst the board,, even amongst the smartest people in the room.

B

That had built the biggest companies in tech,.

B

They couldn't agree. so yeah,, I don't know.. I don't know.

B

Can I ask a follow-up? totally., I myself am working for a tech startup right now.

E

Called world wide women, we're building a global database.

E

And directory of resources and services that are available to women.

E

Around the world.

E

in retrospect, being part of these startups,, is there something.

E

That you wish, or if you could go back in time.

E

And make a different decision that you feel would be defining toward the success of the future,. What would... is there something.

E

That comes to mind?

E

for about..., just in regards to being a startup.

E

And this forward growth and expanding., have you been involved with companies.

E

That made a wrong choice, or you would have done differently?.

A

Any regrets? not regrets., I don't know.

E

Just like a different perspective.

B

Let me think about that.

B

any defining decisions that went awry.

B

I think that it comes..., so I do community development and marketing.

B

And what that means is I try to get users and get those users to love us.. So that's what I think about.

B

Day in and day out,, so that is the lens by which I see the company,.

B

So I don't know if my opinions represent anybody else's.

B

At these organizations,, but I guess I would say.

B

Don't hire too quickly.

B

There have been times where I feel like people want to grow really fast,.

B

So they're like, "we need the team to do this, now now, now.".

B

They might hire and then they find that these people.

B

Aren't doing exactly what they had hoped or anticipated,.

B

So they give them other projects to work, on, and those don't work. Out.

B

I guess it's sort of a strategic, operational thing.

B

If it's not the right, fit, don't hesitate to let people go.

B

Also, be incredibly transparent about why you're doing it.

B

I've seen companies sort of try to sweep it under the rug.

B

Like no one's going to notice it, if someone's desk is empty., are you kidding me?

B

and so, yeah.? I don't know.

B

I don't know if that's super relevant to an early stage company.

B

But that is the most inexcusable thing, I think,.

B

That a management team can do.

B

People are nodding., uh-oh., yeah., yeah.,.

C

All right. on that very happy note, sorry... shit!.

A

I just want to thank ligaya again for coming and giving us your time.

A

And everyone here, your time is really valuable.

A

And I really appreciate you guys coming out to support passion, projects.

F

Thank you so much., you know what,, I'm sorry to interrupt..

F

We actually have one more thing. ligaya,. Thank you. So so much.

F

For speaking. as julie mentioned,, it is julie's birthday, today.

F

And it's so tempting to tell you what birthday it is.

F

Because it's a significant one., it's one that matters.

A

It's 40. (laughter).

F

Probably it's not 40., but I'm hoping you will.

F

Join me in singing her happy birthday.

A

Lock the doors, so they can't get out.

F

I'm never leaving. you ready? one,, two, three.,.

F

♪Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you♪.

F

♪Happy birthday dear julie,, happy birthday to you♪.

F

(Applause and cheering).

F

♪ (smooth jazz) ♪.