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From YouTube: Passion Projects (Live) 4: Sara Chipps (Forgiveness)

Description

The 4th episode of the Passion Projects series, featuring Sara Chipps. Sara is the CTO of Levo League, where she focuses on developer happiness as a metric for success. In 2010, she co-founded Girl Develop It because she thinks that the development community could use a few more ladies.

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A

Hi guys! again, welcome to github..

A

My name is julie and I'm a designer at github., but I'm also the creator and organizer of passion projects,. This talk series.

A

A

so,. Today we have all the way from new york,, sara chipps joining us.

A

She's, the co-founder of girl, develop it and the cto of levo league.

A

I think I'm pronouncing it right.

A

yeah, awesome. so,. Please join me in welcoming sara chipps.

B

Hi everyone. alright,, I'm hooking up here. how 'bout a round of applause for julie?. I don't think I've ever seen such a well put together series in my life.

B

That was only for points.

B

Okay,, this talk is a little bit about forgiveness.

B

And you'll know a little more why, as we go., I promise it's related.

B

So,, here's a little bit about myself..

B

I helped start an organization called girl develop it..

B

We teach low cost software development classes geared towards women.

B

Not only to women., we have about 15 to 20 percent, guys in our classes.

B

We've taught 4,000 unique students so far.

B

And san francisco is one of our most rocking chapters.

B

Cto, of an organization called levo league..

B

We do career elevation aimed at gen y women.

B

This is my team., I included a picture of them because they told me not to come back unless I had [heisencat] and [daft punk cat] stickers.

B

So I thought that if you could see their faces, you could know that I really wanna go back to those guys.

B

So if anyone has any that would be great.

B

or could tell me who to talk to. [laughs].

B

I'm also on team node bots, which is --. We help --. We work together.

B

To run events where we build robots with javascript., it's super fun.

B

On july, 27th, we're doing an international day of robots.

B

Where we're hosting a whole bunch of events so check out nodebots.io.

B

If you want to host your own or go to one in your area.

B

So I was looking at xkcd the other day and I saw this one and I thought it was super applicable to this talk..

B

I was like, well. This is kind of the essence of things that I want to talk. About.

B

Like the things that we all think are unique to us.

B

things that we just don't share with each other, but we're all constantly thinking, about.

B

So I'm gonna introduce you to a couple products..

B

One of them is a three-minute video.. Please bear with me. it's going to be my face. That's really big on the screen. Again.

B

So,, let's just start that part.

B

Hi,, my name is sara chipps. and I'm a software developer.

B

I've been working for over ten years now, with companies you've heard of.

B

And some that you've haven't to bring great experiences to the web.

B

I'm a java script developer and I work with early stage start-ups.

B

Helping them design, build, and deploy their first web applications.

B

I also co-founded an organization called girl, develop it.

B

We do low cost software development classes geared towards women.

B

We've taught over a thousand women how to code.

B

and we're in seven cities around the world..

B

I spend a lot of my time. Online.

B

I'm often doing things like writing emails and listing to music.

B

Or watching a movie, while I'm coding or sitting on im and.

B

Also djing in a turntable.fm room.

B

I get frustrated when I have to move between tabs.

B

Every time I wanna try to do something different., usually I'm only interacting with a very small part of my screen.

B

And the rest is a bunch of ads and white space and stuff that I don't need.

B

During a recent love affair, with building browser, extensions.

B

I learned a lot about the inner workings of the modern browser.

B

I learned that they were built the way they are because windows used to need to be square.

B

I thought:: why can't the browser take the shape of its functionality?.

B

And so vasilia was born.. Vasilia is a browser that is chromeless and dynamically shaped.

B

It allows for designers to create any interaction. They can imagine online.

B

And it leaves navigation up to the developer.

B

It also leaves us the rest of our screens.

B

Why not listen to a movie and do your taxes at the same time?.

B

Or send emails while you're djing in a room on turntable.fm?.

B

Why download and install an expensive image editor?.

B

Where I can use an online version that could be updating constantly.

B

Bringing me the best content.

B

The internet has changed our lives by making everything accessible.

B

I believe the internet was never meant to be square.

B

And vasilia: let's us, take browsing to the next level.

B

I'm bringing this project to you, the people of kickstarter,.

B

Instead of going to pitch investors so that vasilia can start and stay an open source, project.

B

The vasilia source code will live on github., so developers around the world can learn from it and make it better.

B

Supporters will be able to track our progress through our blog at getvasilia.com.

B

Where we will be posting bi-weekly updates., thank you for your time and your support..

B

I'm looking forward to building a better internet with you.

B

Ok, that was vasilia..

B

I appreciate the one person that tried to clap.

B

that was good. ok,, so next up,, I wanna show you guys something else.

B

This is octocat.me., it is a--. I'm a big github fan.

B

If you guys can't tell. so octocat.me uses facial recognition, software.

B

To recognize features on your face when you upload a picture.

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So,, if you're, male or female,, if you have a beard,.

B

If you're wearing glasses,, how long your hair is--those kind of things.

B

and then what it does is, it makes an octocat that looks like you.

B

Gives you like a .png of a cute octocat that looks like your-- that looks like you.

B

This is concept camp..

B

This is a fun camp for developers., where we all go camp outside and do chalk talk..

B

So it's kind of like glamping, where there's outlets and things.

B

you bring your laptop and people that give talks. Talk about.

B

More concepts than code and it's a great time for developers to get together.

B

And just kind of hang out and learn from each other.

B

So, these three projects, I've showed you,. I promise it's for a reason.

B

They all have something in common.

B

So these are all things that I worked on for a long time.

B

things that I spent over a hundred hours, on.

B

things that I worked for weeks, on.

B

and all of them failed..

B

None of them went anywhere.. None of them even saw the light of day..

B

We actually did have concept camp one year.. It was really fun., but besides that,, these were all things that I worked on. That.

B

Never went anywhere. things that I invested a significant amount of my time. On.

B

Why did these projects fail?.

B

Because they failed., I wanted to give you guys a graphic here., but don't search for fail on the internet, because you'll get a million pictures., but they failed for lots of reasons..

B

They failed because things got hard and I stopped caring..

B

They failed because I got a full time job and I no longer could focus on them.

B

They failed because the people that were working with me.

B

Just didn't wanna do so anymore.

B

lots of different reasons., but that's not why I'm giving this talk..

B

I wanted to talk about forgiveness.

B

and the reason why I wanna talk to guys about forgiveness is because.

B

It's something that's really important to me.

B

When julie told me the name of the series.

B

I was really excited because passion projects are all I do.

B

It's--You know when you're in high school.

B

And you read books and every character had a fatal flaw?.

B

Well, my fatal flaw is that I can't work on things that I don't care about. Deeply.

B

And everything I work on, I really love.

B

So,, when I walk away from something or.

B

I'm not successful at something it's difficult for me to move on to something else, because it's hard to forgive myself for failing.

B

And I think that's something that we all experience.

B

So I wanted to share some of the wisdom. I've gotten from.

B

Failing a whole bunch of times and being able to move on.

B

So the good news is there's lots of people that do this.

B

and lots of people have failed at things.

B

in fact, people that we really admire often fail at things.

B

On sunday of this week, I was putting this talk. Together.

B

And I was like, well, it would be really great if I can.

B

Talk about people who have-- like famous names.

B

Like people, you would recognize about their failures., so I put together an email and I sent it to everyone that I consider a role, model. and funny story,. I actually sent it like at 6pm-ish and then by 11pm.

B

I hadn't got any answers, so I was like. Oh, my goodness.

B

This is my first failure.. I just told all my role models that I'm a huge failure and they didn't answer me.

B

but turns out. It takes at least a day to tell people about your failures..

B

So the next day I got a whole bunch of answers. and I wanted to share some of the things that I found out with you..

B

So chris williams is someone I look up to a lot., he made jsconf and I think he's really awesome..

B

He has made a conference, that's probably, maybe,. Definitely one of.

B

The top three best conferences, I've ever been to., a great environment, that's really open to families., there's kids everywhere., there's spouses everywhere.

B

It's about getting together with developers and just spending time.

B

It was a really enjoyable experience.

B

He told me the story of jsconf in 2009.. It was the first time they did it.

B

And he decided to do a conference just like out of the blue.

B

His wife was into it and they planned this whole thing..

B

They put it online., they got all the speakers., they booked a venue., they paid--. They gave a down payment for the venue.

B

They knew there was no javascript conference., they were gonna do one., it was gonna, take off., it was gonna, be awesome.. So after doing all these things, getting the site up, they started doing publicity around it.

B

asked their friends to email and tweet and they sold no tickets.. No one wanted to go to this.. It was like a month after they opened up tickets.

B

and they hadn't even sold enough to cover the down payment for the venue.

B

So basically, they had put his money out of pocket.

B

And they were going to cancel their conference., so he was about--he was headed to the venue to like ask for their deposit back.

B

Be like you know, like there's still a little time.

B

Can we have our money back? we're not gonna end up doing this.

B

and before they left, he changed the invite to say it was selling out.

B

It was almost sold out and he tweeted it.

B

And then they left. and he said that the whole way in the car him and his wife were like arguing like what--why'd. You do this?. You thought this was a great idea.

B

Your friends would come and no one's coming. and all those things. they're headed to the venue. they get out of the car at the venue.. He looks on his phone and they had a waiting list.

B

like they had sold all the tickets on their way to the venue.

B

And he said that that was a real lesson.

B

And a lot of people shared some wisdom., so I'm just gonna share these verbatim.. He said, "I would extend from your target. Point" "and say that the greatest risk is often met with the greatest trials".

B

"But, the combination of the risk and trials are what make the reward result".

B

"The sweetest.", I thought that was neat..

B

Neil capel is someone else. I think is pretty awesome..

B

He founded the company sailthru..

B

They have a email api for mass emailing.

B

So I emailed him and was like, can you tell me a little about your failures?.

B

I wanna talk to people about failures. and he sent me a laundry list., so in 2000, he made a real time booking software.

B

That was for golf courses..

B

I don't know what it means. By worked over dialup at both ends., I can only imagine., but I mean that sounds tedious. flash page turner for catalogs.

B

Dropbox application with version control., page flakes., firefox plug in that auto, completed and validated for entry.

B

This is a lot of things.

B

And the wisdom that he shared was that his main learning from all of them was "don't, try to keep a job and do a start up at the same time!" "very few people can manage that to sucess.", which is pretty valid., but I think another thing to notice is that he did all those things and kept going and made sailthru after that--.

B

After all, those things went poorly.

B

Joel spolsky., he shared a story about citydesk.

B

I don't know if anyone-- I had never heard of citydesk., but it's a content management system that was built on windows.. Basically, he said they sold a handful of copies of it.

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So they focused a lot of their resources on it.

B

and to quote him exactly, "to this day my blog is still locked up in this fakakta software.".

B

It's the first time I've heard that word in a long time.

B

Which I thought was neat. so something he said, that was a surprise was "I. Think about 60 percent of the things we tried at fog, creek, either failed".

B

"Or didn't work very well.", which is really surprising, because we only see the things that only go really well.

B

right?. It's funny.. I also reached out to jeff atwood and he said too bad for you.

B

I've never failed at anything.

B

So,, that was that.. Some people are perfect. Apparently.

B

So mark hedlund is someone else. I really look up to a lot..

B

He is the svp of product development at etsy and engineering.

B

He made a web app called wasabe quite a few years. Ago.

B

And it was kind of a mit.com type competitor thing,.

B

It was like a financial--, you import your finances and it gives you-- it's predictive and things like that.

B

and they shut down in 2010., and I actually took this from a blog post. That mark pointed me to.

B

That I thought was great.. I put the link in the slides and I'll put them up on my blog afterwards, because it's a great blog post.

B

And it's really good self exploration of a failure. Afterwards.

B

And he said, "I, don't agree with those who say you should learn from your successes".

B

"And mostly ignore your failures." "nor. Do I agree with those who obsess over failures for years, after.".

B

"As I have done in the past." "I'm hoping that by writing this all out" "I can off load it from my head and hopefully inform other people" "who, try and start companies in the future.".

B

That's kind of--that can be cathartic., so this is,. This is his link.

B

So, like I said,, why did my projects fail?.

B

This,, this isn't so important as much as.

B

Being able to move on from your failures and being able to forgive yourself., one thing I think demonstrates that all these people were able to move on.

B

Is that they were okay with the fact that something failed.

B

and it didn't make them say alright well, this failed. I really--I don't know that. I want to do this again or I don't want to go through this again..

B

They failed and they readily were like alright. Well then, I'm gonna do something else.

B

That sounds super neat, but how do you-- like just saying "forgive yourself" that sounds really nice, right?.

B

But it's not so much like a how-to.

B

So I spent a lot of time in thought about how I got to the point.

B

Where I felt I could forgive myself, and I have some tips that I'm just gonna share.

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So I have a couple mantras that I like to live by.

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That I may have made up or read somewhere and forgotten.

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So I'm pretty sure I wrote this, but I don't know.

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So I think your life is about getting to know yourself, right?.

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We're stuck in these bodies for as long--60, 70, a hundred years.

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Whatever. we're stuck in these brains. and the more we can take time to learn about ourselves.

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Learn about we're good at,! What we're bad at,, what we enjoy,, what we like being surrounded at,, what stimulates us,? What squashes our creativity.

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When you learn these things about yourself,.

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You can just improve on the next literation.

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I spend a lot time focusing on the things that I'm good at and the things that I'm bad at.

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a lot of those things are obvious, right?.

B

You know what you're good at..

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Also. I found that when people--, when separate people in different environments gave me the same feedback, three, four, five times.

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I don't take it as fact, but I say, there's some truth in this.

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I'm hearing this from a lot of different people.

B

and it must mean they're noticing the same thing.

B

And while that might not be the exact thing, there's something to be taken from this wisdom.

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So strengths or the best part, right?, the things that we're good at.

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I--just to share some of mine. In case you were wondering.

B

I've been told that I'm good at being gregarious., I really like rapid prototype. So thinking of something and building it.

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Really quickly, just the v1., I'm really good at v1. implementing big ideas. there's, not many things that can scare me.

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Weaknesses., the second best part or the worst part.

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things that I consider my-- to be. Some of my weaknesses are listening.

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I tend to be one of those people.

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That talks when there's quiet., you know people that doesn't let quiet, happen.

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I've learned that some other people don't talk unless there's been quiet for a little while.

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So, often I'm not listening when I'm talking to people 'cause, I'm just talking the whole time..

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So it's something I've been working on for a little while now.

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I'm terrible at emailing. I really--it's not that I get a lot of emails 'cause, I'm super popular or something.

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I'm just really bad at it.

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a lot of times, I'm like three weeks behind on my inbox.

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It's something that's constantly a stressful situation for me.

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Implementing new procedures and following new procedures.

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Things like that kinda make me crazy.

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I--even people that are good at this, sometimes make me crazy.

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I always call it like the michael scott and toby relationship.

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Like when I talk to accountants and things, I'm like, I can't even listen to you.

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Like I want to stab my eye out., I can't even-- like the things that you say-- it's awful., also bad at spelling.. That's really how I spelled procedure, the first time., so I was like I'm just gonna, keep it and say I'm bad at spelling.

B

So, let's take a deep dive into weaknesses and what we can do about them..

B

I think there are two different types of weaknesses..

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The first kind are things that you are bad at, that you don't want to be good. At.

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These are things that you're bad at that you don't care..

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This is fine., I'm bad at this., I'm gonna get on with life..

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I never wanna be good at this..

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Here are some secrets that I've learned about these things in life in general.

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So,, let the people know,, especially people, that you work with.

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Often I have a conversation when there's someone I work with that's very good. Procedurally.

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Where I say, "hey, just so you know this, isn't my strength.".

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"I really admire you're great at this and I'd love to learn from you. But".

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"Just as an fyi,, this isn't something I excel. At.".

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It gives people some context when you're, maybe not so great, at it.

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Another tip I got recently, which is great, was from a friend of mine.

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Named gary chow- and he has a lot of experience with start ups.

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I was talking to him about hiring and he said "the best teams, I've seen".

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"Hire around the weaknesses of the founding team.".

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So, no--there's no equation like first, you hire a ceo.

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And then you hire a cto and then you add an coo.

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there's. None of those things.

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it's:, you know what?, our founder is bad at this,, so we're gonna hire here in order--the company to be strong in general.

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Which I thought was really neat.: try to avoid tests that involve this particular skill.

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It's not really that hard.

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when everyone's like, "okay, here's our new thing,, who wants to do the bookkeeping?", I'm not like, "oh, me!", because I know that's gonna go really badly.

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So this is how I address the things that I'm bad at, but I don't wanna be good at.

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There is a second kind of weakness and they are the things that you want to be good. At.

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They're the things you're bad at that you really want to improve.

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In order to be good at them, one day.

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Identify them., I'm really--I'm, not that great at writing, tests.!

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It's not something that I--! I really love. Development.

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I've never had a natural talent for writing. Tests.

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Knowing what tests to write and when.

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Often I find creating action items for these things is super effective.

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So lately I've been pairing with people on my team.

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That are really good test, writers.

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and I'll, say upfront, "hey,. If we can focus on writing tests, today,".

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"That would be great., that's something I'm trying to get better. At.".

B

Track them.: where was I six months? Ago? and where am I now?? Baby steps are great.. You should celebrate them., it's something you're bad at.. So if you improve a little bit, that's awesome. right?. You don't have to go from being bad to being great overnight..

B

It's gonna, take a long time. and never stop. Iterating on it.

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have the next step. Ready. like the next thing I wanna do once I feel better about where I am is actual build an app that's test. Driven.

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I've written a lot of tests. I've written a lot of apps..

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I've never started with tests,. So that's what I wanna do. Next.

B

Okay,, so that leads really well into another mantra. I have.

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And it doesn't matter where you start as long as you're continuously improving.

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A lot of people are intimidated by being bad at something.

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It is very intimdating., but if you can look at it as always an opportunity to be better and not care about how good you are at it,, it puts you in a great spot to improve.

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As an example,, I'm on the node bots team.

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I didn't pick up an arduino until november of last year--august?.

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We at a team for node knockout and we made a--we, got the innovation award.

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'cause we made a christmas sweater that talked to the internet.

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It was super fun., but I wasn't the strongest contributor on that. Team.

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It was the first time I had ever worked with arduino.. I just knew I wanted to work with it.

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Since then, I've worked with it a lot and I've gotten better at it, and now I can help people at it., but I volunteered to be on this team and I was really clear, like "hey guys,, I just picked this up.. It's gonna take me a little bit to get ramped up.".

B

But it was cool because it doesn't matter where you start as long as.

B

You're really headed towards improvement. you're in a good spot.

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As far as heading towards that improvement that you're looking for,.

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15 minutes a day is the commitment that I always try to make.

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15 minutes a day is just small enough to not be intimidating.

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I got into software in 2002 and that's where--a year where we went to.

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Having a lot of jobs to having absolutely no jobs.

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So I went through about six months that I was applying for jobs. Every day.

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And it got really intimidating and stressful., and I committed to myself, "I'm going to apply to five jobs. Every day.".

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It's gonna take me 15 minutes., I'm not gonna do more,, I'm not gonna do less, and if I miss a day,, I'm not gonna do double the next day.

B

just 15 minutes a day., and that was a really effective way for what turned out to be over a hundred job applications before I found something without getting too stressed. Out.

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Make something you want to be good at your side. Project..

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All of my side projects are arduino based now..

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I hope that most of them don't fail.

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If you can spend your free time doing something exciting that involves.

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What you wanna get better at,. It can be really motivating.

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and then again forgive yourself for being [shitty] at sometimes at things..

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We're all human beings. we're all bad at somethings.

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None of us are superman.

B

B

So,, it's okay.. You know,, just like the comics said.

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We're all thinking about the same things. we're worried about the same things.

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We're just as concerned as each other noticing those things.

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it's time to be: okay with being [shitty] at things.

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So, forgiveness has some anti-patterns.

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Some things you need to catch yourself, doing.

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that don't allow you to forgive yourself., a big one is jealousy.

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For example, I'm a huge fan of james halliday..

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I think he is amazing.

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however,. It's really easy to see people that you admire and make quick judgments.

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Quick jealous judgments about how they got there.

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Saying things like, "oh, you know,, I bet he only does this.".

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"He, probably doesn't have a full time. Job.".

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"He really probably just spends all his time. Writing modules.".

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"I can't do that., I have a job., so I totally get that he's better than me.".

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"That's fine.", so something I've learned about this year is really exciting..

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It's called the hebbian theory., I'm not gonna, read all this to you. feel free to read it out. Loud.

B

I mean read it to yourself.

B

or read it to yourselves. Actually. that'll be disruptive..

B

It basically means that the [too long didn't read].

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Cells that fire together, while wired together.

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What it means is your brain changes, its architecture based on.

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How you usually think so you can train your brain to learn new behavior.

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Right? 'cause, if you think in the same--, if you have the same reaction.

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Every time you go somewhere, it becomes in your head,, it becomes easier. Every time.

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So if every time I look at someone that I think is talented,, I react by being jealous.

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It's gonna become easier and easier to react with jealousy.

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But you can train yourself not to go there..

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I did that a long time ago, with this exact emotion,.

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And it was really effective for me now. My head never goes there.

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I take a step back after I have that jealous thought.

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And I'm like wait a second.. Let me think of five amazing things about this person.

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Obviously, substack's amazing.

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he's built probably the most node modules in npm.

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He's an amazing javascripter,, great developer, someone. I really look up to.

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And I think is awesome.

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and so thinking in that-- thinking that way,, even if it means,.

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"Hey, I'll never be this person. I'll, never be that great.".

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"I'll never contribute those things.".

B

It allows you emotionally to say, "that's okay.. It's fine.".

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"I'm not gonna, do that., I'm gonna do other things." 'cause. This person is amazing and I shouldn't forget. That.

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Another forgiveness anti-pattern is thinking, things are done.

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Thinking of done as a concept even.

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There's that facebook poster that everyone steals and now has in their office.

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Least, that's what we did. done is better than perfect..

B

I disagree.. I don't know that. There's any such thing as done., often the best time to get feedback is when things are half finished.

B

Or quarter finished., I remember listening to some podcast somewhere where they were.

B

Interviewing john resig about jquery, and they were like.

B

"What, would you have done differently if you could do anything differently?" he's like, "I would have showed people much earlier.".

B

"I would have gotten people involved much earlier." "I had to learn so many things the hard way, because I thought something".

B

"Was best a certain way. and I built it that way." "and, then someone smarter than me came along and said" 'nope,. That's probably not the best way to do it.'.

B

So I think it's really important to involve people super early on in your projects.

B

What do you think about this??

B

What's your feedback?

B

and it can get them excited, which in turn gives you more inertia.

B

Keeping score. I hear that all the time. I hear--and, I'm sure you guys do as well.

B

"Oh, you know,, I didn't go to school for computer science.".

B

"Or oh,, you know,, I'm not really good at computers." and all those things and that's just software development.- every time I think about keeping score.

B

I think about-- there's this group of--.

B

There's like this demographic in our girl, develop it classes.

B

Women that are 50, plus. and we've had like 70-year-old women.

B

Come take girl, develop it classes.

B

and they are so into it.

B

and they're the most dedicated students.. I will take them any time over younger students.

B

They always find each other and they make study groups..

B

It's the weirdest thing. every class that I had women in that age bracket.

B

I had men in that age bracket as well,. They would find each other and get together after class or during the week and study together.

B

I guess that's a lost concept, we don't really do anymore.

B

But that was really neat., but they were so motivating, right?, you're 60,. Why do you need to learn to build software?.

B

They just weren't intimidated by it.

B

and there's no such thing as too old or not good enough.

B

Or any of those things. here are some facts that I found on wikipedia.

B

Here's one--I was working on this last night in my hotel room and I was watching--.

B

I think that david letterman was on.. It was just like the tv was on for noise.

B

I don't watch david letterman.

B

And this woman was on. and she was telling this story.

B

She was a pretty popular singer in the 60s.

B

And then her kind of like-- she gave up on her career and.

B

She got irrelevant. and she said that a few years ago.

B

She was literally cleaning a bath--, she started doing house cleaning to make money.

B

She was so far away from this world and this environment that she started.

B

Cleaning houses- and she said it was about christmas time.

B

And she was literally cleaning a bathroom when she heard her song play.

B

At the house., a song that she had sung on the record player the place that she was.

B

She was like "yeah,, I don't wanna. Do this anymore.".

B

And so she just dedicated herself and got back into it.

B

Started singing again and last night she was on david letterman, so that's cool.

B

Okay, now you guys know everything, so you can go. Forgive yourselves.

B

This is awesome.. I realize that it's not that easy to say.

B

"Alright, I need to get over my failures and move on.".

B

I spend a lot of time in thought about how I got to this.

B

How I realized that? That's something that I can do.

B

And that was something that was important., and so I think I identified where my behavior, like this started.

B

And it has a lot to do with the mouse over for that xkcd.

B

It was when I had a weird high school situation.

B

So the first time I took calculus was my freshman year at school.

B

And it's the first time that I took a class that I was notoriously the kid that.

B

Didn't study, didn't, do homework, did great on tests and just kind of floated. By, right?.

B

So I did that for every class up until calculus.

B

I took calc 1, and I just failed. It fantastically.

B

I was like this is really hard and you know,, I'm super smart, so this shouldn't have happened.

B

And I need to--I'm gonna, do it again and I'm totally gonna be fine at it.

B

I probably just wasn't paying enough attention.

B

So I wasn't able to say, "okay, it's okay, I'm not that great at this.".

B

"I'm gonna do better.". My attitude was like, "oh,. Obviously this was the wrong teacher.".

B

"So, just do it again, and I'll be fine, this time.", so I took the class again and about halfway through the class.

B

I was failing spectacularly again and I went to see my professor.

B

To talk to her about why things were going so poorly 'cause--.

B

I was still mind boggling for me, because what had happened?.

B

What was she doing, wrong?, and so I sat down with her and I talked to her and.

B

She said probably the best thing she could have possibly said to me and she said, "sara,, it's so okay." "some people aren't made to do the science and math careers.".

B

"My husbands like that., it's totally fine.. You can just accept it.".

B

I was like-- [laughs.], so I had to do a hail mary for the next three weeks.

B

I had to get a's.. I had two exams left and coming from failing five exams in a row.

B

I had to get a's on both of those in order to not fail the class.

B

So I realized that I had to put my pride aside and say.

B

"Hey,, this might be something that I actually have to study and actually have to learn.".

B

So I sat there for the next three weeks. Straight.

B

didn't do anything but calculus, and I passed that class.

B

And I think that was a huge lesson for me to say, to be able to forgive myself.

B

For being bad at something, in order to be good at it.,.

B

So that's my anecdotal story and that's my talk about forgiveness.

A

Okay,, so lots of questions., I think the leading one for me is always.

A

How did you get into computers?? What was your "aha" moment?.

B

So, is this good? when I went really close, it was really loud.

A

So I'm gonna go like this.

B

So when I was--I get asked this question a lot.

B

Because everyone's, like lady coder, let's talk about it., but I think it's great.. I think it's good to talk about this stuff.

B

The--I was just explaining why I have a story: ready.

B

So when I was younger, I was home schooled until high school.

B

My parents are pretty religious, so that was something that was.

B

Super important to them.

B

so,, I'm from a generation of people that became software developers.

B

Because they were losers.

B

I didn't have any friends when I was little, but I had a computer.

B

and it was a way for me to talk to people..

B

I had a bbs.. Do you remember bbss?.

B

Yeah?, I was the co-sysop of a bbs..

B

If you know how important that is, it's really important.

B

So I just know I really enjoyed it..

B

My parents had this 286 that cost three thousand dollars.. I remember going to a computer place and they put it together and it was a whole big ordeal. About, "we're gonna build this computer for you.".

B

It was so expensive. and then I just used to tie up our phone line all day and get really mad at my mom when she picked up the phone.

B

it ruined everything.

B

And then, when I got a little older, I went to high school and I took a c++ class.

B

and it was the first time that I found something that just made sense to me..

B

I was like, "oh,, this is perfect!. This is how my brain works. makes so much sense.".

B

After that, I went to penn state and studied computer science.

B

And now I've been doing it for 11 years, so.

B

It's exciting. -it's awesome.

B

So you talked a little bit in your talk,. You have basically an emailing list.

A

For the people who inspire you or the people, you look up to.

A

How do you find someone to mentor you?.

A

What was that? Experience like for you?.

A

So it's one thing about the software community that I try to get the word out there is that the men in this community are super supportive.

B

I've experienced people just bending over backwards, trying to help me.

B

B

They do a few things.. I've met a lot of male software developers that are like, "you're, a lady coder?. I know another lady coder!".

B

"You guys should be friends!".

B

Which is always great., but also another thing that they do. Is that they're always open for advice and sharing and just kind of talking about giving me feedback about my career.

B

So that's something that I've been really fortunate to experience.

B

Is just a collective of people who have been cheering for me. The whole time.

B

It's awesome., that's great.,.

B

This is actually,, it's perfect segue, because the next question was.

A

How do you ask for feedback?.

A

How do you solicit feedback from the people that you want to hear it from?.

A

I've got to the point where I'm really frank about it.

B

Recently there was a conference that I applied to speak at.

B

And I didn't get chosen so I emailed the conference orgnanizer.

B

Who's a personal friend and I was like "hey, no bad feelings.. This is totally fine.".

B

"You've put together an amazing line up., I would just love some feedback from you".

B

"About, why I wasn't selected.? I know I gave a talk there. Last year.".

B

"I know it was kind of like meh.. Can we talk about what the selection process was?".

B

So I'm just really,, I ask people all the time.

B

That's awesome. cool.

B

So, vasilia. did, I say it: right?.

A

A

vasilia. and obviously octocat me. and a couple other projects. you're really well known for open source projects.

A

A

I've done a couple. yeah.

A

They're okay., what was your first open source project?.

B

My first open source project that I ever contributed to.

B

Was a,? Does everyone remember wpf?.

B

Which was like a microsoft thing?.

B

So there was a windows, twitter client, that some friends of mine had worked on.

B

That was my first contribution to open source..

B

I remember I built, what feature was it?.

B

I was something about,, oh threading!, that's an important--.

B

It was like threaded tweets, which was new and important at the time.

B

So that was exciting.

A

That's pretty awesome., that's cool. yeah.. How much do you contribute to open source now that you have a full time, job?.

B

Yeah,, that's something that's really suffered in my life.

B

So that's something I really wanna start working on. Again.

A

That's awesome., so you started a few projects,. You now work at levo, league.

A

I'm assuming you've worked for companies as just an employee.

A

What was the leap like from starting or from going from employee.

A

To sort of like a leader on the founding team or being a c level executive.

A

Yeah., at a start up or company?.

B

So before I joined levo league,, I was contracting for three years, almost four years., so I hadn't had a job in a really long, time.

B

And I didn't want a job at all., I slept 'til two every day. and I worked fifteen hours, a week.

B

And that was great., but I just kind of fell in love with the people at levo..

B

They were my client. and I just kind of fell in love with them and what they were doing..

B

I really believed in it.. The difficult thing for me has been being someone's boss.

B

a lot times when you have a lot of experience as a developer.

B

And people appreciate you as a developer: they're like,, "I know,. Let me put you in charge of other developers." and those are very different talents.. So it's been really humbling..

B

It's been really amazing. Having people that I respect greatly.

B

That are super talented, want to be on my team.

B

There's been a lot of challenges.

B

We really focus on--I always say that the majority of my life is spent worrying about developer feelings.

B

I really,, I just want them all to be happy and really enjoy what they do..

B

So we do a lot of things around that..

B

We have a monthly developer potluck, where we have someone come speak.

B

And then the 25 or so developers come bring dinner things.

B

And we all eat together and stuff.

B

So yeah,, so the challenge was, to answer your question,.

B

The challenge was being someone's boss is super difficult.

B

Yeah., that's awesome.

A

How did you come up with the idea,.

A

You started girl, develop it with vanessa. yeah..

A

How did you, did you guys know each other already??

A

How did girl develop? It come to life?.

B

It was one of those situations where we both had a mutual friend, our friend, tom,, who was like, "lady coder.. Other lady coder. be friends!".

B

And it was great!, it was awesome., she's, a wonderful person and we had conversations about.

B

How we always felt super weird when we went to talks or when we had computer science classes, and it wasn't because anyone made us feel weird..

B

It's just weird when you're the one woman and there's a hundred guys.

B

And you have a question and you're like "oh, my goodness.".

B

"I'm like identifying my entire gender, if this is stupid.".

B

"I, don't even want to ask this question 'cause, it probably is stupid.. I have no idea.".

B

And so we were like,, wouldn't it be great if someone.

B

If there was a place where you could go just where you have to ask a stupid, question.

B

Really encourage people to ask stupid questions.

B

So yeah,, that's how it got started and we scheduled a class.

B

And it sold out really quickly and so evolved from there.

A

So you said you welcome male students as well, so it's not just,. It's female focused.

A

But it's more like inclusive to everybody. right.

A

How does that work as far as messaging to people that everyone is welcome?.

B

Yeah., well, it's worked out great 'cause guys need that too sometimes.

B

Yeah. a lot of times there's these things that are characteristically female, like ladies, have trouble, negotiating.

B

But guess what, guys have a lot of trouble. Negotiating, too.

B

It's hard for everyone, and everyone needs an environment where they won't be judged.

A

Sure, we have that discussion at github a lot actually as we've grown..

A

It tends to be sort of like a women focused conversation around not being aggressive.

A

But there are a lot of people with quiet personalities who are also men.

A

It's not being sensitive is not something that's specifically prescribed to women.

A

It can be,, it can come up in a lot of other people's personalities. Also.

A

And so kind of also creating that environment that it's not necessarily.

A

The loudest person, who wins the argument, or you can also have different personalities.

A

At your company or people you work with, and it can be sort of a safe environment for everyone.

A

Which is kind of what it seems like you created at girl, develop it.

A

Which is really awesome.?

A

How many cities do you know now that have girl, develop it classes?.

A

I think we're at 22. that's awesome.

A

and have you gone on sara chipps world tour yet?.

B

No, but that sounds awesome.

A

I'm so in for it., so you mentioned a whole group of your mentors,, the people. You look up to.

A

Is there one specific person who's really helped you in the last ten years?.

A

You don't have to say their name if you're not comfortable with it.

A

But is there one person that you really look up to and who's helped you make decisions?.

B

Well, in the past, I was actually just having this conversation.

B

Mark hedlund,, the svp at etsy, product and engineering.

B

He sat down with me about eight months ago and for an hour just gave me all this wisdom.

B

That carried me for so long.

B

Things like "don't forget that you're, someone's boss.".

B

"And, if you don't say hi to them in the morning, they think you're mad at them.".

B

They don't think, "hey, you're in a rush.. You have to go into a meeting.".

B

Everyone takes things super personally.

B

And ask team members about other team members to see how they're doing.

B

You can get insight about your team and also how that employee is doing.

B

And stuff, like that., that was super effective for me., so most recently,, it's been mark.

A

I've met mark as well, and he is an amazing person., yeah.

A

and awesome. awesome guy to have in your life.

A

I was gonna: ask this about girl, develop it--aah! no,. This is bad.

A

I'm not supposed to be the one, that's nervous and a wreck.

A

I'm gonna drink some github beer. yes.. This is not github beer, actually.

A

But I figured we shouldn't: give away free branding., so there ya, go.

A

That's that., oh no!. I had such a good question for you.

A

Moving on., what do you think--oh!? You said that you felt weird.

A

When you would show up to drink ups or meet ups or conferences,.

A

And be the only woman there., do you still feel weird? or has it changed in the last five to ten years for you?.

A

What's the difference? so,, it's funny.

B

Now I'm really weird in super diverse groups.

B

like oh, my god, I don't know what to do.

B

You're, not all guys.

B

But I mean, things started getting a lot-- like I said I was just at jsconf.

B

And there were a ton of ladies there like really awesome.. It was really great.

B

So I'm always excited when I see things like that.

B

But yeah, I've just gotten kind of used to it.

A

There are a ton of ladies here actually., that's great!. I've seen that.

B

Really cool., I saw the list in the bathroom.

A

Oh nice., yeah. cool. does anyone else, have questions for sara?.

A

No? no questions?.

A

Okay, jake. yeah.

B

I was pretty hand held through it to tell you the truth.

B

It was one of those situations where I complained about the feature not existing.

B

And they were like, "well. How 'bout you build it?" and I was like, "that seems hard." and they were like, "well,, we'll help you.", and that was awesome.

B

But I always tell people to find a smaller project,, don't go into the deep end, first.

B

Find something small that you can contribute to get to know the people that are building it.

B

Ask them questions a bunch, so they know it's you.

B

And don't feel weird about people criticizing what you did 'cause. That's part of learning.

A

That's awesome.

A

so do you--is there a specific thing that you do to kind of deal with.

A

Maybe an overwhelming amount of feedback or criticism?.

A

How do you manage that?, because now you've worked on so many different projects with I'm assuming a diverse group of people,? How do you manage that now?.

B

Well,, the thing I get criticized most now is that we do pool requests.

B

In order to merge with master., so we do a pool request and everyone knows and everyone looks and tells you.

B

Everything that you did wrong., which is great.

B

Especially 'cause, this is something that I'm emotionally invested in.

B

I really appreciated it because I'm like, "oh good. nothings, going into master that's bad.".

B

I guess I've just learned to roll with it.

B

I just kind of expect it now.

A

Yeah., how much of your day is split between meetings.

A

Because you are the coo exec there, between meetings and actual coding?.

B

Yeah., so that's actually been a real challenge. Lately.

B

Where I was just doing so many meetings that I wouldn't take features.

B

'cause, I would end up clogging up the timeline. right?, so I would take bugs.

B

And even those bugs would take a while to get fixed, because I didn't have time to focus on it..

B

So, actually, that's something that I've spoken to our ceo and some other people.

B

That were working on., because right now we have some pivots.

B

And the pivots are pairing with people.

B

and I'm like, "I wanna pair with a pivot, so bad!".

B

But actually in the past two weeks I've been able to spend two solid days, pairing.

B

And much more time coding, so that's been awesome.

A

That's really awesome. yeah.. How important do you think that this for your happiness?.

A

I know you talk a lot about making sure everyone on your team is happy.

A

How much of that do you have to kind of like reserve for yourself?.

B

Yeah that goes--it's so energizing., I just realized that I was just drained.

B

and even just the first day I was back. It was so energizing.

B

It was really great.

B

And I think that, if effects the entire team, too.

B

Everyone doesn't like seeing someone on the team. That's always in meetings.

B

So, yeah,, it was awesome.

A

If you were to start learning how to code now,, where do you think.

A

Is the best place for someone to start?

A

and not just with code, if they wanted to learn more about sort of like either the start up, community or coding or designing or any of those things.

A

Where would you tell someone to start?.

B

Obviously,, I always say girl, develop it.

B

But there's a ton of stuff like that out there.

B

There's a ton of meet ups. there's a ton of beginner meet ups..

B

I always tell people to start with html and css, because it's something that's pretty low level.

B

And I always tell people to actually work on something.

B

If they want, like a blog or something like that., get a tumblr blog and make it your own style and things like that, because it's really, it's a great baby, step.

B

Rather than I'm gonna build a railed app.

B

But I always encourage them to go to meet ups and it's funny.

B

It took half of my career before I realized that there was a community out there.

B

I always just thought I was gonna work with a bunch of people.

B

That I only thought were: okay, that worked in enterprise for a long time.

B

I was like, "well,, this is part of it., but I really like what I do.".

B

But then discovering that community, it was like eye opening.

B

Right?, so I always tell people to go to meet ups.

B

There are a lot of people in your same position and if you can find another one, it's really validating.

A

That's awesome.: what's next for you? for maybe levo league and also girl, develop it?.

A

What do you wanna do with the next five years??

A

B

That's a really good question..

B

That's something! I've been spending some time. Thinking about recently.

B

My latest project that I've been working on is jewelry that communicates with.

B

Either the internet or other jewelry.

B

I'm really into that..

B

I don't think anyone has fixed the problem of fashion and technology.

B

It's always something weird where you're like, "yeah, that's neat, but I wouldn't ever wear it.".

A

I've seen there's this rainbow apple keyboard dress that adidas sells.

B

I don't know-- yeah,, I don't see myself wearing that.

A

But yeah, that sounds like a pretty interesting problem to solve.

B

Yeah,, I'm excited., I mean I haven't solved it but-- yeah. soon.,.

A

Well, awesome.: if no one else has questions anyone else?, we will continue drinking.

A

And I'm just gonna say: cheers to sara chipps.

B

And thank you for joining us all. The way from new york.

A

Thank you for having me.. This is so great. and thank you. Everyone!.