Think Less, Experiment More: 5 Lessons on Entrepreneurship

A guest blog post I wrote for Women Grow Business:

In Defense of Outsourcing

As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve started outsourcing. A lot. Most of the outsourcing goes to an (awesome) assistant in the Philippines, who does everything from online research to document editing. She’s great, and she’s quite literally changed my approach to working.

Although most people are merely intrigued by my hiring a remote assistant, a surprising number tell me that it’s unethical, supplying one of these reasons:

Exploitation: “You’re only hiring someone from because they’re cheap. You’re not even paying them minimum wage!”

While it’s true that some people I hire are paid well below US minimum wage (you can find assistants for as little as $1.50 per hour, though mine are paid considerably more), it’s hardly exploiting them. I do believe that employees should be paid a livable wage, but that means a livable wage for their country, not for the US.

It’s surprising to me that so many people would complain about this, when we’re all perfectly accustomed to salary adjustments based on cost of living. For example, Microsoft pays California employees 15% more for the same work than they do the Seattle employees. Likewise, they no doubt pay their India employees considerably less. Exploitative? Of course not.

Now, I’m not an expert in economics, but I would guess that, far from being exploitative, outsourcing is quite good for the target areas. You’re providing the people with work. Doesn’t that boost their economy? Isn’t that good?

Protectionism: “What about the US? You should be hiring US workers!”

Most outsourcing-supporting respond with the following:
1) “By outsourcing to India / Philippines / another country, we can expand our company and eventually hire more Americans.” I don’t know in which cases this argument is true, but I can certainly say that it’s been true in my case. The outsourced workers I’ve hired have been the reason that I’ve been able to generate revenue for CareerCup. It simply would not have been possible without them. This revenue, in turn, enables me to hire Americans for things that do need to be done in the US.
2) “Welcome to a global world. If you don’t operate efficiently, your competitors – who may not be American – will simply out perform you.” This is possibly the most compelling argument. A business has an obligation to its shareholders to operate efficiently. If it doesn’t operate efficiently, another company will. And then, if that happens, how have we helped the US?

In addition to those two points, however, I’d like to make a third:
3) Why are Americans so important? Why is hiring an American inherently “better” (ethically speaking) than a hiring someone from India? Are we not all people? In fact, I could very well argue the opposite: supporting a person in a poorer country, whose children may struggle to eat or to get an education, is more ethical than hiring a comparatively wealthy American. (I’m not saying that that’s true; I’m merely arguing that the reverse isn’t necessarily true either.)

Suffice to say… I feel perfectly at easy with my decision to outsource. I’ve employed some extraordinarily talented people and rewarded them well for their work. I understand that there’s an awful lot I don’t understand about globalization, so perhaps someone will open my eyes to some horrible truths. Until that day, though, I will continue to use outsourced workers to build and expand new projects.

One Year Post-Google

Last weekend marked my one year anniversary of leaving Google. So, with that said, here’s my one year re-cap!

What have I been doing?

EmptySpaceAds: I joined EmptySpaceAds as its VP of Engineering, where I helped to relaunch our product. We’ve created a brand new (and pretty fantastic, if you ask me) way of showing ads. Our product helps a website owner actually generate revenue from the margins of their page, while still maintaining a clean and organized page. “Use it, don’t lose it”, we like to say.

CareerCup: When I left Google, I knew that I needed to take some time to re-do CareerCup. The design was a mess, the code didn’t scale and, frankly, there wasn’t even the slight glimmer of revenue. I’m thrilled to say that that’s all changed. I’ve got a brand new design (courtesy of someone I found via 99designs.com), I’ve re-written the code on Google App Engine, and it’s finally generating some revenue. It’s still not everything I want it to be, but it’s getting better.

Seattle Anti-Freeze: Seattle Anti-Freeze is my other side venture that I don’t talk about as much. In short, we organize parties and events for young professionals in Seattle. Shortly after leaving Google (and finally getting some precious free time), I wrote a new online ticketing system. It’s nothing fancy or innovative, but it saves us oh-so-much time.

What have I learned?

If there’s one thing I’ve learned in the last year, it’s that you don’t have to do it all yourself. Yes, I discovered the wonder of outsourcing. I hired an amazing remote assistant, who has saved me precious hours. She does document editing, graphic design, and a plethora of other technical tasks. Why didn’t I know about this before?

Where am I going?

I alluded to this earlier, but I am indeed leaving Seattle to move back to Philadelphia. I will be attending Wharton’s MBA program at the University of Pennsylvania, where I plan to focus on entrepreneurship.

In the meantime, I hope to finally get the chance to play around with some other projects. There’s still a bunch to do on CareerCup, and I have some new ideas I’m playing around with. I’d like my newest project, PictureMash, to support group accounts, and I’d like to evolve Seattle Anti-Freeze’s site into a general purpose ticketing / event site so that other organizations can use it.

So much to do, so little time!

TechCrunch: "Why Google Employees Quit"

Last week, TechCrunch re-posted snippets from an email list for former googlers. This article was set up to make an obvious conclusion: Google is not the fairy tale land of employment.

Wait, wait, you mean not everyone loves their job at Google? Shocking! A logical person might point out that what one person loves another person hates and thus, it is physically impossible to have a large company where everyone loves their job.

That being said, allow me to make a few points:
1) Former Googlers are not representative of Googlers.
Imagine if you set up a group for ex-New Yorkers, and then asked why they left New York. You’ll probably get an usual number of negative complaints. That doesn’t mean that most people hate New York.

Likewise, TechCrunch didn’t ask Googlers whether or not they liked their jobs – they took a thread from a list of former googlers. That is, people who didn’t love Google enough to stay, for whatever reason. So, you’re already starting with a list of people whose feelings towards the company skew usually negative.

2) The Email Thread is not representative of Former Googlers
People love complaining, particularly those who feel that they have been wronged in some way. If you start an email thread with the question “Why’d you leave Google,” you’re opening the floodgates for those who hated Google. People like me, who genuinely enjoyed their experience at Google, will stay silent. People like complaining more than praising.

3) TechCrunch was unethical in releasing the (first) names of the posters.
Though TechCrunch hid the last names of the posters, they released the first names. If your name is Bob or Mike, your secret might be safe. But, what if your name is “Gayle”, or one of the many ethnic or unusual names? Then they might as well have released your full name. Releasing people’s names added nothing to the article, but embarrassed – or potentially hurt the careers of – the posters.

4) Almost everyone at Google does like their job.
When I left Google, people were surprised. Everyone (or virtually everyone) likes it there. No one came to me and said “yeah, I want to leave too. I hate it here!” I did have several people admit to me that they were thinking about leaving as well. But, in every one of those cases, they said that they liked it, but wanted to go to a smaller company or to a different role.

5) Why I liked Google (and why I left)
I had a great team. I liked our project. I liked my manager. I was working on cool, interesting stuff.

Google is, in my opinion, the best place to be an engineer. Engineers are given more authority than I’ve seen at any other company. If you want to work on something new, there’s lots of other projects that you can easily switch to. You can work on your own personal pet project 20% of time. How many other companies let you do that?

For my 20% project, I got to teach two courses at University of Washington. It was an enormous time investment, but I loved teaching. I’ve kept in touch with many of my former students, and it’s amazing to see them to become fantastic engineers at Google, Microsoft and Amazon. I really appreciate both Google and UW giving me that opportunity.

Despite Google being a great place to be engineer, I realized that I didn’t want to be an engineer anymore. Ironically, the fact that I was so happy with everything about my job at Google made it the decision easier. After all, if everything was right about the job (team, manager, project) and you’re still not excited, the issue is probably the job itself.

Though I liked coding and considered myself fairly good at it, I wanted learn a little more about business: sales, marketing, product design, finance, accounting, etc. Google is a great place, but it’s not the place to learn those skills. I felt I could only get that education at a start-up, so I left.

Drink for the Cure / Bid for the Cure – Charity Auction

I usually don’t cross-post Seattle Anti-Freeze events, but this one’s for a good cause…

Drink for the Cure / Bid for the Cure – Charity Auction
Oct 1, 2008 at 8pm (Location TBD – Belltown / Downtown)

Every three minutes, a woman in the United States is diagnosed with breast cancer. One out of every eight American women will be diagnosed with breast cancer at some point in their lives. Seattle Anti-Freeze invites you to make a difference.

On Oct 1st, please join Seattle Anti-Freeze members for a silent auction to benefit Susan G. Komen foundation. Mix & mingle – drink & bid.

There is no cost for this event, but donations at the event for the Susan G. Komen foundation are, of course, appreciated.

DONATING ITEMS
Got something cool, funky, unique or useful that you’d be willing to part with? It doesn’t have to be anything fancy – all donations are appreciated! In return, you receive good karma, and two free tickets to a Seattle Anti-Freeze event of your choosing.

If you have something you could donate, I’d really appreciate it . Click here (or just shoot me an email).

Want to come? Join the Seattle Anti-Freeze list.

Argentina Safety Regulations

One week in Buenos Aires really makes you appreciate the things the U.S. gets right – simple things, like safety regulations. The sidewalks are uneven and have gaping holes. Lane dividers in the road are mere suggestions. Steps are barely large enough for your foot and often vary in size. Building doors frequently open inwards. I’ve only seen one person in a wheelchair in this city, but I can’t imagine how he gets around this city.

My apartment building, like many others here, actually requires a key to exit. Yes, that’s right – in order to get out of my building and onto the street, I have to unlock the building door with a key. Crazy. And dangerous. Picture what would happen in a fire: the tenants all rush to the door, and the person at the front doesn’t have a key. Even if they’re lucky and someone passes them a key, the stampede of people rushing the door could make it impossible to open. The U.S. vividly learned its lesson on exit doors in 1911; Argentina has not.

This weekend, at a club called Crobar, I noticed another regulation that is apparently missing here in Argentina: railings. The bar probably had about five feet of standing room and then a two foot drop into the dance floor. As you might imagine, with people pushing to get a drink, it’s very easy to fall off the ledge. A club in the U.S. would put a railing between the ledge and the dance floor, but why would you do a silly thing like that in the land of no negligence?

You know, maybe lawyers do add value to the world?

Why I left Google

Yes, folks, it’s true. April 11th, almost three years after my first day as a Googler (or “Noogler”), was my last day. Did I hate it? Did something go horribly wrong? Did the company completely change? No no, nothing like that.

I loved Google. It’s a fantastic company, particularly for engineers. You’re driving the products, it’s growing quickly, and you get to solve challenging problems all the time. I learned a ton and I’m really glad I had that experience.

But, with three years at Google and four internships between Microsoft and Apple, the experience I’m missing is a startup.

With that said, let me answer some questions:

Q: So, now that you’re not there, you can tell me what you were working on, right?

No, silly, that’s not how NDAs work! I’ll let you know when it ships though.

Q: Well, what are you doing now?

At this very moment? Sitting in a hotel room in Buenos Aires. I’ll be in Buenos Aires for the next three months, learning Spanish, drinking wine, eating good food, and playing around with some startup ideas. I’ll be back in Seattle on August 1 and I’ll eventually join a startup.

Got suggestions about what to do in Buenos Aires? Let me know!

Q: What startup will you be joining?

I’m not sure. Since I wanted to travel for a few months, I really had to do that first and then look once I get back to Seattle.

But… if you have suggestions, here’s what I’m looking for:

• Project management / business role at a small company, or development for a startup
• Seattle based (or allow me to work remotely). I like Seattle and I’m not planning on leaving anytime soon.
• Ideally consumer or mobile apps, but I’m open to other ideas.

Coming soon — Fun stories from Google: Pink Princess and the Annoyatron .

Am I a Feminist?

More than one friend has read my blog and asked, “when did you become such a feminist?” The assumption is, of course, that all feminists must be bra-burning and man-hating lesbians. Having never observed me actually burn a bra, universally hate men, or, well, “swing the other way” (much to some people’s disappointment), you can see their confusion.

Out of the 100 or so RSS feeds I read, Feministing and Feministe are two of the more interesting ones. Feminists are not man-hating – they’re pro-equality. They’re not anti-sex – they’re believe in each person making their own choice. They are women and men. If I had to generalize about the actual beliefs of feminism, I’d say that they don’t believe in generalization. They believe in the individual.

They believe that pharmacists should not be able to deny contraception to women.

In Indiana, the state senate passed a measure that would allow pharmacists to refuse to do their jobs. If a woman wants contraception (including emergency contraception), pharmacists would be within their rights to refuse to fill her prescription. The bill’s sponsor initially said that it wouldn’t apply to contraception, only emergency contraception — a statement he later had to backtrack on, probably when someone informed him that emergency contraception is the exact same thing as standard birth control pills, just in a higher dose. Plus, you know, it’s contraception. And yet, “he claimed this week that it would not apply to birth control pills.”.

They believe that it’s wrong that teen girls in the media are either sexualized or picked on for being ugly (think: Chelsea Clinton in the 90s vs. the Olson twins)

So there it is: ugly and worthless, or live bait/freak magnet. Those are the choices patriarchy offers to our girls. Picking on young girls for being awkward is cruel; so is sexualizing them. Men should just leave them alone until they’re grown up. But apparently that’s too much to ask.

They believe that women should not have to live in fear in Iraq.

The images in the Basra police file are nauseating: Page after page of women killed in brutal fashion — some strangled to death, their faces disfigured; others beheaded. All bear signs of torture.

The women are killed, police say, because they failed to wear a headscarf or because they ignored other “rules” that secretive fundamentalist groups want to enforce.

They support Clinton and Obama’s views on reproductive rights – they do not support McCain’s. They do not believe that you should support Clinton because she is female – in fact, many even support Obama.

They believe that abortion saves lives – literally and figuratively.

I have been an abortion provider since 1972. Why do I do abortions, and why do I continue to do abortions, despite two murder attempts?

The first time I started to think about abortion was in 1960, when I was in secondyear medical school. I was assigned the case of a young woman who had died of a septic abortion. She had aborted herself using slippery elm bark.

They believe that teens should have comprehensive sex education. Abstinence-only programs don’t work.

And Republicans have… outlawing abortion and telling people to keep their legs closed until they’re married. The very things that never work. And they oppose the measures that have been proven to decrease the abortion rate. Because they’re pro-life like that.

They believe same-sex marriages should have the same rights as heterosexual marriages.

They oppose the harassment of abortion doctors.

They’re going after Dr. Tiller, a Kansas abortion provider, for approximately the 340,986th time. Dr. Tiller is a favorite of theirs because he’s one of the last abortion providers in Kansas, and he provides late-term abortions. One of their followers shot him in both arms a few years ago, his clinic has been vandalized on numerous occasions, his workers are regularly harassed, and he’s Target #1 for a “pro-life” movement that murders doctors. Tiller’s home address, family members’ information, and pictures are all posted on “pro-life” websites. For protection, he lives in a gated community, has a high-level security system surrounding his home, and wears a bullet-proof vest to work every day.

They know that rape and assault happen to women everyday, and is often covered up. They believe that it must change.

Jamie Leigh Jones was raped by her American co-workers in Baghdad. She was then imprisoned in an effort to cover up her assault.

They believe that sexism is rampant in this presidential election.

Using overtly sexist language, he has referred to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) as a “she devil” and compared her to a “strip-teaser.” He has called her “witchy” and likened her voice to “fingernails on a blackboard.” He has referred to men who support her as “castratos in the eunuch chorus.” He has suggested Clinton is not “a convincing mom” and said “modern women” like Clinton are unacceptable to “Midwest guys.” He has called her “Madame Defarge” and “Nurse Ratched.”

They believe that domestic violence is very real in the US – and it affects both men and women.

The CDC said 23.6 percent of women and 11.5 percent of men reported being a victim of what it called “intimate partner violence” at some time in their lives.

The CDC defined this as threatened, attempted or completed physical or sexual violence or emotional abuse by a spouse, former spouse, current or former boyfriend or girlfriend or a dating partner. The CDC estimates that 1,200 women are killed and 2 million injured in domestic violence annually.

They believe that calling teens who are having sex “sluts” does not solve the problem. Shame does not effectively discourage sex – it discourages teens from getting help.

A state lawmaker used a derogatory term Wednesday to describe unmarried teen parents as sexually promiscuous and complained that society condones premarital sex.

“In my parents’ day and age, (unmarried teen parents) were sent away, they were shunned, they were called what they are,” Republican Rep. Larry Liston said during a GOP legislative caucus meeting in Denver. “There was at least a sense of shame.”

Liston continued: “There’s no sense of shame today. Society condones it … I think it’s wrong. They’re sluts. And I don’t mean just the women. I mean the men, too.”

They believe that sexism is alive and well in the US – even in children.

Men presidents only

I think that having a woman president would be a bad idea for our country. Women are not meant to rule countries and be in charge. They are meant to make decisions but not confirm them.

Our president deals with some countries that don’t respect or allow women in leadership positions. I wonder if the United States would have more terrorist attacks because we would be seen as weak with a woman leader. I agree that women can do many things, but leave the ruling of the countries to the men.

BRITTANY BAYLES, 13, Kennewick

They believe that “gray rape” is a myth and it condones rape.

Rape can be confusing, it doesn’t make it “gray.” Feminists have long fought to dispel the myth that initially consenting to one form of intimacy does not make it okay for someone to force another kind on you. In this case, the young woman was hooking up with her eventual-attacker when he forced her to perform oral sex on him.

They believe there are tough decisions in gender equality. Should you segregate buses by gender in Mexico to make them safe?

They believe that women’s rights are changing each and every day.

Feminists believe in equality for men, women and transgendered individuals. They are pro-choice. They believe that teens should receive comprehensive sex education. They do not believe in shaming women on the grounds of their sexual decisions. They believe that sexual violence is a very real problem in the US and beyond. They believe that sexism – and many forms of prejudice – permeate the world.

So am I a feminist? Well, aren’t you?

DISCLAIMER: No group can speak for the views of all its members. Opinions vary. Not all feminists are pro-choice, etc.

Blue Screens and Web Apps

My laptop, which I fear is on its last legs, got a little servicing today from Dell. It’d been blue screening frequently since, well, since Dell last visited me two months ago (broken fan -> overheating laptop). I’m going to assume that’s just a coincidence, although the timing is suspicious…

I tried reinstalling windows first, of course, but then it blue screened when I tried to reinstall. Excellent! At least Dell can’t tell me it’s a software issue…

I ran some tests and then Dell ran some more tests, to discover that absolutely every test passed. Wonderful! (Paraphasing)

Gayle: “All the tests passed.”
Dell: “Ok, well we’ll send out a technician to replace the hard drive and the CPU.”
Gayle: “Ok, but we ran two separate hard drive tests and they both passed.”
Dell: “Sometimes the tests skip over things.”
Read: Dell is taking shots in the dark right now. Excellent.

One new hard drive and reinstall later, I’m in the process of getting my computer back up to a liveable state. It’s much easier now than it was a year or two ago. There’s less to install because of web-based apps, and it’s easier to reinstall those few things.

• Pictures: I use Picasa. Quick, easy install. Man I love Picasa / Picasaweb – have I mentioned that? More on that another time .
• Word Processing: Somewhere, amongst piles and piles of CDs, I have the Word and Excel. I think. Google Docs & Spreadsheets works better for most things anyway (since I can access my files from other computers), so I’ll hold off on installing Office for now.
• Email: I weened myself off Outlook years ago (I used to be a big fan, but then it broke on me) and have been using Gmail for a long time.
• Calendar: Google Calendar. Love it!
• Web Browsing: Firefox. Installed.
• Programming: For non-work things, I use .NET and Visual Studio. I recently moved my two websites (Social/Conduct and CareerCup) over to ASP.NET 2.0, which means that I can just use Visual Studio Express. Good thing too – the regular Visual Studio took sooo long to install.
• IM: My friends are split between Google Talk, AIM and Windows Live Messenger.
• Google Talk: I do prefer the windows client, so I downloaded that – small, quick, easy.
• AIM: While a lot of applications don’t significantly improve with each version, AIM was one of the few which actually got worse. Installing was always a hassle because you have to find the appropriately old version of AIM and then match that to the right version of DeadAIM (a plugin that adds some nice features). Gmail Chat now has AIM integration – I think I’ll just stick with that.
• Windows Live Messenger: Oh my this was hard to install! I download the installer (WLInstaller.exe) and open it. It starts a webpage with my default browser (firefox, of course) and then tells me that I need to use IE 5.0 or greater. Well, damn. Do I really have to change my default browser just to install Windows Live Messenger? Come on now. I eventually track down another site that offers the install file directly.

I’ll probably get around to installing Office at some point, and maybe AIM as well. But if I had to pay a few hundred bucks for Office, would I buy it? Probably not. We really are getting increasingly close to the idea of the dummy terminal.

Recruiting – The Pot Calling the Kettle Black

I just started subscribing to Microsoft’s Job Blog – I figured it might have some info related to CareerCup (my own site related to interviewing, with lots of technical interview questions).

The most recent post gives a Top 10 No-No’s when you contact a recruiter. The basic points are:

1. Do your homework. Call with relevant specific questions.
2. Customize your letter. Address it to me.
3. Don’t treat your recruiter like they are stupid. They are your advocate, if you want them to be.
4. Know when to back off.
5. Don’t lie.
6. Don’t make excuses like “I’m sick.”

Good advice. From an engineer’s perspective, let me give some advice to recruiters (yes, you’ll notice the high degree of overlap):

1. Call your relevant positions. If I’m a Software Engineer at Google who already turned down a development position at Microsoft, I’m probably not interested in your testing contractor development position in Everett. Sorry.
2. Customize your letters to me. And please spell my name right.
3. Tell me how you got my resume. Did you find it on my blog? On another website? A recommendation from a professor? The more specific you can be, the less I think it’s spam.
4. Know when to back off. Yes, I’m speaking to you, Friendly Microsoft Recruiter. I really don’t need to be contacted every month. You’re hiring! I get it!
5. Call for a specific position – at least if you want to increase your chances of being interested. I’d have to be pretty desperate for a job to be excited to hear about a “development” position at some unnamed company – and is that really the person you want?
6. Don’t call me for a position I already have. Ok ok, this only happened once, but it was still pretty funny:
   

   Recruiter: “Hi Gayle, would you be interested in a Software Engineering position at Google? We have offices in Mountain View, New York, Seattle, …”
   Me: “um, I work for Google.”
   Recruiter: “What do you mean?”
   Me: “I mean… I’m sitting here, as we speak, at my desk, in Seattle, at Google.”
   Recruiter: “Oh.”

7. If you leave a voicemail, leave your name, number and company. Speak slowly and clearly. I recently had someone leave two voicemails and each time I couldn’t hear the phone number. To be honest, I probably wouldn’t have called back anyway… but still. My point remains. The same person also claimed to have sent me an email. She probably didn’t spell my email address correctly.

Sigh… the fact is that this happens to the same reason that spam happens. Responses are low. Email is cheap. Personalization is expensive. What can you do?