WEBVTT - Deborah Liu 0:00:02.920 --> 0:00:05.920 In recent years, people all over the world seem fascinated 0:00:05.960 --> 0:00:08.480 to learn more about their family history. One of the 0:00:08.480 --> 0:00:11.760 companies helping people do that is Ancestry, a company now 0:00:11.840 --> 0:00:15.760 led by Deblu, a technology expert previously working at PayPal 0:00:15.880 --> 0:00:18.079 and Facebook. I had a chance to sit down with 0:00:18.120 --> 0:00:20.320 her to learn why it is that people are so 0:00:20.400 --> 0:00:24.480 interested about their ancestry. So tell me this. What does 0:00:24.520 --> 0:00:26.239 Ancestry do for its customers. 0:00:26.840 --> 0:00:30.159 Ancestry has over three point six million active subscribers, and 0:00:30.200 --> 0:00:33.760 these subscribers come to learn more about their history, building 0:00:33.760 --> 0:00:37.479 their family tree. They're discovering new content, They're actually building 0:00:37.520 --> 0:00:40.440 their family story every single day on our platform. We 0:00:40.479 --> 0:00:43.839 also have a business in consumer genomens. So twenty three 0:00:43.920 --> 0:00:46.400 million people have taken in their DNA test and we 0:00:46.440 --> 0:00:48.640 can show you a little bit more about your family 0:00:48.760 --> 0:00:54.240 history through genetics, really where you're from, your communities, ethnicity. 0:00:54.240 --> 0:00:56.960 But we can also show matches such as distant cousins 0:00:57.080 --> 0:00:58.360 you might never have discovered. 0:00:58.480 --> 0:01:01.840 I suppose I go onto your webs site and I say, okay, 0:01:01.840 --> 0:01:05.640 I want to learn about my ancestors. Do I send 0:01:05.640 --> 0:01:07.640 an email to you saying I want to subscribe, and 0:01:08.240 --> 0:01:10.560 do you actually do the searching, or do they do 0:01:10.640 --> 0:01:12.679 the searching based on the records that that you make 0:01:12.680 --> 0:01:13.480 available to them. 0:01:13.600 --> 0:01:16.080 We consider this a collaborative process. So let's say you 0:01:16.080 --> 0:01:18.280 go to ancestry dot com and you sign up. The 0:01:18.280 --> 0:01:19.720 first thing you do is put in a little bit 0:01:19.760 --> 0:01:22.160 about yourself. You can put your name, your birthday, where 0:01:22.200 --> 0:01:24.760 you're from, and then we start helping you build that 0:01:24.800 --> 0:01:26.959 family tree, so you know a little bit about your parents, 0:01:26.959 --> 0:01:29.880 your grandparents, and as you go further further in your history, 0:01:29.920 --> 0:01:32.360 we might actually suggest ancestors that you didn't know about. 0:01:32.400 --> 0:01:34.520 So maybe you don't know the names you were great grandparents, 0:01:34.640 --> 0:01:37.000 but you might know where they're from, or you might 0:01:37.240 --> 0:01:40.800 not know that much about you know, your great aunts. 0:01:41.040 --> 0:01:43.320 We would actually say, hey, this might be a potential 0:01:43.360 --> 0:01:46.279 ancestor of yours, and then we actually unfold their history 0:01:46.280 --> 0:01:48.920 as well, so maybe it's your grandfather's draft card or 0:01:48.960 --> 0:01:51.800 your grandmother's immigration papers. We start helping you kind of 0:01:51.800 --> 0:01:53.520 put together the story of their lives. 0:01:53.600 --> 0:01:56.880 So, but if somebody calls up or sends an email 0:01:56.880 --> 0:01:58.560 and says I want to use the service, they pay 0:01:58.600 --> 0:02:00.920 a fee and then you have somebody that works with them, 0:02:01.000 --> 0:02:03.240 or you just give them their records and they can 0:02:03.440 --> 0:02:05.360 dig through it. But then if they need help, they 0:02:05.360 --> 0:02:08.080 can maybe pay a little a bigger fee or something. 0:02:08.240 --> 0:02:10.840 Yeah, so if you come, it's really the automation and 0:02:10.960 --> 0:02:13.280 technology that we've built. You know, we have over one 0:02:13.360 --> 0:02:15.720 hundred and thirty million family trees that are already been built, 0:02:15.800 --> 0:02:18.160 and using that we can help derive a little bit 0:02:18.160 --> 0:02:21.080 about your cousins, your second cousins, your third cousins, something 0:02:21.080 --> 0:02:23.720 about your grandparents, your great grandparents as well. And so 0:02:23.919 --> 0:02:27.120 using technology, this assist of technology allows us to help 0:02:27.160 --> 0:02:29.400 you build out your tree for yourself. Now, if you 0:02:29.440 --> 0:02:31.640 need an additional help, we actually have what we call 0:02:31.720 --> 0:02:34.880 pro genealogists that can actually do research projects specifically for 0:02:34.919 --> 0:02:35.520 you as well. 0:02:36.000 --> 0:02:38.080 So why do people want to know so much about 0:02:38.080 --> 0:02:40.919 their genealogy? Because, like in my case, I'm afraid I 0:02:40.960 --> 0:02:42.760 might have some horse thieves in my background and I 0:02:42.800 --> 0:02:45.720 wouldn't want to know that. So tell me why do 0:02:45.840 --> 0:02:47.679 people want to know so much about their background? 0:02:47.880 --> 0:02:50.520 Well, you know, we actually surveyed folks and three quarters 0:02:50.560 --> 0:02:53.160 of Americans actually want to learn more about their family history. 0:02:53.360 --> 0:02:55.240 But a lot of that is we call it journeys 0:02:55.280 --> 0:02:58.160 a personal discovery because you know, what brought you here today, 0:02:58.200 --> 0:03:02.040 what brings your children here? Is a history of lots 0:03:02.040 --> 0:03:05.600 of people migrating throughout the world, you know, having impact 0:03:05.680 --> 0:03:07.839 in so many different ways, and so so many people 0:03:07.919 --> 0:03:09.639 want to go back and understand where they came from 0:03:09.720 --> 0:03:11.400 so they can understand who they are today. 0:03:11.880 --> 0:03:15.000 Typically people can go back one hundred years, two hundred years, 0:03:15.000 --> 0:03:17.880 two hundred years. Sometimes in Europe people say I can 0:03:17.919 --> 0:03:20.040 go back a thousand years or so. Is that realistic? 0:03:20.080 --> 0:03:22.120 You can trace your ancestry back a thousand years? 0:03:22.400 --> 0:03:26.040 Definitely, especially of European heritage. We have those records. We 0:03:26.080 --> 0:03:29.520 have worked with archives and governments throughout Europe to actually 0:03:29.520 --> 0:03:32.720 gather those documents so that you can trace yourself. And 0:03:32.840 --> 0:03:35.320 so many people say, hey, I trace myself to a 0:03:35.360 --> 0:03:37.280 sixteen hundred royalty. 0:03:37.200 --> 0:03:37.440 You know. 0:03:37.960 --> 0:03:41.400 And what's really amazing about that is that journey is 0:03:41.440 --> 0:03:44.080 actually helping unfold so many stories, not just the most 0:03:44.120 --> 0:03:46.760 famous royal that you have, but also all the people 0:03:46.800 --> 0:03:47.240 in between. 0:03:47.560 --> 0:03:50.480 Sometimes I've heard of people, some friends of mine, who 0:03:50.480 --> 0:03:54.520 have done ancestry or equivalent on some other method and 0:03:54.560 --> 0:03:57.760 they find that their parent isn't really their parent or 0:03:57.840 --> 0:04:00.440 their biological parent. So that happened a lot. 0:04:00.680 --> 0:04:03.680 We do see occasionally surprises in your DNA in particular, 0:04:03.720 --> 0:04:06.600 so when people take a DNA test, you'll find some 0:04:06.720 --> 0:04:08.840 relatives that you knew about who've already done the test. 0:04:08.880 --> 0:04:11.840 But sometimes we do find folks who get new information 0:04:11.880 --> 0:04:14.400 about their family. We actually have a dedicated team that 0:04:14.520 --> 0:04:18.479 helps folks who experience that so that they can talk 0:04:18.520 --> 0:04:19.640 them through that experience. 0:04:19.880 --> 0:04:22.599 So how many people here go on to your website 0:04:22.640 --> 0:04:24.479 and say I want to learn my genealogy. 0:04:24.640 --> 0:04:28.080 Actually millions of people come even every month every year 0:04:28.240 --> 0:04:30.760 to actually learn about the genealogy. As I said, we 0:04:30.800 --> 0:04:33.400 have three point six million active subscribers, but we have 0:04:33.440 --> 0:04:36.159 millions of people come. And you know, we have twenty 0:04:36.160 --> 0:04:37.960 three million people who have done their DNA as well, 0:04:38.000 --> 0:04:40.520 So we have millions of people coming to discover something 0:04:40.560 --> 0:04:41.560 new about themselves. 0:04:41.839 --> 0:04:45.360 So today, if somebody wants to use your service, they 0:04:45.400 --> 0:04:48.479 become a subscriber. But a subscriber means you pay a 0:04:48.520 --> 0:04:51.880 one time fee or an ongoing monthly fee. How does 0:04:51.880 --> 0:04:52.360 that work? 0:04:52.600 --> 0:04:54.720 So ours is a subscription service, so you pay an 0:04:54.720 --> 0:04:57.200 ongoing monthly fee as you continue to access your tree 0:04:57.279 --> 0:04:59.880 and access the records. We have new records coming in 0:05:00.040 --> 0:05:01.920 all the time. So not only do you know you're 0:05:01.960 --> 0:05:04.480 not just finishing your tree, there's actually new records that 0:05:04.520 --> 0:05:06.960 are coming to help you on your journey. So you know, 0:05:06.960 --> 0:05:09.919 we have over forty billion records already on our platform. 0:05:09.960 --> 0:05:12.800 This year actually we're adding fifteen billion, so there's more 0:05:12.839 --> 0:05:14.560 discoveries to be had all the time. 0:05:14.880 --> 0:05:17.560 So the average person who is a subscriber, they are 0:05:17.640 --> 0:05:20.440 subscriber for three months six months a year. How long 0:05:20.480 --> 0:05:22.040 does somebody typically subscribe. 0:05:22.120 --> 0:05:24.719 Well, you know, people come for various reasons and there's 0:05:24.720 --> 0:05:26.840 actually different tenures. Some people are doing it for a 0:05:26.920 --> 0:05:29.280 single project where they want to discover one thing, maybe 0:05:29.320 --> 0:05:32.359 for a fiftieth anniversary party. Others are really here to 0:05:32.640 --> 0:05:34.840 you know, we have subscribers who've been here ten twenty years, 0:05:34.839 --> 0:05:37.000 and so it's really important to really think about what 0:05:37.040 --> 0:05:38.160 it is that they're trying to do. 0:05:38.360 --> 0:05:39.800 When did this company start? 0:05:40.080 --> 0:05:43.720 So this year we celebrate our fortieth anniversary. Surprisingly has 0:05:43.760 --> 0:05:46.479 been it's been such a journey over the four decades. 0:05:46.839 --> 0:05:48.160 So who helped start it? 0:05:48.640 --> 0:05:50.520 So you know, there was a group of people actually 0:05:50.560 --> 0:05:53.520 in Provo, Utah who started this as a publishing company. 0:05:53.560 --> 0:05:56.320 So this was not always a technology company or subscription company. 0:05:56.480 --> 0:05:59.760 It started as a publishing company, publishing records and genealogy 0:06:00.040 --> 0:06:01.520 to help people discover their past. 0:06:02.080 --> 0:06:04.720 So you've obviously risen up to run a publicly traded company. 0:06:04.720 --> 0:06:06.440 And what's the market value of this company today? 0:06:06.560 --> 0:06:09.680 So we're actually privately owned by Blackstone and the transaction 0:06:09.880 --> 0:06:13.640 was at about close to five billion Dollarsay, it was public, 0:06:14.080 --> 0:06:16.400 It was public about ten years ago, and now. 0:06:16.279 --> 0:06:17.799 It's privately owned by Blackstone. 0:06:17.839 --> 0:06:18.240 That's correct. 0:06:18.320 --> 0:06:22.040 Okay, So presumably Blackstone, since I know that business reasonly, well, 0:06:22.040 --> 0:06:23.680 they'll probably try to sell it at some point or 0:06:23.680 --> 0:06:27.200 take a public but not in the media future. 0:06:27.560 --> 0:06:30.839 Yeah, I mean I think, look, you know there are owners, 0:06:30.839 --> 0:06:32.800 and I think you know our partnership with them is 0:06:32.880 --> 0:06:33.880 very very close. 0:06:33.839 --> 0:06:35.640 Right, So how are you going to grow the company? 0:06:35.680 --> 0:06:38.159 The company is now the biggest in the United States certainly 0:06:38.160 --> 0:06:40.480 maybe the biggest in the world. But everybody wants growth. 0:06:40.560 --> 0:06:42.400 So how are you going to grow the company? Or 0:06:42.440 --> 0:06:44.880 we have new lines of activity you're going to get 0:06:44.920 --> 0:06:46.120 into or something like that. 0:06:46.400 --> 0:06:49.039 Well, as I said, you know, seventy five percent of 0:06:49.279 --> 0:06:52.279 the United States has said that they're interested in family history, 0:06:52.279 --> 0:06:54.919 and you look at globally, actually in many key countries 0:06:54.920 --> 0:06:57.479 that we're in that's very similar as well. There's so 0:06:57.520 --> 0:07:00.000 many more people interested than are in the category today 0:07:00.279 --> 0:07:02.320 and part of that is pretty intimidating. And come to 0:07:02.360 --> 0:07:04.359 our site. You know, you're trying to figure out how 0:07:04.400 --> 0:07:06.160 to make it work. We want to make it simpler. 0:07:06.520 --> 0:07:08.920 And one of the things we're doing is on top 0:07:08.920 --> 0:07:10.640 of ancestry for all, we have something we call me 0:07:10.760 --> 0:07:13.760 to we so how do we actually take genealogy from 0:07:13.800 --> 0:07:16.320 this kind of solo activity where one person's doing it 0:07:16.360 --> 0:07:18.920 for the family and bring your family together so that 0:07:19.000 --> 0:07:21.880 as we're doing with my cousins, we're adding photos together, 0:07:22.000 --> 0:07:25.080 we're talking about those things. We're actually collecting family history, 0:07:25.320 --> 0:07:26.520 your one piece at a time. 0:07:27.080 --> 0:07:30.520 So what about your DNA and your ancestry of you 0:07:30.600 --> 0:07:31.520 to check that out? 0:07:31.840 --> 0:07:34.840 I have, I have done my DNA and no surprise, 0:07:34.960 --> 0:07:39.200 I am Southern Chinese and so my family is from 0:07:39.320 --> 0:07:40.440 guangzhel I. 0:07:40.560 --> 0:07:43.800 See, let's talk about your background for a moment. You 0:07:43.880 --> 0:07:44.760 grew up where. 0:07:44.960 --> 0:07:46.640 I grew up? Well, I was born in New York 0:07:46.680 --> 0:07:48.400 and when I was six, I moved to a small 0:07:48.440 --> 0:07:50.440 town in you're Charleston, South Carolina. 0:07:50.920 --> 0:07:52.080 And why did you do do that. 0:07:52.560 --> 0:07:55.160 So my dad actually was discriminating against at work, and 0:07:55.280 --> 0:07:57.320 my parents really felt like there wasn't a future for 0:07:57.360 --> 0:08:00.280 them in New York. And so his friend in Indianamerican 0:08:00.360 --> 0:08:03.200 family said, come down to Charleston. I work at the 0:08:03.280 --> 0:08:08.080 Charleston Naval Shipyard and the government doesn't discriminate. So my dad, 0:08:08.320 --> 0:08:11.520 I have no idea what he was thinking, picked up 0:08:11.560 --> 0:08:13.680 our whole family. We drove to a place he had 0:08:13.720 --> 0:08:16.200 never been, and we moved and became South Carolina. 0:08:16.240 --> 0:08:19.360 And were your parents immigrants from China or were they 0:08:19.400 --> 0:08:19.920 born here? 0:08:20.040 --> 0:08:23.160 So my parents were both immigrants from Hong Kong and 0:08:22.800 --> 0:08:24.920 they actually met and married here. 0:08:25.480 --> 0:08:30.400 And so you grew up in Charleston, right, yes? And 0:08:30.480 --> 0:08:31.880 so where'd you go to high school? 0:08:32.000 --> 0:08:34.600 I went to school. It's a place called Hanahan High School. 0:08:34.679 --> 0:08:37.120 So it's a small town about thirty minutes from Charleston. 0:08:37.559 --> 0:08:40.280 And then you went to Duke University I did. And 0:08:40.400 --> 0:08:42.600 were you an engineer student? 0:08:42.880 --> 0:08:45.960 I was. I studied civil and environmental engineering at Duke. 0:08:46.320 --> 0:08:48.800 Were there a lot of women in engineering at that time? 0:08:49.240 --> 0:08:51.319 Not at that time and probably still not as much 0:08:51.320 --> 0:08:52.360 as it could be today. 0:08:53.080 --> 0:08:55.080 And then after you graduated, what did you do. 0:08:55.360 --> 0:08:57.840 So I graduated and went to Boston Consulting Group. And 0:08:57.880 --> 0:08:59.760 then right after that, after a couple of years of 0:08:59.800 --> 0:09:02.480 being in the Atlanta office, I went to Stanford for 0:09:02.520 --> 0:09:03.079 business school. 0:09:03.240 --> 0:09:06.000 Okay, so you graduated from Stanford, and then where did 0:09:06.040 --> 0:09:06.240 you go? 0:09:06.760 --> 0:09:08.080 So it wasn't sure what I wanted to do with 0:09:08.120 --> 0:09:09.720 my life. We thought we wanted to move back to 0:09:09.760 --> 0:09:11.600 the South, and so we were looking for jobs, but 0:09:11.679 --> 0:09:14.760 the economy was terrible, and so I stumbled on the startup. 0:09:15.080 --> 0:09:18.280 It's called PayPal. Is actually fairly large today, but obviously 0:09:18.320 --> 0:09:20.240 when I was there, there were about three hundred people 0:09:20.240 --> 0:09:22.640 in Mountain View working at that company. And I joined. 0:09:23.080 --> 0:09:26.120 She joined PayPal, and what was your responsibility at PayPal? 0:09:26.360 --> 0:09:28.560 So I joined as a product manager. Back then, there 0:09:28.559 --> 0:09:30.920 weren't a lot of product managers, and I wasn't one 0:09:31.000 --> 0:09:33.440 hundred percent sure what the job was. When I showed up, 0:09:33.480 --> 0:09:35.719 they asked me, well, just tell us what you think 0:09:35.760 --> 0:09:38.880 we should build. And I thought, as an advid eBay seller, 0:09:38.920 --> 0:09:41.360 I was a power seller at one point. I I 0:09:41.400 --> 0:09:44.560 had all these things to make the selling experience better, 0:09:44.640 --> 0:09:46.520 and so I led the seller experience for a time 0:09:46.559 --> 0:09:49.400 and eventually led the integration between PayPal and eBay. 0:09:49.760 --> 0:09:51.640 Right, So after PayPal, where did you go? 0:09:52.320 --> 0:09:54.640 I finished up at PayPal after a few years. I 0:09:54.679 --> 0:09:56.400 had had my son, I was working part time. I 0:09:56.400 --> 0:09:59.240 was thinking about quitting tech. I was really struggling and 0:09:59.280 --> 0:10:01.800 feeling like I was making a difference. And I got 0:10:01.800 --> 0:10:03.880 a call to lead the buyer experience at eBay, where 0:10:03.880 --> 0:10:04.920 I spent a couple of years. 0:10:05.040 --> 0:10:07.520 And then after that, did you join Facebook at some point? 0:10:07.720 --> 0:10:09.280 Yeah? I got a call when I was actually on 0:10:09.360 --> 0:10:13.000 attorney leave with my daughter. So and my friend had 0:10:13.080 --> 0:10:16.439 joined Facebook and said, I have the perfect job for you. 0:10:16.440 --> 0:10:19.120 You need to come interview. And I thought, I'm nursing 0:10:19.120 --> 0:10:21.680 a newborn, I have a toddler, It's probably not the 0:10:21.720 --> 0:10:23.840 time to do another startup. And at the time Facebook 0:10:23.920 --> 0:10:26.120 was a startup, but I just had to see where 0:10:26.120 --> 0:10:28.200 it was going to go. And I joined Facebook when 0:10:28.200 --> 0:10:29.520 it was about nine hundred employees. 0:10:29.600 --> 0:10:31.120 And what was your job at Facebook? 0:10:31.400 --> 0:10:33.320 So I was in product marketing. So I was really 0:10:33.360 --> 0:10:36.080 there to build what we call consumer modization, so the 0:10:36.120 --> 0:10:41.199 alternative to ads. So is there a different different products 0:10:41.320 --> 0:10:43.559 we can do modization with outside of ads? 0:10:44.000 --> 0:10:45.880 Right? So how many years were you at Facebook? 0:10:46.040 --> 0:10:48.800 Eleven years? I was there for over a decade, right, 0:10:48.840 --> 0:10:49.320 so over. 0:10:49.200 --> 0:10:52.200 A decade and then somebody calls you a headhunter and says, 0:10:52.240 --> 0:10:53.400 how about Ancestry. 0:10:53.559 --> 0:10:55.880 Yes, I did actually get an email that said, Hey, 0:10:55.920 --> 0:10:57.920 there's a tech company looking for CEO. Do you want 0:10:57.920 --> 0:11:00.280 to talk to us? And at first I I had 0:11:00.280 --> 0:11:02.120 deleted a lot of those emails over the years, but 0:11:02.160 --> 0:11:04.400 I thought, I'm really interested, So you know. 0:11:04.600 --> 0:11:06.720 All right, So when was that? 0:11:06.720 --> 0:11:10.680 That was twenty twenty. It was during the lockdown, lots 0:11:10.720 --> 0:11:13.079 of things going on, but it is really interested in 0:11:13.160 --> 0:11:13.920 learning more. 0:11:14.080 --> 0:11:16.000 So that was about three years ago. So you've been 0:11:16.000 --> 0:11:17.120 the CEO for three years? 0:11:17.280 --> 0:11:18.520 Yeah, about two and a half years. Yea. 0:11:19.160 --> 0:11:22.400 So what is your biggest challenge now at anceftire? What 0:11:22.400 --> 0:11:24.480 are you trying to do that wasn't done before? 0:11:24.920 --> 0:11:27.240 Well, what's been amazing about Ancestry is it's been such 0:11:27.280 --> 0:11:30.640 a resilient company over so many generations, and yet there's 0:11:30.640 --> 0:11:32.760 so much more to do. And what I'd say is, 0:11:33.000 --> 0:11:34.960 you know, one of the things I really wanted us 0:11:35.000 --> 0:11:37.400 to do was really make Ancestry for all. How do 0:11:37.440 --> 0:11:39.320 we make the product not just amazing if you have 0:11:39.400 --> 0:11:42.880 European heritage, but across any heritage and so part of 0:11:42.920 --> 0:11:45.280 the work that we've been doing is really diversifying our product, 0:11:45.400 --> 0:11:48.120 making sure we're bringing in new communities, new content, to 0:11:48.160 --> 0:11:50.640 make it more possible for people from different backgrounds to 0:11:50.640 --> 0:11:51.559 have a great experience. 0:11:51.840 --> 0:11:55.280 Okay, so you have competitors who else competing with Ancestory. 0:11:55.280 --> 0:11:56.720 You don't have to mention their names if you don't 0:11:56.720 --> 0:11:58.600 want to, but I assume they're competitors. 0:11:58.840 --> 0:12:01.280 But I think a bigger competitor is really time. Right, 0:12:01.320 --> 0:12:03.720 this is a hobby where you're spending time on discovering 0:12:03.720 --> 0:12:06.520 your family history, so you know, things that compete for 0:12:06.559 --> 0:12:09.360 your time and attention is really our biggest competitor. The 0:12:09.400 --> 0:12:11.440 other thing is people learning about their family history. They 0:12:11.520 --> 0:12:14.880 use pencil and paper and research and we you know, 0:12:15.320 --> 0:12:16.800 a lot of what we're trying to do is bring 0:12:16.840 --> 0:12:18.800 digitize all of that and make it a lot easier. 0:12:19.000 --> 0:12:23.080 And so in the business of genealogy genealogy research, are 0:12:23.120 --> 0:12:24.960 you the biggest company in the United States? 0:12:25.120 --> 0:12:26.920 We are the biggest company in the United States, in 0:12:26.960 --> 0:12:29.080 the world, I believe in the world too. 0:12:29.360 --> 0:12:33.560 So in China, there's a lot of interest in genealogy historically, 0:12:33.600 --> 0:12:35.520 and I think it's the case that you can trace 0:12:35.559 --> 0:12:39.200 your genealogy back many hundreds of years, not a typically 0:12:39.559 --> 0:12:43.520 the case. There is there an equivalent in China of ancestry. 0:12:43.679 --> 0:12:45.960 Well, we do partner with a company called my China Roots, 0:12:45.960 --> 0:12:48.640 which does a little bit of you know, expat genealogy 0:12:48.720 --> 0:12:50.400 in China as well, and I've used them for my 0:12:50.440 --> 0:12:50.960 own family. 0:12:51.320 --> 0:12:53.720 When you did your own genealogy, what was the most 0:12:53.760 --> 0:12:56.880 surprising thing that you learned about your own genealogy? 0:12:57.280 --> 0:13:00.120 Well, what's really fascinating is, obviously, you know, beyond and 0:13:00.200 --> 0:13:02.920 point the records are from China and so I don't 0:13:02.920 --> 0:13:05.880 have access to those records. But what's fascinating is really 0:13:05.880 --> 0:13:08.640 seeing my cousins all come together and actually pull together 0:13:08.679 --> 0:13:11.720 photos from our family. Each of us have sections of 0:13:11.720 --> 0:13:15.400 the family photos from our parents' childhoods, and we realize 0:13:15.400 --> 0:13:17.439 that each of us only had a portion of them, 0:13:17.440 --> 0:13:19.480 and we've all been scanning them and actually putting them 0:13:19.520 --> 0:13:21.000 together onto ancestry. 0:13:21.400 --> 0:13:24.800 Now do you do the ancestry of let's say, presence 0:13:24.800 --> 0:13:26.400 of the United States? Have you've ever done that? Or 0:13:26.440 --> 0:13:28.520 Presence ever call you up and say can you chase 0:13:28.600 --> 0:13:29.480 my ancestry? 0:13:29.600 --> 0:13:32.440 We do have some well known people's ancestry on there's 0:13:32.480 --> 0:13:35.559 public trees that we have put out, and it's something 0:13:35.600 --> 0:13:36.800 that we have done for folks. 0:13:37.000 --> 0:13:39.360 And do people ever call you after they get their 0:13:39.360 --> 0:13:41.280 research down and they say, I'm not happy with what 0:13:41.360 --> 0:13:41.800 I learned. 0:13:42.400 --> 0:13:45.320 Actually, a lot of people it's really a journey sometimes 0:13:45.360 --> 0:13:47.040 what they learned for the first time and how they 0:13:47.040 --> 0:13:49.760 feel the first call versus the second, versus the third. 0:13:49.920 --> 0:13:52.880 People are processing new information about themselves that they might 0:13:52.960 --> 0:13:55.400 never have known, and so part of that is part 0:13:55.400 --> 0:13:57.040 of what we do is try to help them along 0:13:57.040 --> 0:13:59.960 in that journey. I don't think that it's about discrimination, 0:14:00.080 --> 0:14:02.400 and like my dad faced, it's much more about kind 0:14:02.440 --> 0:14:05.360 of what societal expectations are. I have three kids, I 0:14:05.400 --> 0:14:07.720 want on three maternity leaves. You did to slow my 0:14:07.760 --> 0:14:11.000 career down during those six years. I wasn't promoted at all. 0:14:11.160 --> 0:14:13.439 In fact, I took a demotion to go to Facebook. 0:14:13.480 --> 0:14:16.240 And so I don't think it's as easy as pointing 0:14:16.240 --> 0:14:18.640 to one thing and saying, hey, this was a circumstance, 0:14:18.679 --> 0:14:21.000 like what happened to my father. It's much more of 0:14:21.320 --> 0:14:23.800 how do we build workplaces where it makes it possible 0:14:23.840 --> 0:14:25.120 for everyone to rise together. 0:14:25.720 --> 0:14:29.280 You've written a book about how women can maybe get 0:14:29.320 --> 0:14:32.480 ahead in their careers. So what prompted you to write 0:14:32.560 --> 0:14:34.720 that book, when did you have time to write it, 0:14:35.280 --> 0:14:37.800 and what are the main lessons that somebody who hasn't 0:14:37.800 --> 0:14:40.840 read the book yet might learn from you? Right now? 0:14:40.840 --> 0:14:41.560 About the book? 0:14:41.960 --> 0:14:45.080 You know, yeah, I started this book Journey actually several 0:14:45.160 --> 0:14:47.800 years ago. It was actually a four year process, and 0:14:47.920 --> 0:14:49.720 when I was working on it, it was because I was 0:14:49.760 --> 0:14:51.360 coaching a lot of women. So at that point I 0:14:51.360 --> 0:14:54.000 had coached maybe one thousand women over the years. I 0:14:54.000 --> 0:14:56.440 do these fifteen minute calls to help and help them 0:14:56.440 --> 0:14:58.440 through their careers, and I realized a lot of the 0:14:58.440 --> 0:15:01.040 themes were so similar, and so I pulled them together 0:15:01.080 --> 0:15:02.360 and a lot of the advice I put in the 0:15:02.400 --> 0:15:04.760 book was based on those conversations that I had over 0:15:04.800 --> 0:15:07.400 that eight year period, and I was able to pull 0:15:07.400 --> 0:15:10.160 it together into ten rules for new Women, ten new 0:15:10.200 --> 0:15:12.560 rules for women at work. And those rules are really 0:15:12.560 --> 0:15:15.040 to help women take back their powers, I say, which 0:15:15.080 --> 0:15:17.320 is you know every day, you know there are so 0:15:17.320 --> 0:15:19.400 many circumstances where you don't have a lot of power, 0:15:19.600 --> 0:15:22.320 But when you do taking advantage of those opportunities and 0:15:22.360 --> 0:15:25.560 really leaning in and making things happen, that's really what 0:15:25.600 --> 0:15:26.720 the book is about right. 0:15:26.800 --> 0:15:28.760 I suppose I don't want to spend the money to 0:15:28.760 --> 0:15:30.920 buy the book, but I'm thinking about buying the book, 0:15:30.960 --> 0:15:33.840 and I'm a woman. Can you give me one tip 0:15:33.960 --> 0:15:36.200 or something or one thing that you would say somebody 0:15:36.200 --> 0:15:37.960 should do if they want to rise up there a 0:15:38.000 --> 0:15:39.400 woman in a business environment. 0:15:39.600 --> 0:15:41.440 Well, give you an example, you know, don't give yourself 0:15:41.480 --> 0:15:43.960 a free pass? Right, how many times before you turn 0:15:44.000 --> 0:15:45.760 on that zoom meeting, before you show up to a meeting, 0:15:46.040 --> 0:15:48.320 do you tell yourself, well, I'm just going to show 0:15:48.360 --> 0:15:49.800 up and not say anything. I'm not going to have 0:15:49.880 --> 0:15:51.800 any impact. I'm just going to sit in the back. 0:15:52.200 --> 0:15:54.800 Like my friend caroliz Azaki, who's a leadership coach, calls 0:15:54.840 --> 0:15:58.640 it ridiculous, unintentional, ridiculous strategies that we employ. But then 0:15:58.640 --> 0:16:00.560 how many times, you know, do you actually even meaning 0:16:00.560 --> 0:16:02.920 when you just did that where you didn't have an impact? 0:16:03.240 --> 0:16:05.320 So what if you walked in every meeting every day 0:16:05.360 --> 0:16:07.720 with intention? What do I want to accomplish today? How 0:16:07.720 --> 0:16:09.680 do I want to show up and just made those 0:16:09.760 --> 0:16:11.840 choices and the things that don't matter, just cut those 0:16:11.880 --> 0:16:14.560 things away? Really kind of no longer giving yourself a 0:16:14.560 --> 0:16:16.240 free pass and saying, you know what, I'm just not 0:16:16.280 --> 0:16:18.480 going to get that done. That's really critical. 0:16:18.720 --> 0:16:20.680 So did you write this when you were at Facebook 0:16:20.800 --> 0:16:21.480 or so. 0:16:21.480 --> 0:16:23.440 I wrote it over for your period and partly when 0:16:23.480 --> 0:16:24.680 I was at Facebook. 0:16:24.240 --> 0:16:26.520 And there was somebody else at Facebook that wrote a 0:16:26.560 --> 0:16:29.680 book about women leaning in. You're probably familiar with that book. 0:16:29.680 --> 0:16:31.600 Did she say, Hey, look, this is my territory. You 0:16:31.600 --> 0:16:32.640 don't write a book about this. 0:16:33.080 --> 0:16:35.040 Well, I can tell you the definitive answer. She wrote 0:16:35.040 --> 0:16:37.400 the forward to my book, So you can watch the book. 0:16:37.560 --> 0:16:39.640