WEBVTT - The Refugee Who Led a Software Revolution - with Ben Walter 0:00:15.410 --> 0:00:24.410 Pushkin. Hello Tim Harford here with a bonus episode of 0:00:24.610 --> 0:00:28.210 Cautionary Tales. Today. I've got a story about someone I 0:00:28.210 --> 0:00:31.970 think everyone should know about, a trail blazing entrepreneur who 0:00:32.130 --> 0:00:35.050 changed the way we think about tech, redefined roles for 0:00:35.090 --> 0:00:39.930 working women, made many members of staff millionaires, and founded 0:00:40.050 --> 0:00:44.810 the first autism research charity in the UK. This episode 0:00:44.890 --> 0:00:49.130 is sponsored by Chase for Business, and joining me again 0:00:49.490 --> 0:00:53.570 is their CEO, Ben Walter, who also hosts the very 0:00:53.570 --> 0:00:58.530 excellent podcast The Unshakables. Ben, Welcome back to Cautionary Tales. 0:00:58.530 --> 0:00:59.050 How are you doing. 0:00:59.410 --> 0:01:01.650 I'm great, Thanks for having me, Tim, Although I'm very cold. 0:01:01.930 --> 0:01:04.690 I'm in New York City. It's about nine degrees fahrenheit, 0:01:04.770 --> 0:01:06.770 or for those of you across the pond, about minus twelve, 0:01:06.890 --> 0:01:08.330 so it's a bit chilly outside. 0:01:08.370 --> 0:01:11.170 There's ice on the nine fahrenheit. You know, Ben, I 0:01:11.210 --> 0:01:16.330 discovered just today that the the Celsia scale begins with 0:01:16.370 --> 0:01:19.170 the freezing point of water. I did not know that 0:01:19.210 --> 0:01:22.970 the fahrenheit scale zero is the freezing point of brine. 0:01:23.330 --> 0:01:24.050 You maybe knew that. 0:01:24.330 --> 0:01:26.450 I did not know that either. So it is at 0:01:26.530 --> 0:01:28.970 least based on something as opposed to haphazard, which is 0:01:28.970 --> 0:01:31.930 what it seems like for everything else in the imperial system. 0:01:31.610 --> 0:01:34.850 It is based on something. But anyway, look, we're digressing already, 0:01:35.090 --> 0:01:39.410 and we shouldn't. Last time we spoke, I told you 0:01:39.450 --> 0:01:44.130 about a nineteenth century Champagne baroness. This time we're going 0:01:44.170 --> 0:01:48.010 to leap forward in history. This is a twentieth century story. 0:01:48.050 --> 0:01:51.130 It's a very twentieth century story. I have to say, 0:01:51.810 --> 0:01:54.250 how how tech savvy are you? Ben? 0:01:54.330 --> 0:01:57.610 In absolute termors are a relative to my kids. 0:01:58.570 --> 0:02:01.450 We're all well behind the co relative to our kids. 0:02:01.490 --> 0:02:03.410 But you know, you know, you know which way up 0:02:03.490 --> 0:02:04.090 is in a computer. 0:02:04.810 --> 0:02:07.610 For a fifty something gentlemen, I think I do, okay. 0:02:07.690 --> 0:02:10.010 I mean we certainly. I work an tech forward business, 0:02:10.010 --> 0:02:12.370 so I keep up with the latest on most things. 0:02:12.530 --> 0:02:16.570 I mean I feel reasonably text having. Actually, you compared 0:02:16.610 --> 0:02:19.170 yourself to your kids. I compare myself to my parents. 0:02:19.210 --> 0:02:22.210 My mother was a computer hacker, and my dad worked 0:02:22.210 --> 0:02:25.530 in information technology his entire life. 0:02:25.570 --> 0:02:27.530 Wait, Tim, your mum was a hacker. You got to 0:02:27.530 --> 0:02:29.290 say a little more. You can't just let that hang there. 0:02:30.010 --> 0:02:31.850 I mean, I make it sound very dramatic. I mean 0:02:31.970 --> 0:02:37.890 she was just one of these great computer enthusiasts in 0:02:37.930 --> 0:02:40.450 the nineteen eighties we had. We had lots of these 0:02:40.530 --> 0:02:43.290 kind of classic nineteen eighties computers around the house, and 0:02:43.330 --> 0:02:45.250 she would take them apart and put them back together. 0:02:45.370 --> 0:02:48.170 And I think I can probably say this, I mean, 0:02:48.570 --> 0:02:50.570 she's long dead, no one's going to come for her. 0:02:50.770 --> 0:02:54.050 She would just strip off the copy protection on these 0:02:54.050 --> 0:02:56.330 computer games. So she would say, well, I'm not paying 0:02:56.650 --> 0:02:59.370 all this money to buy you a computer game. If 0:02:59.410 --> 0:03:02.930 I get the computer game, take off the copy protection, 0:03:03.210 --> 0:03:05.450 make a copy of the computer game, and then send 0:03:05.450 --> 0:03:07.290 the computer game back to the library, or give it 0:03:07.290 --> 0:03:09.050 back to your friend or whoever you borrowed it from. 0:03:09.250 --> 0:03:12.650 So yeah, she would. I mean, she wasn't like cracking 0:03:12.690 --> 0:03:16.290 into the Pentagon or anything like that, but even they, 0:03:16.410 --> 0:03:21.490 I think pale into insignificance. With the text saviness of 0:03:21.530 --> 0:03:23.930 the entrepreneur that I want to tell you about today, 0:03:24.610 --> 0:03:29.890 Steve Shirley, she really saw two huge gaps in the 0:03:29.930 --> 0:03:34.370 way people thought about the computer industry. And she and 0:03:35.130 --> 0:03:37.690 you may be wondering, Steve, as she will get to 0:03:37.770 --> 0:03:42.970 that she faced absolutely astonishing challenges during her life, right 0:03:43.010 --> 0:03:45.450 from the beginning of her life, and I think her 0:03:45.450 --> 0:03:47.730 story can teach us a lot about success and about 0:03:48.050 --> 0:03:50.050 resilience in the face of failure. 0:03:50.210 --> 0:03:52.530 So you ready to go, Yeah, I can't wait to 0:03:52.570 --> 0:03:53.250 hear about it. 0:03:53.490 --> 0:03:56.730 Before we get to her incredible story and your take 0:03:57.210 --> 0:04:01.290 on her experience. Here is the theme music. I'm Tim 0:04:01.370 --> 0:04:30.850 Harford and you're listening to cautionary Tales. Steve Shirley was 0:04:30.850 --> 0:04:35.450 born in nineteen thirty three, and she wasn't called Steve Shirley. 0:04:35.570 --> 0:04:40.330 She was called Vera Buchtal. She was born in Germany 0:04:40.690 --> 0:04:45.170 in nineteen thirty three, which, okay, instantly a problem. 0:04:45.090 --> 0:04:45.610 Tough time. 0:04:45.770 --> 0:04:48.850 Yeah, and she was Jewish, so her father was a 0:04:48.970 --> 0:04:55.930 judge in Dortmund. So first the Bokschial family moved to Vienna, 0:04:56.410 --> 0:05:00.210 and then shortly before the Second World War broke out, 0:05:00.650 --> 0:05:05.090 Vera's father decided they had to get their two daughters 0:05:05.890 --> 0:05:10.290 out of the Nazi sphere of influence. They were put 0:05:10.330 --> 0:05:13.330 on this train. This is one of the Kinder transport trains. 0:05:13.730 --> 0:05:16.210 So you've got a couple of thousand children on this 0:05:16.330 --> 0:05:20.690 train which went all the way from Vienna to Britain. 0:05:20.810 --> 0:05:24.330 So this was Vera. So Steve Shirley, age five, her 0:05:24.370 --> 0:05:28.890 older sister who was nine, and they were fostered in 0:05:29.050 --> 0:05:33.210 Shropshire in the northwest of England. Her parents actually survived 0:05:33.250 --> 0:05:36.690 the war, but the family didn't survive the trauma of 0:05:36.690 --> 0:05:40.890 this experience. So Steve later said that she felt she 0:05:40.930 --> 0:05:44.450 had been completely rejected and abandoned by her parents, And 0:05:44.490 --> 0:05:47.570 of course it was only later that she realized quite 0:05:47.570 --> 0:05:49.890 what they'd gone through and what a difficult decision they 0:05:49.890 --> 0:05:52.850 had made, the most loving thing any parent could have done. 0:05:52.970 --> 0:05:58.530 But that is the first few years of Steve Shirley's life. 0:05:58.530 --> 0:06:00.330 I mean, what a start. 0:06:00.490 --> 0:06:02.690 Yeah, what a difficult way to start your life. The 0:06:02.730 --> 0:06:04.690 trauma that it must cause at that age to not 0:06:04.770 --> 0:06:07.650 understand what it's all about and to be starting your 0:06:07.650 --> 0:06:09.970 life over, I can't imagine. 0:06:10.330 --> 0:06:14.810 It does defy imagination. She did reflect on this later, 0:06:15.130 --> 0:06:17.890 and one of the things she said was that she 0:06:17.970 --> 0:06:21.130 had this survivor's guilt and she felt that her life 0:06:21.170 --> 0:06:25.770 had been saved in this spectacular way, and that she 0:06:25.850 --> 0:06:29.370 then wanted to live a life that had been worth saving. 0:06:29.530 --> 0:06:33.370 So she really felt this need to justify her existence 0:06:33.930 --> 0:06:36.530 and her survival, and as we'll see, I think she 0:06:36.570 --> 0:06:37.050 really did. 0:06:37.210 --> 0:06:39.210 She sounds like a fascinating woman already, and she hasn't 0:06:39.210 --> 0:06:40.450 done anything yet. 0:06:41.090 --> 0:06:45.970 Buckle up because there's a lot to this story. So Steve, 0:06:46.370 --> 0:06:49.290 she was still Ververa at the time. Steve grew up 0:06:49.290 --> 0:06:53.210 in Shropshire. She loved she loved Shropshire. She found the 0:06:53.210 --> 0:06:59.090 town very welcoming of these immigrant children, refugee children. She 0:06:59.130 --> 0:07:02.570 did well at school, she learned fluent English, and she 0:07:02.610 --> 0:07:06.970 was really passionate about maths. And the problem was they 0:07:07.010 --> 0:07:11.170 didn't teach maths to girls, and so she had to 0:07:11.210 --> 0:07:13.970 fight for special permission to go to learn maths at 0:07:14.010 --> 0:07:18.090 the nearby boys' school. And the reaction of the boys 0:07:18.330 --> 0:07:21.850 was I think a preparation for the rest of her life. 0:07:21.890 --> 0:07:25.650 In fact, what did they do? Cat calling, whistling, heckling. 0:07:26.010 --> 0:07:29.530 The boys were not kind, but she wanted to learn maths. 0:07:29.570 --> 0:07:32.090 She powered through it. You'll see she powers through a 0:07:32.130 --> 0:07:35.290 lot of things. She became a British citizen at the 0:07:35.290 --> 0:07:38.650 age of eighteen, and she took the name at Stephanie Brook. 0:07:39.450 --> 0:07:42.490 And she decided not to go to university, even though 0:07:42.530 --> 0:07:45.290 she was clearly very bright. And do you want to 0:07:45.330 --> 0:07:46.810 guess why she didn't go to university. 0:07:48.090 --> 0:07:50.090 She couldn't afford it. I mean, sorry, I know that's 0:07:50.090 --> 0:07:51.370 a very American answer, But. 0:07:51.450 --> 0:07:53.730 That's a very American answer. I think she probably would 0:07:54.410 --> 0:07:57.730 would have been fine on that count. The issue was 0:07:58.170 --> 0:08:01.330 she wanted to study science, and there may have been 0:08:01.370 --> 0:08:03.930 some science courses available to women, but she could only 0:08:03.970 --> 0:08:07.410 find one. And do you want to guess what was 0:08:07.450 --> 0:08:11.330 the science that they let young women study. Any guesses nursing. 0:08:11.730 --> 0:08:15.690 It was botany, so the girls could study the pretty flowers. Anyway, 0:08:15.730 --> 0:08:17.970 she didn't want to study botany. She wanted to study 0:08:18.010 --> 0:08:20.810 maths or physics or something engineering. She didn't see any 0:08:20.810 --> 0:08:24.250 opportunity to do that, and so she just went straight 0:08:24.290 --> 0:08:25.930 to get a job and she got a job at 0:08:25.970 --> 0:08:30.170 the post Office Research Station in Dollis Hill. 0:08:30.650 --> 0:08:31.650 Where is Dollis Hill? 0:08:31.810 --> 0:08:35.090 Good question, it's just part of northwest London. But the 0:08:35.090 --> 0:08:38.490 post Office Research Station this is the male but they're 0:08:38.490 --> 0:08:42.650 also plugged into telecommunications, so they're doing this cutting edge 0:08:42.770 --> 0:08:47.890 research in computing. And she is operating basically as an assistant. 0:08:48.330 --> 0:08:53.410 She's doing maths, she's doing calculations. She also took a 0:08:53.490 --> 0:08:58.250 math degree in evening classes and she got a promotion 0:08:58.330 --> 0:09:00.930 and she started working on electronic computers. 0:09:01.010 --> 0:09:02.130 This is in the fifties term. 0:09:02.370 --> 0:09:08.090 This is in the late fifties. Computers are these huge, mechanical, 0:09:09.130 --> 0:09:14.090 very expensive constructions, but they are moving rapidly. They're clearly 0:09:14.090 --> 0:09:15.250 going to be very important. 0:09:15.450 --> 0:09:17.210 This is in the days of any AC in UNIVAC 0:09:17.250 --> 0:09:18.810 and all the big mainframes. Yeah. 0:09:18.850 --> 0:09:21.810 Absolutely, And indeed some of the people at Dollis Hill 0:09:21.930 --> 0:09:25.890 were involved with Colossus, one of the very first computers. 0:09:25.970 --> 0:09:26.530 Yeah. Sure. 0:09:26.930 --> 0:09:30.530 Unfortunately, the computers were great, her colleagues were not great. 0:09:30.690 --> 0:09:34.610 She recorded being bullied, being harassed, being groped as a 0:09:34.650 --> 0:09:37.810 matter of course, obviously being paid less than the men 0:09:38.250 --> 0:09:40.730 to do the same job. On the plus side, not 0:09:40.770 --> 0:09:43.810 only did she like the computers, she found love there. 0:09:43.850 --> 0:09:47.730 So she met a physicist called Derek Shirley. So this 0:09:47.810 --> 0:09:51.250 is nineteen fifty nine. She is now Stephanie Shirley, and 0:09:51.410 --> 0:09:55.770 so she leaves the Post Office Research Center. She gets 0:09:55.770 --> 0:09:58.330 a job at a company called CDL. 0:09:58.730 --> 0:10:00.850 I've never heard of CDL. If you google it, I 0:10:00.850 --> 0:10:03.010 don't think any other you find anything relevant. 0:10:03.250 --> 0:10:07.770 Computer developments limited, as you can imagine, an awful lot 0:10:07.770 --> 0:10:11.050 of computer companies that existed in the nineteen fifties no 0:10:11.090 --> 0:10:13.890 longer exist. Yeah, it's a fairly small place. She was 0:10:13.930 --> 0:10:17.410 the chief programmer there. She loved the work, she loved 0:10:17.410 --> 0:10:20.050 the colleagues, but she realized that there was a glass 0:10:20.050 --> 0:10:24.250 ceiling there. So she quit after two years because she said, 0:10:24.330 --> 0:10:28.050 it was quite clear to me that I couldn't progress far. 0:10:28.450 --> 0:10:29.610 Yeah, so she was frustrated. 0:10:29.730 --> 0:10:33.090 She realizes she's basically not going to win playing the 0:10:33.130 --> 0:10:35.650 game by their rules, so she's going to have to 0:10:35.650 --> 0:10:39.050 make up her own rules. And she's now twenty nine 0:10:39.130 --> 0:10:43.490 years old and she decides to start her own business. 0:10:43.290 --> 0:10:45.730 Probably also unusual for a woman at the time. 0:10:45.610 --> 0:10:48.610 Especially a business in computing, which is what she wanted 0:10:48.650 --> 0:10:52.050 to do. So, I mean, you've worked with lots of entrepreneurs, 0:10:52.210 --> 0:10:54.530 support lots of businesses. What are the key ingredients for 0:10:54.610 --> 0:10:55.770 starting our business? Would you say? 0:10:55.810 --> 0:10:58.290 Obviously number one is an idea, So you haven't an 0:10:58.330 --> 0:11:00.810 idea of what you want to do and why you 0:11:00.850 --> 0:11:03.330 think there'll be product market fit for it. You need 0:11:03.370 --> 0:11:05.050 access to capital for sure. 0:11:05.130 --> 0:11:06.770 Yeah, she's got six pounds of capital. 0:11:06.890 --> 0:11:09.570 Okay, so you know, short, short on that front. And 0:11:09.610 --> 0:11:12.610 then you know the third things connections you know, leads 0:11:12.650 --> 0:11:17.050 to initial clients, initial employees, a network that can support 0:11:17.090 --> 0:11:18.490 the ecosystem you're trying to build. 0:11:18.530 --> 0:11:20.570 Well, she's got a new baby and a kitchen table. 0:11:20.610 --> 0:11:23.610 I don't know if that works as a substitute. You said, 0:11:23.650 --> 0:11:25.690 you need an idea. She's got a very good idea. 0:11:26.130 --> 0:11:30.290 So actually she's got two very good ideas. So idea 0:11:30.370 --> 0:11:33.650 number one. And this is really radical. So at the time, 0:11:33.850 --> 0:11:38.610 you know, this is now about nineteen sixty computers are big, 0:11:39.290 --> 0:11:43.130 but software is not really an industry. So software is 0:11:43.170 --> 0:11:47.970 a thing that you just get packaged along with your hardware. 0:11:48.130 --> 0:11:50.530 Sure, the hardware runs the software, and that's all it is. 0:11:50.970 --> 0:11:53.330 Yeah, and it's a it's a sort of a joint deal. 0:11:53.450 --> 0:11:55.570 But she realizes, well, hang on, there's a lot more 0:11:55.570 --> 0:11:59.690 that you can do with these computers if you write 0:11:59.730 --> 0:12:04.610 your own programs. And so she realizes that standalone software 0:12:05.170 --> 0:12:08.850 to run on these huge computers, that's going to be 0:12:08.890 --> 0:12:13.210 a thing. And so she basically sets up a software company. 0:12:13.250 --> 0:12:16.610 And think about it. This is now, it's about twenty 0:12:16.690 --> 0:12:21.610 years roughly twenty years before Bill Gates sets up Microsoft 0:12:21.730 --> 0:12:25.050 and becomes for a time the richest man in the world. 0:12:25.650 --> 0:12:28.410 So she is well ahead of that particular curve. 0:12:28.450 --> 0:12:30.210 I mean, it sounds like she's one of the mothers 0:12:30.250 --> 0:12:31.330 of the software industry. 0:12:31.410 --> 0:12:35.490 Really, absolutely, she is she has a second realization, which 0:12:35.570 --> 0:12:38.730 is that there are a lot of people like her. Well, 0:12:39.170 --> 0:12:41.130 there's nobody really like her, but there are a lot 0:12:41.170 --> 0:12:44.530 of smart women. A lot of those women are involved 0:12:44.570 --> 0:12:48.170 in the computer industry. It later became very male dominated, 0:12:48.210 --> 0:12:50.650 but lots of lots of women who are kind of around, 0:12:51.010 --> 0:12:54.890 who can code, but are basically being pushed into intellectually 0:12:54.890 --> 0:13:00.890 demanding but organizationally subservient roles. So they're smart, and they're 0:13:00.890 --> 0:13:04.450 being underpaid, and they're being undervalued, and if her experience 0:13:04.490 --> 0:13:06.890 is anything to go by, they're also being harassed and 0:13:06.930 --> 0:13:10.890 groped in the office. And so why doesn't she for 0:13:11.050 --> 0:13:15.490 this new company, why doesn't she tap into this underappreciated 0:13:15.650 --> 0:13:21.130 workforce of women programmers. So that that's what she did. 0:13:21.130 --> 0:13:22.730 She said, I had a gut feeling there was a 0:13:22.770 --> 0:13:26.610 programming industry of some kind waiting to be born, and 0:13:26.730 --> 0:13:29.850 I liked the idea of being in at its birth. 0:13:30.170 --> 0:13:33.250 Wow, I mean that is that is something else. I mean, 0:13:33.570 --> 0:13:35.930 that's quite an intellectual leap. It's easy to look back 0:13:35.970 --> 0:13:37.650 now and say it's obvious, but at the time I 0:13:37.650 --> 0:13:39.610 can imagine it wasn't at all to most people. 0:13:40.210 --> 0:13:42.650 No, absolutely, So she's got this. She's got this great 0:13:42.690 --> 0:13:46.930 idea for a product, which is software. She's got a 0:13:46.930 --> 0:13:50.570 great idea for how to make this product, which is 0:13:50.650 --> 0:13:56.050 to hire lots of frustrated women programmers. So there's a 0:13:56.090 --> 0:14:00.770 third leap that she takes, which is ben you ever 0:14:00.930 --> 0:14:02.090 heard of working from home? 0:14:02.290 --> 0:14:04.290 Yes, I confess I'm not much of a fan. I 0:14:04.290 --> 0:14:06.250 get nothing done at home. It's not for me. I 0:14:06.290 --> 0:14:08.090 know it's great for some people, but it's just it's 0:14:08.090 --> 0:14:08.650 not my bag. 0:14:09.290 --> 0:14:12.250 Well, Steve Shirley was a fan. Again, this is like 0:14:12.330 --> 0:14:14.970 nineteen fifty nine, nineteen sixty, so this is so far 0:14:15.090 --> 0:14:18.490 ahead of the curve. But she realizes that a lot 0:14:18.530 --> 0:14:23.770 of these women have the domestic responsibilities. So a lot 0:14:23.810 --> 0:14:26.530 of them are mothers like her. A lot of them 0:14:27.370 --> 0:14:30.690 our housewives, so they've got these domestic duties. But actually, 0:14:31.050 --> 0:14:33.850 to be a programmer at the time, you don't actually 0:14:33.850 --> 0:14:36.330 need the computer. You need a pencil and paper because 0:14:36.370 --> 0:14:38.890 code is not that big. So a lot of these 0:14:38.930 --> 0:14:42.810 women are writing code on their kitchen table. So yeah, 0:14:42.810 --> 0:14:45.970 you just need a telephone, pen and paper and away 0:14:46.010 --> 0:14:50.690 you go. So she calls her company freelance programmers, and 0:14:50.730 --> 0:14:52.250 how do you reckon? 0:14:52.290 --> 0:14:52.410 It? 0:14:52.490 --> 0:14:54.050 Goes in the first few months. 0:14:54.450 --> 0:14:56.290 I mean, first of all, it sounds like it was 0:14:56.330 --> 0:14:59.610 the world's first gig job. Yeh, first software company, almost 0:14:59.690 --> 0:15:01.770 first gig job. She really was ahead of her time. 0:15:03.330 --> 0:15:06.530 I mean, my guess is the hardest thing was probably selling. 0:15:07.410 --> 0:15:08.250 But maybe I'm wrong. 0:15:09.290 --> 0:15:11.930 No, you are not wrong. Selling was a huge problem. 0:15:12.290 --> 0:15:14.490 And you want to know why selling was a huge 0:15:14.490 --> 0:15:18.490 problem because all of the customers were getting these letters 0:15:18.810 --> 0:15:24.010 from this woman called Stephanie trying to sell them software, 0:15:24.490 --> 0:15:27.530 and they were like, okay, first of all, well software 0:15:27.570 --> 0:15:30.730 is not a thing, and second, we don't buy product 0:15:30.770 --> 0:15:34.970 from girls. Sure, And this is why we are calling 0:15:35.010 --> 0:15:39.130 her Steve Shirley because her husband rather brilliantly said why 0:15:39.130 --> 0:15:41.850 don't you just sign your letters Steve instead of Stephanie, 0:15:42.050 --> 0:15:44.890 And that's what she did, and the way she recalls 0:15:45.370 --> 0:15:48.170 she said, it seemed to me that things really picked 0:15:48.250 --> 0:15:52.410 up once I stopped signing myself Stephanie and started signing 0:15:52.410 --> 0:15:53.450 the letters Steve. 0:15:53.730 --> 0:15:57.610 Yeah. I can look it's looking back, it seems, you know, horrific. 0:15:57.650 --> 0:16:01.170 But even today, you see when people look at names, 0:16:01.210 --> 0:16:03.850 when they look at resumes, when they look at pitches, 0:16:03.970 --> 0:16:08.250 everybody has their own unconscious or conscious bias, and back then, 0:16:09.290 --> 0:16:11.770 the very conscious bias was this was for the world 0:16:11.770 --> 0:16:12.090 of men. 0:16:12.290 --> 0:16:16.090 I mean, there are experiments run by economists and another 0:16:16.170 --> 0:16:19.450 social scientists where they send out resumes and they just 0:16:20.410 --> 0:16:23.290 they swap the name on the top of the resume. 0:16:23.530 --> 0:16:27.090 So it's a distinctively male name, or a distinctively female name, 0:16:27.170 --> 0:16:30.530 or maybe a distinctively white name, or a name that's 0:16:30.690 --> 0:16:34.170 most commonly associated with people from an ethnic minority, an 0:16:34.170 --> 0:16:38.290 immigrant name, and you know, depressingly enough, it makes a 0:16:38.330 --> 0:16:43.010 huge difference. People are more likely to invite job applicants 0:16:43.050 --> 0:16:46.450 in for interviews if they appear to be white guys. 0:16:47.050 --> 0:16:51.050 So she saw all that and she worked around it. 0:16:51.250 --> 0:16:53.210 I find myself a bit torn because, you know, in 0:16:53.490 --> 0:16:56.690 today's world, we would say, you know, oh, that's a shame. 0:16:56.810 --> 0:16:59.010 She had to hide who she really was to be successful, 0:16:59.050 --> 0:17:01.810 and isn't that tragic, But back then there was no 0:17:01.890 --> 0:17:04.410 other way, and so I actually, you know, deep down, 0:17:04.490 --> 0:17:05.610 have a lot of respect for it. 0:17:05.850 --> 0:17:07.890 Yeah. Also, she didn't hide who she was for that 0:17:07.930 --> 0:17:09.770 long because she would of course the inviter in from 0:17:09.810 --> 0:17:12.010 eatings and then she'd show up wearing a fur coat. 0:17:12.650 --> 0:17:14.930 She thought the fur coat was important to could have 0:17:14.970 --> 0:17:18.290 maintained this idea that the company was doing well. And 0:17:18.330 --> 0:17:22.370 she said once once you're through the door, there's there's 0:17:22.370 --> 0:17:25.610 a moment of surprise. But then she very often would 0:17:25.610 --> 0:17:27.490 make the sale. There was one other little piece of 0:17:27.490 --> 0:17:30.490 deception she she adopted, which is that she would play 0:17:31.410 --> 0:17:36.090 she had a tape recording of you know, office sounds like, 0:17:36.170 --> 0:17:39.010 you know, typing and things like that phone's ringing, And 0:17:39.050 --> 0:17:41.850 so if she was on the phone to a potential client, 0:17:42.690 --> 0:17:45.210 she'd just be playing this tape recorder so that it 0:17:45.370 --> 0:17:48.210 drowned out the washing machine, the baby crying, and you 0:17:48.250 --> 0:17:50.290 had the typing and the telephone instead. 0:17:50.330 --> 0:17:53.090 It is clever. That's that's the that's the the modern 0:17:53.210 --> 0:17:55.090 version of that is the blurred out zoom background. 0:17:55.090 --> 0:17:58.530 Absolutely. Yes. So so yeah, she gets some clients and 0:17:58.570 --> 0:18:01.610 things go well. They work for the company that designs 0:18:01.690 --> 0:18:06.410 the supersonic airplane Concord. So this company programmed their black 0:18:06.450 --> 0:18:10.490 box flight recorder. They provided software for Rolls Royce, for 0:18:10.610 --> 0:18:13.090 British Rail, for NATO. 0:18:13.530 --> 0:18:15.330 So she's got big institutional clients. 0:18:15.370 --> 0:18:18.890 She's got great clients and that idea. You said, Ben, 0:18:18.930 --> 0:18:21.650 that the having the idea is important. She has proved 0:18:21.650 --> 0:18:25.570 that the idea works, there are difficult moments. So in 0:18:25.610 --> 0:18:28.690 the nineteen seventies, the UK was hit by a pretty 0:18:28.690 --> 0:18:33.610 bad recession and really squeezed the company, and Steve was 0:18:33.650 --> 0:18:38.250 being squeezed on the home front as well. So her 0:18:38.250 --> 0:18:43.170 son had been born and it quickly became apparent that 0:18:43.970 --> 0:18:47.810 he was autistic and he needed an enormous amount of support. 0:18:48.170 --> 0:18:51.930 He has very complex needs and yeah, he'd sometimes be violent, 0:18:52.650 --> 0:18:57.210 and meanwhile Steve is trying to run this business which 0:18:57.250 --> 0:18:59.970 is running into a cash flow crisis. Things got very, 0:19:00.770 --> 0:19:05.090 very tough. Steve had a bit of a breakdown. She 0:19:05.170 --> 0:19:07.490 needed a lot of support, but then she bounced back 0:19:07.490 --> 0:19:09.290 from that and one of the things that she did 0:19:09.450 --> 0:19:14.690 was to set up a home for young people with 0:19:14.810 --> 0:19:19.250 autism with lots of support needs that not only her 0:19:20.330 --> 0:19:23.570 son Giles could live there, but other young people who 0:19:23.650 --> 0:19:26.970 had similar needs could also live there. So she's starting 0:19:27.250 --> 0:19:29.890 to take steps into the world of philanthropy as well. 0:19:30.370 --> 0:19:33.450 The other thing that's working is this plan to recruit women. 0:19:33.850 --> 0:19:37.570 So the first of the first three hundred employees two 0:19:37.690 --> 0:19:41.250 hundred and ninety seven are women, and she only has 0:19:41.250 --> 0:19:44.850 to change that. In nineteen seventy five, the UK government 0:19:45.210 --> 0:19:51.410 introduces the Sex Discrimination Act, generally designed to prevent hiring 0:19:51.450 --> 0:19:54.210 men in favor of women, but of course it applies equally, 0:19:54.250 --> 0:19:56.050 so at that point she has to let the men in. 0:19:56.450 --> 0:19:59.130 But by then the company is a huge success. The 0:19:59.210 --> 0:20:02.610 business model, this kind of hybrid working, the supplying of software, 0:20:02.850 --> 0:20:06.050 it's all going great. And yeah, so she takes that 0:20:06.130 --> 0:20:06.690 in her stride. 0:20:06.730 --> 0:20:09.210 Wow, I mean, she's resilient, if nothing else, but to 0:20:09.570 --> 0:20:13.130 be able to do all that, get through that tough 0:20:13.170 --> 0:20:14.890 time at home, that tough time at work, keep the 0:20:14.930 --> 0:20:17.690 company crowing, keep it going, change the business model fundamentally 0:20:17.730 --> 0:20:20.330 because of the laws. That's quite a journey. 0:20:20.690 --> 0:20:21.730 It's an incredible journey. 0:20:21.890 --> 0:20:24.050 Can I ask, I'm just curious what did she go 0:20:24.130 --> 0:20:26.090 by Steve socially as well? Or did she go by 0:20:26.090 --> 0:20:26.970 Stephanie socially? 0:20:27.250 --> 0:20:31.210 She went by Steve. So my wife met her well 0:20:31.530 --> 0:20:34.450 a few years ago. In fact, this is this is 0:20:34.730 --> 0:20:37.050 I came to hear of her because my wife met 0:20:37.050 --> 0:20:39.210 her and was hugely impressed by her. So this is 0:20:39.210 --> 0:20:42.290 why we're having this conversation at all. Ben. So, my 0:20:42.330 --> 0:20:48.210 wife's a portrait photographer. She makes these beautiful photographic portraits 0:20:48.250 --> 0:20:51.290 of the great and the good, and she heard about 0:20:51.650 --> 0:20:57.330 Steve Shirley at some photographic launch and she contacted Steve 0:20:57.570 --> 0:21:00.290 and said, I would love to come and meet you 0:21:00.370 --> 0:21:03.170 and make a portrait of you and hear your story. 0:21:03.730 --> 0:21:06.410 So this was about six or seven years ago. At 0:21:06.450 --> 0:21:09.530 this time, Steve was I think, you know, in her 0:21:09.690 --> 0:21:15.290 mid eighties, and she just said, this woman is incredible, incredible. 0:21:16.050 --> 0:21:19.890 She was at the time Dame Stephanie Shirley. And yeah, 0:21:19.930 --> 0:21:21.290 pretty much the first thing she said to my ab 0:21:21.290 --> 0:21:22.690 what wife, was call me Steve. 0:21:23.090 --> 0:21:24.970 Wow. So what became of the company. 0:21:25.490 --> 0:21:28.370 So the company went public in nineteen ninety three? 0:21:28.690 --> 0:21:29.170 Oh wow. 0:21:29.250 --> 0:21:33.010 Yeah. So at that point Steve was worth a couple 0:21:33.050 --> 0:21:40.290 one hundred million dollars. Seventy of her workers became millionaires. 0:21:40.770 --> 0:21:44.530 So all these early programmers who had been given equity, 0:21:45.090 --> 0:21:47.130 they all became millionaires. So this is all This is 0:21:47.210 --> 0:21:49.250 the kind of story you hear a lot about, you know, 0:21:49.330 --> 0:21:53.770 after the in Silicon Valley. But this is not Silicon Valley. 0:21:53.770 --> 0:21:57.290 This is all happening in rural England in the nineteen sixties, 0:21:57.370 --> 0:22:00.610 nineteen seventies. So she creates all these female millionaires and 0:22:00.650 --> 0:22:04.090 it is eventually bought by a larger software company. And 0:22:04.450 --> 0:22:10.210 she is left in the nineteen nineties with a fourune 0:22:10.410 --> 0:22:13.530 and also with a lot of grief because her son, 0:22:13.610 --> 0:22:18.450 Giles dies at the age of thirty five, leaving her 0:22:18.450 --> 0:22:25.090 and her husband absolutely bereft. She's got this loss, and 0:22:25.210 --> 0:22:30.010 she's got a lot of money, and that's then the 0:22:30.050 --> 0:22:33.570 next three decades of her life, which is trying to 0:22:33.570 --> 0:22:36.450 figure out how to give it away. So yeah, she 0:22:36.490 --> 0:22:39.250 spends thirty five years making the money and then almost 0:22:39.290 --> 0:22:42.050 as much time giving it away. And she said she 0:22:42.450 --> 0:22:46.530 was determined not to leave some big foundation or trust fund. 0:22:46.570 --> 0:22:50.810