The Disruptive CEO—Why Do Silicon Valley Founders Behave So Badly?

The San Francisco Bay Area has been taken over by the cult of “Radical Disruption.” Everywhere I turn I see a new elite college drop-out founding the latest, greatest tech startup that will totally disrupt life as we know it, and make someone a shitload of money, with a workforce of only rock star, ninja programmers and slick, hip PR guys and gals who will remake the world, while also completely fudging the numbers and harassing every employee that comes through their doors. I imagine we can blame it on Steve Jobs, but the leaders of the cult of “Radical Disruption” around here are startup CEOs, worshipped like gurus for their guts, their genius and their ability to both be super cool and create radical new workplaces while totally DISRUPTING some commercial space AND attending Burning Man and Coachella Music Fest each year.

I don’t mean to sound snarky. Both of my teen-aged sons inform me on a regular basis that I’m not funny and thus snark is way out of my element. However, as I watch the world of technology from my seat in the sleepy Santa Cruz Mountains to the south of Silicon Valley, all I can do is wonder, “Who the hell are these people?”

I get it, I’m old. But not that old. I mean, I didn’t have to program using punch cards. I actually learned to write code using an actual keyboard. To give some perspective, I’m only five years older than Uber Founder and CEO, Travis Kalanick, so I’m not sure we’re of dramatically different generations. Yet I’m astounded by the allegations that show up in my newsfeed everyday about him, and many others, that live and work just over the hill from me. They have come to power and what do they do with it? Use it to disrupt EVERYTHING, and I don’t mean the actual commercial space they occupy, but the lives of the employees and investors that prop up the very dream they seem to think is their divine calling.

Let’s begin with Travis Kalanick, the Uber CEO, who has been accused of spying on former employees who have dared to sue him,  tagging iPhones even after its app had been deleted and the devices erased — a fraud detection maneuver that violated Apple’s privacy guidelines, creating a workplace rife with sexual harassment where female employees weren’t given the same black leather jacket reward because there weren’t enough women in the department to get a group discount. And my favorite? Alphabet’s Waymo lawsuit against Otto (purchased by Uber) for allegedly stealing the design of a key self-driving system.

Wow. You get to be CEO of a company about to IPO while all this shit is hitting the fan? Travis Kalanick, you are sooooo lucky to be a rock star CEO in 2017. Seriously, because if you’d been the CEO of a company in the 1990’s, you’d be finished.

It appears that sexism exists all over Silicon Valley, but certainly not in a company founded by women, right? One would think that at Thinx, a company that makes period-proof underwear, things would be downright utopian for the ladies. Not so, and this story really breaks my heart. Meet Miki Agrawal, one of the cutest Valley CEOs and the founder of a company I completely adore. I use the Thinx period panties and while they’re a bit pricey, they’re a great technological feat. I wanted her company, and the brand she was selling, namely herself, to succeed. But that was not to be, and just a month ago sexual harassment charges were brought against a “SHE-E-O”!!!! Allegedly, Ms. Agrawal touched employee’s breasts, and demanded that one employee to let her look at the empolyee’s new nipple piercings in front of the male co-worker in her office. Ms. Agrawal also often changed into other clothes and period-proof undies in front of everyone in the office. In her post on Medium, Agrawal writes that her lawyers have found no evidence for these claims, however, the case is still open and awaiting trial, and she’s stepped down from her post of CEO. Of course, in another post on Medium, she details her adventures in the Orgy Dome at Burning Man while promoting her products, so, I guess that's okay for a CEO to reveal in public as well?

Now, for those reading this that live in the Midwest, Deep South, or even the East Coast, this is happening in California, the land of the free in more ways than you can think of. Nudity is common, I see it when I walk down the main street of my town, polyamory is in, and many women flirt and make-out with one another all the time. It’s cool, for some, you know? But in the workplace? No. It isn’t cool, even in Silicon Valley.

Sexual harassment, stealing trade secrets and spying, I imagine that’s what you have to do to be a successful CEO in the cult of “Radical Disruption” because that’s what venture capitalists are looking for.  But how about completely lying to investors about key metrics? Take Elizabeth Holmes, founder of Theranos, the blood-testing start-up that she started as a 19-year-oldStanford dropout, which was valued at some $9 billion. That was before the Wall Street Journal reported in October of 2016 her company was basically a sham and that Theranos used competitor’s products to do all of its testing because its own technology didn’t actually work.

Oh my. Holmes was a female self-made millionaire in a world of male dominance, and a shining light here in the Valley. She even wears nothing but black turtle necks, just like Steve Jobs. Theranos was going to disrupt the health care industry by providing lab work at a fraction of the cost. Yet when Ms. Holmes’ technology failed, rather than report it, she purchased competitor equipment and lied to her investors.

But Ms. Holmes, you’re not alone. Let me introduce you to Evan Spiegel, your male twin when it comes to hiding data from investors, and Snapchat’s founder and CEO, who not only said, according to a former employee, “This app is only for rich people. I don’t want to expand into poor countries like India and Spain,” his company also exaggerates Snapchat’s user data to keep top executives completely misinformed about key metrics. Now if you are an actual investor in Snapchat, Evan wants to assure you that these metrics are really no big deal, honestly, they're not, because in the end lying to your investors is also part of the cult of “Radical Disruption.”

All of this troubles me. I wonder, what will happen to our technology and our future when these types of people are considered glamorous and fit to found and run the companies that will define the future? Do business schools assign case studies on these innovators as a means to encourage their students to follow in their enlightened footsteps? Each one of these founders set out to create something new—a new way to hail rides, a new way to manage your period each month, a new way to administer blood tests, a new way to communicate with your friends. Yet each and every one has created a workplace of harassment, poor benefits, or lied to their investors and the public. Where did they learn how to do business? Who were their role models?

If companies are now being founded on the cult of “Radical Disruption” is it any wonder that everything—from workplace security to honesty in reporting data—is being disregarded? To disrupt means, “drastically alter or destroy the structure of (something).”

What do we lose when we encourage this next generation of leaders to destroy in the name of success, brilliance and destiny?

Personally, I expected more from my generation. Corruption is corruption, even if you attend Burning Man.

SapientX Auto: A New Demo!

I haven't written a blog in a long time. That's because I've been busy on three important fronts. First, I've been editing the screenplay adaption for eHuman Dawn and I'm happy to say that my agent says it's getting closer with each edit!

Second, I've been editing my latest novel, Song of the King's Heart. Nope, it's not the last eHuman novel, I'm sorry. I had to go back in time, to 200 BC, in Egypt during the Great Egyptian Revolt against the Greeks to document the rise and fall of the last native Egyptian kings before I Jump forward to write eHuman Deliverance, the final installment of my scifi trilogy.

But the third thing I've been busy with is my new job as CTO for SapientX, a startup looking to create truly conversational AIs that will bring the human-machine interaction to the next level. Here's a demo to show what that might look like. I can't wait until my car can talk to me, can you? I'm combining my love of technology with my skills in creative writing to create an AI that will dialogue with you in a whole new way. In the absence of true consciousness, back story and authoring will take the stage alongside clever engineering. If you're interested, check out the SapientX website.

Here's to being busy creating new and interesting stories, whether for your machines or your movie screen!

Faithfulness--The Key to Living in the Zone

Fifteen years ago, I was the modern woman who had it all—a great husband, sweet little toddler, fantastic nanny, and an interesting technical career at Motorola, Inc. Thanks to the dotcom bubble, I’d just received an enormous raise. I also had a second child on the way. Unfortunately, my beloved nanny also found herself pregnant, and one day I came home from work to her resignation. She had decided to stay home and raise her child.

I was devastated. I interviewed nannies like crazy. None were like Sally. She was one in a million. The perfect woman to be the wife of my household while I pursued my technical career. After a few weeks of searching for childcare, I started to hear a nagging voice in my head—that I could be the one to stay home and take care of the kids. This wasn’t the voice of God, though perhaps my younger self thought that. No, this was the voice of me. The same inner voice that had driven me to study computer science in the first place. The same voice that suggested marrying my husband would be a good idea. This voice is the one that has been the most trustworthy in my life, and avoiding it has often led to frustration, irritation and lost opportunities.

Call it the observer, higher self, intuition, consciousness, whatever—all I know is that back then, my mind constantly cried out for me to stay home and take care of my kids, which was the craziest idea I’d had yet in my twenty-six years on Earth. When I told my parents, they cried. When I told my colleagues, they thought I was nuts. Why would I throw away all my hard work to raise kids? What business did an intelligent woman like me have staying home? What a waste! And worse, the many, many men and women who told me that to leave a technical career, even for a few years, was suicide. I would never, ever, ever get back into technology (yes, people actually said these things to me.) How could I let it go?

But somehow I knew that I could leave technology and when the time was right, re-enter. It wasn’t logical at all, rather it was a knowing that if I followed my heart (gasp!) all would work out.

Indeed, I would be a liar to say that the transition was easy. The two years of identity crises and post-partum depression that followed the decision to quit my job and raise my kids were seriously the worst in my life. Daily I woke up wondering what the hell I’d done and daily I heard myself say, “Trust me. You can do this.”

This blog is not a manifesto for staying home with your children. Rather, it’s a manifesto to listening to your inner voice and being faithful to it. Bear with me, because fifteen years later, everything has come full circle.

During those hard first years as a housewife when I felt like a complete failure—trust me, I was much better at software design than raising little boys—I discovered that while I’d been faithful to the particular needs of my sons and family, I’d abandoned my intellectual needs. I wasn’t being faithful to that part of me that needed to think about life, systems and solutions. With time, I found that writing while the kids napped, or in the early hours of the morning before everyone woke, would satisfy that. It seemed like a silly endeavor, but it saved me from self-destruction. Several years and a few poorly written novels and children’s stories later, I’d found a new love. Writing, researching and freelancing a few stories every now and then was the balance I needed.

As the kids got older, I was often asked, why aren’t you back at work? You’ll never get another job in technology. What are you thinking? Yet when I looked at my life in that moment, and listened to my inner voice, it wasn’t time. But the need to do the right thing in the eyes of others was strong and eventually I did go back to work, this time as a teacher. I wanted the hours to line up with my kids’ needs. But years into that job, I found myself exhausted with an income that after taxes barely provided any resources. In addition, just because I worked out of the house didn’t mean I could stop cleaning, cooking, hauling the children from one activity to another, etc. There was no time for writing, or any hobby to nourish my soul. It was work and family. A wise one once said to me, “Family, work, exercise, friends, hobbies. Pick two.” And unlike my technology career, I didn’t make enough money to hire a great nanny to help me. Again, my inner voice said, get out. Go back home. But my ego cried out in anguish, “But I’m so much more than a homemaker!!!”

In the end, I decided to be faithful to my inner voice and quit the teaching job. Three months later, I woke up from a dream and suddenly, my first novel came to life. I was faithful to this novel, setting aside time to write every day. I researched it and found myself deep within the eHuman world. Thus, eHuman Dawn was born. And less than two years later, eHuman Deception. I began this blog and two and a half years later I haven’t become a national bestseller, but I’ve met people from various walks of life who care about and love technology, humanity and the future. I even get emails asking when the final book in the trilogy will be published. My current answer—2017??? If I’m faithful ;-)

In writing these novels, I relied on what I’d learned as a homemaker and allowed myself to be faithful to the story and the characters, rather than force myself upon them. I followed their lead and in the end my life has been richer than I ever could have imagined. My faithfulness to these writing projects has been the adventure of a lifetime.

Now the boys are old. The eldest is on the cusp of college, the younger on the cusp of his driver’s license. I continue to write, having just finished my first venture into historical fiction/fantasy. I’ve adapted eHuman Dawn into film and am working with an agent to make it perfect and hopefully sell it to a producer. And in the middle of this action oriented faithfulness, what should appear?

A job offer. And not just any job, but one in technology.

After fifteen years out, I’ve been approached to be a founding member of a start-up—the CTO no less. The founder read my eHuman novels and saw that while they are stories, they’re also about technology and my knowledge of systems and design are evident in the writing. In many ways, these novels, like all science fiction, are high level customer requirements—only in a much more entertaining form than your typical documentation. In addition, the fact that I single-handedly managed to produce this product is evidence in his opinion that my program management skills are still intact, even if I did spend fifteen years raising sons.

It seems that against all odds, and contrary to the naysayers, a person can re-enter the world of technology. Key to this journey has been my faithfulness to that inner voice, the one who told me when it was time to stay home, when it was time to write and publish, and now, is saying loud and clear that the time has come to venture forth once more and bring my intelligence back to product development.

In a nutshell, faithfulness to one’s inner voice is like taking a dose of Felix Felicis (Harry Potter fans, you know what I’m talking about) and living life open and in awe, while remaining acutely aware of those moments when life cries out with opportunity. For me, this is what it means to live in "The Zone." It takes a lot of trust, and a support network, but in the end, it’s worth it.

In each moment of our lives, possibilities spread out before us. Decisions are what create the story of our lives, and being open to our inner voice is our navigation system. After spending fifteen years living this way, I can’t imagine following any other voice, and I can’t wait to see what happens next.