How to Support Women and Minorities in Tech Leadership Roles | Bosky Mukherjee | Glasp Talk #21
Glasp Talk delves deep into intimate interviews with luminaries from various fields, unraveling their genuine emotions, experiences, and the stories behind them.
Today's guest is Bosky Mukherjee, an inspiring leader in the tech world and the founder and CEO of PMDojo, a platform dedicated to empowering product managers and leaders to drive impact at scale. With over two decades of experience across startups and major companies, Bosky has been a trailblazer in product leadership, an immigrant founder, and a woman navigating the challenging landscapes of business and tech.
In this interview, Bosky shares her journey as an immigrant founder and the unique challenges and opportunities of being a woman in the product management, business, and startup worlds. She discusses her mission to help women and minorities future-proof their careers and the inspiration behind starting in 2019. Bosky also delves into the evolving nature of product management, the impact of AI on the PM role, and her approach to building a supportive community for aspiring and experienced product managers. Join us as we explore Bosky Mukherjee's inspiring path, her strategies for overcoming challenges, and her vision for a more inclusive and innovative tech industry.
About PMDojo:
PMDojo helps product managers and Product leaders through individual and team coaching and training that cover - hard skills, human skills, and mindsets to succeed:
a. Product Accelerator, a 10-week program to help career transitioners get real-world experience, skills, and career support to pivot into product management.
b. 1:1 Coaching for PMs and Product Leaders to elevate their skills and get promoted and move up in leadership roles faster.
c. PMDojo for teams to train and coach product teams to level up and lead business impact and innovation at scale.
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Glasp
Transcripts
Glasp: Welcome back to Glasp Talk. Today, we have the pleasure of speaking with Bosky Mukherjee, an inspiring leader in the tech world. Bosky is the founder and CEO of PM Dojo, a platform dedicated to empowering product managers and leaders to drive impact at scale. With over two decades of experience across startups and major companies like Atran, Bosky has been a trailblazer, not just in product leadership but also as an immigrant founder and a woman navigating the challenging landscapes of business and tech. So, in today's talk, we'd like to explore her journey as an immigrant founder, the unique challenges and opportunities of being a woman in product, business, and startups, and her mission to help women and minorities future-proof their careers. Thank you for joining us today, Bosky.
Bosky: Thank you, thank you for having me.
Glasp: So first of all, I know you started PM Dojo almost six years ago, back in 2019. We are curious, why did you start PM Dojo at that time? And also, why PM? Why Product Manager? And why Dojo? Dojo is kind of a Japanese word, and if you want to know the backstory of PM Dojo...
Bosky: Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for inviting me, and that was a fabulous introduction. I don't think I would have been able to say that because I would have been so worried and conscious of that introduction. So, thank you for giving a lovely introduction.
Yeah, I started PM Dojo in 2019, and I was at a point in my career where I was leading a business. I had moved out of product; I was promoted as the President and GM of a mid-sized tech company, a SaaS-based company. From the outside, everything was really awesome and great; it looked perfect. I had kind of reached the top, but I was also at a point where I started questioning a lot of things, right? You know, what am I going to be doing? How am I going to make an impact?
I was also a mom, and my son was very little, just three years old. Motherhood changed a lot of things, and I think I was becoming more mature. I started asking a lot of these questions. As I was mentoring a lot of people outside of my work, which I've always done over the years, I was beginning to notice a few things and was getting increasingly frustrated.
Number one, every single company I talked to wanted diverse talent, but they always said it was a pipeline problem. I never understood that because if I looked around me, I couldn't see the pipeline problem. There were people who looked different from everyone else sitting in the executive room. I couldn't understand why it was a pipeline problem. That frustrated me, and I wanted to solve it. I knew I couldn't solve it if I was part of one company; I had to do it externally, outside of one company, otherwise, it would be very slow.
The second thing I started noticing was that, as I was mentoring, a lot of the people were in the product field. That's my background, over 23 years of being in product. They were going... if there were people looking to transition into the product, because it's still a very hot field, they were going and learning and taking up all these different courses. I'm not going to say anything bad about them, but all these existing courses were only teaching theory. The reality of how products get built is very different, right? Because at the end of the day, you're working with people, and it's not just about slapping frameworks and theory and formula and bingo, the product gets built. It's very messy and hard. A lot of the human skills were never taught, and that piece was missing. It was very frustrating to see people spend thousands of dollars and still be stuck, not able to transition.
I also knew, as a hiring manager, that I didn't necessarily look at certifications or courses as a proxy for whether someone could do the job. This was for transitioners. For experienced product managers and leaders, it was the same thing. A lot of folks would learn from case studies or hear about what Spotify or Amazon is doing, but they were working in companies that weren't Spotify or Amazon. You couldn't just bring a framework and slap it into your company and say, "Bingo, everything's working." If that were the case, all tech teams would be singing Kumbaya and eating marshmallows by the fire pit, right? But it's a very conflicting role; there's conflict every single day when you're building products. There are disagreements. You come home with a headache, constantly trying to make things work with people, influence, and make the right decisions.
So, I started questioning a lot of these things. How do I solve this? This is a problem at scale, not just one or two cases. There's a market for it. How do I solve it? So, I decided to do this outside a company. I wanted to support more women and minorities because I wanted to see them higher up. That's how we can change the tech industry to make this world better and do something for humanity. I also wanted to tackle human skills and do this in a way where people learn from common sense, not just frameworks and equations. We're not in a factory making widgets; that's not how product management happens.
So yeah, I left my role as President. I had a chat with my husband about what it meant financially before I did this. As an immigrant, we didn't come to North America with generational wealth, so it becomes a very crazy decision, especially when you have a mortgage and family, and Vancouver is an expensive city.
I had a conversation with my husband, who's extremely supportive. He said, "Why don't you try what you want to do? Give yourself a time box like you've always done and figure it out." That was a huge piece of confidence. I asked him, "Are we going to be okay financially?" He said, "That's why I'm asking you to time box and figure it out." So yeah, I gave myself three months. I decided to do something before going back into the workforce and start applying for jobs. I'd give myself three months to prove a profitable business model and see if it worked. That's how PM Dojo was born.
As for the name, I wanted to do something that helps with a product mindset, which is how PM came in—not so much for product management, but for the product mindset. I was talking with my husband about the vision. I said it was a sacred place because, for me, building a product is like a craft, and I've always considered it sacred. He said, "You know, it's the sacred place, like a martial arts thing." We both come from a product background. We did some mind mapping, and my husband said, "I bought a domain; it's called PM Dojo." I said, "Okay, you know you're on a timeline, you only have three months, so the domain is done. Now go and figure it out." And that's how PM Dojo got its name, thinking of it as a sacred place where you're learning the craft and building it, getting better. The martial arts, the Japanese connotation, fit in somewhat, which I think my husband thought of, and that's how we are here six years later.
Glasp: Wow, really impressive! And yeah, it's a really great name. I love the name, PM Dojo. That's a great name!
Bosky: Thank you, thank you. And now PM Dojo is really popular and famous among product managers. You set three months as your first timeline. How did PM Dojo grow over time? What did you do differently from others? I mean, there are some competitors or similar service communities, I think, at the time.
Bosky: Yeah, absolutely. I think when we first launched, it took three months to launch our first product. We launched with a very specific program, very true to the product. We niched in and launched our MVP. The MVP was a product accelerator program. There was nothing like it, but within two weeks, the name "product accelerator" caught so much fire that I saw at least ten other people who started naming their programs "product accelerator." I've been in panel talks and talked about the journey of PM Dojo, especially the product accelerator program that helps people transition into products. Other people in the room updated their websites and changed their program names to "product accelerators." I wish I had trademarked it, but I didn't. It just gave me free press. People search for "product accelerator," and they find PM Dojo.
So, the first version was very bare-bones. I already had a lot of the content from coaching my own product managers, right, as I've led teams. I used to do a lot of education internally for my team, and I've always been a firm believer in "learning by doing." You can learn theory, but unless you get your hands dirty and get into the thick of it, you don't really learn. Everything sounds great otherwise. I used a lot of those materials. The first version of the product accelerator or PM Dojo actually—the second version—was a five-week program for people to get their hands dirty, work together in small teams, and stop at the interactive prototype stage, present, learn, and still have the hard skills and human skills.
That’s how the first version was born. In terms of getting students enrolled, I still don't do any paid marketing; everything is organic. There is no paid marketing because I'd rather put the revenue back into a scholarship pool. So that's how I do it. I don’t do paid marketing or influencer marketing; it just doesn't sit well with me, morally. I might be foolish, but that's just my take. I've even slashed paid marketing budgets as an executive in companies.
So, the first version was interesting. I never intended to run it as a product accelerator program or anything. I took a lot of my resources and, as I was trying to figure this piece out, I just took some of those resources I had, the questions I typically got asked, and the coffee chats people wanted to book. I thought, if I want to do this at scale, I'm going to arrange those resources in a nice LMS and make them freely available. That was the first version, which I did in about three weeks or two weeks—it was a sprint. I launched, and the website was ugly as hell, but it had a list of about 1,500 resources I had over the years for PMs and designers. Within 48 hours, we had roughly 8,000 people, and all I did was a LinkedIn post. I just shared the resources freely, saying, "If you want it, take it; if you want to share it, share it."
Within 48 hours, I had to start upgrading the LMS to allow that many users. I thought, okay, that's a little cost, but fine, I'll take it. In about a month, I started getting questions like, "How do I put this into practice? I need examples." I was like, okay, this is becoming a lot of work; I can't just be doing that. What was the point? That's how the accelerator came into being—the next version. We started getting tons of success. We have a 96% success rate of people transitioning into products from fields like acting, dentistry, x-ray technician, teaching, nursing, and, of course, engineering, marketing, BA, and project management. Even in this market, people were not only making transitions but also getting promoted. Then they needed different kinds of help, like having promotion conversations. I started helping them as part of the alumni, but I realized this wasn't scalable.
So that's when I launched my coaching side of PM Dojo. That was the next piece that was launched a year and a half later. So that's how PM Dojo grew. Everything's still word-of-mouth. I'm still killing programs and launching new things. Now we have the coaching, we have Trailblazer, which is a very unique program for women founders, and then we have the coaching program on the side, and, of course, the accelerator.
Glasp: Really impressive!
Bosky: Thank you for sharing it. You mentioned that you've been running PM Dojo for six years now. Do you know how many people have graduated from the course?
Bosky: Yeah, absolutely. I would say it's more than—across the different programs, we are sitting at probably 1,800-plus. We don't accept everyone. For the accelerator program, we typically get anywhere between 1,100 to 1,500 applications every cohort, and we only do three to four cohorts a year. We keep the cohorts really small because this is a different way of learning. You don't just watch videos; you really need to be gung-ho, saying, "I'm going to put in the effort; I'm going to build a product; I'm okay dealing with conflict; I'm okay being proven wrong." So, we do interviews and all this, and we only accept one to two percent of the total applications. So, roughly, it's about 1,800 now.
Also, with my coaching, I only work with one or two folks every quarter. I also work with companies where I'm training their product teams, which takes up a lot of my time. I do very little coaching.
Glasp: By the way, do you interview candidates to be accepted into your accelerator? What kind of traits do you seek in a person? Do they already have a product mindset, or are they flexible or open-minded? Do you have some criteria, or is it more of a gut feeling? How do you decide?
Bosky: It's a great question. The first round is done by my team, and I do the second round. Yes, there is an interview. I also interview everyone I'm going to work with one-on-one with coaching. I also interview companies. It has taken me about two and a half years to say no—like, no, I don't think this is a fit. Especially with companies, there's more money involved, so at the beginning of being an entrepreneur and a bootstrap founder, it was hard to say no to cash. But now, I'm a lot more comfortable saying, "No, I don't want to work with you."
To answer your question, I use my experience as a hiring manager. If someone is looking to transition, I can't ask them for a product mindset because they wouldn't have it. There's no point trying to do that. But I'm looking for things like curiosity. Are they coachable? Are they flexible? Do they have a point of view but are flexible enough to be proven wrong?
It could be about why they believe they want to make a shift in their career now. A lot of times, people say, "I want to get into a product because I want to make an impact." I ask, "Why do you think you're not able to make an impact as an engineer or as a marketer?" It's a valid question. If you're not able to make an impact, you won't have a job right now. Why do you think you can make an impact now? I try to dig deep to find that.
I also ask open-ended questions. As humans, we are terrible at answering what we should be answering. We answer what we should, but then do something totally different. I want to get into the behavior part. I led a team of behavioral scientists many years ago, and that changed how I think about a lot of things. I want to understand the deeper levels of their "whys" and whether they're looking for a short-term transaction or are genuinely looking to invest in the community behind PM Dojo. For me, that's really important. Transactional relationships don't get you far in the tech industry; it's still a small world.
Glasp: Totally makes sense. Do you spend a lot of time with candidates to understand their behavior, or do you need a week to work with them? How do you get to know them in a short period?
Bosky: No, I don't think I spent a week. My conversations usually last 30 to 45 minutes. If you're attentive and ask open-ended questions, you can get a lot from talking to a person. I don't ask questions like, "Do you consider yourself a collaborative person?" Everyone will say yes. Instead, I ask how they've dealt with situations and for examples. Interviewing for more than 12 years, it's easy to catch when things don't connect or stories change. I'll ask, "Can you tell me what changed?"
People change over time, so their approach might change. Typically, people come as referrals, so I'll have a source to ask about the candidate. I can say, "Tell me a little bit about this person; why would you recommend them?" So, yes, I've made mistakes, but I try my best to coach them along the way. Usually, eight out of ten times, the decisions have been right. It's a combination of gut feeling and asking probing questions to make a judgment call.
For example, I asked someone about their learning style. They didn't know much about the program, but I asked how they learned best. They said they learn best when they can read, underline, and work independently. It became clear that this person was a solo learner, not a team learner. I thought, "Is this something we can coach them out of, or is it a barrier to their learning experience?" These are the kinds of questions you can ask to see if they would be the right fit.
Glasp: Great, great question. Also, when they are about to graduate from your program, do you help them get interviews or connect them with companies or startups?
Bosky: Yeah, absolutely. It depends on the program. For the accelerator, specifically for people transitioning into product management, there are several resources available in PM Dojo. It starts right from the beginning, covering resume building, and interviewing skills, and we have hiring managers, including myself, who host workshops. There are tons of resources available. We also have jobs that are the latest and greatest, hot off the market, available within the community.
I always tell people, that if you're looking for a guarantee, that's not going to happen. This is not a right fit because I don't think any program should guarantee a job. No one is sitting with the company's budget and hiring in that company, so no program should morally or ethically guarantee a job, regardless of market conditions. I don't make any such claims, but for some students who do really well, I make introductions. I'm pretty well-connected in the tech industry globally, primarily in the Bay Area but also in other places like the UK, UAE, Singapore, Hong Kong, India, and more. That opens up their network, especially for those making transitions and who don't have a network.
There are lots of skills they learn—from LinkedIn optimization to how to speak their elevator pitch, and how to network. People often get networking wrong; they see it as a short-term transaction—connect on LinkedIn and immediately send a resume. That's not how you get a job. These are resources available from the product accelerator program. We also have a lifelong community and peer coaching circles twice a month where you can ask questions to peers. That's lifelong access for you.
For people I'm coaching, there are other resources available. I advise companies, and a lot of times before a job is posted, they ask me if I know anyone. Of course, I go to people in my community and make the connections happen. That way, folks can cut short two to three rounds of interviews, which has been amazing.
Glasp: And regarding the issues you mentioned, as an immigrant, a product manager founder, and a woman in tech, they have some issues with networking and getting into the network. You were also an immigrant founder and woman in tech. You moved into the Bay Area and needed to network, get a job, and as a founder, do business simultaneously. How did you overcome these challenges, and what challenges did you face?
Bosky: There were lots of challenges. Anytime you move to a new place, you don't know people. That just comes with it. So how do you start getting to know people? That's a challenge. I've lived in Bermuda, a tiny island off the East Coast of the US, for three and a half years. I've had to do this multiple times. I grew up in India, left to come to the US as a student 25 years ago, and had to build relationships. I was in Montana, in Bozeman, where no one looked like me. It was a college town, which is another story about how I landed in Bozeman. I'm happy to talk about whether it was a right or wrong decision.
So, I've had to rebuild that, and as an introvert, that's been hard for me. That has nothing to do with being a woman or an immigrant; that's just who I am. I'd much rather sit with a book, a blanket, and my dog, which makes me very happy. But being in a room and talking to strangers exhausts me. Over the years, I've had to build muscle because if I started leading a team, if I had to present in front of the board, if I had to represent the company in events, I've had to build that muscle and learn to cope with it. So that is something over the years I’ve had to do.
To answer your question—yes, when we moved here, I think one of the biggest challenges for me was... the Bay Area—I don’t know how you all feel, you both feel about it—but the Bay Area is very inviting, and you can send a message to people, random people, and a lot of the times you’re going to get a yes, right? You’ll be like, okay, let's just talk it out. So that’s the vibe of this place, this magical place, and I think that is responsible for a lot of the good that has happened coming out of here, so I don’t deny it. But I think for me, one of the hardest things that I found this year was a lot of those inner circles that we have, I have learned that this happens in people’s homes, at their dining tables. So there are these cliques that are there. So, for regular networking, it’s fine, it’s very inviting, but there is an inner circle, and it’s really hard to get into that inner circle if you haven’t lived here, if you don’t have similar lived experiences if you didn’t start out at the same time, if you haven’t worked at similar companies, maybe your kids haven’t gone to school together, which is my case. So that was really, really hard—you just don’t enter into someone’s dining room; that’s a very personal space, right? So I think that was a really interesting challenge to figure out, like, how do I get into that inner circle? And of course, I knew a lot of people here from years of, you know, because I lived here also, but I think just getting into that inner circle was hard. And so for me, I’ve always believed that I can vent and complain about something or I can think about figuring it out—I’ve got only two choices: either complain or try to solve it.
So I complained a lot to my husband, a lot, and my husband said—reminded me again—and he said, what are you going to do about it? You can complain, but you’re not going to move an inch—you’re going to remain in the same place, and you’re going to just be miserable. So what are you going to do about it? So I think that figuring out this thing that I have had since I was a kid, I think it’s come in very handy. And so what I did was, if I cannot be invited to someone’s dining room, I’m going to invite others to my dining room, that’s it. And so I started hosting—I started hosting intimate dinners, you know, especially like if I want to support women, I want to support immigrants, I want to support founders who perhaps haven’t lived here and don’t have all of those privileges of folks from here, then I’ve kind of created those events myself and really taken a lot of effort in designing those, just like a PM would. And because I’m an introvert, I also don’t do well in these large gatherings, so I’ve done very intimate ones—small, because I also live in the Bay, I don’t have a massive mansion, I’m not a billionaire, and so I need to fit people in my home. So yeah, 12 people, 15 people. I do an excessive vetting process there so that these experiences can be curated. And so yeah, I’ve done Trailblazer dinners, I’ve done a chai party—chai is something very homely, a thing of every Indian or Southeast Asian family. And so when I first moved here, I was missing something that I grew up with, you know, as, you know, my mom would do it, you know, and so I was like, fine, I’m going to do a chai party—that doesn’t happen here. And so we had like so many folks who were interested, and so that’s something that I do. So I always tell people, right, like, you know, they’re like, which events? I don’t know which events—I can’t go there because that’s only for specific people. I’m like, what’s stopping you from creating your own? And they’re like, well, I don’t know who’s going to join. And I’m like, well, you define your target audience, just like building a zero-to-one product, and now you got to promote. And so post it out there on LinkedIn, post it there on Twitter. If you want to ask a favor, share it with people and say, hey, can you share this with anyone who might be interested? There are so many ways to solve it.
So yeah, I’ve done that, and I think that has helped. And I think, you know, as a mom, I cannot attend a lot of these networking events in the Bay Area that happen from 6:00 to 10 o’clock—just won’t work. You know, I’ve got breakfast to make the next day, I’ve got to get the dinner, and I’ve got to get my son to sleep at a decent time—it just won’t happen. And so again, I can mope and complain and regret about my life, or I can accept and do what I can. And so I think that’s just been, I think, my mentality and how I think about it over since I was a kid. So I do things that are in my control; otherwise, it’s going to make me a very miserable person.
Glasp: I see. Yeah, thank you for sharing. And at the same time, you know, from a career perspective, there is a term “glass ceiling,” right? So at a certain point, you can get promoted, but after that, it’s really hard to get promoted after a certain threshold. So what do you think about that glass ceiling? And how, as an immigrant founder, a woman in tech, you know, have you seen these things in their life or at some companies or someone struggling with that?
Bosky: It’s a great question. So I used to think about that a lot because I think, you know, we get told this a lot from the time we enter the workforce that there is this glass ceiling, and it’s really, really hard. And obviously, you don’t see a lot of women in those very senior leadership roles. Like if you go to any company’s executive team, maybe there’s going to be one or two women, and most likely that one woman is going to be the people, you know, chief people officer or the head of HR or head of—but if you look at tech or this and that, most of them are going to be men. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with it, that’s just the mathematics and the broader context of how we are working right now. I cannot change that. I can do my bit to change it by hiring more women and creating a more supportive environment that makes it easier for women to stay in the workforce even after they have kids because that’s one crucial juncture where a lot of women leave, right?
But I can’t change that. And so I think it’s really been about thinking about, okay, this glass ceiling and all of these things that are told—I used to really do everything to actually shatter that glass ceiling because I put so much pressure on myself that if I have to prove that I’m a successful woman, then I have to shatter that glass ceiling. And I did it because I went all the way up to being a president and GM—that was the highest level role, you know. I moved out of product and I was leading the entire business—engineering, sales, marketing, customer, everything. And I turned around the business from not making money to actually being profitable without firing anyone. So it was a lot of product innovation, a lot of premium functionalities where we could charge extra. It was looking at the price how we increase it and what should that model look like. It was about looking at the professional development, like some other professional programs within the enterprise offering. So a lot of this was done without firing anyone, like layoff, right? Of course, there were a few folks that had to be just from a performance management standpoint—I’m not counting that as a layoff.
But I also think that after I did that, I actually asked a lot of questions. I was miserable at that point in time because I was like, okay, what have I become? I’m not saying that you shouldn’t, if you’re a woman, you shouldn’t go and break that glass ceiling, but I also think that I think there’s a lot of that pressure. So maybe a better question to ask—this is what I do when I’m coaching a lot of women—is, if someone says I want to move up, I’m like, why? And they’re like, well, you know, the only way to move up is to start managing people. And I’m like, not necessarily. You know that in a lot of companies, you can also move up in the IC path. This is what it might look like, and maybe in your company, that doesn’t have, but why do you want to manage people? You know, I think it’s really, really important because I think just the way traditional management and leadership track is—that’s not how it is. I think work is changing, your career is changing. You may end up pausing; it might be totally okay to take a step down. I think for me, you know, I think it’s more important to solve harder and harder and harder problems, and there are tons in companies where we work with. And then, yes, if you want to rise up and you want to get into the C-level suite, awesome. But it’s also okay sometimes to take a different route, and it’s also, I think, to understand what is it that you really want, right? Moving up—is that going to make you happy? So what are your non-negotiables in life and career? How does that match with what kind of opportunities are there? Are you in a position financially to just kind of leave your work and just become an... I think a lot of people talk about like, leave 9 to 5, ditch 9 to 5—I mean, in tech, there is no 9 to 5—but just kind of saying, ditch 9 to 5 and just become an entrepreneur, and then you’re going to live a life where you know you’ll have mental health. And I’m like, I don’t know if I have all of that luxury. I am working more than I used to while I was working at corporate. But yeah, there is more happiness, there’s more joy, but you might be in a place where maybe having the next month’s salary is crucial to putting food on the table for your family. Can you just leave everything and just be like, sure, I’m...
So I think it’s really, you have to be really intentional about, I think, a lot of this advice that’s out there and ask yourself, like, is it important to break the glass ceiling? Sure, there is that thing that exists, but is that what you want? Why do you want it? What type of work do you really want to do? Is that something that’s going to happen if you do end up in a C-suite, or can you do that outside of a C-suite? How else can you fill your cup? If this is the type of work you want to do and that is not available in your company, and you’re not ready to leave the company because of whatever X, Y, Z, then can you fill that cup through something else? So I think it’s about, yeah, it’s about how you solve the problem. It’s like a how-might-we exercise that we do, right? You can solve the same problem in 10 different ways and then figuring out.
But I think, yes, to your question, the glass ceiling exists. There is also the broken rung where to get to that first manager position, it’s really hard for women, especially women because there is data, unfortunately, that shows that when men are promoted, they are promoted—this is average, largely—they’re promoted based on their potential, and women are never promoted based on their potential—they have to prove. And so how do you prove if you’re not in the role? So there is this inherent bias that’s there, and this is what is the broken rung, where it makes it really hard for women to get into that first leadership role. And then when they have kids, they take some time off, and then they really struggle to get back—they’ve already lost. And then there is also data in terms of how women’s earning potential decreases once they become a mom, and that’s why you have the phrase called “motherhood penalty,” which is a really ironic phrase here, of how it pushes—like society tends to push women back, and then they really struggle. I think emotionally, it’s a big roller coaster as well. So all of these, I think, along with everything else, is not set up to help women. But again, I think there are things that you can do, and that’s where I work with women—there are other people who are supporting women—and the same thing with minorities as well.
Glasp: Really important point, I think. Yes. And do you think, as a society or government, they can support this, or is it a different topic?
Bosky: Sorry, support more women...
Glasp: Women, you know, or, let's say, as you mentioned, like motherhood—you know, like, let’s say they need to have like some mat and for sure, then, but they may have a gap during that time, right? So somehow they need to fit in the gap when they want to come back to the...
Bosky: Absolutely. I think we all have a role in this, right? You know, so I’ll talk about a few different things. Some of it is, I think, fairly simple and we have that in our control, right? So I’ll give a simple example. I think there are a lot of young women, as an example—they don’t even have kids, they don’t even have boyfriends right now—but they’re already fearful of the fact that their career is going to slow down once they have kids. So that is the level of conditioning that we’re talking about, right? And this has got nothing to do with, again, an immigrant—this is just what it is. We also live in a country, for all its glory and all the opportunities, it’s got an interesting healthcare system. Like in Canada, you had 18 months of leave after you give birth, and you could divide that up between you and your spouse. 18 months is good enough where your kid has transitioned into solids—some babies would have also done there, you know, out of their diapers, or gone to probably preschool or started that process. You know, maybe they’re also sleeping more regularly—you don’t have to wake up every 20 minutes to feed and clean the diaper, right? You’re not a zombie, essentially. In the US, you have 12 weeks if you’ve given birth—I believe this still exists, at least in California—and 16 weeks if you’ve had a C-section, right? 12 weeks—you’re still a zombie. Like, I remember my son would wake up every few minutes until he was two years old, and I couldn’t sleep. I still had to get back to work and things like that, but I’m just thinking, like, in 12 weeks, how do you...?
And then, you know, if you think about 12 weeks, then you’re also transitioning from breast milk or whatever the form—like whatever the feeding thing is—everything changes, right? So then it kind of completely changes what, you know, how maybe a different course would be. So there are countries that actually have amazing support for mothers to be returning back when, I think, the babies are a little bit more self-sufficient. I don’t think kids ever are self-sufficient—like, my kid is nine years old now, but I mean, I don’t have to chop off all the fruits when he comes from school, right? Before, I would have to chop the grapes and remove the skin. I don’t have to do all of that, you know, he can wash the grapes and fruits. I still have to be there for him, right? Like, I don’t think kids ever become self-sufficient, or maybe this is a little bit of a cultural piece too. Like, I come from Indian culture, and I think Asian culture, the care is kind of different culturally—we are just, you know, that’s what I’ve seen in my family, and that’s what a bit of it I try to use.
So I think that’s a piece that I think as a government we can do. I think the second piece is about childcare. So that’s another piece that’s really interesting, right? Just look at the politics and the conversation that is happening around childcare in this country, especially with the elections—it’s a big problem. I struggled with finding a nanny, regardless of whether I financially was able to do it. And then, of course, there’s a big financial piece too, right, that you have to think about—is this affordable or not? I mean, this was a big debate even in Canada with affordable childcare because it’s not, at least in Vancouver where I lived, it’s not affordable. It’s a big chunk of money that you have to spend, but that’s again a trade-off that some families make. We decided to use that for a couple of years when I had to return back to work, but many families cannot.
So I think there is childcare, and that’s definitely where governments can. But I think when it comes to mat leave, it’s a combination of government and the companies’ policy. I also think that as companies, we can encourage a little bit more gradual entry for mothers, right? So I know I used to fight a lot for a lot of the PMs in my team and designers in my team who became mothers, and they would often struggle with, I don’t know if I’m ready to return five days a week. And we’re talking pre-pandemic days, where people had to come to the office, right? Remote work looked very different—like it meant, a sick day meant a sick day, and working from home was one day every few months. It wasn’t like what we are right now. And a lot of moms used to really struggle with that, so it was just easier to leave because emotionally and just, it was just a hard dynamic. You know, we can talk all we want about the role of the two partners, but a lot of the time, unfortunately, kids still go to their moms when they fall sick, right? In different families, it’s different, but I’m just saying that on average.
So I think, you know, I used to design gradual return, and I had to fight a lot with my boss, like my CEO and the executive team, like, no, you know, we can do like half a day once a week and see how that goes, and then we'll gradually increase that to maybe one day a week in the office, and, you know, maybe we need to kind of do this more on, you know, just work, just start working from home. And then if we do have an important meeting, then come to the office, right? So I think that gradual entry can be something that companies can definitely do and leaders can do.
I think there are other things that you can do where you make it very, very obvious and normalized that, you know what, if you want to take lesser responsibilities, that’s okay. I don’t think a lot of women know that. So that was something that we had designed. Of course, you have to be conscious about what it means from compensation and salary if you’re going to be working less than what you used to, but it is something that I think should be talked about, right? Because it could be that—you know, I had done this at some point where I said, you know, I’m at a stage in my life where I cannot be a PM, it’s just taking so much of this mental load. I want to actually take a step down, and I want to work in this role. Is that a possibility? And in my company, I was thankful that my manager was able to guide me, but I didn’t even know that that was an option. Sure, it impacted my salary, but for me at that point in time, failing as a PM was worse than actually making a few hundred bucks less but thriving and being successful. So I think there are so many different things that companies can do, we can do, leaders can do, you, if you are a mom, knowing how you can have these conversations, and then of course, the government.
Glasp: Yes, and do you teach or tell this to the people who join PM or the company hiring PMs or your leadership friends and so on?
Bosky: So, when I’m coaching folks, I do this in a few different ways. You know, if I’m coaching product leaders and these topics do come up, like how do I support, I will share and brainstorm ideas. Sometimes the leader needs to initiate this cultural change in a company, and sometimes you are stuck within the constraints of a company, but the company is not able to do that or doesn’t want to do that, right? So that is also the reality. But yes, I will be working in partnership with a lot of leaders if I’m coaching them. And if I’m coaching at a company level, then these types of conversations may come up, like how do you create a culture where you can retain more minorities and working women so that you can support them as they’re going through some of these. So these are some of the things that I will coach and train and advise if there is a need. It’s not something that I go with an agenda, right? Because it’s not up to me. At the end of the day, this needs to be a problem that needs to be solved, and for that, it needs to be a problem within a company.
Like, I’m advising one company where we don’t have—we have women, but we don’t have moms. I don’t think I need to bring that up right now, but we are making some other changes out there to support more... a space where different voices can be heard. Right? So for example, in that particular company, there are a lot of folks who are not fully outright in meetings. So I’ll give a very simple example. They’ve had meetings, and I’ve seen how meetings are run in that company, and basically, there are a few people who just dominate the conversation, right? They’re loud, they’re very animated, they’re very confident, very comfortable—English is their first language. Totally get it. And then you have some other folks, you know, maybe English is not their first language, maybe they’re shy, maybe they need more time to think. And so if you run a meeting like this, then obviously none of their ideas are going to be ever taken. So what I’m doing is, when I’m working with them, I’m actually bringing some of the methods from design thinking, such as how do you work together but alone? How do you do silent votes? How do you structure unstructured conversations? And so it’s different—it’s not for women, but it’s for people with different personalities and different voices and different ways of working where you can still create that environment where different ideas and diverse perspectives do come to the table. And that needs a little bit of coaching, because a lot of times people are not intentionally bad, but they want to sabotage someone else, but that’s just how they have grown up, and culturally, that is how normal looks like, but it’s not going to look normal in the world we live in right now, which is so diverse.
Glasp: Thanks for sharing. So yeah, we learned a lot about families, females in tech, and how governments and companies can help, so we’d like to integrate those learnings into our company as well. This is kind of just a random question, but how do you spend your daily life from Sunday to Saturday? How many hours are you spending with your family and your kids? How many hours are you working on these days?
Bosky: Oh my God, yeah. You know, like profession, daily life, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, so Saturday and Sunday—I’ll start with the easier bit. So I made a very big change two years ago where I made a very conscious decision I’m not going to work on Saturday and Sunday. I’m not 100% there yet—stuff still comes up, you know, and when you’re a solo founder, sometimes there’s going to be something. But I am going to do my level best where I’m not. So, you know, like, when I started PM Dojo, I would actually, like, one of my classes, I would teach on Saturday mornings, and it would completely change the entire dynamic on the weekend with my family, right? Because then it meant that my husband had to take my son away so that there wasn’t any disturbance. I had to teach, then I had to clean up the recording, then I had to share the recording, then there would be questions—like, my week, like, that just looked like seven days. So two years ago, I made a very conscious decision and I said, Saturday, Sunday, I’m intentionally not going to work. That is... so I would say maybe I’m like 85% there—there’ll still be times that show up, but I will never do an interview on the weekend, I’m never going to do a podcast, I’m never going to go on any networking event, even if it’s like opens up millions of dollars for me—no, I will not. That is time for family.
So Saturday and Sunday, the way it goes is, we wake up—obviously, we don’t wake up anytime we want because we have a dog that is barking to go out, and my son wants breakfast. And usually, Saturdays mean that we have a good breakfast, right? It’s not the cereal and milk that happens five days a week. So, either French toast or something, or as we are walking, we’ll just grab this really nice waffle place by Mark Zuckerberg’s in the Initiative in Redwood City. So it’s just very close, like just five, seven minutes walk from where we live, so we’ll typically grab that. We’ll have some coffee, we’ll take our dog to the park, so it’s just family—like, that’s how we set it up. And then, of course, you know, stuff gets busy, then along the way, my son has piano classes, so like the regular family stuff. That might give maybe some time for my husband and I to just have coffee now, right, for that 45 minutes where you don’t have to worry about anything. We also have this rule of not talking about our son during those 45 minutes.
That’s important. That was something he enforced because I couldn’t stop not talking about him, like, what is he doing now? You know, do you think he’s playing well, or do you think blah blah blah? And he had this rule of not talking about our son, which I found very interesting. But we are starting to do that. And of course, lunch, you know, and then evening time again, we’ve made this new family ritual that we’re going to be exploring a new city. And so we just go, you know, and we explore a new city, and typically nature-wise. So because of our dog as well, I think that’s something that we do. So that’s our weekend. Sunday, we try to take it a little bit easy. It’s a little bit of cooking, just a very little bit of cooking that I might have to do, but it’s usually just family.
Monday to Friday, it’s a totally different game because I’m responsible for school drop-offs. So my Monday mornings look crazy. I’m going to be very irritable a lot of the time because I am not a morning person, and here I’m having to kind of prepare everything, and I’m already kind of thinking about all of the work that is—but I cannot start my work until 10 o’clock in the morning because I drop him off, I walk back, I need a few minutes to kind of just, I think, get my head space straight. So I think Monday to Friday stuff looks a little bit different, but I usually, what I do is, I tend to not have any meetings in the morning because I need some head space to think and do some deep strategy work, right? A lot of those things is something that I’m going to be doing—road mapping, I’m going to try to kind of think through some of those things in the morning, lunch, and then after that, I’m going to take some calls. The coaching calls will happen and things like that on most days. I’m not saying this is perfect.
And then in the evening, when my husband comes, thankfully, he picks my son up, unless there is a surprise where he says, I’m getting too late, honey, can you please go and pick him up? Like what happened yesterday. So we do have surprises like that, and then I have to just drop everything and bring my son. It is half-half hard—it is nothing like this 5 AM Club where I have this ritual of writing a journal. No, I write my journal, and I do a little bit of manifesting—it’s something that I’ve always believed in, like, I’m going to write things down that I want to happen, as fuzzy and woody as it sounds, but I do that. Not like I want to become a billionaire, no, but I want to write things like, you know, it could be a vacation, it could be something like, I would love to be able to solve this problem, and I have solved this problem, and this is what the 2B is going to look like. I think that just gives me a little bit of space to articulate it in my mind with clarity as to whether I even understand the problem, and then what might be the next one or two steps that I might need to take in order to at least try to unpack that, because a lot of times these types of problems are so complex, it’s like a bad knot—you don’t even know what part you need to untangle. And so I think it’s a very important exercise for me to figure some of those things out.
And I do have a time slot in my calendar where I’m going to read a paper book—call me old-fashioned. I like to smell paper, and I like to feel the paper, I like to underline, and I like to put the post-it things that I used to do in my early teens. I still do it in my 40s, I don’t know why. My husband gets really mad that, you know, in this little place, I have all of these books everywhere, and he’s like, why can you not just get Kindle? And I’m like, I like paper books. And so I do have in my calendar where I’m going to read. I used to be able to read a full book over the weekend before I became a mom. Now, what good looks like has changed drastically—now, if I even read one page, I think I call it a success. So the definition of good has changed over the years.
And in the evening, dinner time, it’s about a lot of like, we do rose-thorn conversations as a family, you know, for my son—what has the day been, what is he grateful for, what was good, what is something that he would like to change, where does he need help with? And it goes around the table, and so we ask the same question to myself and the same question to my husband. I think it’s important for my son to understand where his parents come from and how the day goes. And of course, then after that, we just go for a family walk in the night with the dog again. So we live in Redwood City—it’s pretty walkable in the Bay, unlike a lot of parts of the Bay Area, so in the night, around 8:00, we do like a full round of downtown Redwood City, come back, and then, yeah, it’s like putting everyone to sleep. I might do another round of reading; I might map out my calendar. So it’s that.
And then, of course, when we go on little mini-vacations, the days are different. So I don’t know, I don’t know. And then I try to fit in a gym here and there, but I am not very religious about it, unfortunately. So it’s not something that I would recommend.
Glasp: Very, very inspiring and, yeah, like on and off, yeah. Mod, yeah, some point, and yeah, really, that’s really great. And sorry, I wish I had a better story about my timetable.
Bosky: No, no, no, it’s great. It’s a great story. And sorry, I forgot to ask one thing about product managers, but you know, nowadays AI is dominant in the market, and people are using AI for many things, and that can help our workflow and work and productivity. So how do you think AI impacts the PM job or companies?
Bosky: I think it impacts a lot. So, I’ll answer this in two areas. I think one, there is a lot of grunt work that is just a part and parcel of every job, and so also in product management, right? For example, writing requirements could be one. Analyzing a whole bunch of qualitative customer interviews and then making sense of it. Looking at past data—like, we’ve spent a lot of time, I’ve spent a lot of time over the years because obviously we didn’t have AI to do—you could clean up as much as you want and then put it on Excel or Google Sheet and then do pivot like it was hard. Like, unstructured data, and I’ve seen my PMs struggle a lot. And so, when you do a lot of that grunt work, it doesn’t leave any space in your brain to actually do focused work. So I think that’s where AI is just a powerhouse, where it can be your buddy, your ideation buddy to help you with a lot of grunt work so that you can focus on being more strategic and thinking through and connecting the dots and doing all of this. However, and then you also have lots of tools, right? Like, how do you prioritize, right? Like, you get thrown things and you can ask your model, you can look at predicting, you know, your customer behavior, right? Like, if these many customers have done X, Y, Z, how might they do if we were to build this thing? Like, there are so many different things that you could do just to kind of get a little bit more sense as opposed to just making pontificating and making a... you can have better instincts now also with AI, right?
I think the problem, just like every technology, is when you rely on technology like AI too much, that you think, like, you’re basically taking whatever AI is giving you as face value and you’re not using your brain to think. AI cannot critically think, at least as of now, right? And so, I do see where this is something that I think PMs need to be very, very wary of because if you’re just copying and pasting the output from, let’s say, ChatGPT or other AI tools, then I’m going to get into trouble for saying it, but then why do I need to hire someone and pay someone 240, 250K per year if I can get this done by paying $20 a month? I should say this in a more articulate way so that people don’t get offended, but it’s essentially what I’m trying to say here is that the critical thinking bit cannot be outsourced to AI. You can use AI for a lot of the grunt work to make you more productive. You know, you could ask it to say, hey, this is what I’ve done as a requirement, are there any holes in my argument? That would be a fantastic way. But if you resort to AI to say, okay, this is what I want to do, give me that, I’m going to copy-paste, I’m going to put it in the template that we have, and then send it, that’s where the problem is. Because then you’re not using it to critically think and find, like, where I can make it contextual for how it’s going to work. So I think that is the piece that you have to be kind of really wary about.
And then, of course, I think when you’re trying to build products, you have to then think about, you know, are there use cases that can be solved better, faster, with some of the latest technologies? And of course, we’re talking about AI here. A lot of the time, maybe your customers are going to care that it is AI, but a lot of average users, don’t give two hoots whether the underlying technology is AI or not, right? I mean, how many average users, when they are checking out their products on Amazon, actually care about whether the recommendation engine is built from AI or not? I’m talking about really average on the consumer side.
So I would say then, as a PM, it becomes really important to think about, is there a—because every single PM is being asked, you know, is there an AI angle in our product? We have to, because competitors have it, like we need to. So then our job becomes like, okay, what is the business—as a business, what are the use cases, is there a fit that a technology like AI can solve? What are the problems that our customers and, our users are having? What are the different ways to solve it? Can I test whether something like this can be done using AI? Because the infrastructure of AI is so expensive, and it has to be set up—are we ready from a business standpoint before we just kind of go onto the bandwagon? I think there are so many different things that, as a PM, you can, like, you have to be a good, exceptional PM before you become an AI PM, right? Like, I don’t think—again, I know a lot of people talk about AI PM—I don’t believe in AI PM, you know. The products are AI-enabled, you are still a product manager, you have to still be an exceptionally good product manager before you really learn how to use any of the enabling technologies today or in tomorrow’s world to then make critical decisions about how that problem can be solved using an underlying technology.
Glasp: Totally makes sense, you know, not to outsource our critical thinking process. And related to that, do you have any advice for our audience who are aspiring product managers, immigrant founders, and women in tech sometimes? Do you have some other advice for those people?
Bosky: Yeah, so maybe I would say if you’re an aspiring PM, my number one advice would be to learn how to filter out really important information. I think a lot of people, like when I started back in the day in the field, there wasn’t any information about product management—there wasn’t anything. So I had a very different problem like I had to figure out because there wasn’t anything. Now there is just information everywhere. And so how do you know what is the right advice that’s going to help you and what is just anything that someone has just pulled out from ChatGPT? Because there are courses now that have been generated with ChatGPT. I’m not saying that’s wrong, but that may not be the best path for you if you’re trying to transition into the product, right?
So I think to build the BS filter. And as an experienced PM, you also need that, right? You have to be able to filter signals from noise. I’m just saying it in a very frustrating way right now of having a BS filter. So I think that is really important. Know that if you really are passionate about this field, you can make the transition happen—it doesn’t matter what your background is. So a lot of the time, aspiring PMs will ask, well, I am an engineer, can I become a product manager? You know, I have never worked in tech, can I become a product? Yes, you can if you want to and if you actually have the aptitude for being a PM. You might be miserable being a PM, right? So not everyone should get into product management—I also tell them that. So, you know, if you do have the aptitude, if you do love the field, then I think a better question to ask is not, can I become a PM? It’s like, what do I need to do to become a PM? So I think changing your question and asking better questions—that’s also a very good PM trait to have.
If you’re already a PM, then I would answer your question—and I know for existing PMs, growing in your career and moving up is very important, especially because product teams are very small, so it’s not like engineering teams, so the chances for moving up in the ladder are limited in product teams. So I think, again, a better question to think about is how you’re going to be framing your conversations for moving up, and what does moving up look like for you? Have that clear, and then spend some time thinking about how you are going to make that ask to your manager or within your leadership team. Really understand how the talent management process happens in your company, both officially and unofficially. Don’t just accept what the official policy says. A lot of the time, people will tell me, well, yeah, I cannot get promoted until 12 months, and we start working together, and bingo, in six months, they have already been put into the leadership track. So there is a written policy, and then there’s the unwritten, but it’s very important to know what the policy is for talent management, but then more important is how do you have that conversation.
A lot of the times, you know, you go and ask a manager, well, I’ve done everything, why am I not getting promoted? This is not a government job where tenure-based promotions are going to happen—it doesn’t work like that. And so how do you make that ask is really, really important, and your job of managing up is to make sure that your manager also looks good, unfortunately. Like, as simple as that, right? It’s a human decision at the end of the day. And so how do you have those conversations and don’t leave it till the very end—that’s too late? Then you’re already looking at next year’s promotion cycle. So I think this is where it’s really, really important—make it about the company also, it’s not just about you. Why is the company going to benefit from promoting you? So these are some things that I would say to existing PMs.
And then, I think, if you’re a founder, I would share—it depends, you know, what stage of founder you are. So I’m just going to target folks who are maybe thinking about starting out, right? Or they just have just started working. I think a lot of times when I’m having conversations with founders, the two things that they’re after is, that I need to go and hire an engineering team to build out the product, and the second thing that they’re going to really be concerned about is, I need to raise money. And my question every single time is, what do you know what you have to build? Have you tested it out? Do you have traction? Do you have users who are ready to open their wallets and pay for your idea? Because otherwise, you have spent money on something that’s not going to bring money. So it’s very important to validate your business model from day one. So that’s one piece before you even hire your engineers, right? You can do a lot of things from building that first version, so that’s one.
And why do you need to raise is my first question—like, why do you need to raise? Even if you go to raise, they’re going to be asking to see traction. How are you going to show that traction? So I think, you know, I always tell people, I’m like, you know, if you want to go raise VC money, have you watched the Shark Tank? They’re like, no. And I’m like, can you please go and watch and just see even a couple of episodes and come and tell me what is the first or the second question the sharks ask, and then let’s talk about whether you need to raise money. Not everyone needs to raise money, but I think as a society, we celebrate and think that you’re successful if you’ve raised X millions of dollars. That is a validation, of course, but I don’t think that’s a measure of success. Not every company needs to be VC-backed, and just because you haven’t raised a VC-backed company doesn’t mean that you’re not serious and you’re not ambitious enough. I think there’s a lot of courage in being customer-funded, right? You’re going to make different types of decisions. So I think it again depends on your why. Why do you want to start a business? Why do you want to start? And if raising VC is the right path for you, then raise. Don’t start with hiring this and spending more money before you’ve even earned a dollar.
Glasp: Totally makes sense and is a good insight with advice. Thank you. So yeah, this is the last question, by the way. So you, as Glasp, with the platform where people share what they are reading, and learning, as their digital legacy, we see that as digital legacy, and we want to know what legacy or impact do you want to leave behind for future generations or other people? It’s a big question.
Bosky: That’s a very big question. It’s a very, very big question. Strangely enough, I used to ask this question before joining a company—don’t ask me why, don’t ask me why, but it is a question I’ve often asked. It was a question that I asked for my first job in a startup, and I don’t know—I think the word “legacy” was something that was used a lot in my family growing up, and actually my granddad, my maternal granddad, used to talk about this a lot, right? Like, you know, the legacy of so-and-so and the legacy of so-and-so. And I just loved the stories growing up from my grandfather. He was a really good, really good storyteller, like Monday and things, but he would say it in a way that I remember even, you know, to this day. And I lost him when I was still very young, but I remember those stories. And so I think, for whatever reason, I have asked this question, and I think, you know, earlier in my career, legacy meant very different. As I grew in my career, legacy meant totally different. Now legacy meant different.
So as an example, for me, legacy could mean, you know, is it something where I can, if I were to leave this company after whatever number of years, would I leave it in a better place, right? Or could I make even a small minutia change in how this company works, where people will remember, or can I create some resources that the company is going to still use after I leave, you know, the sustainable living resources? Could it be something where I make it better for maybe women, you know, who come after me in this company? So I think over the years, for me, legacy has meant different things. And plainly speaking, it just means if I’ve left that company—I haven’t thought about death when I was, you know, young—but if I were to leave this company, how would people remember me, and how would I like to be remembered? You know, would I like to be remembered as this jerk that no one wanted to work with, or would I be remembered as someone who went out of their way to create space for other people to feel like they belonged and that we could together solve the hardest problem smiling, laughing, and having fun?
That’s how I’ve thought about legacy for a big part of my career. I think after becoming a mom, my definition and understanding of legacy started changing a lot, and I think it became deeper, at least how I’m thinking. For some people, it may not be deep, and it’s like, gee, that’s so superficial. But I think for me, I started thinking about it very differently. And so for me, you know, my criteria was like, if I have to leave my kiddo and be in a company or work, then it better be worth it, so the problem has to be messier. And so as I started getting more senior in the executive room, I would intentionally choose companies with a lot of red flags, which is so counterintuitive because, in my mind, the harder, the messier the problem, I could leave a stronger legacy. I had a chance to leave a stronger legacy, right? Usually, people say if it’s red flags, don’t join. But for me, I think I took it as like, okay, I may be able to change and make it a tad bit better and leave it in a better place than when I had joined.
So I think that was something that I looked at as I became more senior in the executive room. And I think now, when I think about it, I want to say that I want my legacy to be, like, I want to be remembered as someone who changed the tech industry in just even a little bit, where we created a more equal footing for people who don’t have all of the privileges than, let’s say, the majority of the folks. If it’s for women, I want them to never feel like they don’t belong and never want them to feel like they have to over-explain. If it’s a minority or someone who hasn’t grown up here and maybe the first generation, like a lot of folks who come here to study, I don’t want you to think that just because you have an accent, you are somehow less than someone else, right? I think everybody has an accent, like, I mean, English has an accent, you know, people from different parts of the US have an accent. I think everybody has an accent. Just because we sound different doesn’t mean that we’re not smart enough or we don’t have the potential to do that.
I also feel like I think these days I’m thinking a lot about, you know, how do I want to raise my son, and what do I want to be remembered as? Like, I want to be remembered as a good mom, and a good friend to my husband. I want to be remembered as a good friend, you know, someone who built a community to bring people together where people could problem solve and dream bold things and make it happen. And I also want my legacy to be as someone who is helping everybody around her to raise children, sons, daughters, to understand that they need to see women as equal.
So I know I’ve said a lot of different things, but I think over the years, my definition of legacy and how I want to be remembered has kind of changed. But for me, I think I just want to make even a small difference, and for me, that is important, whatever that small difference is. You know, I cannot be sending rocket ships to Mars—I cannot do that, I don’t have the means for doing that—but if I can change even one team, one company if I can help one person who wants to give up and help them see a different life, then I think I will be happy and fulfilled.
Glasp: That’s a really beautiful answer, and thank you so much for answering. And also, thank you so much for joining today—I enjoyed the conversation and learned a lot.
Bosky: Thank you.
