Tag Archives: Marissa Mayer

Don’t Cry for Us, Silicon Valley

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Don’t Cry for Us, Silicon Valley.

You already know, or should, that AdvancingWomen.com is hard at work leveling the playing field for women in careers and business, and in the political arena.  What you may not know and what we will tell you now….Shhhh…is that our hidden agenda is to get women’s communities to step up, get on the Net and start mentoring other women in the fields nearest and dearest to them.  That is why we hope women will start exploring some of the new and easy tools available to them and the new breed of women at the helm

So… as a start.. we want to share some of Sarah Lacy ‘s writing with you:

” The fact is, there is a dearth of women at the CEO level in techdom. But make no mistake: There’s a solid core of female leadership right near the top of such companies as Oracle (ORCL), Google (GOOG), and Hewlett-Packard that will no doubt set the tone in tech for years to come.

What’s even more exciting to me is the base of newly empowered and scrappy women working their way up at the startup level. You’ve never heard of scores of them, but these women you have: Tina Sharkey at Johnson & Johnson’s (JNJ) BabyCenter; Caterina Fake, who co-founded Flickr and sold it to Yahoo! (YHOO); Mena Trott, co-founder and president of blogging powerhouse Six Apart; and Gina Bianchini, CEO of Ning, which lets users build their own social networks. And no, Google’s no longer a startup, but there’s good reason to keep an eye on Marissa Mayer, the company’s vice-president for search products and user experience.

Finally, their impact on other women in the Valley has been profound. Dozens of women gather at monthly events put on by a group called Girls in Tech,(an organization that focuses on the collaboration, promotion, growth and success of women in the technology sector)…..The number of women milling around the Valley and talking about starting their own business is increasing dramatically, even if we haven’t seen many hot startups emerge yet. When they do, they’ll have plenty of smart-women role models to follow.”

I met Sarah Lacy a few weeks ago at The Austin Tech Happy Hour at The Marq (6th and Congress) .  Amidst a packed and increasingly noisy crowd of techs, VCs, entrepreneurs, Austin boosters, money guys, climbers, aspiring bloggers and the occasional real Web success, Sarah was sitting quietly at a table in the corner, chatting with whoever approached and signing copies of her new book “Once You’re Lucky Twice You’re Good — The Rebirth of the Silicon Valley and the Rise of Web 2.0 ” . She was very approachable and quite engaging.  When I got home and had a chance to read her book…almost in one sitting… I found it riveting… fascinating insider stuff, quite knowledgable, well researched with plenty of one on one meetings with the Valley icons and wonderboys: a rare window into the entire chaotic ambiance, Red Bull and pizza nights of the start ups, the quirky personalities of the very young founders, and a spot where a $30 million deal is considered small potatoes. All in all a great read.  Sarah has a hip, Valley Girl writing style and sensibility that I think almost anyone would enjoy. I know I did.

Sarah writes the Valley Girl column for BusinessWeek and co-hosts Tech Ticker on Yahoo! Finance.

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