Why do ambitious women have flat heads?
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0:01 - 0:03When I wrote my memoir,
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0:03 - 0:07the publishers were really confused.
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0:07 - 0:11Was it about me as a child refugee,
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0:11 - 0:16or as a woman who set up a high-tech
software company back in the 1960s, -
0:16 - 0:18one that went public
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0:18 - 0:23and eventually employed over 8,500 people?
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0:23 - 0:27Or was it as a mother
of an autistic child? -
0:27 - 0:32Or as a philanthropist that's
now given away serious money? -
0:32 - 0:35Well, it turns out, I'm all of these.
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0:35 - 0:37So let me tell you my story.
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0:40 - 0:46All that I am stems from when
I got onto a train in Vienna, -
0:46 - 0:51part of the Kindertransport that saved
nearly 10,000 Jewish children -
0:51 - 0:54from Nazi Europe.
-
0:54 - 0:58I was five years old, clutching the hand
of my nine-year-old sister -
0:58 - 1:02and had very little idea as to
what was going on. -
1:02 - 1:07"What is England and
why am I going there?" -
1:07 - 1:13I'm only alive because so long ago,
I was helped by generous strangers. -
1:15 - 1:18I was lucky, and doubly lucky
to be later reunited -
1:18 - 1:21with my birth parents.
-
1:21 - 1:28But, sadly, I never bonded
with them again. -
1:28 - 1:31But I've done more in the seven decades
since that miserable day -
1:31 - 1:33when my mother put me on the train
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1:33 - 1:36than I would ever have dreamed possible.
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1:36 - 1:39And I love England, my adopted country,
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1:39 - 1:44with a passion that perhaps only someone
who has lost their human rights can feel. -
1:46 - 1:52I decided to make mine a life
that was worth saving. -
1:52 - 1:54And then, I just got on with it.
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1:56 - 1:59(Laughter)
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1:59 - 2:03Let me take you back to the early 1960s.
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2:03 - 2:08To get past the gender issues of the time,
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2:08 - 2:14I set up my own software house at one
of the first such startups in Britain. -
2:14 - 2:20But it was also a company of women,
a company for women, -
2:20 - 2:23an early social business.
-
2:23 - 2:27And people laughed at the very idea
because software, at that time, -
2:27 - 2:29was given away free with hardware.
-
2:29 - 2:34Nobody would buy software,
certainly not from a woman. -
2:34 - 2:40Although women were then coming out
of the universities with decent degrees, -
2:40 - 2:43there was a glass ceiling to our progress.
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2:44 - 2:49And I'd hit that glass ceiling too often,
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2:49 - 2:53and I wanted opportunities for women.
-
2:53 - 2:57I recruited professionally qualified women
who'd left the industry on marriage, -
2:57 - 2:59or when their first child was expected
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2:59 - 3:04and structured them into a
home-working organization. -
3:04 - 3:09We pioneered the concept of women
going back into the workforce -
3:09 - 3:12after a career break.
-
3:12 - 3:15We pioneered all sorts of
new, flexible work methods: -
3:15 - 3:21job shares, profit-sharing,
and eventually, co-ownership -
3:21 - 3:24when I took a quarter of the company
into the hands of the staff -
3:24 - 3:28at no cost to anyone but me.
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3:30 - 3:36For years, I was the first woman this,
or the only woman that. -
3:36 - 3:40And in those days, I couldn't work
on the stock exchange, -
3:40 - 3:43I couldn't drive a bus or fly an airplane.
-
3:43 - 3:49Indeed, I couldn't open a bank account
without my husband's permission. -
3:49 - 3:54My generation of women fought
the battles for the right to work -
3:54 - 3:58and the right for equal pay.
-
3:58 - 4:02Nobody really expected much
from people at work or in society -
4:02 - 4:05because all the expectations then
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4:05 - 4:08were about home and
family responsibilities. -
4:08 - 4:11And I couldn't really face that,
-
4:11 - 4:17so I started to challenge
the conventions of the time, -
4:17 - 4:23even to the extent of changing my name
from "Stephanie" to "Steve" -
4:23 - 4:25in my business development letters,
-
4:25 - 4:27so as to get through the door
before anyone realized -
4:27 - 4:29that he was a she.
-
4:29 - 4:32(Laughter)
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4:32 - 4:39My company, called Freelance Programmers,
and that's precisely what it was, -
4:39 - 4:44couldn't have started smaller:
on the dining room table, -
4:44 - 4:50and financed by the equivalent
of 100 dollars in today's terms, -
4:50 - 4:57and financed by my labor and
by borrowing against the house. -
4:57 - 5:03My interests were scientific,
the market was commercial -- -
5:03 - 5:07things such as payroll,
which I found rather boring. -
5:07 - 5:12So I had to compromise with
operational research work, -
5:12 - 5:15which had the intellectual challenge
that interested me -
5:15 - 5:23and the commercial value
that was valued by the clients: -
5:23 - 5:28things like scheduling freight trains,
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5:28 - 5:34time-tabling buses, stock control,
lots and lots of stock control. -
5:34 - 5:39And eventually, the work came in.
-
5:39 - 5:42We disguised the domestic and
part-time nature of the staff -
5:42 - 5:47by offering fixed prices,
one of the very first to do so. -
5:47 - 5:51And who would have guessed
that the programming -
5:51 - 5:55of the black box flight recorder
of Supersonic Concord -
5:55 - 6:00would have been done by a bunch
of women working in their own homes. -
6:00 - 6:07(Applause)
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6:07 - 6:12All we used was a simple
"trust the staff" approach -
6:12 - 6:15and a simple telephone.
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6:15 - 6:20We even used to ask job applicants,
"Do you have access to a telephone?" -
6:22 - 6:25An early project was to develop
software standards -
6:25 - 6:27on management control protocols.
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6:27 - 6:34And software was and still is a
maddeningly hard-to-control activity, -
6:34 - 6:36so that was enormously valuable.
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6:36 - 6:38We used the standards ourselves,
-
6:38 - 6:41we were even paid to update
them over the years, -
6:41 - 6:45and eventually, they were adopted by NATO.
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6:46 - 6:50Our programmers -- remember, only women,
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6:50 - 6:54including gay and transgender --
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6:54 - 6:59worked with pencil and paper
to develop flowcharts -
6:59 - 7:03defining each task to be done.
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7:03 - 7:07And they then wrote code,
usually machine code, -
7:07 - 7:09sometimes binary code,
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7:09 - 7:14which was then sent
by mail to a data center -
7:14 - 7:18to be punched onto
paper tape or card -
7:18 - 7:22and then re-punched,
in order to verify it. -
7:22 - 7:25All this, before it ever got
near a computer. -
7:25 - 7:30That was programming in the early 1960s.
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7:32 - 7:37In 1975, 13 years from startup,
-
7:37 - 7:40equal opportunity legislation
came in in Britain -
7:40 - 7:47and that made it illegal to have
our pro-female policies. -
7:47 - 7:50And as an example of
unintended consequences, -
7:50 - 7:54my female company had to let the men in.
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7:54 - 7:59(Laughter)
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7:59 - 8:01When I started my company of women,
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8:01 - 8:08the men said, "How interesting, because
it only works because it's small." -
8:08 - 8:14And later, as it became sizable,
they accepted, "Yes, it is sizable now, -
8:14 - 8:17but of no strategic interest."
-
8:18 - 8:25And later, when it was a company
valued at over three billion dollars, -
8:25 - 8:30and I'd made 70 of the staff
into millionaires, -
8:30 - 8:33they sort of said, "Well done, Steve!"
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8:33 - 8:38(Laughter)
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8:38 - 8:42(Applause)
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8:42 - 8:46You can always tell ambitious women
by the shape of our heads: -
8:46 - 8:50They're flat on top for being
patted patronizingly. -
8:50 - 8:56(Laughter) (Applause)
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8:56 - 9:00And we have larger feet to stand
away from the kitchen sink. -
9:00 - 9:02(Laughter)
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9:02 - 9:06Let me share with you
two secrets of success: -
9:06 - 9:12Surround yourself with first-class people
and people that you like; -
9:12 - 9:18and choose your partner
very, very carefully. -
9:18 - 9:21Because the other day when I said,
"My husband's an angel," -
9:21 - 9:24a woman complained --
"You're lucky," she said, -
9:24 - 9:26"mine's still alive."
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9:26 - 9:29(Laughter)
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9:33 - 9:38If success were easy,
we'd all be millionaires. -
9:39 - 9:46But in my case, it came in the midst
of family trauma and indeed, crisis. -
9:49 - 9:58Our late son, Giles, was an only child,
a beautiful, contented baby. -
9:58 - 10:01And then, at two and a half,
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10:01 - 10:05like a changeling in a fairy story,
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10:05 - 10:08he lost the little speech that he had
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10:08 - 10:13and turned into a wild,
unmanageable toddler. -
10:13 - 10:16Not the terrible twos;
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10:16 - 10:21he was profoundly autistic
and he never spoke again. -
10:24 - 10:30Giles was the first resident in the first
house of the first charity that I set up -
10:30 - 10:33to pioneer services for autism.
-
10:33 - 10:36And then there's been
a groundbreaking Prior's Court school -
10:36 - 10:39for pupils with autism
-
10:39 - 10:43and a medical research charity,
again, all for autism. -
10:43 - 10:48Because whenever I found a gap
in services, I tried to help. -
10:49 - 10:55I like doing new things
and making new things happen. -
10:55 - 11:01And I've just started a three-year
think tank for autism. -
11:01 - 11:06And so that some of my wealth does go back
to the industry from which it stems, -
11:06 - 11:10I've also founded
the Oxford Internet Institute -
11:10 - 11:13and other IT ventures.
-
11:13 - 11:17The Oxford Internet Institute
focuses not on the technology, -
11:17 - 11:22but on the social, economic, legal
and ethical issues of the Internet. -
11:24 - 11:31Giles died unexpectedly 17 years ago now.
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11:31 - 11:35And I have learned to live without him,
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11:35 - 11:39and I have learned to live
without his need of me. -
11:39 - 11:43Philanthropy is all that I do now.
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11:43 - 11:45I need never worry about getting lost
-
11:45 - 11:49because several charities
would quickly come and find me. -
11:49 - 11:53(Laughter)
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12:01 - 12:05It's one thing to have an idea
for an enterprise, -
12:05 - 12:07but as many people in this room will know,
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12:07 - 12:10making it happen is a very difficult thing
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12:10 - 12:18and it demands extraordinary energy,
self-belief and determination, -
12:18 - 12:22the courage to risk family and home,
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12:22 - 12:27and a 24/7 commitment
that borders on the obsessive. -
12:27 - 12:31So it's just as well
that I'm a workaholic. -
12:31 - 12:37I believe in the beauty of work when we
do it properly and in humility. -
12:38 - 12:44Work is not just something I do
when I'd rather be doing something else. -
12:46 - 12:48We live our lives forward.
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12:48 - 12:51So what has all that taught me?
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12:52 - 12:56I learned that tomorrow's
never going to be like today, -
12:56 - 12:59and certainly nothing like yesterday.
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12:59 - 13:02And that made me able to cope with change,
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13:02 - 13:07indeed, eventually to welcome change,
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13:07 - 13:12though I'm told I'm still very difficult.
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13:12 - 13:14Thank you very much.
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13:14 - 13:21(Applause)
- Title:
- Why do ambitious women have flat heads?
- Speaker:
- Dame Stephanie Shirley
- Description:
-
Dame Stephanie Shirley is the most successful tech entrepreneur you never heard of. In the 1960s, she founded a pioneering all-woman software company in the UK, which was ultimately valued at $3 billion, making millionaires of 70 of her team members. In this frank and often hilarious talk, she explains why she went by “Steve,” how she upended the expectations of the time, and shares some sure-fire ways to identify ambitious women …
- Video Language:
- English
- Team:
- closed TED
- Project:
- TEDTalks
- Duration:
- 13:39
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Morton Bast edited English subtitles for Why do ambitious women have flat heads? | ||
Morton Bast edited English subtitles for Why do ambitious women have flat heads? | ||
Morton Bast edited English subtitles for Why do ambitious women have flat heads? | ||
Morton Bast edited English subtitles for Why do ambitious women have flat heads? | ||
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