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So a few years ago,

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I did something really brave,

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or some would say really stupid.

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I ran for Congress.

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For years, I had existed
safely behind the scenes in politics

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as a fundraiser, as an organizer,

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but in my heart, I always wanted to run.

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The sitting congresswoman
had been in my district since 1992.

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She had never lost a race,

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and no one had really even run against her
in a Democratic primary.

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But in my mind, this was my way

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to make a difference,

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to disrupt the status quo.

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The polls, however,
told a very different story.

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My pollsters told me
that I was crazy to run,

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that there was no way that I could win.

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But I ran anyway,

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and in 2012, I became an upstart
in a New York City congressional race.

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I swore I was going to win.

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I had the endorsement
from the New York Daily News,

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the Wall Street Journal
snapped pictures of me on election day,

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and CNBC called it one of the hottest
races in the country.

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I raised money from everyone I knew,

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including Indian aunties

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that were just so happy
an Indian girl was running.

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But on election day, the polls were right,

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and I only got 19 percent of the vote,

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and the same papers
that said I was a rising political star

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now said I wasted 1.3 million dollars

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on 6,321 votes.

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Don't do the math.

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It was humiliating.

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Now, before you get the wrong idea,

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this is not a talk
about the importance of failure.

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Nor is it about leaning in.

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I tell you the story
of how I ran for Congress

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because I was 33 years old

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and it was the first time
in my entire life

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that I had done something
that was truly brave,

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where I didn't worry about being perfect.

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And I'm not alone:

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so many women I talk to tell me

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that they gravitate
towards careers and professions

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that they know
they're going to be great in,

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that they know they're
going to be perfect in,

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and it's no wonder why.

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Most girls are taught
to avoid risk and failure.

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We're taught to smile pretty,

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play it safe, get all A's.

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Boys, on the other hand,

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are taught to play rough, swing high,

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crawl to the top of the monkey bars
and then just jump off headfirst.

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And by the time they're adults,

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whether they're negotiating a raise
or even asking someone out on a date,

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they're habituated
to take risk after risk.

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They're rewarded for it.

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It's often said in Silicon Valley,

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no one even takes you seriously
unless you've had two failed start-ups.

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In other words,

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we're raising our girls to be perfect,

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and we're raising our boys to be brave.

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Some people worry
about our federal deficit,

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but I, I worry about our bravery deficit.

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Our economy, our society,
we're just losing out

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because we're not raising
our girls to be brave.

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The bravery deficit is why
women are underrepresented in STEM,

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in C-suites, in boardrooms, in Congress,

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and pretty much everywhere you look.

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In the 1980s, psychologist Carol Dweck

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looked at how bright fifth graders
handled an assignment

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that was too difficult for them.

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She found that bright girls
were quick to give up.

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The higher the IQ,
the more likely they were to give up.

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Bright boys, on the other hand,

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found the difficult material
to be a challenge.

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They found it energizing.

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They were more likely
to redouble their efforts.

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What's going on?

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Well, at the fifth grade level,

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girls routinely outperform boys
in every subject,

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including math and science,

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so it's not a question of ability.

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The difference is in how boys
and girls approach a challenge.

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And it doesn't just end in fifth grade.

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An HP report found
that men will apply for a job

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if they meet only 60 percent
of the qualifications,

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but women, women will apply

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only if they meet 100 percent
of the qualifications.

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100 percent.

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This study is usually invoked
as evidence that, well,

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women need a little more confidence.

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But I think it's evidence

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that women have been socialized
to aspire to perfection,

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and they're overly cautious.

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(Applause)

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And even when we're ambitious,

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even when we're leaning in,

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that socialization of perfection

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has caused us to take
less risks in our careers.

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And so those 600,000 jobs
that are open right now

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in computing and tech,

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women are being left behind,

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and it means our economy
is being left behind

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on all the innovation and problems
women would solve

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if they were socialized to be brave

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instead of socialized to be perfect.

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(Applause)

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So in 2012, I started a company
to teach girls to code,

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and what I found
is that by teaching them to code

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I had socialized them to be brave.

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Coding, it's an endless process
of trial and error,

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of trying to get the right command
in the right place,

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with sometimes just a semicolon

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making the difference
between success and failure.

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Code breaks and then it falls apart,

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and it often takes many, many tries

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until that magical moment

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when what you're trying
to build comes to life.

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It requires perseverance.

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It requires imperfection.

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We immediately see in our program

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our girls' fear of not getting it right,

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of not being perfect.

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Every Girls Who Code teacher
tells me the same story.

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During the first week,
when the girls are learning how to code,

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a student will call her over
and she'll say,

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"I don't know what code to write."

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The teacher will look at her screen,

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and she'll see a blank text editor.

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If she didn't know any better,
she'd think that her student

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spent the past 20 minutes
just staring at the screen.

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But if she presses undo a few times,

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she'll see that her student
wrote code and then deleted it.

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She tried, she came close,

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but she didn't get it exactly right.

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Instead of showing
the progress that she made,

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she'd rather show nothing at all.

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Perfection or bust.

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It turns out that our girls
are really good at coding,

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but it's not enough
just to teach them to code.

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My friend Lev Brie, who is a professor
at the University of Columbia

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and teaches intro to Java

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tells me about his office hours
with computer science students.

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When the guys are struggling
with an assignment,

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they'll come in and they'll say,

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"Professor, there's something
wrong with my code."

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The girls will come in and say,

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"Professor, there's something
wrong with me."

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We have to begin to undo
the socialization of perfection,

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but we've got to combine it
with building a sisterhood

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that lets girls know
that they are not alone.

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Because trying harder
is not going to fix a broken system.

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I can't tell you how many women tell me,

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"I'm afraid to raise my hand,

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I'm afraid to ask a question,

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because I don't want to be the only one

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who doesn't understand,

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the only one who is struggling.

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When we teach girls to be brave

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and we have a supportive network
cheering them on,

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they will build incredible things,

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and I see this every day.

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Take, for instance,
two of our high school students

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who built a game called Tampon Run --

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yes, Tampon Run --

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to fight against the menstruation taboo

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and sexism in gaming.

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Or the Syrian refugee

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who dared show her love
for her new country

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by building an app
to help Americans get to the polls.

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Or a 16-year-old girl
who built an algorithm

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to help detect whether a cancer
is benign or malignant

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in the off chance
that she can save her daddy's life

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because he has cancer.

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These are just
three examples of thousands,

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thousands of girls who have been
socialized to be imperfect,

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who have learned to keep trying,
who have learned perseverance.

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And whether they become coders

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or the next Hillary Clinton or Beyoncé,

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they will not defer their dreams.

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And those dreams have never been
more important for our country.

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For the American economy,
for any economy to grow,

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to truly innovate,

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we cannot leave behind
half our population.

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We have to socialize our girls
to be comfortable with imperfection,

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and we've got to do it now.

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We cannot wait for them
to learn how to be brave like I did

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when I was 33 years old.

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We have to teach them
to be brave in schools

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and early in their careers,

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when it has the most potential
to impact their lives

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and the lives of others,

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and we have to show them
that they will be loved and accepted

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not for being perfect

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but for being courageous.

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And so I need each of you
to tell every young woman you know --

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your sister, your niece,
your employee, your colleague --

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to be comfortable with imperfection,

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because when we teach
girls to be imperfect,

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and we help them leverage it,

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we will build a movement
of young women who are brave

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and who will build
a better world for themselves

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and for each and every one of us.

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Thank you.

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(Applause)

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Thank you.

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Chris Anderson: Reshma, thank you.

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It's such a powerful vision you have.
You have a vision.

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Tell me how it's going.

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How many girls
are involved now in your program?

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Reshma Saujani: Yeah.
So in 2012, we taught 20 girls.

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This year we'll teach 40,000
in all 50 states.

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(Applause)

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And that number is really powerful,

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because last year we only graduated
7,500 women in computer science.

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Like, the problem is so bad

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that we can make
that type of change quickly.

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CA: And you're working with some
of the companies in this room even,

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who are welcoming
graduates from your program?

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RS: Yeah, we have about 80 partners,

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from Twitter to Facebook

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to Adobe to IBM to Microsoft
to Pixar to Disney,

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I mean, every single company out there.

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And if you're not signed up,
I'm going to find you,

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because we need every single tech company

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to embed a Girls Who Code
classroom in their office.

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CA: And you have some stories
back from some of those companies

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that when you mix in more gender balance

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in the engineering teams,
good things happen.

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RS: Great things happen.

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I mean, I think that it's crazy to me
to think about the fact

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that right now 85 percent of all
consumer purchases are made by women.

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Women use social media at a rate
of 600 percent more than men.

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We own the Internet,

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and we should be building
the companies of tomorrow.

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And I think when companies
have diverse teams,

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and they have incredible women
that are part of their engineering teams,

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they build awesome things,
and we see it every day.

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CA: Reshma, you saw the reaction there.
You're doing incredibly important work.

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This whole community is cheering you on.
More power to you. Thank you.

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RS: Thank you.

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(Applause)