Reshma Saujani, Founder of Girls Who Code & Moms First

For my next Tiny CEO interview, I interviewed Reshma Saujani, the founder of Girls Who Code, a non-profit that helps break down barriers for girls, women, and non-binary people in technology, and of MOMS F1RST, an organization that helps support moms around America. Reshma is also the author of several books, including the Girls Who Code book series, Pay Up, and Brave Not Perfect, and the host of the new podcast, My So-Called Midlife.

Can you tell us a little more about the nonprofit you started, Girls Who Code, and what inspired you to start it?

I started Girls Who Code because I was running for office and I would go into computer science classes to talk to students—I would just see a ton of boys, and I wouldn't see any girls. Both my parents were engineers, I majored in computer science, and I knew that there were all these jobs that paid really well in computer science. I knew that technology can help you solve the biggest problems that girls want to solve. So I started Girls Who Code because first, I wanted to understand why there weren't more women and girls in tech. And second, I really believed as an activist and as someone who believed in making change, that if you knew how to code, that skill would help you solve problems like COVID, climate, cancer, dyslexia, homelessness…all the things that I knew young women were thinking about in the world, problems that they wanted to solve.

I read the Girls Who Code books a few years ago, and I really liked them. Why did you decide to write the Girls Who Code book series?

I wrote the Girls Who Code book series because I would go all across the country as a Girls Who Code CEO, and I'd meet with schools in Kansas and New Mexico and Oklahoma. I would go visit our Girls Who Code clubs. Oftentimes I would speak to parents in small towns, and they didn't have WiFi. If you don’t have Wifi, it's really hard to learn how to code. These parents of young students would say to me, “Hey, is there a book about coding?” And I said, “No, I don’t have a book.” I thought that there must be books out there that would teach kids how to code. But when I went online, I didn't see any. That's what really inspired the Girls Who Code book series. I wanted to get in the hands of so many people who didn't have access to WiFi, to help them learn how to code and see how easy it is to get started. That's why the book starts with the idea that learning how to code is like learning how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich or learning how to dance. 

The second thing we really wanted to do was to also inspire a lot of girls to want to learn how to code through reading. I love to read and I grew up reading the Babysitting Club series. I grew up reading many books that in many ways inspired me to do the things that I do now, which is hopefully to make change in the world. That’s why I created a fiction series about a bunch of girls who were friends and part of a club that solves mysteries, and at the same time the girls learn how to code.

You also wrote another book: Brave, Not Perfect. We had that as a middle school theme where I go to school. What motivated you to write Brave, Not Perfect, and what is it about?

I wrote Brave, Not Perfect because I got an opportunity to give a TED talk. Going on TED is a big deal because you get to tell the world something that millions of people can listen to. I started my first march when I was 13 years old, fighting for people who don’t have a voice, in particular women and girls. This opportunity to give this speech about gender at TED was just—wow. I wanted to get it right, and I wanted to say something that could help change people's lives. Oftentimes Girls Who Code teachers would tell me the following story: When girls come to our program at Girls Who Code, most of them have never coded before. It didn't matter whether they were in Chicago or Kansas or Arkansas or anywhere. And every time, a student would call her teacher over and she'd say, “I don't know what code to write.” The teacher would look at the girl’s computer, and she'd see a blank screen. But when the teacher pressed undo on the computer a few times, she saw that the student did actually write code, but then she had deleted it. What she didn't want to say was, “I know I made a mistake. Look what I wrote, I think it's wrong. The semi-colons are in the wrong place.” She would rather show nothing at all, because she was embarrassed of making a mistake. It was this idea of perfection or bust. 

I told the story on the TED stage and people said, “I do that! My daughter does that! My aunt does that!” What they meant was that wherever they were in their profession, whether they were a teacher, an artist, a doctor, or a lawyer, they were deleting the code of their life. They were giving up before they even tried, because they were afraid to fail and make a mistake. They didn’t keep anything that wasn’t perfect. 

I realized that in many ways, coding is bravery, and it's the antidote of perfectionism. Girls would come to Girls Who Code and say “I'm not good at math, I'm not technical, I can't code.” And then before long, they were building a website or designing an algorithm. That experience was so empowering because they realize, “What are the other things that I told myself I can't do that I actually CAN do?” Coding became a metaphor for bravery and for approaching your life with a sense of bravery. That's what Brave, Not Perfect is about.

What led you to start Moms First?

Moms First started out of the pandemic. During the pandemic, daycare centers were shut down and schools were closed. If you were a mom who had a job as a nurse or a teacher, you had to show up at work because you're an essential worker—but then you think, “Who's going to look after my kids if schools and daycares are closed?” If you had an older child at home, they became the caregiver. A lot of my students live below the poverty line, and many of them couldn't go to college because they had to stay home and take care of their family.  That was a big eye opener for me about the impact of having a country and a society that doesn't have childcare that's affordable and available, that doesn't have paid leave, which are health services for women after they have a baby. The implications of that on gender equality are really enormous. That's why I started Moms First. When I see something wrong in the world, I say: “Wait, why is that happening? How can I fix it?” That's really what inspired me to build these movements. With girls and technology, it was “Why are there girls not coding?” Now my question is, “Why do we not have daycare and paid leave? Why do we not treat mothers with the same amount of dignity and respect that we need to?” That's the problem right now that I'm really obsessed with.

What is your favorite part of your job?

My favorite part of my job is the people I work with. I work with a lot of super smart people, some who I've worked with for years, and it's like we're the Avengers in a room trying to figure out how to make the world a little bit better. I love that sense of community and that sense of sisterhood.

What is the hardest part of your job?

The hardest part of my job is that when you're a woman fighting for women and girls issues, the fight never ends. You have wins, then struggles and then obstacles and then challenges. It's hard to get up and just keep fighting. It gets exhausting. I think that I have to constantly remind myself and others that this is our karma, this is our destiny. This is the thing in this lifetime that we're supposed to be doing.

Who is your woman role model?

My woman role model has always been Hillary Clinton. I met her when I was in my twenties and she's just amazing. She's supported everything that I've done and talks about a fighter and somebody who never gives up.

Do you have any advice for young entrepreneurs like me, who are looking to start a business?

Just do it. Take one small step. Sometimes when I started to code, I thought, “I'm going to teach 20 girls to code, and I'm going to put them in a classroom, and I'm going to teach them a code for one summer.” I took one step. Not only take a step, but tell everybody about it, because sometimes what you need is the accountability of, “I'm not quitting, I'm not failing.” When you tell people your dream, you also never know who's going to conspire to help you make that happen. I think that that's amazing. Take one step, and tell everybody what you're doing.

Your colleague thought that I had a podcast rather than this blog on my website. That’s a really good idea! I know you started a podcast recently. Can you tell me more about it, and would you recommend that I turn The Tiny CEO into a podcast too?

Yes! I love podcasts, and I love doing my podcast. I love the amazing people I get to talk to. My podcast is called My So-Called Midlife, and it's about helping guide women who are going through the middle of their life. I interviewed my friend, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who's on the Supreme Court. I interviewed Julia Louis Dreyfus, who is the lead character on Veep, and she was also on Seinfeld. I'm interviewing one of my favorite authors, Mary Beard, who's going to be talking about women in power. So I've loved it. It's been such a rewarding experience, and I think it's given women a lot of answers, a lot of sense of community. It's made them laugh, it's made them cry, it's made them feel seen. So yes, you should totally turn your blog into a podcast!