Moving Beyond Entrepreneur Stereotypes

A lot of people sometimes think like, oh, you went to Stanford, that must be where you like were inspired to be an entrepreneur. And even honestly, even at Stanford where I think there is so much exposure to great entrepreneurs and where it is like such a clear career path for so many, even there, I don't think I realized that this was a path that was available to me. And so, I think some of like, some of why I think it's important for stories like my own to be shared is because I do think there are a lot of, historical stereotypes around what entrepreneurs look like. And I think some of those, and there's many, many people who don't look like Mark Zuckerberg and don't look like Larry and Sergey or whoever, who are kind of like the stories of Stanford lore. And there's a lot of other types of ways to be successful as entrepreneurs. There's a lot of people that look different and different backgrounds. And so, I almost arrived at this path almost through process of elimination. Like I thought like apparel retail is super exciting and interesting. And my thesis was like, I just wanna be at, whatever company is going to be like the leader of this space in 20 years. And ultimately, like, I couldn't quite find any companies that I thought fit that bill. And ultimately, like, literally by process of elimination, I realized like, well, if I don't see a company that's doing it, like, I can imagine it myself. But the one thing that I would attribute in terms of my background is that, and it's interesting, Ravi, I think you were the one actually who shared with me that like, I do think being the daughter of an immigrant, I think just having that, having people in your family who immigrated from a country and took big risks and changed their lives. And having that narrative is just like a really, it's a really lucky thing, I guess. And I think you shared with me that that's one of the predictors of entrepreneurship or it's one of the only things that correlates with being an entrepreneur. And I think kind of related to that, there are a couple stories in my childhood that I attribute to my belief in possibility and an expansive belief of anything being possible. One of those is, yes, my mom immigrated here from Japan, but what's kind of interesting, it was actually her mother, my Japanese grandmother, that desperately wanted to be in the United States. And she was born in Japan during the war and grew up during the war and idolized the United States and always felt like she should— dreamed of being an American someday. She lived in Japan. She didn't learn to drive a car. She was in an arranged marriage. It was crazy that somebody in that context would think someday I'm going to be an American. And, you know, through a long way where it's like she had two daughters, she made sure her daughters went to college and encouraged them to go to grad school in the United States. And like, and actually through her daughters was able to make her way to the United States eventually. And so that's one of them. And then the other one on my Caucasian side is that my, let's see, my grandfather was raised by two women. So he was raised by his mother and her sister because both of them, um, when my grandfather was only like a year and a and a half, he lost his father. And his mother's sister also was in a similar circumstance where both fathers passed away. And so now these two sisters had five kids in between them. And this was before welfare and before a lot of the social services that we know today. This is like a long time ago. And so these two sisters got together and they're like, one of us is going to be— she was actually a buyer. She ended up becoming a buyer at a department store in Minnesota. But one of them was like, I'm going to go to work. The other one's going to take care of the kids. And so they had this household that was led by two women. And so like my grandfather, my Japanese, or my American grandfather, he like taught me how to use a computer. He taught me to ride a bike. He taught me to drive. Like, you know, he had this belief that like girls and women can do anything because of his upbringing. And so, you know, I think these narratives, this probably seems like a random aside, but I think these narratives are really important. And I think, you know, as we think about like how, how do we instill, and now I have two young children, and as you think about like, you know, how do you instill in children and in young people this this belief that anything is possible. And I think while I'm incredibly proud of the journey that I've had, and I think I've overcome a lot to do this, I feel like I have overcome less than some of these people in my family that I've heard about. I'm like, you think like taking a company public, like, whoa, like raising 5 kids, like with, you know, with, I mean, that was a crazy thing to do. Or like, you know, imagining that you could be an American someday when you were in an arranged marriage in Japan, like that's insane, you know. And so I think just like having those, having those as like the benchmarks in your mind of like, oh, these are the things that people do and like that's normal, it actually like creates a really expansive mindset. And so, you know, I think these narratives we tell are super important. I think, you know, to be able to have these— and everybody, I'm sure every single one of you listening has narratives in your family of like people who've done incredible, amazing, totally you know, beat the odds things. And like, I think those things are really important to celebrate because it really changes your mindset. It really changes what you believe is possible for yourself.