Aug 5, 2024, 12:01 PM ETInterview, Fireside Chat, Conference Presentation

Ancestry CEO Deb Liu on leading the largest for-profit genealogy company

Deb Liu served as CEO of Ancestry since 2021, previously holding leadership roles at Meta (Facebook) and PayPal.
At PayPal (joined 2002), Liu led the integration with eBay following the acquisition, a move later ranked among the top 10 Silicon Valley acquisitions.
At Meta, Liu oversaw the Games and Payments platforms before founding Facebook Marketplace, which now serves over 1 billion users.
In 2022, she published "Take Back Your Power: 10 Rules for Women at Work" addressing workplace obstacles for women.
Liu founded "Women in Product," a non-profit supporting over 30,000 members in the product management field.
She is a member of the Committee of 100 and was named a Gold House A100 for notable Asian American leadership.
Liu's career path spans from engineering at Duke University to consulting at Boston Consulting Group, and an MBA from Stanford.
She transitioned from engineering to product management to accommodate family planning and build scalable products.

Liu shifted Ancestry's strategy from "solo activity" to "Me to We," focusing on transforming family history into a shared family experience.
The company launched "Family Groups" and "Community Groups" to facilitate collaboration and help users break through research brick walls.
Ancestry is investing heavily in photo scanning technology to preserve memories before they are lost to events like fires or floods.
The "Ancestry for All" initiative aims to make the platform inclusive for regions lacking extensive paper record archives by prioritizing user-generated storytelling.
Liu emphasizes that family history involves capturing the "journey" and challenges faced by ancestors, not just names and dates.
Recent product updates include tools to digitally capture funeral stories, photos, and documents to honor passing generations.
The company views AI as an enabler to reconstruct historical contexts (e.g., 1930s Polish communities) rather than as the sole solution.
AI tools are being tested to help users stitch together life stories from disparate photos, records, and historical data points.

Liu advocates for the mindset of "making yourself investable" rather than asking to be invested in, encouraging professionals to publish their work and voice ideas.
She reframes self-promotion as "finding your voice" to help others and create opportunities through visibility.
Liu identifies "imposter syndrome" as a significant barrier, often exacerbated by immigrant experiences of feeling like "the other."
She overcame imposter syndrome by adopting a "fastest learner" mindset and deliberately seeking feedback and coaching.
Liu challenges workplace biases toward extroverts by asking her leadership team to write down questions and voting equally on decisions to amplify quiet voices.
She distinguishes "sponsorship" from "mentorship," noting sponsors put their reputation on the line to open doors and stretch an employee's career.
Liu argues that sponsorship often favors those who demonstrate hunger and follow through on advice, creating a two-way street of value.
She credits her "60/60 marriage" model, where both partners give 60% to reach 100%, as essential to her work-life balance.
Liu emphasizes the importance of "circles"—including Lean In groups and community faith groups—for emotional support and professional networking.

Liu addresses the "model minority myth," citing data showing Asian Americans comprise 30-40% of the tech workforce but are disproportionately absent at the C-suite level.
She challenges the narrative that lack of advancement is due to qualifications, instead pointing to cultural biases favoring individualism over collective silence.
Liu discusses reframing "assimilation" as "adaptation" to navigate a corporate culture that rewards speaking up over keeping one's head down.
She advocates for Asian Americans to adapt to success definitions in the U.S. to eventually change the culture from the top.
Cultural values of frugality and financial caution, instilled by her parents, remain core to her family's identity despite her financial success.
The Liu family prioritizes teaching their children Chinese language and history to preserve cultural connections that older generations may have lost.
Liu notes that for recent immigrants from places like the Pearl River Delta, family history is often oral and photographic rather than documented in genealogical books.

Liu's family moved from Queens, New York, to South Carolina at age six due to employment discrimination against her father.
Her parents' immigrant mentality of "doctor, engineer, or failure" shaped her early engineering education at Duke.
Ancestry has identified that one-third of its customers conduct research specifically to share with family, driving the shift toward social features.
Liu predicts that future family history tools will integrate AI to contextualize ancestor lives within specific historical and political events.
The company aims to surface connections across communities, highlighting human interconnectivity as a counter to societal polarization.
Liu views the transition from paper-based research to digital, living documentation as critical for capturing the stories of elders before they pass.
The organization sees a growing demand for tools that allow users to record video and audio stories alongside traditional tree-building.