Interview
How I Taught Millions Of Women The Most Important Skill: Girls Who Code Founder: Reshma Saujani
- Reshma Sundaram, founder and former CEO of Girls Who Code, identifies her core mission as teaching "every single girl to code" to improve the world, noting that when she founded the organization, only 0.4% of girls were interested in coding.
- The organization has since grown to include 10,000 clubs across the US, UK, and India, having reached nearly half a million girls directly through programs and hundreds of millions more through media and books.
- Sundaram's father, an immigrant who escaped Idi Amin's dictatorship in Uganda, changed his surname from Mukund to Mina to secure engineering employment, instilling a survival-focused mindset in his family.
- She experienced severe racial bullying and physical assault in middle school, including being beaten with a tennis racket and a baseball bat, which she identifies as the pivotal moment she decided "I will never be silent."
- This trauma triggered a shift from trying to assimilate to becoming a "warrior" who actively fights for marginalized communities, leading her to lead her first protest march at age 13 and found the Prejudice Reduction Interested Students Movement (PRISM).
- Despite her parents' desire for her to pursue a safe career (doctor, lawyer, or engineer) to ensure financial survival, Sundaram pursued a Yale Law School degree, which she now regrets due to the resulting $300,000 in student loan debt.
- The debt forced her into a corporate law career she hated, delaying her ability to pursue civil rights work and causing her significant mental health decline, including anxiety, depression, and substance use.
- At age 33, Sundaram ran for the US Congress, becoming the first South Asian American woman to run for the seat in New York, an experience she describes as learning "entrepreneurship" through running a campaign.
- Her congressional run ended in a loss after a New York Times profile focused on her shoes rather than her policy platform, a moment she views as a character assassination against young women of color.
- Following the loss, she launched Girls Who Code and ran for New York City Public Advocate simultaneously, eventually focusing full-time on the nonprofit after losing that race as well.
- Sundaram admits to a significant leadership failure regarding work-life balance, stating she prioritized building Girls Who Code over her personal health during a period of seven years of recurrent miscarriages.
- She recounts a specific incident where she ignored medical advice indicating a potential miscarriage to fly to Utah to speak to 1,000 girls, later realizing the unsustainable nature of this "girl boss" mentality.
- In her 2016 book Brave, Not Perfect, Sundaram initially focused on fixing women's internal confidence, but she later revised this approach after the pandemic highlighted structural failures in supporting working mothers.
- The pandemic triggered the departure of 11 million women from the US workforce, prompting Sundaram to advocate for a "Marshall Plan for Moms" to address childcare deficits and unpaid labor burdens.
- She notes that women are currently spending more time on childcare than they did in 1980 due to the societal expectation of "intensive parenting," contributing to a mental health crisis among working mothers.
- Sundaram stepped down as CEO of Girls Who Code one year prior to the interview to make space for new leadership, a transition that revealed a lack of personal validation in the industry once she was no longer the central figure.
- Her new book, Pay Up: The Future of Women and Work, outlines four principles for structural change: Empower (creating tangible boundaries), Educate (shifting employer practices like childcare subsidies), Revise (changing cultural narratives around motherhood), and Advocate (policymaking for paid leave and support).
- She argues that the current system requires men to take mandatory paid leave to normalize caregiving and that companies should subsidize childcare, egg freezing, and IVF as economic necessities rather than personal choices.
- Sundaram is currently focusing on her personal well-being, prioritizing sleep (aiming for 8 hours), playing tennis, and applying spiritual principles from the Bhagavad Gita to detach from the "shiny objects" of validation and accolades.
- She rejects the narrative of imposter syndrome, asserting that the feeling of not belonging is a result of systemic propaganda rather than a lack of qualification, citing her own ability to lead rooms containing Bill Gates and Warren Buffett.
- In a closing tradition, Sundaram answers the question, "When was the last time a day flew by?" by describing visiting her son's school, where his kindness and presence made hours feel like minutes.