Esther Wojcicki
"Godmother of Silicon Valley" and Co-Founder at Tract.app
Our founder Vanessa had a 3-hour-long discussion with Esther Wojcicki at the DECODE event.
Check out her learnings below!
10 valuable Lessons from Esther:
Be the CEO of your own life.
Give kids control because they learn by doing. Same in start-ups: let your team members have control.
VCs are always attracted to strong teams
Esther always gave space to her daughters, Susan Wojcicki, Janet Wojcicki, and Anne Wojcicki. She encouraged them to follow their curiosities instead of sticking to a conventional path. The failures and lessons learned along their journeys got them to where they are today.
Steve Jobs's most important characteristic: Persistence.
Journalism teaches widely transferrable skills in life. Most importantly, it teaches you how to think.
Trust yourself, respect yourself.
A student of Esther's felt very down after his rejection from Stanford. She told him to use it as an opportunity and to believe in himself. So he got back up and decided to start a company called Nowports; in just a few years, it grew to be Latin America's fastest-growing company. Moral of the story: Never give up.
Story of George Dantzig: he mistook two unsolvable problems presented in a lecture for homework, worked tirelessly on them, and eventually solved them. He wouldn't have tried if he'd known they were "unsolvable." Believing in yourself is the single most important thing.
