Silicon Valley Exec Deb Liu on her career in tech and decriminalising failure at work
Today’s guest is Deb Liu – CEO of Ancestry.com, the billion dollar genealogy company. Deb also serves on the Board of Intuit and is the co-founder of Women in Product.
In this interview, Deb talks me through her personal and career journey from growing up in a small town where less than 1% of the community were Asian to how she overcame racism to become a VP at Facebook where she spent 12 years of her career.
After studying Civil Engineering at Duke, Deb got her master’s in business at Stanford and joined PayPal where she spent 6 years, working in different leadership roles including Director of Product management, focusing on Marketplaces which, at the time, made up around 70% of PayPal revenues. After that, she went to Facebook where she spent almost 12 years working in senior product leadership positions including founding Facebook Marketplace - an idea she had presented to Sheryl Sandberg years earlier.
We also talk about Deb’s new book Take Back Your Power: 10 New Rules for Women at Work which is a great read for women who wish to climb the ranks like Deb did but also for men who want to understand the obstacles women face at work, how they can be better allies and to learn the stories of some incredible women that Deb features in the book.
There are lots of fantastic lessons in this episode on leadership, product management and overcoming the dreaded imposter syndrome.
Enjoy!
Deb Twitter / Instagram / Substack
Ancestry.com, Women in Product
Pre-order Take Back Your Power: 10 New Rules for Women at Work here. Out in US 9th Aug, UK 13th Oct
Danielle Twitter / Instagram / Newsletter
Huge thanks to Jimmy Soni – author of The Founders: The Story of PayPal and the Entrepreneurs Who Shaped Silicon Valley for making the intro.