Deb Liu

Deb Liu (Former CEO of Ancestry, author of "Take Back Your Power: 10 New Rules for Women at Work", Board Director at Intuit, creator of Facebook Marketplaces and Facebook Pay, and co-founder of Women in Product) and Dave explore the significance of executive coaching, the impact of cultural identity on personal and professional growth, and the importance of soft skills in achieving success. Deb shares her experiences navigating challenges in her career, the pressures of societal expectations, and her approach to raising children in a competitive environment. The discussion emphasizes the need for resilience, self-discovery, and the subjective nature of success.

In this conversation, Deb Liu shares her insights on identity, resilience, and the importance of navigating corporate dynamics. She emphasizes the significance of soft skills in leadership, the impact of company culture on career trajectories, and the balance between family and career aspirations. Deb discusses the role of mentorship, the understanding of affinity bias, and the necessity of clarity in career progression. She reflects on her personal mission, the importance of continuous learning, and how failures can serve as stepping stones. Ultimately, Deb highlights the legacy one leaves behind and the impact of our actions on others.

Full Transcript

Dave (00:01.393)

All right, welcome to the Hyphen Nation podcast. I'm here with my friend, Deb Liu, former CEO of Ancestry, many years at PayPal and Facebook, product leader, and just a good friend overall. She's written a book, Take Back Your Power, and I'm just grateful to have her here with us on the podcast today. Hi, Deb, how are you doing today?

Deb Liu (00:22.926)

It's great to be here.

Dave (00:24.463)

Yeah. I, you know, I wanted to have this chat with you and get exposure. feel like I just talked to you about this, but, my goal for this podcast has always been to allow people to kind of listen in on and have access to the conversations I get to have with my friends who've done amazing things. and so I want to get you, on this podcast so people can learn from you, in so many ways as a, you know, Asian American leader, as as a woman leader, as a mom, you have played so many roles as a Christian you've done.

You know, so many things, but a lot of that is not easy and understanding the trade-offs of your identity growing up in South Carolina to, you know, all the things that you've had to do to become a CEO and a board director. So, love to dig in with you. So thank you for being here. So let's start back when you, way back when. So you were born in South Carolina, is that right? Oh, okay.

Deb Liu (01:18.094)

No, I was actually born in New York City. It's funny. I was born in Queens, Jackson Heights, oh, see down the street from each other. So I now booth, booth memorial and flushing. Ah, yes. Well, so, you know, growing up, I was living in it in the area actually was like a 10 square block area in Jackson Heights where a lot of my relatives lived. I mostly only spoke Cantonese. I really, you know, lived in a bubble.

Deb Liu (01:44.558)

And then my parents, when I was six, decided to move to South Carolina. And it completely changed. Well, so my dad was being discriminated against at work, so they wouldn't honor his engineering degree. And his friend, who also worked at one of the companies up there, they worked together at the telephone company, said, hey, why don't you come South, where I moved? They don't discriminate in the government, and I'll get you a job at the Naval Shipyard. And my dad was an engineer. He was an electrical nuclear engineer. And so he decided to pick up his family and go to a state he had never been to.

Deb Liu (02:13.922)

and we started a brand new life. And at six, I remember my sister who was eight at the time, we spent our whole childhood hoping to move back to New York. That was our dream because we just, you know, we were strangers in a strange land, right? No one looked like us in our town. So his friend was Indian, so they were the Indian family and we were the Chinese family in this town, you know, so in the entire town. And so it was just, it was so, there were, so by the way, if you wanted to meet Chinese people, you just go to Chinese restaurant.

Dave (02:32.624)

The one. Oh my gosh. Was there a Chinese restaurant even in the name? There's no Chinese restaurant.

Deb Liu (02:41.132)

So everybody, was the one Chinese restaurant in your town, you so I worked at Chinese restaurants and, know, throughout my whole life, like all kids. And it was, you know, that's how you connect with the Chinese community was the restaurant community was very welcoming and very supportive. But there was just one or two families in every single town out there. And then occasionally we would gather and get to know each other. And so it was very, very different growing being so different from everybody around you, right? Where everybody would, you know, people would literally walk up and say, you know,

Deb Liu (03:09.964)

Go back to where you came from constantly. And I would say, New York, even as a kid, yes. People would come up to my parents at the mall. And so I think it's very different now that we live in California, right? That's not something my children have ever experienced. They were very surprised when I told them these stories.

Dave (03:11.121)

Even as a kid, even as a kid? Wow.

Wow.

Dave (03:22.554)

Yeah.

Dave (03:27.535)

Yeah, and there was no, I'm assuming because the Asian community is so small, I mean, there was no, there were no, usually Asian churches are very big communities, but I mean, some people travel hours just to go to find the nearest one.

Deb Liu (03:37.774)

Well, so that's what we did. My parents, you we went to a Presbyterian church when I was growing up, but, you know, they created a Bible study community that was both a Chinese school and a, so this is the, go on Saturday and you go to Chinese school for four, three or four hours, and then you have fellowship and we had dinner and we have potluck dinner every Saturday with a community, but we drive super far because again, you have one or two families per town.

Deb Liu (04:03.234)

we would drive probably 45 minutes to an hour to kind of a central location where we would meet. And that was a community. Eventually I met a family there who later actually, one of the kids who I grew up with introduced me to my husband. yes.

Dave (04:15.687)

Wow. I didn't know that's how you met David. That's crazy. Is he from the area in North Carolina? Yeah.

Deb Liu (04:19.918)

He's from North Carolina and I'm from South Carolina. Actually, we would have met when we were teenagers. I was actually, we were crabbing and I saw a family, that same family came to town and they said, hey, tomorrow we're bringing our whole youth group and we're gonna go fishing and crabbing here. We show them all our tips and tricks. Then they asked my parents if they could come back and my parents were like, no, we have church tomorrow. So we ended up not coming back. And David's like, I remember that trip. And I said, we could have met when I was like 13 and you were 15. And he said, it's probably better we met later.

Deb Liu (04:49.582)

You know, we were both much cooler than the nerdy kids that we were back then.

Dave (04:53.025)

Yeah. I mean, do you still keep in touch with that community? Because I find that a lot of people who grow up in these kind of like small communities and like, you know, they're the only connection they have. They have really strong bonds to the other kids that they met back then.

Deb Liu (05:04.3)

Yeah, well, it's so funny because I just was in North Carolina this past week for my daughter's college tour and I had dinner with that same Danny Tan who introduced us. We actually had dinner with him again and you know, it's been we've stayed friends over this all this time. I met him when I was six, by the way, and he introduced me to David when I was 18.

Dave (05:13.065)

Wow. And so when you decided to go to college at Duke was that I'm surprised you didn't want to go back up to New York because you kept saying you want to go to New York.

Deb Liu (05:31.746)

Well, so my parents at this point, mean, my parents actually believed that they lived the American dream. So regardless, you people used to throw things at our house and there were prank calls constantly and someone broke our windows. And my parents really believed in the American dream that this was their dream. And they really thrived. I think we struggled with the identity. But for them, this was the ability to buy a house, have the picket fence, you know. And so I think that they were very, yes, they were just so grateful.

Deb Liu (05:57.912)

for the life that they had and they had good friends and they had a church community. And so it's very different when you see, you know, people ask like, how do I feel about all these things? And I said, you know, my parents just had so much grace for the life that we led. And so I want to, I love that too, even though I had a much harder experience in the school system. But you know, when I was going to school, I didn't want to be too far from them. And my parents couldn't afford to send me too far. And so I applied, you know, Georgia Tech, know, Virginia Tech, like these sort of area schools because

Deb Liu (06:27.15)

I knew my parents didn't want me to go too far away. My sister ended up going to Georgia Tech. She's a couple of years ahead of me. And I was going to follow her. I wanted to be an engineer. She's like my dad, my sister. And when I got a scholarship to Duke, it changed my life. My sister was like, Georgia Tech's not the right place for you. You need to take the scholarship and go to Duke. And I did. And it transformed my life in so many amazing ways.

Dave (06:50.383)

Yeah, I mean, my wife's from the South and I always tease her. like, I never want to go anywhere near the South. But I mean, a lot of it, she gets angry at me because she's like, not all Southern people are like that. You have this kind of stereotype.

Deb Liu (07:01.87)

Yes, no, I mean, I love North Carolina. you know, by the way, it's not because most people are wonderful. It's just that it's not people are malicious. It's just that there's when something is foreign, when something is different, you know, people need to call that out and they feel the need to the ability to say those things. But, you know, actually, when I went to school, I love North Carolina. I would have stayed there. We ended up graduate after graduating from Duke, going to Atlanta. And I loved Atlanta. And when I came out for Stanford.

Deb Liu (07:29.568)

actually we wanted to move back to Atlanta and North Carolina. We just couldn't find a job. And so we ended up staying here and kind of falling into tech careers here. And so, you it was not for lack of trying that every time we went back to see his parents and see our friends in Atlanta and North Carolina, we kept saying, we're going to come back. And our friends in California are like, you're never leaving. No one can ever leave this place. And you know, my 20 years later, we're still here.

Dave (07:31.378)

Yeah, I mean, that's when I think that's when I met you was here in the Bay. And but when you were in, were you at BCG in Atlanta office then? Or? so you were you already had even as an adult, like, you know, been been living in the south and

Deb Liu (07:59.724)

Yeah, so this BCG Atlanta, yeah. Yes. And we got married, we met at Raleigh Chinese Christian Church, we went to Atlanta, we got married at Atlanta Chinese Christian Church. We had a community that we wanted to go back to. But we've also found so much here, know, so many great friends and amazing careers, the ability to work in tech in a way that we could just never find the opportunity back home. So we're here and our kids would never wanna leave this place. Although we told them,

Deb Liu (08:27.692)

We told them, if you want to live in California long-term, you need to go someplace else for college. Just spend some time elsewhere because it's kind of a bubble, right? There's a very different world.

Dave (08:32.197)

Yes, I agree. A real world. Yeah, you gotta go in the real world. Yeah, someone with snow where you have to like, no, you didn't have to do that. like something where you have to suffer a little bit. but then so when you were at BCG, did you see, there any Asian partners or is there anyone that looked like you?

Deb Liu (08:49.346)

Not at the time. it was not a very, you know, again, this was, you know, back in the, this was 98, very welcoming city, very diverse city, but it wasn't just not, know, consulting was not a very diverse, you know, industry. And over time, you know, I think that consulting has gotten a lot better, but I think at the time it was just, you know, especially the office in the South, people opted for bigger cities, right? New York or Chicago or kind of bigger offices. Atlanta was a very, very small office.

Dave (09:15.293)

I mean, it's the folks I talked to today still, mean, they, they, even the partners they said now is it's not as diverse. Well, when you look at the analyst class and then like, you see, see a lot more Asians, but, there's a lot more attrition. I mean, I think a big part of it has to do with selling to a lot of, I feel like a lot of folks have to be, to be partner, have to be good at selling. And I'm not saying that Asians aren't good at selling, but I think there's a stereotype that like we don't, I mean, that's not a skill that I think a lot of us have, or, or.

Deb Liu (09:19.751)

really?

Deb Liu (09:44.28)

Well, I just remember what my partner I work for said. I didn't get the highest rating. I said, well, what's the gap? And I was used to getting the A, getting the good grade, getting honors, whatever. And he's like, you're really bad at the client part of client service. And I think that's what he's saying, which was I said, yes, but my work objectively is good. The analysis is solid. My slides are good. And he's like, you're missing the point. And I think that's a huge wake-up call for me, because I always thought that it was the hard skills.

Deb Liu (10:12.334)

you have the right strategy, you have the right slides, you present it in front of the client and you get the A. That is not how the real world works. It was a huge wake up call for me, which was, he said, you need to spend time with the clients. You need to hang out with them. need to cultivate that relationship. And I'm like, I'm doing the work. And I realized that you have to have, yes, but that's really what leadership looks like in the eyes of

Deb Liu (10:37.486)

in the eyes of the client. And so I really had to learn how to do things differently. And that's partly what led me to business school was that I had to learn a different set of skills than I learned in engineering school.

Dave (10:44.261)

Hmm. Yeah. Do you feel like that, when he said that, cause it's easy to say, that I'm like, I, I never gonna, I just don't like that stuff. I don't want to hang out with people. don't know. I'm like, cause especially if you have a community, a church community, you're like, you know, your friends are ready. You're like, well, this is work work. And then I'm doing all my stuff outside of that. So, I don't want to be spending my time like having dinner and drinking with these people that I I'm like my clients or whatnot, but

In reality, those soft skills are things that we never prioritized growing up, but they're probably the difference maker for becoming promoted to the executive. You've seen, you've done it yourself, but how did you feel when he said that? I mean, it must've been like, there's like this conflict in your head. like, I don't understand. I'm outperforming probably all my other analyst class, at least on the hard skills, but the soft skills, I mean, it's nothing we ever prioritized.

Deb Liu (11:38.318)

Well, I think that it's one thing that we do have huge disservice in how we teach our kids what success looks like, right? Everything is like lockstep. You take tests, there is an assessment. There's the SAT, there's an application, there's a moment where you're judged and then you move to the next thing and the next thing. And that's not how the real world works, Someone is better at you than everything. And you have to decide, like, what are the skills you bring to the table and how does that fit with the workplace that you're in, the environment that you're in, the team that you're in?

Deb Liu (12:07.074)

And I think we just say, we just rely so hard on these kind of hard skills. Like I check the box, I know how to do this problem, I know how to solve this. When actually relationships are so much more important. And I'm not saying that you should fake it. What I'm saying is on top of the hard skills, you have to add the level of soft skills. And it's not just, are you speaking up in meetings? It's also, how do you make the other person feel when they're with you? And that's relationship building. I really could not understand.

Deb Liu (12:34.77)

What he said to me was like, this weird moment, was like, that doesn't compute. I need to, you know, ironically, I went to engineering school, right? There's an objective criteria. And I was like, what do you mean? And I just had to really think hard about what that gap looked like for me. And I realized something, and I realized this through business school, and I realized this later in my career, which was, you know, how you make someone else feel, regardless of the hard, so you could have, you could be right. Someone said, I was so focused on being right.

Dave (12:37.905)

Ironically, that doesn't compute as a robot. does not compute. Yeah, yeah. For sure. Yeah.

Deb Liu (13:03.918)

that I forgot to be kind. Because this was somebody who was struggling with communication. He's like, I'm right. Why don't people hear me? And so they asked me to mentor him. And I spent some time with him. I realized he is right, but nobody wanted to listen to him. he was, and objectively being right was only half the battle. And then once he was able to solve the second half, his career blossomed. And I think that that was the same thing for me was you can have the half, which is being right, but how does the message land? Not just what message you're sending.

Deb Liu (13:32.558)

And so I talk to people, especially people I mentor and I coach, you one of the things that's so important is not thinking about what you're going to say, but thinking about what they're going to hear. What are they hearing on the other side from you?

Dave (13:41.989)

Yeah, I yeah, I mean, feel like that's very relevant right now in our world of politics and people feeling that they're being preached at and being told that, no, this is the facts and this is how it's gonna be like, okay, well, if emotionally you don't connect with them, then they don't care if vaccines protect you. They're like, well, know, it's how they feel and how it's delivered. That trust is built over, you know, through feelings and kind of emotions, because...

Nowadays, even the truth and facts, they don't necessarily matter anymore. So it's kind of, it's that relationship that's built that, and again, you wanna work with people. Most of the time, I don't care what your resume says. I wanna know that I can trust you or I want to work with you or I like you, right? Because especially in the world of AI now, it's like, okay, well, lot of the metrics and the calculations, that's gonna be done literally, not like when...

Dave (14:35.473)

but an actual little computer. So that stuff, I mean the way to differentiate yourself career wise is actually those soft skills that you learn. They don't actually teach in school. I get this at GSB, they try to teach us that at Stanford. Did you feel like you learned what you needed to learn at Stanford through those classes? Did you find yourself taking more of those like org behavior classes and things like that?

Deb Liu (14:58.776)

Yeah. Well, you've heard the phrase poets and quants, right? Obviously with an engineering degree, I was on the quant side. And so those classes came easy. know, it's like take a derivative of something that someone's like, I've never done this before. And I'm like, my gosh. You know, so those like stats class, you know, economics, accounting, like those things were pretty straightforward. But, know, when I went back for our 20th reunion, there was a, there was a, actually it was a 15th reunion. We actually talked about what it was that made a difference. What classes do we value most?

Deb Liu (15:27.97)

from our time at the GSB. And the thing that people universally said was the soft skills. At some point, your accounting classes, you could look that up, right? Those are things you could read from a book. But it was the soft skills. was touchy-feely. It was organizational behavior. It was strategy. was these classes like marketing, where it taught you not just how to have a good answer, but how to communicate that answer, how to persuade others. And I think that that's the part I needed most in my time there.

Deb Liu (15:56.834)

And I think that is something which we lack. One of the things I've been doing is I want to teach more of that at undergraduate level. been working with my friend, Yen, at Duke. She's creating a class on leadership for engineers. And one of the reasons is because I felt like I lacked that. And so I've been helping her and supporting her as she does that because I do think that so often we teach the next generation that is hard skills and then they are in for the same wake up call that I was in for when I...

Dave (16:21.327)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I feel like that's the problem with a lot. feel like a lot of Asian Americans and because of their parents, where they came from testing and, you know, doing well on tests was everything because that's what got you to the next level. It was literally like you're playing like Super Mario Brothers where you're in a linear game where you have to keep hitting things versus like Zelda, which is like an open world or, you know, Grand Theft Auto where you're like, okay, I can go choose this or do that. But it's we knew exactly.

Deb Liu (16:40.526)

Yes.

Dave (16:48.337)

pre-med, go be a doctor, do a fellowship, residency, and then your whole life is tracked because there's just one track. But I mean, that is literally just hoop after hoop and, you know, checking, like you said, hitting the check boxes to get to the next level. But the real world game doesn't, I mean, definitely doesn't work that way. You can do fine doing that, but you will hit a ceiling. I mean, honestly, I don't know how fulfilling that is either if you just keep just jumping through these, like these hoops and these clicking off, checking off these boxes.

Deb Liu (17:05.123)

Yeah.

Dave (17:17.381)

But feel like at the GSB there's things that I always say, I wish I had sales classes or learned the importance of sales or things like that. it is funny how you go to business school thinking, you need to learn all these business skills. But I found myself thinking when I graduated from Penn, I went to Warren for undergrad and I went to study finance, went to consulting. And I realized, man, the kids from Brown or Dartmouth or other things that they actually study liberal arts, they caught up to me in six months learning how to do the spreadsheets and other stuff.

You can learn on a job, but the chance that they had to actually learn other things that make them more interesting people to talk about sociology or psychology or whatever, it might be, I think that is something I feel like I, because I was so missed out on. Even studying abroad, I tell people, you should study abroad in college because that's your one chance that you can actually go and open your mind to other perspectives of the world, meet people. And you might not ever get that chance again because in American culture, you just jump right back. Like you said, you're taking a break right now, but.

That's rare. Most people just jump right into a job after college. don't take a gap year or they don't, like Europeans, they go off and work for a couple of years in some other country and take their time before they figure out what they're gonna do the rest of their lives. But I feel like our parents would never accept that. They're like, what are you doing in your life?

Deb Liu (18:31.182)

Yes. Yeah, I just feel like we are so regimented in how we look at success. And I think that there's many definitions of success. And some of the most successful people didn't follow that path. And so I do think we are doing ourselves a disservice. We do our younger generation a disservice if we're not encouraging them to really think about, yes, is there a clear path if you just check all the boxes, if you hit all the checkpoints? Yes. However,

Deb Liu (19:00.118)

Are you missing out on something right? Is there something that you're not seeing? And I do worry that we we are not opening our minds and actually and tapping into that creativity. You know, one of the things that makes AI so interesting is that doing it. You we thought that there was a one way of doing LLMs and now it looks like there's other ways to train that we never could imagine. But it was that that lack, you know, we had just assumed because everybody had done it that way. But now you're seeing like there's so many other ways to do things. And the question is.

Deb Liu (19:28.938)

I tell people in the time of AI, so I recently wrote an article about what is valued in the time of AI. So it's called Future Ready as opposed to Future Proof because how do you actually prepare yourself? And so yes, the things that we took years to learn, people used to do things with slide rules. And I was talking about how VCG, one of the partners, like, yeah, they used to have light boxes where they traced all the slides. And people did manual calculations using very basic root of entry tools. And now we have PowerPoint. And I said, someday,

Deb Liu (19:58.488)

I was thinking, today you could actually like input the information and actually have a draft of your slides, which is totally different. But it's not the answer. It's not the person that has the answer. It's a person that learns how to ask the questions and learns how to communicate the answers and persuade others of the answers. That's where the power comes in. And that authenticity, that storytelling, that influence is so precious and so different than anything that we valued before that, I think the kinds of skills that you need.

Deb Liu (20:27.168)

are so different in what we need to prepare for the next chapter.

Dave (20:30.917)

Yeah, I mean, in the in your book, you also talk about, we must learn how to win even on an unplaying, uneven playing field. And I feel like that's something I often hear from people saying, Dave, but you keep kind of blaming ourselves for for not, you know, moving up when it's a system that's actually not fair to us. I'm like, you're not going to change the system. mean, I'm sorry, no matter what you do, but you can set yourself apart and learn how to play within a system. So I feel like the.

the stuff I write about, I'm trying to tell people is like, yes, you have to take, yes, things are unfair, but that doesn't mean you should just accept that as it is. Like you can try to figure out how to navigate that. How do you, so one thing that came up recently, I guess with Ivy Day and all the kids getting their acceptance letters and rejections, I wrote about, I found out a friend's nephew, yeah, his classmate committed suicide. it was just like, I read the,

Deb Liu (21:21.41)

Yeah, I saw that.

Dave (21:29.521)

posts and stuff from kids on Reddit. I haven't gone into this stuff in long time. The last time I was on board was GSB when we were on the Business Week board seeing if people got in, which seems like it was completely unhealthy too. But nowadays kids are writing on Reddit, but the things I read were horrible. Kids saying their parents called them stupid or useless because they didn't get into schools, when it's such a crap shoot to get into school. But I feel like a lot of people I talk to say they tell their kids, it's okay, you don't have to get into these schools, but they still put the pressure on themselves.

And I don't know, how do you raise your kids to not, mean, mean, no one's perfect. No one has that ideal answer, but how have you raised your kids to learn the things that you've learned, but also, you continue, you obviously want them to work hard and succeed, but that perception of success has to be, you know, I feel like different than the ones we had growing up.

Deb Liu (22:21.582)

Yeah, that's a good question. So one of the things I started to do with my daughter was write this column called A Tiger Mom and Her Cub. And so we write this for Asam News and it's a conversation. And part of it was I felt distant from her because I felt like we were putting too much pressure on her and she would push back and she was really struggling and we were struggling with our relationship. And so part of writing this column, one of the things we did not start with this, but eventually we got into

talking about college admissions, right? And one of the things that we talked about, and she has much richer and deeper thoughts about it than I ever imagined. And this process of unpacking that was really helpful to us. And so as we were talking about it, you know, for her, she just felt so much pressure, not just pressure we're putting on her directly, but also just our pedigree and background. She's like, you you guys went to these big name schools, you your friends are all very successful. It puts a lot of external kind of intrinsic pressure, but also extrinsic pressure on us.

Deb Liu (23:17.838)

And they go to school in Palo Alto, so again, a very competitive school. And they joked, I joked that in the state of South Carolina, I was probably one of the smarter kids in the state of South Carolina. And she's like, you probably wouldn't even be in the top third of our high school. And I said, that's absolutely true. I took, well, true. mean, my high school only had five AP classes and I helped launch one of them. So I mean, you think about that, right?

Deb Liu (23:43.982)

5 AP classes, she's probably gonna take more than a dozen by the time she's done, right? So she said, it's like apples and oranges, right? How we grew up. And so that is something which I struggled with. And I think at one point we got to this place where I said, look, you and I need to get on the same page about this. You tell me how much pressure you want me to put on you. I'm gonna give you a choice, one to 10. And you tell me, and she said a six. And I said, what does a six look like? Because a six for you and a six for me might be very different.

Dave (24:08.177)

Yeah. That's true. That's true.

Deb Liu (24:13.134)

And so, you and he said, look, what is your aspiration? Right. If you, you know, if you want to be the one, one of the very few kids who gets in the Stanford from your high school, that you need to say 10, you know, but at the same time, she's like a very bright child. She's very curious. She's so passionate. And so, you know, that's one of the things that I think is, very hard, right? It's like, she doesn't want all of our relationship to be about college. And so she's like, I don't want every conversation to be about how I'm failing or I need to do more or this. I said, okay, you know,

Deb Liu (24:43.302)

And I don't want that for her either. So she's like, I picked something in the middle where we can have a conversation, but it's also not the centerpiece of the time we spend together.

Dave (24:51.633)

Yeah. And then, in her mind, what is, I mean, is the success still mean she has to go to Stanford and do the things that mom has done? Or like, what does that look like for her?

Deb Liu (25:03.854)

Well, I told her like your definition of success doesn't have to be mine, right? My parents lived a very happy life in a small town in the South and that was their American dream. And I said, that was not what I wanted. And recently my sister wrote about her experience. So I don't know if you read in my blog, my sister's post, right? Which is her definition of success and mine are completely different. She's like, I'm never gonna be CEO and that's okay. I'm never gonna aspire to these things to sit on boards, but I'm kind of the behind the scenes person.

Deb Liu (25:33.536)

And that was something which, you I was the person who was like, I mean, whatever she did, so she's the older sister, which is unusual, but she was the older sister and like, whatever she did, I'm going to exceed it. I was extremely competitive. She's like, why are you even competing? I don't care. Yeah. I'd say, you know, but that, that gave me a benchmark of what was possible. And, you know, so she, she's, my sister is extremely smart, but she, she was also number one in her class, but she said, you know, I got the SAT score. wanted to get into Georgia tech and I'm good. And I'm like, why would you not take the test again and again and again?

Deb Liu (26:02.952)

you know, she's like, I don't think that's necessary. And so again, I think different personalities have different definitions of success, but you know, in many ways she's lived her dream too. And so I'm really happy for her.

Dave (26:14.633)

Yeah. Yeah. No, it's funny because my sister, my sister reads all my stuff and she's so she's a at Metta and you she's doing great. But, you know, I write all these things about kind of breaking out and being, you know, being a leader and this and I was like, well, she's like, well, not everyone wants to be an executive or manage people. I I like being an IC and I'm like, you know, that's good. I think everyone should be happy with what they want to be. But I, my goal in writing is for those who want to break through and feel like they're

being suppressed somehow. I want them to figure out how to navigate all that. But it's true. She's very happy. It's not the things I would necessarily choose, but everyone has a different kind of understanding of what their happiness is. I think we should be okay with that. So that's why for my kids, as long as they do their best in whatever they want to do, I will be supportive. But there's also the fine line of I still want to be...

pushing them the way my parents pushed me. But at the end of the day, think a lot of it, even though I think back to when my parents pushed me, but I don't know that they, after a certain point, I ended up pushing myself and I didn't, they didn't have to do it anymore. Because I stopped listening. I'm like, okay, I'm gonna just do this. I became more competitive, I became more driven. But ideally that intrinsic kind of drive is what you want them to have at some point. So it sounds like Bethany, like your kids have that. Yeah.

Deb Liu (27:30.072)

Yes.

Deb Liu (27:38.734)

Yeah, well, I told the kids I can't want it more for you than you want it for yourself. And, you know, one of the things that I was, I just remember when I was in third grade, I saw a list of names on my teacher's desk and I wasn't on top of it. It wasn't enough that quarter. I'm like, I'm going to be at the top of the list when I graduate from high school. I was in third grade, which is, and I put a tremendous amount of pressure on myself because for me, you know, my dream was going back to New York, right? I needed to leave this town. I needed a way out and college was the way out. And so I worked.

Deb Liu (28:08.216)

tremendously for years to get there. I need to get a scholarship because my parents couldn't afford to college. And so for me, was just, had this burning desire. And that drove me until I got there and I was like, wait, this is what I got. What's next? And so then it's like a series of what's next. What's the next achievement? What's the next goal? What is the next milestone? And I think that that's not necessarily the most healthy way to live. And so I do think that it's important to

Deb Liu (28:36.534)

I do want my kids to try their best in school. I do think, and it takes, people thrive in different ways. My son was a late bloomer. He struggled during COVID, but then he really blossomed and is doing great in college and he's super happy. But I think the first couple of years, we were very, very worried about him in high school because COVID took a really, know, a toll on his mental health. And so I just, you know, I think it is a balance point, but I don't, I tell the kids, I can't want this for you. You have to want it for yourself.

Dave (29:01.797)

Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's the same thing for sports. When I see people pushing their kids into sports and if they don't, I mean, if the kid doesn't want to play, they'll never be that, they'll never be good enough. And they have to have the drive themselves because they're the ones out there. But I feel like I see so many parents pushing their kids so hard. I'm like, wow, this kid, it doesn't seem like they're enjoying this. I don't know how they're going to ever get to the point where their parents want them to. But it sounds like, mean, I don't know. You can say it was a traumatic childhood, but.

Going through those things in South Carolina, wanting to leave so badly, I mean, that gave you drive. A lot of successful people, they have some kind of traumatic experience and they, like, know, somehow they're resilient enough to get through that so they can do so many things. Do you feel like you've looked back on that time and kind of worked through that yourself?

Deb Liu (29:49.87)

Well, think today we use the, I never label this trauma, I don't label this, because I feel like sometimes we label something and it becomes too big in our lives. Just like when my son was diagnosed with anxiety, I'm like, just like this is a thing that you're going through. This doesn't define you. You see kids say, I am X, like they define themselves by the problems they have or the trauma or whatever. And I said, look, just like, for example, I was diagnosed with breast cancer.

Deb Liu (30:18.328)

But I don't call myself a cancer survivor. I don't want that defined who I am. It is an experience I went through. It's something I got something out of. And it wouldn't be who I am today with, but for the, the relish, you know, the experience I had growing up. And so, but I don't allow that to define who I am. And instead I say, Hey, it's like a place where you traverse through. It is a part of your journey. And you remember that part fondly, but also the struggles that were there. And it helps get you to the next destination. But if you dwell there, if you choose to live there, that's not healthy.

Deb Liu (30:48.002)

And so I do think we are defining ourselves by the things, the struggles that we had more than we're defining ourselves by who we want to be. And I don't want that for my kids. I don't want that for myself. And so I rarely talk about it as something that I dwell on as opposed to it is a part of my chapter of my history and it made me who I am. And I wouldn't change that because it gave my parents what they wanted. And you know, it made me who I am today.

Dave (31:08.133)

Yeah, mean, like going back to like the GSB and the soft skills and like, mean, so Professor Pfeffer, did take the class, right? You didn't take the class, okay. So when he talks about how, like, when, how did you guys get to know each other then? Like, you started guest speaking in his class, yeah.

Deb Liu (31:24.942)

I didn't take the class notes there,

Deb Liu (31:33.518)

Yeah, so 10 years ago I started speaking in class because my coach Katya suggested that I speak there and she was helping about the class.

Dave (31:39.057)

Katya, that's right.

Dave (31:44.091)

Got it. And then, but did you agree with his, like what he was teaching or like were you turned off by it or?

Deb Liu (31:50.104)

Well, so when she first gave me his book, I'm like, this thing is totally over the top. So for those of you who are listening, Professor Pfeffer teaches a class at the GSB called Path to Power. And if you read his book, Power, it is so, I thought it was really over the top, right? It was like, you should accumulate power. This is how the game is played. can play, it was like everything was a chess board. And I really had to take a lot of time to process what he was saying. And I chose to read it this way.

I've told him this, which is the game is being played around you and you ignore it your peril You have to at least understand the rules and you have to understand like you can choose not to play. You can just exit the game. But if you're in the game, you have to understand what is happening and you get you get to make choices. I've given his book to many, many people on my team who really struggled with this. They're like, I don't understand what's happening to me. And I said this because you're letting it happen to you. You need to take control of the game and decide which. And this is not about playing politics. This is about.

Deb Liu (32:49.418)

understanding the dynamics that you're living in. And so, you know, I think it was a great cultural guidebook to a lot of corporate life. And I don't think people are as malicious as you know, most people are actually just have different incentives than you. And when your incentives don't align, they do things that make sense to them that don't make sense to you. And you can choose to just accept it or you can choose to understand it and decide what to do next. And that's why I find his book so helpful.

Deb Liu (33:16.834)

I think a lot of people read the book are surprised I recommend it because it is a lot. But at the same time, it is so great to see, just like peeling back the curtain and seeing what's behind the curtain. Yes.

Dave (33:19.673)

It's like, not you. Yeah, yeah.

Dave (33:27.921)

Yeah, it's raw. It's raw and honest. totally. And remind me again, at 10 years ago, what point in your were you in your career? You were at Facebook at the time, I'm assuming.

Deb Liu (33:37.228)

I wasn't very senior when I came to speak to this class. I was surprised that they invited me. I was managing, it was a decent sized team, but I was not, because within a couple of years I had taken my manager's job and my manager's manager's job and joined the team. But before that, when I was invited to the class, I was like, whoa, I don't even belong in this speaking as a guest speaker to talk about these things. But over that 10 years, obviously lots has happened, right?

Deb Liu (34:03.598)

And my career has grown a lot. And each year, he said, you get better and better every year. And I said, in many ways, I feel like I have something that I want to make sure that I have something to say. So I work really hard to make sure that I have an interesting life in the meantime.

Dave (34:12.613)

Well, did you feel like that going to that class or reading the book, did that impact your career personally when you were at Facebook?

Deb Liu (34:25.55)

Absolutely. I mean, because it helps me understand the dynamics. Again, you know, I think that all companies are organisms that have, they live in a culture and that culture you choose to ignore and you actually embrace it. And you have to figure out how to navigate that. And you know, people who are very good at, so this is like the client part of client service. It's the soft skills of navigating that make you successful or not. Not the hard skills of knowing what to do. Lots of people have ideas. Who is going to get it done?

Deb Liu (34:54.978)

The people who are able to figure out how to navigate the organization to get the resources, support, the influence necessary to have things happen. And so, you know, in many ways, this class was a great way to learn from other leaders, to speak at the class, to actually mark time, to see what progress. I said that I was gonna write a book in that class. I ended up writing the book. You know, so many things I said, you know, after the class, you know, Professor Pfeffer said, when are you gonna go out and become a CEO? And I'm like, that's crazy. And two years later, when I got the opportunity, I called him up, right?

Deb Liu (35:23.926)

You know, you see these things, you know, these things build on you. You are, you, every time you interact with someone, you're changing each other's direction in some smaller, big way. And this class was that for me.

Yeah, it sounds like it sounds like he kept you in check to like, okay, write a book, get the video. I was like, okay, I have to go back to, yeah, I'm gonna be held accountable. So when I go back to class next time, I gotta tell Jeffrey, oh, I got this, I did that. But I mean, that's amazing. Do you feel like if you had stayed at PayPal, you would have had the same trajectory there? Because you were already a director there, but you knew the culture well enough there. You made the move to Facebook Meta.

Deb Liu (35:39.414)

I've done a lot of things.

Dave (36:05.979)

But you could have stayed at PayPal and probably done very well too. Do you feel like the cultures were different?

Deb Liu (36:10.098)

Yeah, well, so first when I joined PayPal, think there were only 300 people in Mountain View. I think the company was a little bit larger because it was an Omaha office, but it was relatively small. And then when I left, was thousands of people. And then went to eBay and I was the head of our experience for a period and it was like, I don't know, 10,000 people. When I joined BANA, was actually, know, Facebook was 900 employees when I joined, sub 1000. And so it was like starting over from the bottom up and seeing this hyper growth. And so...

Deb Liu (36:36.366)

I do think that I had more opportunities because I was able to, know, because once you reach a company of a certain size, you're a widget in this larger machine, right? I joked that when I joined PayPal, I think I was like the 14th product manager or something like that. But I owned like a huge swath of the product because, but now, you you look at a resume, it's like, am the onboarding risk manager for, you know, Latin America for small businesses. And I'm like, because they've cut up the products in such small ways, even though the business is a totally different scale, right? And so

Dave (36:43.215)

Yeah. Yeah, it's a different game. Yeah.

Deb Liu (37:06.222)

I do think when you go into an organization that's hyper-growth, you have so many more opportunities to fill gaps, to learn new things, to take on responsibility, to persuade. There's just more green space and open space for you to fill in. And I think I really thrived within that environment. I loved doing that at PayPal, but I felt like we were just locking down the roadmaps at some point just to get things done. And it became harder and harder to ship. And so I think that one of the things that really helps me is

Dave (37:24.239)

Yeah. Yeah.

Deb Liu (37:31.616)

I love the green space of thinking through what is very possible. And a lot of the products I built were kind of zero to one at Meta. Just like I was there for the early days of PayPal. I just was not good at, let's just run this large organization and do things. I think that that changed over time. I learned those skills of how do you navigate managing hundreds of people and headcount and budgets and P &Ls and those things. But that was not what came naturally to me. What came naturally to me is like, let's go build stuff.

Deb Liu (37:59.97)

you know, let's go do things. And so, you know, I think that eventually being kind of a GM helped, you know, navigate in navigating large organization made it possible for me to step into a board meeting, you know, the board, but then eventually also becoming CEO.

Dave (38:13.897)

Yeah, no, I mean, I remember it was when I was at Yahoo, was like about a thousand people or like 7,000. I was on product, I was doing product for Yahoo Finance and I was pushing out code to millions and millions of users myself. And I was like, well, this is, I'm a PM pushing this stuff out. when I went to eBay, was after GSB, it was much bigger company. And I thought, wow, I can't get anything done here. There's so much more politics and people don't wanna actually get anything done, it feels like because.

Deb Liu (38:33.88)

Yes.

Dave (38:39.835)

you know, that just means more work or everything's going fine already. So why kind of move the, like, you know, rock the boat. And so I remember thinking like, I am not cut out for this big giant organization because it's just harder, I feel like, to push, get things done. And so I did notice, though, I did not know this, that you had founded a company alongside and parallel this with all this.

Deb Liu (39:03.406)

I had a small business with my sister called Maya Road where we sold scrapbooking supplies and she ran it primarily. just, you we started, I do trade shows with her. And so it was kind of fun. Like it started when we were at eBay. I was on eBay, I would buy things and then we would, you know, would wholesale and then resell. We started brand. And so it was really fun during that time when our kids were young.

Dave (39:24.017)

Did you ever consider going all in and becoming a founder of something?

Deb Liu (39:29.55)

Well, so, I did consider leaving. I was unhappy at PayPal. was working part-time. I working four days a week. My son, you know, was very, very young. And I was just like, you know, this is very cliche, but just like in the book Lean In, right? You have a child, your career's kind of stuck. You're like, why am I doing this? Right? I was in that moment. I went to Dana, who was a VP that I worked with, and I said, I'm going to quit. And he said, don't. And I was thinking about just working with my sister, really scaling the business, the small business.

Deb Liu (39:57.81)

And he said, just wait. He calls me back a couple of days later. He's like, I got you a job with Stephanie Talinius at eBay to be the head of the buyer experience product. And I was like, whoa, wait, what? And so two weeks later, I had moved from PayPal to eBay to take this job on. And so I still worked on the side of my sister and her husband. He ended up taking the role of working with her in the small business. But I've thought about it over the years. The one deal I made with David was,

Deb Liu (40:26.966)

with my husband, was that we would not start something when the kids were young because that's like, you have to go really all in, right? Like it is 24 seven, you are on call all the time. And I said, that was something where I said, I'd rather, you know, be able to have somebody where you can just, you know, something happens. So my daughter was very sickly when she was about between one and two and she was sick for a whole year. We could not figure out, I was going to doctor's appointments every other week. I'm like, what if I have to quit my job, you know, take care of her.

Deb Liu (40:53.108)

And we figured out what the problem was. She actually had an underlying infection for the whole year. And so she was susceptible to everything. But the point was, just, doctor after doctor was like, she has asthma, she has X allergy, we tested her for everything. And I just realized, I just could not be a founder during that period of my life. so, and one thing that was great about being at Facebook at the time was lots of flexibility. Like as a mom, tons of, a lot of tech companies, very flexible. You work a lot.

Deb Liu (41:22.968)

but you work on your own terms. And that was very important to me. It wasn't like you had to sit there from like, you know, eight to six at your desk. I clock in, clock out. It was much more, are you getting things done? And yes, did you have to open the computer at 9 p.m. at night after the kids went to bed? Absolutely. you did that, but you could also take an hour or two to take your daughter to the doctor. And so I really enjoyed that part of the tech career. And, you know, during the time.

Deb Liu (41:47.274)

I really never felt that need to start something because there's so many people doing interesting things. I had worked very hard to build new things all the time. Every two years it builds a new product in my time at Meta. so I really loved that. So was really fun, but you also had the support necessary to get things done.

Dave (41:55.717)

Yeah. Yeah. It's like startup B. Yeah. Yeah.

Dave (42:04.804)

Yeah. Yeah. I think a lot of folks when big companies, when they go start a company, they realize a lot of that support's not there anymore. And so it's like, Oh wait, I don't know what to do without that. Like administrative help and I got to go do that myself. yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Deb Liu (42:12.301)

Yes.

Deb Liu (42:16.75)

Well, it's just like things like, you know, picking a health plan. Like that's not something you have to do, right? Or should we ask for one K? What, you know, I was advising a startup and they said, Hey, our first person needs to go on maternity leave. We have no policy. What should we do? And I'm like, here's how you think about it. Here's what's available in the state of California. Like, but it was just something that never occurred to them, right? They had a team of 10 people and they, and so they, right? And so they, they're like navigating a lot of questions that they had never had to navigate before. And it's,

Deb Liu (42:46.466)

first time founders, they, you know, ask for advice and we sat down and said, okay, so here are the questions you should ask. Here's how you should think about, here's, by the way, you should expect that this person might go out early. You have to have coverage for, you know, but it is something which I think sometimes founders don't realize that 80 % of the job are things that you've never seen before. Cause at a company there's teams of people taking care of payroll and, you know, vacation and deciding these decisions.

Dave (43:03.641)

Exactly. Let's take a tear for you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so throughout your career, I mean, I know you've had a number of mentors, you know, talk about your mentors and how you found them or how that because I feel like a lot of a lot of Asian Americans feel like they don't have mentorship. I hear constantly from talking to people. And I don't know if it's because we don't ask for it. We don't find sponsors that are sponsors don't ask us or mentors don't find us. But

It's something that consistently I'd hear from so many people that they just don't have mentors. They never had a mentor relationship. And I know it can be challenging without one, which is why I tell people, hey, like follow your blog, follow others. Cause it's kind of like, well, you don't have an official mentor, but you know, at least you can learn the things that a mentor would teach. And I think that's why you write probably too. That's why I write. It's like, you know, it scales, but it's not the same as having someone who can kind of personalize, like not having an executive coach kind of thing, but

Dave (44:01.105)

Tell me about the mentors in your career, sponsor in your career. Because it sounds like that person who got you that job, without them, you would have left and you'd be a different career path right now, yeah.

Deb Liu (44:07.288)

Yes, yes, absolutely. So first I would say this, is, mentorship is often not very direct, right? So one is who are the people that you would go to if you got a job offer to ask them whether you should take it? Those are your people who you're mentors. And so can you have a list of those people? Sponsors like the person who got me a job, the person who gave me a chance.

Deb Liu (44:33.184)

Amy Klemick gave me a chance and hired me into PayPal when I had no product experience. you know, and, know, she really, she gave me a chance to run the team, which was the biggest, you know, business at the company when I had no business doing that. She had hired somebody and it didn't work out. And she's like, actually, do you want to take an interim role? I was like, I've managed people for approximately a year. And she's like, run this team. You know, so I think that sponsors do open those types of doors. One of the challenges I think people tend to mentor or sponsor people who are like them.

Deb Liu (45:02.798)

And so, you know, if you work for people who are very similar to you, they're more likely. And I asked one of one of the people who was a great sponsor for me later, when I first started working for him, I asked him, you know, why, why is it that, you know, you, you tend to, you tend to promote people who, who basically their product failed and it didn't work. And they're like, he said, look, it's not, it's because that person thinks like me and, know, and it's absolutely true. It's like that person thinks like me. So when things go wrong.

I assume that it's external factors that led to that decision not working out, but you think completely differently than me. I'm like, yeah, when you say left, I say right. We just saw product management in such different ways. And so he said, but when you're wrong, I assume it's you. And I think he said that in the most earnest way possible. When I share the story, I think people feel really insulted, but I actually think it was a huge gift that he gave me, which is he explained how the world works.

Deb Liu (46:01.202)

And he said, look, we have this thing that I write about this, which is affinity bias, right? We're more likely when someone looks like, and somebody on my team was very similar to me. I recruited her from PayPal. She worked at Metta for me again. And he's like, when you talk to her, you probably are on the same page with her because you get it. You you guys have similar experiences and you're more likely to blame external factors if something she does doesn't work out. And I said, that's absolutely, it's human nature. And I think we think that this is some sort of discrimination, but it's not. It's just how humans work because for

Deb Liu (46:30.59)

centuries, we've had to support people who are like us. You had to be part of a tribe so you didn't get eaten by lions. And so it's very important that affinity bias is just part of the system that's built up so that we don't get eaten by lions. We take care of each other. And so, when you have two tribes of people who clash, what happens then, right? And so one of the things that I think is incredibly important is that we understand that bias, but we also acknowledge that bias. And so I ask people if you don't have a mentor, like,

Deb Liu (46:59.886)

Why is your manager not supporting you? Why is your manager not the person that you trust? And if that's the case, why do you work for them? And so one of the things that, you somebody actually came to me, he's like, I see you sponsoring the people on our team, but you don't sponsor me. Why? And rather than giving him a flippant answer, I actually took a step back and I said, you give me a couple of days to think about it? I thought long and hard about it. I said, here's why I, when we talk, I feel like you're telling me what I need to hear, what you think I need to hear.

Dave (47:02.193)

Yeah exactly.

Deb Liu (47:29.76)

not what's really happening. And I sense this distance where you're basically putting your best foot forward, but actually authenticity is a part of a sponsorship relationship. I never felt that with you. And he said, I was doing that because I felt like I wanted you to sponsor me. I wanted you to support me. And so it was like this weird, but I had never really thought about it. Like we had a good relationship, but it was not a great relationship. But after that it cracked open and it gave us the opportunity, just like with my manager, to change our relationship. And so

Deb Liu (47:59.192)

You know, I want to be, you but I'm the manager. I want to be the, you know, the people on my team's biggest fans, right? If I can't do that, you know, we're in the wrong roles. And so how do we do that? And the thing I would tell people is there was a woman who came to me and she said, after your book came out, I did what you suggested at one of the other events. And I asked my manager when he's going to promote me. Like what's the distance between me and getting promoted and what can I do?

Dave (48:04.165)

Yeah, the champion time, yeah. yeah. They should be working for you. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Deb Liu (48:25.484)

And he said, not only am I not going to promote you, you'll never get promoted on my team. And she said, I was devastated. And I said, no, you should be thankful because this was a gift. He gave you the gift of clarity, which is you should move teams or move companies. He told you he will never support you and you will be stuck there. How many years did you try to earn his favor? And so again, I, I, I think sometimes, you know, I, I do this too, which is we live with strategic ambiguity, right? We're okay with: Let's not rock the boat. Let's not get the answer. But if she had known two years ago, she could have invested her time and effort in something else. And so I do hope that we don't allow ourselves to have those blinders and instead just open ourselves up to say, maybe this is not working. And that's absolutely okay.

Dave (49:09.103)

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think it like kudos to the person who's working for you that had asked you why, why you didn't. Cause I mean, if he hadn't, I think, think that's the one thing I feel like the lesson a lot of people would need to take away is they have to ask or they have to, if something's not right, they have to speak up because I think in our culture, there's so much conflict avoidance and you want to keep the peace. so you don't want to, you know, have any conflict or get in. You just don't want to not be at peace with the people around you. And I feel like that's problematic because you end up like you said, that woman wasting years trying to please someone who was never going to be pleased no matter what she did. And I feel like unless you actually find out if you don't understand what the situation is, then I don't have clarity. I mean, who knows what you're wasting your time on. think even I mean, yeah. And like Jeff says, Professor Pfeffer says, like if you are placed for too long that you shouldn't be at you, that's that's on you.

Deb Liu (50:00.984)

Yeah.

Dave (50:10.875)

Like you should leave, right? It's like you should leave because there's no path forward there. So there's no point of being in that place.

Deb Liu (50:17.358)

And it's your right and it's your responsibility to change the equation. Your job is to navigate, you know, we expect like some, a promotion or an opportunity just like falls in our lap, you know, but instead, what if we took those actions and said, look, where do we want to go and how are we going to get there and map that out ourselves? What if we product managed our careers? Like we product manage our products. What if we had a roadmap? I just think we often just fall into the next thing instead of very intentionally choosing the next thing.

But I think that's the thing with the Super Mario Brothers thing is like we think of life as linear or career as linear and you check the box like I did all the things I was supposed to do, me my promotion. Like it's very much a I checked all the boxes, like that's like, you know, me my certificate because I'm gonna jump to the next thing now. that's not how I mean, it's very subjective when your manager is the one who decides what you get promoted or not, right? It's not a, if it was very objective, it'd be different. we're so used to that in school.

and we're programmed to be perfect in school, but in the real world, like that's not what gives you, you know, gets you the promotions or gives you the job because I mean, I hear so many stories of, well, they got the job because someone liked them or like you said, the Indy bias, whatever it might be, but it was nothing about their skillset or you know, what they were able to do in the past. It's like, I think, you know, I mean, obviously baseline, they should have that, but if they don't like you, they're not gonna hire you. They're not gonna promote you. They have to actually want to, because you know, it's unfortunate, but.

Dave (51:42.597)

And then I tell people all the time, like, if they don't even know you personally, why do think they're gonna promote you? They don't like you because they have no relationship with you. You don't hang out with them. When was the last time you had lunch with your manager? Never have. Okay, well, why do you think the manager actually would want to promote you? Because they don't know you at all.

Deb Liu (51:59.884)

Yeah, and I think we do ourselves a disservice also by not advocating for ourselves. There was one person on my team that said, hey, this is my head designer. He's really amazing at design. And it was an opportunity to manage the team. And he said one day, hey, I want to learn strategy. We're doing this strategy refresh. I'd like to learn alongside you. I've never done this before. And I said, sure, why don't you sidecar? We will just sit down and sit down and hammer it out.

I put him in the deck, I put him in the brainstorm meetings. And he had just never seen it done because he came out of design. He's an amazing leader on the design side, but had never gone through the experience. And he's like, I learned so much because I gave him the pen and I said, you edit this. And then I would change it. We would go back and forth. But I had no idea that he wanted that until he told me because people magically know what you want. Right. You think that the other person is supposed to be able to read you. Of course, I want to get promoted. I'm like, really? How would I know that you wanted to become a manager or you want to learn the skill?

Deb Liu (52:58.56)

if you don't tell me. And so I wrote this post called Tell People What You Want, because we just, pretend that, you know, everybody knows what we want, but actually I've managed teams and I had no idea what people valued. Now I've worked really hard to try to get that out of people, but often they're not even sure what they want. And so I do think part of the work that needs to happen is that you have to take control of your destiny and you have to decide what are my goals and how do I get there?

Deb Liu (53:27.104)

And I think, you know, once he said, I wanted to do this, I gave him tons of opportunities to like work with us on different things. you know, and I just seeing him blossom from something where he had never done it before to becoming very good at something was a journey. And over that year and a half, two years, he could just see how those skills made him a better design leader too.

Dave (00:01.582)

So, Deb, you've had, you know, an amazing career, you've had mentors throughout, but, I'd love to talk about executive coaching because, know, it's something that, you know, I've talked about and written about and how it's important for us to, learn skills that we're not comfortable with sometimes. And, you've had an executive coach in your career. I would love to learn about how that happened. What, what got you to the point where you felt like you needed one?

And, you know, more than anything what you learned from your coach.

Deb Liu (00:36.146)

Yeah. So, you know, at the time I'd actually been at Meta for a couple of years and I was really struggling. So some people get coaches because their company thinks they're high potential and they're amazing. But I was a problem child, as I tell people, and they also get coaches for high performers who are problem children. That was me. I had, I was just, I could not figure out how to thrive in that culture. I was struggling in a bunch of different areas. And finally, my skip level VP, Dan Rose said, I'm giving you a coach.

I have the perfect one for you. And he picked Katya for me, actually. And I was a little bit baffled at first. I wasn't sure what to think, but I met her. And at the lunch, I just knew she was the right person. I started working with her in 2011. She actually, one of first things she did was hand me Professor Pfeffer's book on power. And I thought, this is going to be pretty interesting because I rejected the idea of power.

Deb Liu (01:28.946)

And so over the year, so I've worked with her now since 2011. She was one of the first people I told that was pregnant with my daughter. And she helped me navigate that entire process. My daughter's 13 now. And so for 13 years, we have worked together and it's been an incredible journey. And I could not have done so much without her because, you know, I joke that Katia has been with me for 13 years to ask me the same question, which is, you know, the right answer. What's keeping you from doing it? I don't know why that.

Deb Liu (01:56.979)

question is so powerful and yet it is because I think often 80 % of the time we actually know what the right answer is. You know, and I realized after I realized this, she was doing, I coach a lot of other people and usually they just tell me, I'm choosing between three jobs or I'm struggling with a manager. And in the end, they actually have the answer embedded. They just need someone pull it out of them. And I said, look, I, and a lot of times these people I've never met and yet I know I'm like, based on what you said, you want job number three.

Deb Liu (02:26.002)

I don't know why you're even describing the other jobs, because you're selling me to sell you. Or you know that what you need to do is actually have a sit down with your manager and talk about where you are, because you feel like you're underwater. And these are the kinds of things that I think coaches can really unlock in you, is to both help you look forward to the potential, but also help you break down the barriers that are in your own head.

Dave (02:47.06)

Mm-hmm. Yeah, so a lot of times it's just confirmation and validation that you're looking for from someone else. like, mean, I think, I feel like one thing I see a lot of Asian-Americans struggle with is asking for help, because it's a sign of weakness or a sign of, you know, that you're not enough. And I think getting a coach is admitting, like, I mean, it's not admitting defeat, but it's like, oh, I can't do this on my own. Why, like, what was it about?

Prior to that, had you ever considered an executive coach or was it the first time you even thought about

Deb Liu (03:16.914)

No. I saw having a coach as a, because I was given a coach as a problem child, I'm like, so coaching must be for people who have issues. Yes, it's sort of like people say, you see a therapist and it's like, it's because you're crazy. But actually I think therapy is such a powerful tool and it unlocks new tools for you. But I think growing up Asian American, you don't need a coach or you don't need a therapist unless something's wrong with you. And I think that's part of the challenge is that

Deb Liu (03:46.834)

Coaching is actually an opportunity, not a punishment. And I didn't look at it that way when it first started.

Dave (03:49.326)

Yeah. I mean, that's super powerful because I think a lot reframing that and making people realize that it's, it's, it's not a bad thing. doesn't mean something's wrong with you. actually unlocks a lot for you because I think a lot of people are looking for validation and confirmation before they make decisions. and so you still see her, today. I mean, what, what are you getting, nowadays, you know, you're doing other things. Like how does she help you in your daily life?

Deb Liu (04:08.134)

Yeah.

Deb Liu (04:19.356)

think it's having a founding board, right? It's having somebody to actually reflect, hey, these past couple of weeks, here are the challenges I've faced, here are the things, the opportunities that are ahead. It is so great to have somebody who's seen all the patterns, who's worked with high potential and high performance people, but also all the anxieties related to that. It's been really funny because I started coaching various folks just informally over the years, and now that I've stepped back, I'm doing it more formally. And this morning, someone called me and they said, I need your help.

Deb Liu (04:49.164)

And I called them back, actually two founders called me and said, I need your help. And I talked to both off the ledge. And then I said, here's what we need to do. And so it is so powerful to have somebody to say, hey, look, I need some talk to somebody. I need five minutes. And I think it's, and then also to process your thoughts. think a lot of times, one of the reasons I'm writing my new book is we just run from one thing to the next and we never look back and actually say, hey, here are the tapes.

Deb Liu (05:14.7)

And part of it, what drives academic and athletic performance is actually looking back and saying what worked and what didn't work. know, experiments that work. So scientists go back and say, OK, what didn't work? How do I change it for the next time? Athletes look at the tape of how they played and say, how can I do this differently? And excellence is found by actually being able to look back. And I think sometimes we don't have those moments. But a coach is really powerful and actually saying, let's reflect on that. You said this a couple of years ago.

Deb Liu (05:43.482)

Look at how far we've come. And so many times she's, I'm like, wow, you're right. And so I do think that coaching is a powerful tool that we don't use nearly enough.

Dave (05:52.619)

Yeah. I mean, it's like a trainer or any coach for anything. mean, I, I use analogy for, or liken it to my, like, my golf instructors, like they see your bad habits and your, they know your patterns and they like, you're going, you're falling back into that again. And that's why it's causing problems. so yeah, mean, I think it's, it's something most people don't, don't think about it as it's like a trainer or anyone else that you have to, and they keep you accountable to things too. that, know, you're not aware of. yeah, no, I mean, I think.

Dave (06:20.297)

It's something I hope most people would consider because there's a lot of pride and ego attached to not getting a coach. Because especially if you're an exec, it's like, Deb, you're so accomplished. You've done so much. Why would you need help? Because you've done it all. And it can be a point of pride for some people, but thank you for explaining why it's so important. Because I think we need to make sure people understand that this is a helpful thing. There's nothing wrong with you if you get a coach.

Deb Liu (06:47.506)

And the best athletes have coaches at the very top of the game. And it's because they have those coaches, they get better. If we're not reflecting and trying to get better, what are we doing here? And so I do think when I tell people, hey, think we can use a coach, you can use a coach around X. And sometimes it's a problem, sometimes it's an opportunity. Sometimes I think the reaction is, wait, what? I need help. But then afterwards, when it's done well, you can see someone blossom. You can see how far someone has really come.

Dave (53:45.605)

Yeah, yeah, no, that's awesome. I mean, when you talk about taking control of your journey, did you, were you seeking out a CEO position or did it kind of come to you?

Deb Liu (53:53.87)

Well, so I had not, I actually, you share a little bit about this in the book where somebody reached out to me for another CEO position. was public company CEO. And I remember saying to Jim Citrin from Spencer Stewart, it's, hey, you know, like, why me? Like, this is, you know, and it was right before COVID. It was actually one the last dinners I had before COVID. And he said, why not you? You know, you have all the qualifications, you've run big businesses, you've built a lot of things. And so, you know, I put my hat in ring and, you know, it didn't work out, but actually it opened my mind to the possibility.

Deb Liu (54:22.65)

And it gave me the ability to think through, hey, maybe this is something I want. And so when the call did come, I was able to say,

Dave (54:30.255)

Yeah. And then, so what was that like? What surprised you most about the CEO role and going into that role? you know, obviously, like, there's a lot of people have expectations, but like, what surprised you most about when you were in that role?

Deb Liu (54:47.694)

Well, one of things that was very hard was, you I took this role as during COVID and our buildings were all shut down. So I've never met anyone in person. It was, you know, so how do you build rapport and support and relationships during a time when things were just so crazy? At the same time, it was also an opportunity where I could, you know, I could get to know people without a lot of the cultural baggage as well. And so I really, you know, one of the things I did when I first got in was I did the listening tour and I stole the questions from Gokul.

Deb Liu (55:14.51)

And I posted them if you want to see I did a listening tour where I asked these same five questions of 60 people at the company and across the entire organization. And then I wrote a state of the union so I could say, hey, here's what people are thinking. And it gave me a good insight into the culture onboarding, how to think about what's happening and where to go, where we could go next. And so.

you know, amazing company, but know, Ancestry has been around for 40 years, surprisingly. It started out as a book publisher and then it had CDs and discs and has evolved. It was one of the early subscription, online subscription products, and it's done so many interesting things over the years. And so it was really an honor to be part of the company, but also really fall in love with the problem, you know, and actually like what are the solutions that we're offering in the market? And it just, I had an amazing four years. Exactly four years as I stepped down and it was such an honor to be a part of that company.

Dave (56:06.725)

Would you want to do that role again or go back into a large, like a large company in a different role?

Deb Liu (56:12.93)

So I, know, one thing about this year, so my husband's company just sold as well. And so we're taking the year off and I said, you know, one of the things I'd like to do is not pick up another job for the rest of this year. So the two of us said, we won't entertain any calls until kind of fall. And then, you know, but I would love to do this again. It was an amazing experience, but also I felt like, you know, I learned so much from the experience, but also I could serve customers in a very, different way. Like it's very different than hands-on product.

Deb Liu (56:41.856)

It's actually the long-term kind of larger roadmap. And it was really an amazing, it was amazing time. So I would totally do it again.

Dave (56:49.069)

And so, I mean, there's so many like stories of success in your career. Like what's one of the, like what kind of experience or failure do you think in your career has shaped you the most to kind of where you are now?

Deb Liu (57:05.038)

Well, I shared the story in my book, which is one of the things that happened was there was a couple of jobs that I wanted at Facebook. And I asked Mark. And the first time I was passed over, I asked him. And he was like, no, I don't think that's right. The second time was after he said, not only he basically said very similar to the woman, he's like, I don't think that job is right for you, basically, that you will never have that job here. And I had to decide what to do with that information, which was

Deb Liu (57:34.626)

But I said, what if I made my job the job that I wanted? You know, what if I changed the things I did? And in many ways, each no opened the doors to many more yeses. I did probably some of the best work after he said no. And so I think that sometimes, you know, Chuck Swindoll has the quotes like, life is 10 % what happens to you and 90 % how you respond to it. And that is absolutely true. And you get to choose. And so often the question is, is this a stumbling block or is this a stepping stone? When you see something, an obstacle in your path,

Deb Liu (58:04.3)

You can choose to have those two things. You know, I choose to see the experience I had growing up and I was a stumbling block, but it's something that made me who I am today. And so I think each time do I wish that, you know, I didn't have cancer, I didn't just go through the cancer and surgery and things like that. Absolutely. But at the same time, someone told me you will be so different on the other side. And it's absolutely true because I'm so much more grateful for the things that I do have that it was caught early that I had this opportunity to understand a very different.

Dave (58:18.875)

Yeah.

Deb Liu (58:33.858)

perspective. And so I think it is a choice. And so when people say failure, I ask them, like, what if it's the catalyst for something greater too? Because you can turn, you know, things can be like a gift, or they can be a curse, and you have to decide how to do that.

Dave (58:51.153)

Yeah, yeah. It's funny because it's not something a lot of Asian Americans are raised with. It's like failure. People are afraid to take risks because they don't want to fail because of what the shame it might bring or what others might think of them. But that perspective of kind of repositioning failure as it's actually a gift to kind of wake you up and help you along the way or it's a stepping stone. You learn from it, you grow stronger from it. But I think a lot of

folks need to hear that because I think so many people think I don't want to fail because of the, like all the things you think about as a kid, like, if I fail this test or I get a mistake, it's all very bad. But it's like, well, it's okay. You learn from your mistakes. You learn from your failures. And so I hope, I mean, most people would realize that like it's okay to fail and that they can actually grow stronger from it. It's the only way they learn. But in your...

On the flip side of that, what is your definition of success now? Like it's probably morphed or changed throughout your life, but what is your definition of success?

Deb Liu (59:55.246)

Well, think that one of the things that I did was write a personal mission statement, right? Which is to use your gifts for good and to really think about what are you placed on this earth to do? What is the problem you're trying to solve? I was talking to somebody and she shared that somebody she works with told her the story of he doesn't ask what do you do, he asks what problem are you put on earth to solve? And I love that question because you know, it's not a singular thing. Like I think we're so, our identity is so tied to like a job or a title or a thing, right? I see your Emmy in the back. You know, it's like your identity, I know, but I think like, you know, it's your identity is tied to like these accolades or you're linked in, right? But your life is so much greater than like three lines about the four years you spent doing X or the, you know, time that you invested in Y, right? And by the way, I think that that's something which, you know,

We hold that too tight. I was at a party and writing our names and this is right, this is the week after I stepped down and somebody said to me, she had stepped down from a very senior job at Google. She said, what do we write underneath our name? And I said, well, what if we left it blank? Right. And she said, join the blank name. So then someone else comes in, she had stepped down from like a, you know, VP or CPO job. And she said, I, and my friend calls her over and says, why don't you join the blank name tag club?

But in so many ways, our identity is so tied to like a title or a job or a company. But when you describe who you are, are you putting that in your gravestone? You know, no, you're a father, you know, you're an entrepreneur, you're a, those are things that, that are who you are. But I think often we think, you know, you're a son, you're a husband, you are those things. But we, but if you think about how we identify ourselves, that's not how we introduce ourselves, is it?

Dave (01:01:43.857)

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. It's funny. I just talked to my son's third grade class and about identity because they had identity. They're doing a chapter right now. But I told the kids, I was like, hey, you know, I'm I'm an investor. I'm a founder. I'm a, you know, producer. But I'm a dad. I'm a friend. I'm a husband. Like all these things. like, you don't have to be one thing. But so many people, I feel like they tie their identity so heavily in one thing that like.

If things go wrong, they feel like it's the end of the world. like, that's, you aren't just one thing. You're the sum of all your parts. And so, yeah, I think I try to encourage, I mean, these are third graders, but I try to teach them like, you don't ever have to be one thing. I'm like, I'm trying to write a children's book now. Cause I mean, I read them to my kids all the time. Like, oh, I can, I want to write, I want to tell them a message too. So, but it's again, yet another thing that I think we can be so many things. And I think we're told that we are. But yeah, I guess along the lines of the success.

What is the legacy that you want to leave behind? mean, you're still, you got stuff planning to do, but what do you, what's the legacy that you want to like that you're, you know, as you think through your career and what you do next and all the things that you do outside of, you know, your job, like what is the legacy that you want to leave behind?

Deb Liu (01:02:44.152)

Ha

Deb Liu (01:02:55.374)

Well, want people, you one of the things I said in my mission statement is I started this mission statement because when I was in business school, I don't know if they did this in your class, but one of the first things we did was write our obituary at the beginning of business school. And it's a reminder, you know, everyone is fresh faced. They come into Stanford. They're like, this is their dream. And then the first thing is like, imagine you're deaf. But then, you know, when we hit our 15th reunion, two people had already passed away. And so, you know, time is not infinite.

Dave (01:03:05.957)

Yes. Yes.

Dave (01:03:11.727)

No, yeah, you're gonna die. The mortality, face your mortality, yeah.

Deb Liu (01:03:24.334)

Right. And so my question is like, do you leave every interaction and having made the other person better? You know, do you, are you giving of your gifts? Are you blessing others? And I think that that's a really important question. And for me, I think that's the most important thing is that, you know, are you, you have a set of skills that you could give to the world. Are you using it to your greatest capacity? Are you using your talents in the way that are set to, you're given this opportunity to do all these amazing things. Are you living up to that potential?

And I think sometimes, you know, it's, it's easy to kind of ignore that and to say, well, you know, I just complacent or I'm doing X today and just ignore everything else.

Dave (01:04:03.643)

Yeah, no, that's great advice. And I guess finally, I want to, you give a lot of talks all the time and you have a lot of, I feel like people will probably come up to you and ask you questions. If you could give advice to your younger self or any of these kind of Asian American professional that comes up to you and asks you for one piece of advice that could, you know, help them in their personal life or their professional life, what would that kind of negative advice be?

Deb Liu (01:04:30.402)

Yeah. Well, the thing that I always tell myself, I tell my kids is if you're always learning, you know, there are people who are like better than you at something, but if you're always learning, you're eventually going to succeed them because you know, the people who are hungry, who have the learning mindset, who are constantly seeking more information, who are trying to update that information, who are, you know, giving themselves over to learn new things. Those people are constantly growing. They're doing more. They're lifting harder there. You know, and I think that

Deb Liu (01:04:58.464)

We kind of have this fixed like, OK, I studied X and X and therefore I'm an expert in math. But you can learn so many things. Your time outside of college is so much longer than your time in college. You don't have to start with having all the knowledge. Instead, you can always evolve and grow and learn new things. And I think we have this often fixed mindset. It's like, I checked this box. I did the thing.

Deb Liu (01:05:22.466)

But what if you're constantly evolving? And so that means listening to feedback. It's listening to counter opinions. It's opening your mind to things that you could never have imagined. And I think that that is the greatest skill. I see those who start out not maybe at the highest place. They're not necessarily the smartest person, but they're eager and hungry and always keep that hunger.

Dave (01:05:44.049)

That's so, so helpful. And I think it's a lot of us don't realize how important it is to keep growing and learning. And that's what makes life interesting. If you stop learning, you think you know everything. Like what else, what's the point of, you know, the rest of life? So Deb, thank you so much for your time. I know, you know, you've got a lot going on and I mean, I guess you're not working, but you got plenty of other things going on too. But, but thank you for taking the time to share kind of your story and your advice with the audience.

Deb Liu (01:06:05.198)

Ha ha ha.

Dave (01:06:13.478)

Hopefully we'll see each other soon in person. But again, thank you for taking the time.

Deb Liu (01:06:16.194)

Yes.

Deb Liu (01:06:20.546)

Absolutely, thank you for inviting me.