Why Big Tech Is Not For Me, with Chloe Shih

welcome folks to another episode of the work item podcast uh we're bringing you every week insights from awesome folks in the tech industry and today i have uh here on the show chloe she welcome chloe hi yay thank you so much for having me dan yes very excited to talk to you about today because i have so many questions and before i get into them tell us more what are you working on these days yeah okay so i guess like from a career perspective i am currently a product lead at tick tock and so i'm kind of in the middle of a career transition so by the time this episode comes out i probably no longer will be at tiktok but have a lot of stories to tell and then on like a more personal note i have just like been trying to work on some creative things like videos and then working on a discord and like streaming and just like fun creative projects that i normally would not have engaged in um but now i have like a little break in my life so i'm just trying to focus on like fun stuff yeah like singing and gaming and um and like drawing and like being on the show oh yes and being on the show ah yeah thank you for your patience by the way i know it took us some time to schedule this shameless plug but i know that there's a lot of stuff that is way more fun than the show but i know that before i even talked to you to come on the show um i again watch your youtube videos and i know that you had some collabs that were awesome and you're a great product manager so tell me more about your unique story and product because what i've noticed is you have this kind of a mix of product business development operations like what all led to this yeah it was definitely a story and it was not a straight shot for sure i started off my career working in operations analytics at google and it was honestly very boring like it was just literally um very operations heavy very sequel heavy and it was um i i don't know i think it was a like you know first job out of college wasn't really sure where exactly in the industry i wanted to be in and then i was like really fascinated with gaming so i like started interviewing all kinds of gaming realms and then got an offer at google internally um to switch over to support like the analytics team but behind pokemon go and i was like gonna join that or this like esports company or this uh this streaming company in the startup space and so i kind of pivoted my my like career into going into like the live entertainment area and then um i initially got an offer to be a pm or a product manager at the company or go into biz dev business development and then i was like looking at the leadership team and i don't think like there was a really formal there wasn't any formal structure around product management but then the business development uh senior vice president she was like this wait can we curse or no yeah of course okay just like this badass um female leader in tech who's like very og myspace and then worked and then was at microsoft a long time ago and worked at valve and then made steam the way it was today and they became head of content at oculus and got acquired by facebook and sat next to cheryl sandberg and then she would have been my boss so i decided oh i'll just go into business development there and like through that experience i got to really meet a lot of our like content creators that was part of the streaming platform and like was able to pitch a bunch of feature ideas that would help them and elevate their careers and so that was like the beginning of product for me um i wasn't by title a product manager but the company i was at didn't really have product managers because it was led by like x apple execs and you know apple is not very not a very product management driven type company yeah so uh i was doing a lot of pm work there and it really came down to like i was extremely good at bd and i really liked doing it but as much as i sold and did partnerships and made things happen i was always bottlenecked by the product and so i wanted to push product forward to create you know new possibilities and um and then i got really intrigued and then that was like the start of the journey yeah and what a journey it was it seems but yes i do have a question to that because you you called out something that's very important to me and when i talk to folks who are early in their career they have this question so you mentioned that the first job that you got was boring and when i talk to folks that are just starting out in the industry they're fresh out of college whether they're going to work at a startup or a big tech company it doesn't really matter but essentially they're asking well i have the opportunity to do this job that's kind of boring but it it is a foot in the door or should i hold out to get my dream job whether it's working like at a gaming company or at some game studio somewhere what are your thoughts on that like should should one take the boring job to get into the industry or should they wait um yeah it's a very personal question i think it depends on your risk tolerance and where you're at financially i think i just needed to take like my first job and if you're an international student then there's like the limp the the options are so much more limited and you should definitely take a fame job that will sponsor your work visa yeah wait did you take a very standard traditional first job when you first got out first of all i'm the international student you're talking about oh okay okay uh so i i had to get for a company that would sponsor the whole thing but um yeah yeah it is very hard but no actually i uh my first job was as a dev on some game related stuff funnily enough and i got a little bit i never say bored but like right after that internship i was like wait there's a thing called product what is that about yeah i get to talk to people and i get to decide things yes let's do it sign me up and it kind of like i just stuck around with that i don't know but i wouldn't say it was boring it's well i guess it depends because i'll look desktop like if i if you find email entertaining in any capacity then sure but it was definitely not something i'd be like wow this is this is the kind of stuff you brag about like what do you do like oh i build the next skyrim what about you email client uh some people love it some people are really you know they nerd out a lot about productivity and emailing since that's their life but um i know what you mean i feel you but i'm glad you had a you know like a a fun first it sounds like a fun first job it is a fun yeah it is yeah i would say like for so so the question is should i do something that's more non-traditional that probably is something more adventurous versus like the safe path starting out um i think it depends on what questions you're trying to answer at that time of your career like do you have a burning desire to potentially go into gaming or entertainment or i don't know like fashion and if you do there's no better time to answer that than at the beginning of your career but if you're strapped for money and you need something stable then it's a very realistic decision to go with the safe choice and you can like moonlight or you could just like do things on the weekend to help better answer that burning question you have so it's a really hard it's really difficult um i do want to say that a lot of people have told me this i'm really risk averse like i just am afraid of taking risks because of the financial component and the decision only gets harder because you're just strapped in further and deeper and deeper so uh yeah it's it's not easy it's it's not an easy it's a tricky one and i i can definitely relate to the the financial aspect because like i grew up in eastern europe and my family was by no means wealthy and having kind of the the financial stability is such a huge i think cornerstone that kind of cut i don't want to say beaten into me by life if you will but it was just like there is like you have to have a stable job that can hold you out for like what if something happens tomorrow like what do you do do you have enough savings like it's hard like uh going to a startup and saying yeah you might not make money for the next five years if our startup works you might get equity but then i know it's so rare most people i know won't stay at the start up for longer than three years two to three years because it just crashes and burns and it's like not a good culture fit or you don't grow anymore like why waste your time but you won't get that equity um incentive so it's it's so difficult and i have to say like the industry is hard because like all the people who are really successful you know successful and the ones that are on all the pr releases and um on all the articles these are people who most of them could afford to take a risk like could afford to fail they have like that safety net so um that's a really personal decision i think a lot of people actually they like project out the exact amount of money that they need in case like the worst case scenario fails or like they create a runway for three months or six months yeah right like you said there's so many factors that go into that decision because you know another one is like work life balance like do you want to work nights and weekends or do you have other plans maybe yeah it's it's tough it's super tough and it's also just hard to get at first job so like sometimes you're so burnt out right right and especially with the first job i think now the more i think about it it's also even if you take that boring job or whatever the first job that might not be the perfect one i feel like it still would make your next job a little bit easier right because if you're gonna go to an interview and you say well i've never worked anywhere else before and i only have these side projects probably be a harder sell than coming with somebody that says yeah i've been at google and i've been building i don't know some behind the scenes plumbing system for this infrastructure project but at least you have something to talk about yeah there's something there so yeah that said i i don't think there's a wrong path there's just your path that yeah and you just got to know the pros and cons and the trade-offs and the things that you're giving up and the things you're trying to accomplish in that one to two years of your career yeah tough decisions right so as with anything on this podcast there's no single answer and adjust your life situation so don't don't don't take what we talk here as gospel it's definitely not it's just you know opinion of two people yeah exactly but if i could go back i don't think i would have take i wanted to take that first really yeah what would you do instead um if i could go back to the beginning of college i'm actually unsure if i would want to go to college to be honest i'm like very i studied a lot i studied and seen him out and i just felt like for what i just never really had a good um i don't know just a good center or i was really grounded i just thought like authority education i just need to get good grades listen to the professor but i didn't build like my own voice and then going into the industry i joined google and like i only really joined google because it's a brand name like that's it there was just nothing i could do at that level google would be meaningful like at a company of a hundred thousand there's nothing there for me at that level so um i i wish that i just enacted on my dreams a little bit earlier in life and not try to adhere to like the societal um norm of what is good and what is yeah i just i feel like that's what i did because i was afraid and it was just a safe thing um but i remember how it felt like then and i was afraid to do anything so i'm not sure if i would have the guts but knowing what i know now maybe it would have been better it's an interesting dilemma because thinking back to college i think i can't think of well i i can't think of a few classes that i probably still remember and use stuff from like there was formal ethics i think it was a fun class but things like computer science and all that it's like i don't i i coded my free time and that's what helped me get the job and that's what helped me kind of build those connections but not necessarily college classes yeah yeah and it's expensive and it is very expensive yeah so and back to the risk profile right it's like how much do you want to go into financial debt at the stage in life but then it's also tricky because in our industry there's so much that hinges on that degree right like it's kind of like a filter for better like for better for worse but it is the case right where it's like if you don't have a degree in computer science or engineering or whatever they're like okay we're not even going to talk to you yeah but i never was a cs major so then i don't think my degree was actually that useful um yeah i don't i don't know i don't know if they checked for it if i could substitute that entire degree for like like a product boot camp that would have like gotten me my first job then maybe that would have been a better use of my time and money yeah actually tell me more how was it looking for when you were starting out finding a position without a cs degree because that's i think uh probably a misconception that exists today that if you want to work in tech you have to either go see cs or electrical engineering or whatever yeah what was your journey like well it was hard because i was industrial engineering and operations research and even though it was like very very quant heavy and like programming heavy too but more on like the quant side if nobody nobody took ior majors unless you got a masters or a phd and then you're like the actual operations researcher behind the people who figure out the algorithm around amazon's delivery network like those are people who publish research paper papers and prove algorithms and proofs and i was just not that kind of person and so i felt like my degree at the undergraduate level was kind of useless and if i could go back to change my degree i would have like yeah i think i just would have wanted to do something that i genuinely would have liked instead of like trying to find the most rigorous path that was that was feasible right but yeah i don't think it was helpful at all yeah not for data science not for product management not for cs like there was nothing there was no role that wanted me specifically so i sent a lot of applications out got rejected a lot and that's what happens if you're just not the perfect fit getting rejected a lot that is oh i did how fortunate are we to work in tech industry right now and have like actual a position because i remember getting those rejections and i was like oh no not again i know it was brutal i think i like one time i think maybe i don't know if it's for an internship before full time but i submitted like 150 applications in like a three weeks time period i just kept going yeah you know you're rejected to like everything except for one yeah also now i'm going off script again but there's another question how do you cope with the rejection of that because it seems that the more wouldn't you get discouraged at some point it's like okay this rejection just kind of accumulates um you know i i have this plug-in called kill kill my feed on facebook because every kid was posting their like next offer an internship and i was like i hate you all i don't want to see this so i just like disabled the entire feed on facebook and that helped me a lot also um i just wanted to remind myself like even though they got the banking i went to school new york so everyone was getting banking offers and consulting offers at the top firms i was like i know i don't want to do that so even if i see their success that's just not me i need to do what's right for me which is going to tech and then everyone who was getting offers in tech were software engineers or like comp sci majors and i had to constantly remind myself like this is my own personal journey i can't really compare their their offers and their experiences in mine that said um that helped me cope with my own journey but that didn't help me be informed of the opportunities i could have been i could have been i don't know like setting myself up for i decided to like just not hear what other people are going through and i think that um kind of was a bad experience because i didn't know what how better things could be so i only knew the data from like my own offers and rejections and so when i finally got my offer i didn't realize that i was like making a third um one-third of what everyone else was and i was like what the heck this is and this is not a good feeling and when i finally found that out like a year later it was awful yeah kind of i think this is part of why it's important to have the conversation about things like pay i know and it's scary to talk to your your i guess um students or like friends about this like you don't that's that's like a muscle that none of us had exercised at that period of our lives but now it's just like it's still uncomfortable but i think a lot of us are able to talk about it more openly right and it's it's because again by society's norms just like college we talked about it's kind of instilling she's like you don't talk about finances stuff but yeah why not wouldn't that make you better suited to make better financial decisions yeah yeah so it's a tricky time how to balance it all man it's it's hard it's hard i just wish i had mentors at the time to guide me through it but i didn't it was just like me and my social media and my google searches you know you mentioned that your career wasn't as linear as one would expect a career to be in product because we see again from feeds on linkedin on facebook and twitter these positive stories you know i hop from job to job and i get promoted and all these things and every career has its struggles every career has its bumps in the road where you have to overcome them tell me more about your experience what was your career like and what were some of these difficult times when you had to stand up for yourself yeah and there are so many um i think that my first joining google was like i i thought i had made it you know it's like your first job at at google it's it seems amazing but i wasn't a software engineer at google i wasn't making nearly as much as those other my my classmates were and i think in my role i just kind of they kind of sold my role differently you know recruiters do that teams do that they say wow this is fancy thing and in reality it's just like a bunch of i don't know data entry or emailing or like operational work and um and i think i fell for that because i was like so desperate to just get that first offer and and then take it i didn't negotiate well i tried to but they're like this is non-negotiable that sucked and then um i joined the company and realized that i was just being i don't know how to say this like uh under undervalued or like uh they would just constantly think that i'm a new grad i am i am really average like everyone else is super smart i think i was like trying to go on a trying to show that i was on a track to go more accelerated like go for promo try to take a leadership role and these are the experiences that i had always you know had in my career whether that's in school and that's in my side projects or that's in the non-profits or like my internship i've always liked been in the top top like three just top three people and so um i think at the time when i was like trying to show my leadership abilities and develop myself to the next level i would be met with like a oh you're just a number like my i think i remember a manager straight up said hey i know you want to do this thing and you want to get promoted but i just want to tell you that everyone here is smart at google and you coming out and graduating you're just one of the many so um it's really difficult to get to that next level you know percentage-wise it's not likely it'll probably take over two years and then all i heard was here are the historical stats and you and i'm not making any effort to recognize you for your abilities i'm only recognizing you for the average of the distribution and um i just didn't want to be at a place where people would just see me as a number and they wouldn't actually look at me for like the talent the value the ideas and so i knew it was it wasn't a place for me to grow yeah and it was like yeah it was very difficult um also just working i think what was really challenging was like hanging out with my my co my classmates they uh were paid software engineer salaries and to know like i'm only a third of their salary just piss me off to know and i'm like we you weren't even that great of a student in college like i don't understand you never showed up to class you were mean you cheated yeah so it was like kind of a tough place to be in mentally you know everyone has different scenarios um so that was like a challenge then i transitioned over to the startup called caffeine i mean all this is on my linkedin and i loved i love love loved the startup in the first one to two years it was like the best career experience i've ever had but then um we got some crazy funding and i eventually we started to like pivot and you know when startups pivot culture changes and then talent changes because you hire externally you bring in leadership and management from other companies and so the way that we decide and the way that people get invited to decision making room that changes and it was such a struggle because i had been such like a high-performing og for like since the beginning and then to have all the power players like come in and change things up was like really uh man i i just it was it was really painful i wanted to share like specific times when it was rough but i guess that was like one of the first times i realized that i am an asian woman like i just recognized oh wow i'm an asian woman and that's different because i worked in bd and we had to fly down to l.a a lot to meet with like talent agencies and so every most of the time when we would go down i would pitch the company and like run and lead a partner potential partnership with like some of the biggest agencies in hollywood and many times the the people the clients that i'd be working with they would ask me really inappropriate questions and be like are you married yet or did you just graduate college how old are you um and then they would also assume that i'm the assistant and asked me to get coffee or water and i'm like oh no no i'm i'm like the person i'm the senior manager here like we're we're doing the deal like it's you and me there's not a there's not an assistant um and then even though we were the same age i just always felt um just people were just looking down on me and they just felt i was really young yeah but um i i had a really strong work ethic and i continued to be on top of it and i led some of the biggest partnership deals at the company that led to the literally most needle-moving impact so i'm really proud of that another time was like [Music] oh man so many hard things another time was i was in a meeting okay so we just went to jdc which is game developers conference in san francisco and we were doing like these partnership deals with a bunch of game devs and the entire beauty team is like ten plus people and everyone was like five to 15 years my senior all dudes i was like the only girl and i was the youngest girl too and um i was the first person to get the first two deals signed and then i think like 10 minutes or five minutes before a meeting started we like hopped on this call and people were like wow chloe how did you get these deals done and then um i was like about to answer and then this guy interjected and he's like oh i know how she got the deals done i don't know if anyone noticed but she's a young female and she's talking to a lot of game developers and when you know older male game developers talk to a young female of course they can't say no and then and then it was meant to be a joke and i was just like so shocked because it just never crossed my mind that that would be someone's thought process instead of like she just you know killed it at the at the assignment she understood the assignment she killed it and crushed it and led this new process a new partnership or was able to understand what people want and build this this business um it came down to oh she's she's just a young lady and yeah and so that felt horrible and there's like many struggles just like getting promoted into the positions that i wanted to be and then being able to have my voice heard that was that was really really freaking hard yeah i think um i think i was like culturally it was just such a shock for me because i'm someone who's like a listener and i ask right questions and i try to get you know i try to facilitate i'm the facilitator type and when i'm in a room full of like alpha males how decision making works is like the the loudest person in the room gets the final say and that's how the decision is made and so it got so bad to a point where i was like so afraid to speak up that my my boss gave me a bell to ring in a meeting like a yellow bell and i'd have to tap the bell if i wanted to talk and and i understood the intention behind it but it was just really humiliating yeah and i feel like everyone made fun of me for it because i just like you know wasn't as alpha as the other guys yeah so yeah those are just some one of the hundreds you hear stories like this and you hear stories like this from from women in the industry going through these and you're like oh this is you know this is an isolated incident it's not an isolated incident it's yeah shockingly shockingly how casual even what you described is the fact that it was just like yeah let's brush it off as a joke it's a joke right but how often would you hear that kind of a joke given by a female towards a male right like the other way around like that that would not be perceived as a joke the other day that's just offensive right and somehow we'll normalize like oh this is just a joke right it's like the guy's just joking instead of focusing on the fact that you're perfectly capable and you're talented at doing that yeah there are a lot of jokes and a lot of mistakes i was just a guinea pig for a lot of different managers or senior people to um i don't know rage on too like i think unfortunately i think i blocked this all from my memory but because i had been so present and been like the person to go to everywhere uh i just happened to be in the room at the wrong time many times and i didn't realize how emotional people can get at work and they would just like flip out and then i just happened to be a target like the closest object that they can just like take out their rage on and it was really scary because i don't at that at that time i could i didn't know how to react back yeah i just um it was it it was like it was horrific i think another time i told myself the reason why i was going to go into gaming was that i felt that i could be more of my authentic self i didn't have to be like the straight edge really buttoned up um cutthroat type person that spoke is like one specific way that's like really professional and book professional i guess because i i like my quirky self and i like my casual self and i'm very competent and full of all kinds of skills but i don't want to compromise my core personality and so um i think during this time when like a lot of new talent came in and a lot of changes were happening we were seeing a wave of like old talent leaving and complaining and so i just wanted to um i just worked extra hard at that time and then i think a colleague of mine he he tried he tried escalating like the struggles that some of the team members were going through to the leadership team and the leadership team was like oh well um is it because like chloe is having problems with this because if it is and it's not a problem and then to be like singled out by the leadership team as like the problem child or the source of drama or whatever when in fact in my headspace and in my actions i had not done a single thing that would rile up another person i literally just like heads down get this thing done listen to my leadership team make sure that they are set up for success um it felt really i felt really disheartening like to be pinned as a scapegoat of like you know cultural changes or challenges and then it got to a point where him and i we were pretty good like friends at work and after a hackathon he was like hey can you can you um can you chat it was like a friday afternoon at 5 p.m and we entered in like a phone room and then he was like look i talked to leadership about these challenges that we had been talking about and i don't know if you've noticed that i've been avoiding you lately and i'm like oh no i haven't i'm busy doing my own thing i don't know talking about he's like okay great well just want to tell you that um i i heard this from leadership and i just think that we can't be friends anymore and i'm like what are you talking about he was like look we're colleagues before we're friends but if the leadership team thinks that you're not leaders leader material then um it hurts my reputation being you know being seen with you and maybe maybe like it just sucks maybe maybe you know i understand you're this bubbly personality and everyone loves you but when you're trying to enter your room and you have have to like influence people to make a decision and you're unable to because you're too bubbly that's like that shows really poorly on you and maybe we just live in a terrible society where you just have to be really cold and cold stone like have a heart of stone and be really dead pan to be considered a leader in silicon valley and that's the world we live in and you're just not that and um and it's going to hurt my career if i like associate myself with you and i hope you understand that to me sounds absolutely nuts yeah i'm sorry i mean it is kind of crazy like really you're going to suppress somebody's personality and like what is this mean girls who's like associating you know oh you you can't be seen without us because otherwise like this is what yeah i think he just was going through a lot and he raged and he thought i was a problem he took it out on me and me at the time like i'm just such an understanding like a kind-hearted person that i was like oh wow like thank you for giving me this feedback i definitely will think about this like don't worry about it you do you i just want to be supportive i didn't realize i was crossing my own boundaries and not doing justice to my own self and not respecting who i am not valuing who i was i should have clapped i should have clapped back i should have been like do you hear what you're saying right now i got you for real um but yeah his the tldr i was like you're too bubbly you're not leadership material i can't hang with you because you're ruining my reputation i i don't even know what to say to me is like this is just one of those things where if i don't even know how to react if somebody who told me that'll work yeah i was sure like you're you're oh you're this energetic person like how about you like tone it down to zero so that people can get along but yeah i'm curious to that because as folks can potentially get this kind of feedback at their workplace again wherever they work whether it's a big company a small startup how do you know where to draw the line between feedback that says here's how you can perform better versus suppress who you actually are yeah i got an answer for you okay have you ever heard of this thing called the workplace pua no idea okay so okay so it's because i work um at a chinese company and there's like a lot of new terms that have uh just surfaced from working life but there's this thing called workplace pua that originated from uh pua stands for a pickup artist and pickup artists are known to say things that are really emotionally manipulating to get you to think a certain way that is not the truth so then it translated over to the workplace and it means like where a colleague or a manager negs you or like gaslights you or calls you out for things about you versus you the behavior of your work so it's like oh you you look you look dumb today with your new glasses or you just you just sound really unprofessional or you know your your demeanor like basically things about you that don't really don't really map to what your statement of work entails and that's a hard line because you're basically attacking someone's character and their identity and their personality and how they show up to work because you're just i don't know you just don't like the way that they look today and that bothers you so that's it i i've experienced this so many times in my career um and i realized and it's really hard to recognize in the moment but uh if you're ever if you're ever checking yourself hey is this does it have to do with my actual work that my deliverables are that i was hired to do if not then is this something that they have good intentions to help me get through like maybe there's something that's not that's very intangible like um they want maybe they want me to develop my public speaking abilities and i stutter a lot and then they just say hey i just want to share um i saw your presentation think the content is amazing uh i i just i just know that maybe you're interested in getting a promotion and i wanted to give you some feedback so that it can help elevate you for you the next time you present to leadership but i know the leadership team really values presentation quality and um i don't know stuttering and saying words like um like you know pause words might not be super effective for them that's what i've heard so perhaps is something that you could uh you you you can pay attention to next time yeah i just like basically if they inten the intention is really genuine about like wanting you to succeed then it's okay i feel like it's okay but if it's it's like if it's something like they are saying something because they want them to succeed like they want themselves to look good and then they're attacking you for it you can tell people can tell that they're placing blame on you for the lack of success of the team and that's not okay especially if they're a manager or like a higher up they should have the humility and the uh ability to not have an ego and be able to uplift the entire team like you know servant leadership got to support the entire team but that's like those are traits of really poor leadership and people who are totally insecure about themselves so insecure that they got to push someone else down yeah just recognizing that well well at least helped me have the courage to be like what do you mean yeah i don't know what your intentions are saying the words that are coming out of your mouth right now so could you just like clarify what your goal is right sometimes the gut instinct actually is very very helpful in that regard is like oh that didn't feel well it probably because it was not that well intentioned sometimes and i i remember one of those moments in my career when a very early in career i think it was my first or second year at my full-time job got in the meeting room with a person and it was just me and this other person they're like oh somebody more senior going to join us as well oh my god i don't hate that man they're like oh all right well okay i guess we'll receive and then i was like tom was like oh maybe he wanted my manager because they make a decision but they're like years later on him he's like damn it that's not what it was that's not what it was yeah people who play the seniority game and the years of experience game are very short-sighted and i avoid these types of people as much as possible in my career or i'm just cordial with them and i try not to engage further because they've just got something to figure out and i don't want to be part of that energy it's not it's a ridiculous concept because why why would somebody would know years of experience not be able to bring a good idea to the table or a good suggestion or drive an initiative or help that sure they don't have the experience yet why discard their ideas right off the bat based like oh you've you've you only joined out of college yeah i and um and i think that these types of people are very much gatekeepers or they're very territorial and even if you are great talent and you're on their org they'll feel threatened and then they'll like ask you somehow and you just gotta you just gotta leave like if they're that's the type of leader that you're working for you just gotta leave there is no turning back like those people are very stubborn unless something life-changing happens they never change my favorite anecdote of that was another meeting surprise surprise product people have a lot of meetings and we were pitching some project idea and again this person heard us out and the first thing they did was just i've been at this company for 20 years this will never work and just like smacks a table and shocker that project actually worked a year later but you know it's like i've been here for 20 years so what i think that it's it's okay to say that in my 20 years of experience i haven't seen it work because of xyz reasons so if you're able to address those then i'm willing to work this out but if not i have a feeling that the same mistakes will happen again yeah that should be the conversation that's more constructive so we're talking about the seniority trap how do you break out of that what worked for you to kind of counteract when you said being very cordial with those people to what extent do you push back on somebody that comes to you and says you know what yeah i've been here for five years i know better than you you need to listen to me dude this is hard because it depends on what what uh battles you want to yeah like i i don't want to it's like not every hill is the hill i want to die on and so um it depends on if you're willing to stake it all like if you're willing to get fired then by all means go go and like run with your values and your virtue and be the righteous one i think that like if i if i am willing to take that risk and i wish like i could say all those words um yeah for for me i genuinely don't speak up about it as much as i should and that's something i want to develop myself in the next in my next stage of my career just like pushing back and being really assertive about when i see something that's wrong even like slightly wrong that doesn't make sense to me i should um respect my my hunch and validate that question evaluate the answer to the question that i have and i just need to do that to respect you know the the questions that i have developed because i've like over the years you develop an eye for things and if you ignore that then what what are you really working on what are you growing how are you changing in your professional life yeah so i don't do very well something that i hear it works pretty well that's not like very confrontational is if you've ever read split never split the difference oh yeah yeah there was there's that one section on mirroring where you just like if someone says can you go print 20 copies of this email you're like sorry 20 copies and then you just kind of repeat what they say in a question format in hopes of getting clarity and that forces the other person to think about what they just said and you know verify that that's exactly what they want and then share with you the goals and usually if it's a ridiculous request then they will be like never mind maybe just 10 copies or maybe not and you just like keep doing that until they give you you're they're forced to give you the right reason um yeah and i think that's an excellent skill to just build for easy low-hanging fruit circumstances so basically communicate what you're feeling how it made you feel and just make it in a way that is not necessarily attacking the person because i i know that the the first hunch sometimes can be like what do you just say you want me to do the copies for you how about you go and and then you're just getting like i don't know how politically effective that can be um okay so this is kind of an odd thing but i don't know if you've worked with like execs who've been around tech for so long that they like don't really know how to download a pdf yes i know what you're talking about yes yeah or they don't know how to use excel or they just they don't know how to use a dashboard you know we use a sauna we use jira we use like all this new tech and they have never they have never grown from just like email just text text copy paste email send me the raw like send me the dot dot doc file and i'm just like dude i can't work with you and there's a lot of execs that are very needy that you you know you do their quant analysis you like aggregate all this information for them and i would get all like continuous amounts of requests and so i started just asking them what the purpose is like why do they need this analysis what what is the business reason and what's preventing them from like doing it themselves like everything's already there this is a dashboard that was built um this is it like yeah as simple as it gets you can do it it's linked i'm excited for you to learn yeah tho those are kind of the the life hacks of the industry though we probably need to compile like a book of these little things it's like here's how to win friends and influence people in 2021 if you're working yeah that was that was not super fun but i feel like a lot of those mini circumstances can pigeonhole someone into doing meaningless tasks that makes you really just like hate your job that's not fun either right how do you break out of that because to me that's see that's also a tricky one because sometimes you gotta push through the grunt work to get to something more meaningful like you know i i talk to people that again they're kind of stuck in their position they're like hey i've been doing this job for the past six months kind of sucks i have to do like you said like oh some data entry and it's just it's whatever it doesn't push my boundaries doesn't let me grow but then you're like yeah but you've only been working for six months and going somewhere else right now is probably gonna hurt you in the long run yeah i feel that as someone who's hopped a lot of companies it's a hard decision my my first instinct is always to stay and make it work um and that's not easy i think it depends on everyone's situation but if it's something like i don't enjoy my work right now and i don't know what i want to do next i think that person needs to do more reflection on what that next is it doesn't make sense to change your situation to just run away from something bad because the industry is is very cyclical like you will see the same problems everywhere and so running away from problems is not very beneficial because then you're just going to see it again and then run away again and you're just going to be tired and they're going to run out of companies right yeah my favorite one is when people be like oh i like because there's just too much politics and drama on my team i'm going to go somewhere else like guess what politics and drama earn every team because that's how humans work like there's going to be different degrees of it probably i think if it's something more like this part of my job is really really boring and doesn't give back to me then do you really have to do it like and then just negotiating with your management team that is this statement of work that impactful and that needle moving to our top line metrics then we shouldn't do it yeah if like we're trying to invest in some dashboard and nobody looks at it why why even build it are we even ready to build out metrics for maybe like a new product that doesn't even have enough user base for us to see trends um our yeah i just i just think that we can get lost in the everyday and not like figure out what our end goal is so you know for people who are trying to make that change what is their end goal and are they getting there and also the grass is never greener and what you described also depends heavily on having a supportive manager yeah somebody that is willing to go to bat for you and say you know what like yeah maybe what you're working on right now is not as meaningful let me find you a meteor project you can work on because you can also have a manager that just kind of like i don't care just whatever always that's that's usually what happens it's very hard to find a good supportive manager but i think if you ever talk to your senior leadership or your um hr team about it they will always be like do you talk to your manager yet so checking off that box and if it's not your manager then is there another senior manager within the org that you can talk to is there another senior i see is there someone outside the company just like have all these checks in place before making like a rage quit decision so we talked about all these challenges it's not easy to push through this and keep yourself motivated and frame everything from my conversation with you what i hear is like you kind of take everything as a lesson it's like okay now i know and i know how to kind of work around that what helped you push forward in spite of all these challenges in spite of all the roadblocks in spite of the fact that like i said you work on in a realistically male dominated industry where the perception is different like what helped you depends on every stage of my life in my career um ultimately is surrounding myself with the right voices to keep me uh keep me accountable or hold me accountable like i think when i was trying to get out of a certain situation i had a senior pm who coached me through like product interviews almost every day and i shadowed him and he grilled me questions day after day and that helps me keep like keep myself on track and i was also a reminder that um i shouldn't always just put up with the situation you have in front of me like just because it's a problem in my work life doesn't mean i have to solve it either so going from oh these are problems i should solve and be a team player to these are such toxic issues that no matter what i do it will only hurt me in the end that those are two areas where i need to keep separate yeah so just having the right voices around me having the right people to coach me and hold me accountable and get make progress for my my way out and um just having like a very gut checking myself every so often to make sure i'm i am motivated by the right reasons like why am i leaving why do i want to go into this field why do i want to spend 20 hours a week training on something that doesn't give to me if things don't go through um just like what am i ultimately trying to accomplish and does that make me happy like where does that come from is it because i see everyone else on linkedin and they haven't it looks really prestigious or is that something i truly like the the day-to-day of uh and then having kind of that mission or that your own pillars like holds you grounded whenever you're up against like a really challenging situation then that helps me get through it all yeah so i just want to have a good why for living my everyday and no one can i just have to remember that my voice matters more than anyone else's yeah and then like only keep the voices around me that will help support me to get there how do you find those voices the trusted people around you they can surround yourself with that can give you that sometimes difficult guidance and maybe like a second thought of like hey just a gut check like did i interpret this right or what this other person did like how do you find those people for me personally i'm pretty social i'm very i was very very very social early on in my career so i got to meet a lot of people but i think a huge part of it is like for me it was being vulnerable with my situation of challenge so i would share my salary i would share some of the conversations i've had and not everyone does that and like people maintain this like picture-perfect image of themselves and career and like good for them i guess but then i i need help and i'm going to admit it and i will share it with them anyone that i think i can trust and that comes with like mistakes where people hear the vulnerability and then judge you for it and take advantage of you for it so i made a lot of mistakes um and i think i am fortunate now to not have those people in my life because it's like the vulnerability thing i share my challenges and i share that i'm not perfect and i'm struggling with a lot of these things it kind of challenges some of the people in my life colleagues friends mentors and it's like a character challenge like depending on what they say do i vibe with the values that they're projecting on to me in this answer and if it uplifts me or gives a new perspective and i'm willing to accept and respect it then um i think that it's a very strong relationship that i can move forward in and if it's not if it's something that just like doesn't doesn't make sense with my set of values then i just have to deliberately not not associate myself with them anymore and like prune those relationships for example i did have a mentor in my life in like in my earlier college days he was like older than me who's already working in um in the industry and he was like so great to me when i was a student but then as i like moved forward into my professional life i was like posting on my personal instagram story around mental health tuesdays which is like the day i go work out i go see my therapist and then have like a self-care night and then i would post every so often and then he like messaged me saying that he's noticed that i've been posting this more often and that i shouldn't because it would harm my reputation and it just looks it makes me look really weak and i'm like sir first of all it's my personal instagram personal these and he's like well you probably have co-workers follow you and it's really bad for your reputation your image so you shouldn't post it and your mental health tuesdays make you look weak so then that stuck out to me a lot i was like dude you're just not someone who understands that vulnerability is courage and um you may you we can agree to disagree but i had to walk away from that relationship or friendship you know yeah and again as you called out that vulnerability we all can benefit from it we can all benefit from more transparency because everyone is going through something i don't know of anyone whether at work in my friend's circle that you're just like yeah everything is smooth sailing 24 7 zero challenges life is perfect like despite what instagram makes you want to believe it's not the case and it's admirable when people go out of their way to show the fact that like actually i am going through this and i'm seeking help and i'm being helped that's great like i it's it's one of those things that i feel like i i appreciate what you do in that regard and sticking to your principles and your values and the theme that i hear here is intentionality be very intentional about who you are what you do how you seek out people around you yeah and that that is the most important thing yeah yeah i i vibe with that so chloe we're getting a time and i have one question that i ask of all the guests on the show is one piece of uncommon advice for folks that are early in their career that are just getting started something that you learned through experience and maybe you did not necessarily read in the blog post somewhere or something that just kind of was like aha i i have maybe not the secret sauce to something but just more of like this is something worth paying attention to for someone that wants to follow my footsteps man i feel like my footsteps are not the ones to follow though i think they are you because you again you've shared so many great insights today man i wish i had like a a quote that sounds like really nice that you can put up on a wall or frame it but i am not as eloquent as that um i think that maybe this is a piece of advice i want to give myself yeah as i as i continue to grow in my career it's just um who who who do i want to show up as tomorrow in my life and what's stopping me from getting there and so those are the questions that i really want to um answer um because i feel like and i guess like why do i want to be that that version that chloe like what what is why do i even want to be i don't know like grinding it in tech or just being a product manager or like have these linkedin posts or i'm not i'm not too sure why do i want to be so busy all the time why do i want to spend my time doing xyz like what kind of person do i want to shape myself to be and can i start becoming her now yeah because i feel like throughout my entire career i have just looked at other people on what success looks like from like the small window that i see of them and i'm like oh shoot i should have to be that i guess like my parents told me my school told me that techcrunch told me forbes told me um and honestly that's never the complete picture most people that i've seen that i got to meet in real life who've like been super featured online actually have some of the like uh the most chaotic lives that i would never want to live i would never want to be in that path and that's like okay they're going through it we're going through it but i just never really gave my own respected my own voice and my own desires it was always like i need to be a certain way for other people to validate who i am but i want to switch it to can i just not give a [ __ ] about what other people are saying like so what if i don't get the promotion so what if they think of me poorly or i didn't show up on time because i wanted to do something else um can can i just be the chloe that i am i am proud to be right now and and like everyone else just takes a back seat and i think that's like a really hard mental shift because i'm i'm really such like a quote unquote good girl like i am very very responsible very very to the book i'm the oldest sister i've always been the person in the group project that saves the group like i i'm the note taker i'm in the front of the classroom and i i realize i never did that for myself i just did it for others yeah so um that's why i feel like my path wasn't the right path because it wasn't even my path i'm only beginning my path maybe as soon as i can like now like today i hope but yeah i think that's what it is i guess the tldrs follow your own path and follow your own voice um because like when you finally accomplish it all like i guess where i'm at today where else is there to go i'm i'm at a really lucky fortunate position um there's it it feels really it doesn't feel that it doesn't feel as like whoa amazing fanfare as you would think yeah i like the frame of asking the why question just asking why why why do you want this so many people miss that part where you're kind of like we talked about earlier you know the college working in big tech or doing any of that it's like why is it is it money that's that's a good reason yeah that's very fine it's very realistic what is driving you and i think that this has been a great insightful episode that everyone should watch and before we wrap up where can people find you online and learn more about the work that you're building and will be building yeah um yeah so i started a youtube channel too and it's called colors of chloe where i share stories about my career and like vlog a little bit about my life and share some of the inner thoughts in a fun creative way so hope people can enjoy that um i also stream on twitch usually it's co-working sessions you know chill sessions to talk about anything career life development um and i have a discord server with that's also called colors of chloe you just find all the links on youtube it's like in the youtube video in the description whatever so uh those are some great places to get connected yeah and that's where like i hope i can invest more time in in the near future excellent well chloe thank you so much for spending your time with us today yeah thank you for having me dan and thanks for all the thoughtful questions i know we went all over the place but i hope it's been insightful to all the listeners those are the best episodes amazing

Channel: Den Delimarsky

Views: 8,244

Keywords: big tech, career in faang, faang, how to start career, career in tech, tech career, how to get started in tech, technology, how to become a product manager, product management, how to become pm, pm, how to get a job in product, how to become product manager, get started in tech, should i work at startup, work at startup, finding your own career track, career tracks, podcast, interview with colorsofchloe, colorsofchloe, how to apply for product management job, product manager jobs

Id: HQzA5J-wRpY

Length: 62min 20sec (3740 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 26 2021