When two trailblazers sit down for an unfiltered conversation, you know it’s going to spark something powerful. In this episode, AnitaB.org President & CEO Brenda Darden Wilkerson talks with Lisa Gelobter, technologist, entrepreneur, and CEO of tEQuitable. Together, they dive into Lisa’s remarkable career path, from shaping products used by millions to challenging the status quo in Silicon Valley. Along the way, she shares the pivotal moments that defined her leadership style and the rules she had to break to get there.
But this isn’t just a career retrospective. Brenda and Lisa dig into the realities of bias, resilience, and what it truly takes to lead with purpose in today’s tech landscape. It’s candid, it’s inspiring, and it will leave you rethinking the future of leadership. Tune in and discover why Lisa’s story left even Brenda momentarily speechless.
Subscribe to B The Way Forward on Apple or Spotify.
Our guests contribute to this podcast in their personal capacity. The views expressed in this interview are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology or its employees (“AnitaB.org”). AnitaB.org is not responsible for and does not verify the accuracy of the information provided in the podcast series. The primary purpose of this podcast is to educate and inform. This podcast series does not constitute legal or other professional advice or services.
Episode Transcript
Lisa: I worked 40 hours a week to put myself through school. At the end of sophomore year I realized that I would’ve graduated $60,000 in debt at 20 years old. And frankly, I mean, I just, I just couldn’t do it anymore. I couldn’t work as much as I was and be successful at school.
Brenda: There’s an archetype in the tech world. The brilliant, often misunderstood founder who drops out of college because there’s nothing that the professors there can actually teach them. The implication in those stories though is that of course those founders could’ve graduated, they just didn’t think that it was worth their time. But come on, you and I know there are plenty of brilliant students who drop out despite wanting to stay because of struggles that leave them feeling like they have no choice.
Lisa: At the end of the day, I wanted the degree.
Brenda: Computer scientist, technologist, and founder Lisa Gelobter is one of those people. Finances were certainly a big part of it, but Lisa also had another challenge that derailed her academic career.
Lisa: At Brown, I’m not sure I ever passed a class where I was required to write a paper. Full stop. End of sentence. A lot of people say “Oh, math is hard.” Turns out for me, writing is hard.
Brenda: This is a woman who help create Shockwave, the influential software that brought animation and movement to a mostly static internet in the 90s. She helped launch Hulu, and was the Interim Chief Digital Officer at BET, meaning she led digital product engineering and operations. She was the Chief Digital Services Officer in the Department of Ed in the Obama White House. Yeah, she’s a bad sister. But the thought of writing a 5-page paper filled her with dread.
Lisa: You have to face your fears. 15 years i didn’t face them, right, I mean to be real about it, I tried! And it’s just, it’s really hard and I couldn’t get it, I couldn’t do it.
Brenda: Except, that wasn’t the end of the story. It may have taken a while-
Lisa: I walked in 2011.
Brenda: But Lisa finally did get that diploma. And along the way, not only did she continue her incredible work in tech at other companies, she went on to found tEquitable, an independent, confidential platform dedicated to creating a work culture that works for everyone. So how’d she do it? And what lessons about resilience did she learn along the way? Well, Lisa joins me today to fill us in. Plus, we’ll talk about why finding the right language is crucial when offering someone help. And why no one should counts themselves out, even if they don’t fit the classic tech founder mold. I’m Brenda Darden Wilkerson, and this is B The Way Forward. After the break, my conversation with Lisa Gelobter.
So, Lisa Gelobter. My friend, and amazing person. I’m so excited to have you here on the show today. Welcome.
Lisa Gelobter: Thank you. Thank you so much. I’m actually thrilled you all have been doing this for a while now. I’m super excited to have been invited.
Brenda: You have done so much. I look up to you. I, you know, ever since we’ve met, I’ve learned so much from you and I can’t wait for our listeners to hear more about you.
Lisa: I just need to say, back at you, like this is, I think it’s a mutual admiration society. 100%.
Brenda: You know, we have to be here hours to really, for people to actually get to know all of the amazing things that you’ve done. But we’re going to take a stab at it. So first of all, you are CEO and co-founder of tEquitable, right?
Lisa: Absolutely.
Brenda: I want to know more about that and you know, because it’s a product that I’ve come to know and we use at our org, shameless plug, it’s awesome. But first let’s talk a little bit about you. So I think we have this in common. You are sort of a math nerd, maybe, a little bit, right?
Lisa: Just a little, yeah. Math was actually my major before I, before I was gonna be CS. Yep, absolutely.
Brenda: So how did you get that passion for math?
Lisa: Well, so what’s interesting is I always really struggle with saying like, “Oh, it came easy to me.” Because then it makes people feel like, oh, you have to be a special kind of person or that kind of type or whatever in order to be able to, to be successful in software engineering or the tech industry. The answer to that is no, you don’t. And especially being a woman, being a black woman, like, right. We’re not necessarily told by society that that’s where our strengths lie, and that’s where we should, you know, we’re not necessarily expected to be good at that. But I remember like one moment in particular, I was, I want to say maybe 10 years old, and this math teacher, he just said, “You know, you’re really good at math.” And I was like, what? Like, and it just like that, right? It’s those little things. It’s those moments he like, and that was it. That was the end of the conversation and like moved on. But it’s those moments that really can make such a difference.
Brenda: They can. They can.
Lisa: Yeah.
Brenda: It makes such a huge impact, and we could talk, we could have a whole conversation just about that and how important it is in the arc of people’s lives. But let’s talk a little bit more about, you know, the conversations that might have been helpful to you. You had a few mentors early on in your life, including your dad, right? And it sounds like he’s a really cool dude. So, you’ve mentioned how he made it very clear that nothing was off limits just because you were a girl. Now, how did that set you up for success?
Lisa: So, both of my parents were incredible role models. The parent who was home the most was my father, because my mother worked a lot. My father also worked a lot, but my mother worked more. And so, I would spend a lot of time with him. And I will tell you, and I don’t always love it, basically I had to do everything my brother did, which was like, you know, like we would go camping and if he had to go collect fireworks, so did I. If we, you know, had to row a boat, so did I. And so, you know, I actually describe it as like he was a feminist before the word feminism existed.
Brenda: Awesome.
Lisa: And for the record, we are family friends with Gloria Steinem, and she agrees.
Brenda: Oh, awesome. Awesome. I can’t, I can’t imagine that. I mean, I had a really traditional dad and we won’t talk about what all that means. But the impact of saying you can do what he can do, and it was just normal. Right, it was just normal.
Lisa: Well, more than that I had to, so I didn’t love it because I didn’t want to, you know, row the boat.
Brenda: Well, but how did that lesson stay with you as you entered the tech workforce, you know, which has its challenges, you know, which was at the time and still is kind of a boys club?
Lisa: Yeah, no, absolutely. I mean, it’s real. For me, it was. Yes. I never had barriers put up in front of me, not through my family at least, right. There was no question that I could do and would do anything that anybody else could do. And, and yeah. I mean, having that confidence goes such a long way. And even if, you know, that’s not to say I don’t have imposter syndrome, that’s not to say that there haven’t been failures in my life. Right. But, that idea of like, but if I put my mind to it and put and work at it like I can, I think has gone great lengths in terms of my career in software and tech.
Brenda: Well, I would say so, because you’ve got some incredible achievements. You know, you are one of the smartest people that I know. Um, you have transformed the face of technology more than once. I mean, people may not realize this, but after this show they will. You invented the software Shockwave, isn’t that right?
Lisa: Yeah. So I like to say, so I absolutely worked on it with a team. It was a small team, I think there were like four or five of us. But yes.
Brenda: Tell, tell some of the young folk what, what, what’s Shockwave? And why should they know?
Lisa: It was a long time ago, but essentially, I mean, Shockwave in the mid-nineties really, it made the web move. It did. Before that the web was static text and graphics and like, so if you think about the modern web today, so much of what we did was the, was the precursor to it really actually kind of laid the foundation and the groundwork for it.
And for me, the beautiful part about it specifically was, basically what we did was we empowered creatives. And so, all of a sudden you didn’t have to know HTML and CSS in order to create this page. But if you had creative ideas around multimedia, interactivity, animation, right? You could bring that all to life on the web, which it was a tremendous experience.
Brenda: You also helped launch the launch the streaming platform, online streaming platform, Hulu, right?
Lisa; Yeah.
Brenda: Right. And you also did a stint as Chief Digital Officer for BET, I mean, all of these things. And then you didn’t stop there. You went from revolutionizing entertainment into really a revolution in government because what happened with you and the other amazing people that the Obama administration brought in was just, was just short of revolutionary. Share more about your time in the government.
Lisa: Yeah, so I went to work at the White House under President Obama the last two years of his term. and I was kind of one of the founding team members. I didn’t found it, but I was one of the people that were brought on by the founders to an organization called the US Digital Service. And the US Digital Service, essentially the concept was bringing folks from private sector into public service.
So, right, the idea that I could sit in my apartment in New York and order a vegan taco and mezcal and at this point weed, and have it arrive in 10 minutes. Whereas if you need snap benefits, right, or food stamps, right, it takes months, you’ve got to go in person. Like, it just, it’s really onerous. And so how do we bring some of the same best practices, those innovative approaches, how do we actually apply them so that the government can better serve the American people? So, one of the projects I worked on was something called College Scorecard, it was actually my first project in government. And, the whole point there was ratings and ranking systems that were out there.
We’re looking at the wrong metrics, right? How much money your alumni donates or your sports fields new, as opposed to looking at metrics of access, affordability ,and outcomes, which are the things that really matter in terms of selecting a school. And so, we actually worked up College Scorecard and we did it in three months, which not, not for nothing in private sector, was pretty good, from scratch.
And just to be clear, I also want to shout out, it was not my policies or like people have been working on data and the policy aspect of it, in which metrics actually would be best for people to look at. Right? So, there was a whole, I mean, there was so many people involved in that project. Mine was just taking it over the goal line at the end. And so, College Scorecard was credited with improving college graduation rates in the US by a point and a half in just over three years. So that’s the dream. How do you have that kind of significant impact on things that matter at scale? And so, yeah that was an incredible experience.
Brenda: I mean, it’s just like astounding to me the types of things that you can talk about with all that humility. Like, well, yeah, other people helped in it, no! You were at the forefront of huge change that impacts our lives every single day in so many ways. And so, for everybody who takes a lot of these things for granted now, I want you to know that there were people who actually made this stuff happen the hard way. They had to work on it the hard way, and you’re looking at one of them!
Lisa: I appreciate that.
Brenda: And so, give her the respect that she deserves, because she deserves it all. Speaking of college, we’ve been talking about all your incredible achievements and how much of a total powerhouse that you are. But let’s go back to one of the early steps on your journey. You entered Brown University, 1987 to study computer science – shout out to all the computer scientists. Tell me about those first couple of years. What was the vibe in computer science? What was it like at that time for you?
Lisa: Oh gosh. It is so radically different from what it is today. I went back up to the school and it’s like, I think it’s one in six people are majoring in computer science. And actually, when I showed up, I think I showed up also at the start of the dip. So, I think when you think about women in computers and computer science, yeah, I think the high point, the peak was 83, 84,
Brenda: 85 maybe?
Lisa: Right, where it was, I don’t know if it was 50 50, but I don’t think it was too far off from it.
Brenda: It’s 37%, so, right?
Lisa: Yeah.
Brenda: It feels like 50 50 compared to where we’ve been, right?
Lisa: Yes. And so, had I graduated on time, I would’ve been the ninth black woman to ever graduate with a degree in CS from Brown.
Brenda: Wow.
Lisa: So, yeah, it was, I mean, it’s always a journey in terms of being other and being the only. But it was also, I mean, it was also such a different, like Max had just started to gain popularity if you own enough money, which I did not. We worked on sun workstations. Like it was just, yeah, it was a very different world.
Brenda: Yeah, I remember that. I wasn’t at Brown. I was around a little, you know, you’re a little younger than I am, but a little bit, just a little bit, just a touch.
Lisa: Barely!
Brenda: I remember things were different. Things were different then. Yeah. But now things ended up being a little more complicated than say, four years at Brown and then boom, rocket to success, right?
Lisa: Yeah. Isn’t that the way it works?
Brenda: Oh, that’s what it’s supposed to work. It didn’t work for me like that either. But anyway, you started in 1987, but can you tell us what year that you actually ended up completing your degree?
Lisa: I walked in 2011. So, 24 years later.
Brenda: I love it.
Lisa: Yep.
Brenda: So, you stayed at it, you stayed at it, you made it happen. You take hanging in there to a whole new level. I love it. I love it. Now, I understand that there were several factors that went into this, say extended college experience, finances as always, part of the reason, especially now, right? Talk to us more about that experience.
Lisa: Yeah, I mean, for me it was very much around finances. So, I paid for Brown myself, which means I worked 40 hours a week to put myself through school. And it turns out that’s hard. It’s hard to do both. And so, at the end of sophomore year, I realized that I would’ve graduated – so I started college when I was 16 – so I would’ve graduated $60,000 in debt at 20 years old and. And then frankly, I mean, I just, I just couldn’t do it anymore. I couldn’t afford it, and I couldn’t work as much as I was and be successful at school. So I had to go!
Brenda: 40 hours a week. My goodness.
Lisa: Oh yeah. Yeah. That’s why it, it wasn’t that hard of a decision.
Brenda: Okay. You are like, okay, I’m tired. This isn’t working.
Lisa: Yeah. It’s really hard to actually like, immerse yourself in school. You know, when you gotta get up and go to your full-time job. So that’s the, right, that was the essence of it, it’s the, like, I, I wasn’t as present as it could because yeah. Yeah. It was tough.
Brenda: Was there a part of you that felt like you had let yourself down? That not finishing your degree in four years, did you, you know, because I know I had that head trip.
Lisa: Yeah. You know, a lot of black folks are like, no, no, you got into Brown, you need to graduate, right? Like, that is such a key milestone. And you know, because it’s all about standing, you stand on other people’s shoulders and then other people want to stand on your shoulders.
Brenda: Right, right.
Lisa: Again, because I didn’t have, it wasn’t much of a choice. You know, there’s circumstances that are kind of out of your control and you know, and I just didn’t have the privilege to be able to do it, so I didn’t beat myself up too much about it. And for the most part, it didn’t end up being an impediment to the progression of my career over time,
Brenda: Obviously not!
Lisa: But, so for example, working at the White House, I probably couldn’t have come in at a senior level as I did without a college degree.
Brenda: I had the similar thing. My mother, of course, both my parents had master’s degrees, and so college was like a given in our house. And you know, and when I got confused, because I was supposed to, I thought, you know, I was told doctors what you’re going to be and I didn’t want to do that after being pre-med for three years. Another story. And I’m like, now what do I do? And it was very confusing to me.
It’s like, I could do this, I could do that, I could do this. And so, I actually changed my major to computer science, but then I was like, let me be sure. And I went, I was like, I’m going to go work and see if I really like this before I, you know, actually do this degree. And I remember I got out and I was working, I was like, this is cool. I didn’t need to finish it. I got a job. And my mother’s like, yeah, nah.
Lisa: Exactly.
Brenda: You gotta go back. For a lot of us, it’s like, you gotta have that degree to get to certain levels. And so, she was my, she was my pain in the posterior.
Lisa: Well, I will throw out a stat having worked at the Department of Ed on specifically on college scorecard. So, this was a stat from 2017, but a degree from a four year college is worth more than a million dollars over the course of your lifetime.
Brenda: Yeah, yeah.
Lisa: I think if you don’t have a college degree poverty, your poverty rate is like 12%. If you do, it’s like 3.7%.
Brenda: Yeah. Yeah.
Lisa: So, so your mama was not wrong.
Brenda: She wasn’t, she wasn’t. She nagged me. Boy, man. But yeah. So, but obviously you were like, you, you were having your success, but over the years you ended up coming back to your degree, but we talked about finances. Is there something else that slowed your education?
Lisa: Yes. So, at Brown, I’m not sure I ever passed a class where I was required to write a paper. Full stop. End of sentence. Yeah. So, it turns out, you know, a lot of people say, “Oh, math is hard.” Turns out for me, writing is hard. And nobody understands that. They’re like, “Whatever, but you speak well and you know grammar!” But that’s not, yeah, that, yeah, really tough. I finally figured out a way to describe it to people, because I mean, this is, this has been going on my entire life. It’s like I’m right-handed, so it’s like trying to write perfect script with your left hand. You know what it’s supposed to look like, and if you just keep going over and over and over it, like you can get it approximately there, but it will take you 20 times as long.
And that’s, it turns out exactly what ended up happening for me with writing, I took a class called Black Women Writers and it was fantastic. It was like, it was one of the best classes I ever took. I was doing all of the readings, I was super engaged in class, and then we had to write papers. I did give such a, like, legitimate effort to writing that first paper. Like I went to like the tutors that you could get from Brown. I had a friend of mine help me trying to edit it and, you know, and help me really kind of configure it. So, she ended up editing some big chunks, and when I got the paper back from the professor, the only parts that had any compliments were the parts that she had edited. I literally, like, everything that was like completely mine was like, mm-hmm.
Brenda: You know, and, and, and I’m giggling because I, you know, I can, can relate to that in, in some of my early programs actually, you know, the, the disapproving look from the professor and even the TAs, right?
Lisa: The woman who, my friend, who helped me and edited that paper for the record, she just got a two novel contract deal, right? She’s an actual writer. She would say words like, to try to explain it to me, and it was like she was speaking a different language. I was like, I don’t, I don’t understand what you mean. I don’t know how to craft that. Again, I read all the books. I don’t know how to craft that analysis out of, you know, I read the pages. You know, they weren’t like, I kept writing like it was, it’s really hard. And, and I couldn’t get it. I couldn’t do it.
Brenda: So, what moment motivated Lisa to finally get that last paper written? She’ll tell us after the break so don’t go away.
You said that people said you got into Brown, you gotta finish Brown. Was that what ultimately caused you to stay the course?
Lisa: For me, yeah, it was something that, you know, I talk about like whatever, I didn’t let myself feel bad about it because I didn’t have a choice. But at the end of the day, you know, I wanted the degree, I had a moment where I was, because the professor who, who could actually, who could change my, who could change my grade and pass me, had long since left Brown, she was at MIT and I just had a moment of like, “What if she wins the lottery and goes off to live in Tahiti?” Right? Like, then that’s it. I won’t have this opportunity.
Brenda: How did you balance knowing when you were going back that you needed to write these papers to finish after all those years, but also knowing that it just wasn’t something that didn’t come naturally to you?
Lisa: Yeah. Look, at the end of the day, you have to face your fears. 15 years I didn’t face ’em right. Like just, I mean to be real about it was, I tried, there were multiple, okay, I am gonna do some research. There were definitely multiple times and it’s just, it was really hard. It’s like writing with your left hand if you’re right-handed.
Brenda: The whole point of this conversation and this whole arc around when things don’t go the way we expect them to go is to say, so what? Okay. That does not mean that you cannot be all that you were meant to be. In fact, sometimes those barriers make us better when we overcome them or we go around them or whatever we have to do. And, you know, I would, I’m just amazed at all that you do for us and that you persevered to get that degree in the way that you did.
Lisa: Yeah, I will say, so in the end, I took a class at San Francisco State when I, after I dropped out and I moved out to California for a job. It’s a history course, genocide and the Holocaust. Turns out you have to write papers in order to, you know, pass that. And there was, we had this one assignment, we had to do these two papers, and I went home every night for four weeks for an entire month. I worked four to five hours a night every night on these two papers. And at the time I was dating a guy who was getting his PhD from Stanford Business School, and he was like, well, how long are these papers?
And I was like, two to four pages. He was like, I could write that in 20 minutes. I was like, I’m clear. And so, one of the best feelings ever was I had to turn in the papers late because I just, I just, it’s, it’s that writing over and over and over again. And when she handed out the papers, she picked I think two, maybe three papers that were examples of really good writing.
One of them was mine.
Brenda: Absolutely. I love it. How did that feel?
Lisa: I mean, it was, I, I, I think my job was to have dropped open because I just wanted to do the best that I could. I had no expectations. I needed to pass the class, that was real important. But I didn’t have any expectations of that. I mean, I was, I don’t know, must, in my thirties? It was really, it was a moment for me, for real.
Brenda: Right. So it was that class that was a turnaround.
Lisa: Yes, but it was not a turnaround. I continue, I continue to struggle with writing. For the record, when I used to tweet, it would take me 45 minutes to write 150-40 character tweets. So, yep. It didn’t, it didn’t stop. It just, I did it once. Yay. And it was the final paper that I owed, which was a five page paper, which by the way, somebody was like, you know, that’s two and a half pages, because it’s double spaced in college because I’m 40 now. Part of what happened was I found a topic that I could write for five pages about.
Again, not well, and not easily. I mean, again, it took me all day long to write this paper. We were, a bunch of friends were down at Jazz Fest and they went off to Jazz Fest and I was like, no, I’m gonna sit here and I’m gonna write this paper. And they all came back and I was like, it’s done. They’re all professors. So they started tear my paper apart and I’m like no, don’t, no feedback, no point. I was like, they was, so again, they wanted it to be apparently correct about how you write a paper in academia or in college and Mm.
Brenda: Yeah.
Lisa: And I got my point across though, so that’s fine.
Brenda: You said when you were at Brown there was actually, I know at, at my school it was called the Writing Place, that there were people who you could go to and get help with your papers. What could we say to those type of people when they have students who are having challenges like yours?
Lisa: What I would say is, it really is about trying to find the right language for the right person. Because a group, they just weren’t explaining in a way that I, that resonated, that I, that it didn’t make sense to me. And so I would say, yeah, that’s the thing, trying to figure out the right language for the right person.
Brenda: So Lisa, obviously what you experienced in school is not uncommon. I have met plenty of tech people who struggle with communication, written communication, maybe sometimes even spoken communication, but the definitely the written communication. So, it makes sense that it was something, that you might have had challenges with. But I’m curious, how did you approach writing and how do you approach writing day to day now? Do you have any tips or tricks that you could share?
Lisa: One of the things that I think it’s important for all of us to be really forthright about are the places where we feel like we’re not good enough, where we have failed. And I, you know, certainly, you know, not graduating in, in four years was, you know, a failure. The fact that I couldn’t write a paper was a failure. And then again, I talk a lot about, about getting older and the more you know yourself and what, where your strengths are, right?
I think there’s a whole period of your life where you’re like, oh, well I should learn to do that. I should get better at that. Then you reach another decade where you’re like, oh, I understand where my weaknesses are, maybe I can still, and then you, you get to be in your fifties and you’re like, yeah, no, I’m just bad at that. And so, you have to find other, you know, compensating strategies. And one of the things that essentially I now do is, there is somebody on my team, there’s actually multiple people on team who write things for me.
And you know, I have ideas so we can like talk things through, but there is just no way that I could create half the things that I need to create as a CEO of the company. And it just, and so that, that is the thing, is it really like figuring out who you can ask to do it, to delegate to, and it’s not delegate, it’s, the idea is like, we all have different skills. Let’s bring all of those skills to bear. So, yeah, no, that is from, I have not gotten over the writing thing, but I have figured strategies to handle it.
Brenda: Yeah, I mean, and it’s so important that you did find those strategies because, you know, God forbid it could have stood in the way of all of the amazing successes that you have even today with your company. So, congratulations on that. I know that there are so many people listening that are also high achievers. I mean, there’s only one Lisa Gelobter, but there are so many of us that are high achievers, and it’s easy to feel like we have to be good at everything. Like if we’re not, we’ve failed others and ourselves. So did you experience that? What would you say to people who are feeling that way?
Lisa: Well, I, I honestly, and I know people beat me up because I don’t give myself enough credit, but I don’t think I’m unique. I don’t think there’s only one, Lisa. I think that I think that anybody could be me. Right. There is nothing unique or special. I’m smart. I work hard. I’m like, I like, I’m as a person, I am unique. Yes. But I feel like there is nothing, like, there wasn’t any special, extra secret sauce.
And I really do believe that anybody who is actually, who aspires to be a thing and is committed to it and wants to learn and want will, is willing to invest the time, like can do anything. And so I just, I know I have been fortunate enough to be able to, to do some pretty groundbreaking and pioneering things and, and I’m not trying to take away from that, but I’m saying there was nothing that made me extra special that somebody else couldn’t do the exact same thing with whatever the new technology is going to be or the new frontier is going to be.
Brenda: Whether I agree with that or not, because I don’t want to take anything away from you and all your incredible achievements that we all get to, to live and be part of. I do want to, I do agree with you that we need everyone to not put up their own barriers, right? To stop themselves from, from participating, because we do need your achievements too, but let’s talk about what you are CEO of.
Lisa: Yes.
Brenda: Which is a company called tEquitable because that is an amazing achievement that I get to experience in my organization. So tell us all about it.
Lisa: Thank you so much. Yeah, and as I said, this is actually the proudest thing I’ve ever done in my life. And you know, given all the other stuff I’ve done, I’m not mad at it. So, the company’s called tEquitable because we are using technology to make workplaces more equitable, and our mission is to really help companies make work culture that’s going to work for everyone. And this goes back to really helping the individual.
That’s why I’m so proud of the work we’re doing is that we, so we provide a sounding board for employees where really,where they can handle interpersonal conflict like my boss touched my hair or made a sexist crack or wrote me a note with 20 other people on it that I thought was rude and condescending. Right? It’s those kinds of things, right? That’s not the totality of who they are. I’m never going to go to HR for that because that feels like the nuclear option. I’m not trying to get them fired, but I would like the behaviors to stop. Flip side of it is if I feel like I’m being overtly discriminated against, right then I want the company to take immediate action.
And so, what tEquitable tries to do is help the employee in either of those situations, figure out what their next steps should be and how they can move forward. And then simultaneously, oftentimes companies don’t have a great sense for what’s happening on the ground day to day, and so we provide data and insights back to them for that. Right. So we’re really trying to work on both sides of the equation, because again, I’m invested in making systemic change.
So, the idea of supporting and empowering employees with a sounding board where they can come get advice, figure out what their next steps should be. While they’re doing that, we gather data that we anonymize and aggregate, and then we use that to identify systemic issues within an organization’s culture. Because it turns out it’s not just one person, it’s the systems that are set up, the incentives that are set up. And so then we create a report for the management team with actionable recommendations. Right? It’s really important to work on both sides of that, of that equation. Empower and support employees and help companies identify and address issues before they escalate, right. We’re trying to create this virtuous cycle. So that’s what tEquitable means.
Brenda: And your product is active in small and really large companies, right? So, it works no matter the size of the company. I can say for me, having a smaller environment, it’s really important because to be anonymous in a small organization’s hard, right? But to have this, this tool and other people that can help with that, we’ve had incredible uptake because what all the examples you gave and more,
Lisa: That’s the beauty of technology, right? It allows you to scale. It allows you to take this like great idea that, again, for the record was not mine, it’s an organizational ombuds, they’ve been around for centuries, but really modernize it and, and then bring it to, to industries and, and segments that haven’t had exposure to it. So, yeah, our smallest customer has nine employees and I think our largest has 30,000, but like Pinterest is a customer. The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York is a customer. Sundance Film Festival is a customer, right? And so, this goes back to helping one person at a time like that is, that’s how we’re going to make change,
Brenda: Especially now, right? Well, Lisa Gelobter, thank you so much again for being with me today.
Lisa: Thank you.