WATCH: Pinterest’s Tracy Chou Talks Diversity in Silicon Valley

By Sameer Rao Jan 13, 2016

Software engineer Tracy Chou lit the tech world up nearly three years ago when she published an editorial in Medium criticizing tech companies’ lack of data on internal diversity. Now, the Pinterest employee is featured in a new video interview where she addresses Silicon Valley’s ongoing issues with diversity (especially with regards to gender). 

The video, which you can see above, dropped yesterday, January 12 as part of Reddit and Google’s "Formative" series, in which tech personalities talk about defining moments for their lives. Chou, whose background is in electrical engineering, talked about feeling marginalized in her work environments:

"Even if people didn’t intend to make me feel out of place because of my gender, there’s always just a little bit of this feeling that gender mattered, and that it was cute or interesting that I was a female engineer."

She also talks about what she sees as hope for resolving diversity issues in Silicon Valley:

"There’s a lot of people who are working on issues of diversity and inclusion in tech. Sometimes it can be difficult to work through, being one of a minority in the field, but just remember that software is an incredibly-powerful tool and it’s worth sticking with, because you can do so much with it."

Check out the full video above.