Tracy Chou (software engineer)

{{short description|American software engineer}} {{Infobox person | name = Tracy Chou | image = File:Tracy Chou TechCrunch Disrupt San Francisco 2019.jpeg | alt = A picture of Tracy Chou | caption = Chou in 2019 | birth_name =  | birth_date = {{birth year and age|1987}} | birth_place = United States | death_date =  | death_place = | other_names = | occupation = Software engineer | years_active = | education = Stanford University (BS, MS)<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.levo.com/tracy-chou|title=Levo 100 Rising Stars|publisher=Levo|accessdate=2016-07-30}}</ref> }}

'''Tracy Chou''' (born 1987)<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.refinery29.com/30-under-30-san-francisco|title=SF's Rising Stars: 30 Under 30|first1=Angela|last1=Tafoya|first2=Jeanine Celeste|last2=Pang|publisher=Refinery29|date=2013-07-16|accessdate=2016-07-29}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.businessinsider.com/tracy-chao-pinterest-engineer-vogue-2014-11|title=Meet the female Pinterest engineer who forced tech companies to release their diversity numbers|first=Taylor|last=Lorenz|website=Business Insider|date=2014-11-21|accessdate=2016-07-29}}</ref> is an American software engineer and advocate for diversity in technology related fields. She previously worked at Pinterest and Quora with internship experience at Google and Facebook.<ref name=wired>{{cite magazine|url=https://www.wired.com/2015/04/tracy-chou/|title = Quantifying Silicon Valley's Diversity Issue|last = Hempel|first = Jessi|date = April 21, 2015|accessdate = August 5, 2015|magazine = Wired}}</ref>

She is best known for raising the profile of the issue of the low representation of women in technology companies, and pressuring companies to reveal more statistics about the composition of their workforce.<ref name=readwrite>{{cite web|url=http://readwrite.com/2014/11/11/tracy-chou-pinterest-engineering-how-i-got-my-start|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141113210816/http://readwrite.com/2014/11/11/tracy-chou-pinterest-engineering-how-i-got-my-start|url-status=usurped|archive-date=November 13, 2014|title = Pinterest's Tracy Chou: How I Got My Start In Tech—Despite Myself. Now she's empowering others to do the same.|last = Larson|first = Selena|date = November 11, 2014|accessdate = August 5, 2015|publisher = ReadWriteWeb}}</ref><ref name=motherjones>{{cite magazine|url=https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/05/silicon-valley-gender-sexism-women-engineers-tracy-chou|title = Meet the Engineer Who Forced Silicon Valley's Gender Problem Into the Open. Tracy Chou is not, as one brogrammer put it, "too pretty to code."|last = Levintova|first = Hannah|magazine = Mother Jones|accessdate = August 5, 2015}}</ref><ref name=vogue>{{cite magazine|url=http://www.vogue.com/4537369/pinterest-tracy-chou-silicon-valley/|title = How Pinterest Engineer Tracy Chou is Breaking the Silicon Ceiling|date = November 21, 2014|last = Heller|first = Nathan|accessdate = August 5, 2015|magazine = Vogue}}</ref> In 2016, she co-founded the advocacy group Project Include with seven other women from the industry.<ref name="pi-nyt">{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/04/technology/women-in-tech-band-together-to-track-diversity-after-hours.html|title=Women in Tech Band Together to Track Diversity, After Hours|first=Mike|last=Isaac|newspaper=The New York Times|date=2016-05-03|accessdate=2016-07-29}}</ref> In 2018, she founded Block Party, a startup company aimed at helping users optimize their privacy and security settings on social media.<ref name="disrupt" /> In 2022, she was named one of Time's 12 Women of the Year.<ref>{{Cite magazine |title=Social Media Platforms Failed to Tackle Abuse. So Tracy Chou Stepped In |url=https://time.com/collection/women-of-the-year/6150549/tracy-chou/ |access-date=2022-09-19 |magazine=Time |language=en}}</ref>

==Early life and education== Chou is a daughter of Taiwanese computer scientists based in Silicon Valley who immigrated from Taiwan.<ref name=vogue/><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.taiwaneseamerican.org/100people/tracy-chou/|title=Tracy Chou — Software Engineer and Geek Girl|work=100 Passionate People|date=2010-05-31|accessdate=2016-07-30}}</ref> She attended St. Francis High School in Mountain View.

Chou studied computer science at Stanford University with a specialization in machine learning and artificial intelligence.<ref name=wired/> During that time, she interned at Google and Facebook, and went on to receive a master's degree in computer science. Describing her undergraduate experience studying computer science, Chou said she felt, "really out of place" and less confident than her male colleagues at the beginning and took time to realize that she was outperforming most of them in coursework.<ref name=motherjones/>

==Career== Though she was studying computer science and enjoyed programming, she did not seriously consider programming as a full-time job. Even after an internship as a programmer at Facebook, she was not considering becoming a software engineer and instead hoped to get her doctorate to do quantitative marketing research. However, in 2010, Quora, which was then a small startup, approached her and convinced her to start working as an engineer there. She joined Quora as the company's fourth employee, but left in October 2011 to join Pinterest, becoming one of the first 15 employees at the then-fledgling pinboard company.<ref name=wired/><ref>{{cite news |last1=Cao |first1=Sissi |title=Lopsided Gender Ratios in Tech Are Giving Women 'Imposter Syndrome' |url=https://observer.com/2018/03/lopsided-gender-ratios-in-tech-are-giving-women-imposter-syndrome/ |accessdate=24 October 2018 |newspaper=Observer |date=March 8, 2018}}</ref>

In February 2015, Chou signed on as a consultant for the United States Digital Service, a consortium of technology practitioners trying to make government in the United States more efficient.<ref name=disrupt1>{{cite news|url=https://techcrunch.com/2015/06/29/pinterests-tracy-chou-to-talk-diversity-at-disrupt-sf-2015/|title = Pinterest's Tracy Chou To Talk Diversity At Disrupt SF 2015|last = Burns|first = Matt|date = June 29, 2015|accessdate = August 5, 2015|work = TechCrunch}}</ref> In August 2015, ''TechCrunch'' reported that Chou was a featured maker at Makerbase, a service that "make[s] it easier for anyone to discover who built some of the most popular websites and apps people use every day."<ref>{{cite news|url=https://techcrunch.com/2015/08/11/makerbase-is-an-imdb-of-who-made-your-favorite-apps-and-websites/|title = Makerbase Is An IMDb Of Who Made Your Favorite Apps And Websites|last = Perez|first = Sarah|date = August 11, 2015|accessdate = August 11, 2015|work = TechCrunch}}</ref>

In December 2018, Chou became the CEO and founder of Block Party, "a consumer app that tackles online harassment and puts you back in control."<ref name=disrupt>{{cite news |url=https://www.cnet.com/news/tracy-chous-app-for-blocking-online-harassment-is-in-beta/ |title=Tracy Chou's app for blocking online harassment is in beta |last=Al-Heeti |first=Abrar |date=February 6, 2020 |accessdate=May 9, 2020 |work=CNET}}</ref> In 2022, the company pivoted to privacy after losing access to Twitter's API citing the acquisition of Twitter by Elon Musk.<ref>{{cite news |last=Perez |first=Sarah |date=2024-03-11 |title=After losing access to Twitter's API, Block Party pivots to privacy |url=https://techcrunch.com/2024/03/11/after-losing-access-to-twitters-api-block-party-pivots-to-privacy/ |work=TechCrunch |access-date=2024-05-08|ref=none}}</ref>

== Activism == thumb|Chou at TechCrunch Disrupt San Francisco 2019 In October 2013, Chou attended the annual Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing, where she became curious about the issue of female representation in technology companies, and decided to gather data to assess the severity of the issue. This led her to write a blog post urging technology companies to disclose the numbers of women they had in technical roles.<ref name=wired/><ref name=motherjones/><ref name=vogue/><ref>{{cite web |url=https://medium.com/@triketora/where-are-the-numbers-cb997a57252 |title=Where are the numbers? |last=Chou |first=Tracy |date=October 11, 2013 |accessdate=August 5, 2015}}</ref> To facilitate sharing of the responses she received, Chou set up a repository on code-sharing site GitHub which allows anyone to submit a pull request. Within a week, the repository had statistics on over 50 firms, and by January 2016, it had statistics on 250 firms.<ref name=motherjones/><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.techiesproject.com/tracy-chou/|title=Techies Interview|date=2016-01-31|accessdate=2016-07-30}}</ref> Chou's focus on the issue is also credited with pressuring larger companies such as Google, Facebook, and Microsoft to release diversity reports.<ref name=wired/> In July 2014, Chou published an update on Pinterest's engineering blog describing the company's progress so far on diversity and inclusion.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://engineering.pinterest.com/blog/diversity-and-inclusion-pinterest|title = Diversity and inclusion at Pinterest|date = July 24, 2014|accessdate = August 5, 2015|publisher = Pinterest}}</ref>

Chou has identified a number of possible reasons for the disparity in the representation of women in technology. She has argued that if nobody suggests to a woman that a career as a software engineer is a realistic possibility, she is less likely to consider it.<ref name=readwrite/> She also thinks that networking opportunities and role models are more limited for women and minorities.<ref name=readwrite/> Chou has also stated that condescending attitudes toward women are pervasive in Silicon Valley.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.quora.com/Which-is-the-best-website-to-buy-YouTube-subscribers|title=What are some of the sexist and insulting statements women in technology/engineering hear from male colleagues?|publisher=Quora|accessdate=2016-07-30}}</ref> According to one of her examples, a man she met at a conference tried to repeatedly correct her about a Quora feature that had been built while she worked at the company.<ref name=motherjones/> She has also commented that women who look very feminine are often ignored in technical settings.<ref name=vogue/>

In late July 2015, Pinterest launched a project to hire more women and minorities and announced its commitment to publicly disclose its progress toward these goals and any obstacles encountered. Chou's role in highlighting the issue has been credited as a reason for the initiative. The initiative received praise from Jesse Jackson.<ref name=usatoday>{{cite news|url=https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2015/07/30/pinterest-diversity-women-underrepresented-minorities-silicon-valley-jesse-jackson/30881091/|title = Exclusive: Pinterest launches innovative diversity project|newspaper = USA Today|date = July 31, 2015|accessdate = August 5, 2015|last = Guynn|first = Jessica}}</ref> In August 2015, Chou participated in the Twitter hashtag campaign #ILookLikeAnEngineer, started by Isis Anchalee from OneLogin and intended to show that people (particularly women) of a wide range of appearances could be engineers. Chou's participation was noted in the ''New York Times''.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/06/technology/hashtag-aims-to-break-gender-stereotypes-in-engineering.html?_r=0|title = Woman Behind #ILookLikeAnEngineer Says Campaign Against Gender Stereotypes Is 'Long Overdue'|last = Varn|first = Kathryn|date = August 5, 2015|accessdate = August 11, 2015|newspaper = New York Times}}</ref> May 2016 saw the launch of the diversity consulting group ''Project Include'', founded by Chou, Erica Baker, Freada Kapor Klein, Ellen Pao and others. Its approach was quickly described as "taking a page out of open source software."<ref name="pi-nyt" />

== Public appearances == In April 2018, Chou spoke at Stanford University's Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders Series.<ref>{{cite news |title=Tracy Chou: The Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders Series |url=https://events.stanford.edu/events/764/76455/ |accessdate=24 October 2018 |publisher=Stanford main University |date=April 25, 2018}}</ref> In June 2018, she spoke at Vogue Australia's new conference Vogue Codes in Sydney.<ref>{{cite magazine |title=Meet the software engineer whose call for gender diversity in tech has created lasting change |url=https://www.vogue.com.au/vogue-codes/news/meet-the-software-engineer-whose-call-for-gender-diversity-in-tech-has-created-lasting-change/news-story/24124ea03bd73fc8753a74e11a46909b |accessdate=24 October 2018 |magazine=Vogue |date=April 12, 2018}}</ref> Chou has also previously spoken at TechCrunch's Disrupt SF conference.<ref>{{cite news |title=Disrupt SF: Past Speakers & Judges |url=https://techcrunch.com/events/disrupt-sf-2019/ |accessdate=24 October 2018 |work=TechCrunch}}</ref>

== References == {{reflist}}

==External links== * {{Official website|https://triketora.com/}} * {{github|triketora|Tracy Chou}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Chou, Tracy}} Category:American software engineers Category:Living people Category:American people of Taiwanese descent Category:Stanford University alumni Category:American feminists Category:American women engineers Category:Google employees Category:Facebook employees Category:1987 births Category:American computer programmers Category:21st-century American women