Meet Gail

Welcome to my newsletter! For this first issue, I'll share a few cornerstone aspects of my life & how it has shaped my journey to becoming Co-founder & CTO/CPO of my startup, Garnet.

Hiya! I'm Gail 👋

Welcome to my newsletter, it’s great to meet you!

For this first issue, let's begin by connecting a few key features of my background, theater, hiking, exposure to tech, & passion for people, to their impact on my present, becoming Co-founder & CTO/CPO of my tech company, Garnet.

🎭 Take to the stage

Every single person would benefit from exposure in theater.

I am grateful I grew up doing theater. It's shaped me and is something everyone can benefit from, no matter what their profession is.

Theater and performance taught me to never be afraid to get "on stage". It taught me to trust myself and remember I have talents to offer and people to impact. It taught me to be vulnerable and remember growth starts from that place of openness and exposure. Others cannot be moved by you unless you enter that spotlight. It ultimately comes down to you to take the stage.

Theater also taught me how to connect deeply very quickly. When you rehearse for a show you only have a short couple months to establish extreme trust & strong connections with one another. This makes the relationships in your show meaningful and real. It takes development and practice to master that skill. Once that expertise is learned, however, it can then be used to facilitate any group relationships you have. Additionally, the connection with your audience is the most important. They must be just as invested as you. That takes certain vulnerability, charisma, and energy to really draw them in and bring them with you through your journey and performance. Honing those characteristics will help any relationship you have with your customers.

Improv taught me to trust my gut, be incredibly resilient, commit to the givens & my choices of any situation to ultimately make the best of it. If you don’t land the punch line, forgive yourself immediately & move onto the next thing. Don’t let your past decisions, affect your present and future. Just keep looking ahead, choose bold choices, and make the most of it.

I use these experiences and developed skills in all of my daily interactions. Trusting myself to leave my job, speaking up in tough conversations, championing my company, being resilient when things don’t go as planned, connecting with others to discover their pain points & passions, this list goes on. Find a way to expose yourself to the stage, you will not regret it.

🥾 Steep paths lead to incredible peaks

You can’t get anywhere if you stay in one place and you can’t get anywhere meaningful if you stick to the easy path.

Since I could barely walk, I was hiking in Yosemite with my family multiple times a year. My dad took my sister and I backpacking for the first time when I was in 3rd grade. I'm stronger for it and am grateful these activities were defining for my childhood and life.

Hiking and backpacking are strenuous, you need to be up for the challenge. Learning to grit through pain, put one foot in front of the other, and recognize sometimes the only option is to continue, are vital lessons to learn. Beyond pushing through, however, it’s also important to embrace the journey and always remember you are heading toward something meaningful. People wouldn't do it if it weren't worth the trek.

🤓 Tech is the future (& my past)

With a little creativity, technology can be applied to any industry and it's only growing from here. With a "tech job" you're investing in your future and giving yourself the power to do anything.

I grew up playing video games & excelling at math & sciences. My parents & older sister are "nerds" too, and are incredibly smart, hardworking people who work with software in their professions. That rubbed off on me and made me unafraid to jump into STEM and academics. Additionally, once I realized the incredible power & versatility of technology, I was hooked.

The reputations of CMU and Airbnb can probably speak for themselves, but they recruit and grow top talent software engineers and product-thinkers. I’ll speak more about these two in future posts. I am very lucky to have years of experience at each of these incredible institutions backing up and shaping my time in tech.

The impact of this background on my current world is obvious. It brought me to the tech industry and eventually led me to found my own tech startup.

🦋 Network Effects

Optimize for network effects, not networking.

I invest in people and community.

I have incredible individuals in my life. I am overwhelmed by how lucky I am sometimes. I love to strengthen these connections. If I'm in your city, I will hunt you down to grab at least a coffee. I am also the kind of person who will hop between four different events across a city in one night because I’m committed to supporting my friend at their event.

I thrive when meeting new people. I make strong connections quickly. If we meet, we’ll remember each other. I want to learn you, what you care about & how I can help. My diverse background between theater & tech helps me find ways to make a connection with most people, but I seek deeper understanding & different perspectives beyond myself.

I love to be involved in communities, culture, and bring people together. At Carnegie Mellon, I was deeply involved in over 15 different organizations, from orientation counselor, tour guide, sorority life, student senate, theater organizations, to computer-science-related groups, to name a few. This passion continued at Airbnb where I constantly planned offsites & events for my teams & offices, I was involved in recruiting wherever I could be, and even co-founded an over 100-person dance organization. I am loyal to my communities and always seek ways I can up-level each person's experience and the community as a whole.

So what are the outcomes of this deep passion and how does it apply to me now? Let’s call it “network effects”. I don’t love the word “networking” because it feels like an “exchange”. Indeed, “Who you know” is key in this industry. With it, you'll find the right talent, clients, services, help, the list goes on (and on). But “network effects” go beyond “who you know”, it’s “how [deeply] you know” that makes the difference. Just because you met someone does not mean they’re willing to help you or you’re willing to help them. Additionally, the caliber at which they are willing to help will be very different. It’s the difference between someone who doesn't know the answer replying to your question with one of two responses:

“I don't know the answer, sorry” or, “I don’t have the answer, but I know someone who might. Let's figure this out together”.

💫 Bringing it together

If you made it this far, thank you for taking the time to learn more about me. Hopefully, it will add understanding to my perspectives in future posts. Also I hope you gleaned the beneficial impact each of these cornerstones could have on your own endeavors as well.

I look forward to sharing more about my experiences & insights in tech, being a founder, growing a company, & more.

Stay tuned.