Audio File:& Download MP3Transcript:& NCWIT Entrepreneurial Heroes Lee Kennedy: Hi, this is Lee Kennedy. I'm the CEO of Bolder Search and a board member for the National Center for Women & Information Technology or NCWIT. This is part of a series of interviews that we are having with fabulous entrepreneurs. They're women who have started IT companies in a variety of sectors, all of whom have just fabulous stories to tell us about being entrepreneurs. With me today is Larry Nelson from w3w3.com. Hey, Larry. Larry Nelson: Hey, I'm excited about this interview, certainly a person with a tremendous amount of experience. Wow, I can't wait to get into this and we know we have lot of firm executives and young people that are looking into becoming an entrepreneur and getting into the high tech arena who are listeners. So, I'm really looking forward to this interview. Lee: Super. So, today we are interviewing Sukhinder Singh Cassidy. She is a leading Internet and media executive with a touch over 18 years of leadership in working with early stage companies including Google, Amazon, Yodlee and Polyvore, which is a leading global fashion community site. So, why don't I go ahead and interview Sukhinder. We are so happy to have you today. Sukhinder Singh Cassidy: Thank you. Lee: Larry, I think we'll just jump into things. Larry: All right. I'm going to ask you a question that Lucy Sanders always likes us to ask and that is how did you first get involved in the technology business and what technologies do you think are cool today? Sukhinder: I actually first got involved in the technology business probably 13 or 14 years ago in 1997, actually, late '96, early '97. Prior to that, I had been working in New York, in London in media and that investment banking. I stayed in Merrill Lynch for several years and then I went on to market BSkyB, which is the leading satellite broadcast at that time. So, actually, kind of a technology company but more of a media company. I moved to the Bay area on fundamentally I guess on thesis that I wanted to be close to entrepreneurs and one day be an entrepreneur myself. I did not know what I wanted to do but I did know there were smart motivated people in the Bay area. I had traveled out to San Francisco to visit friends and fell in love with the Bay area. So, I took a leap of faith. I moved from London, sold everything I had in London. Bought a car for $10, 000 in LA and drove up the Coast to San Francisco and found my first job. Larry: Wow. Lee: I have to say it is not too dissimilar to my background. I moved out to the Bay area and it's kind of hard not to get into technology. Sukhinder: Absolutely. So, I did not want to be an entrepreneur. But it was that classic, I didn't have an idea. So I thought the next best thing was to put myself close to smart people, working on interesting problems and being entrepreneurs themselves, somehow that path would be a positive one. Larry: Of all the different things that you've been involved with the technology, which ones do you think are cool today? Sukhinder: There are some I had been lucky enough to be involved with and some less so that I just admire from afar a bit. Probably, two of my favorites I'll say as consumer there's something you got to see these businesses built at Google. One, I mean the technology I just to love today, are anything that you would of think as geo or location based. So, my first job at Google was helping to launch Google maps and Google logo and the idea that your location is a pretty important indicator. Where you are relative to your friends in the case of Foursquare or where you are on a map and where you are trying to get to go and having driving directions on your iPhone, forgoing the traditional, heavy-duty MAPS systems that are sitting in cars or something; lightweight but just as revolutionary. So, I love anything geo wh