earned connection felt by both sides.

I’ve been lucky to have strong mentors and sponsors over the course of my career. The
acknowledgments in this book include a long list of people who have been generous enough to guide
and advise me. During my junior year of college, I took Larry Summers’s public sector economics
class. He offered to supervise my senior thesis—something very few Harvard professors volunteer to
do for undergraduates. Larry has been a major part of my life ever since. I met Don Graham, chairman
of the Washington Post Company, more than fifteen years ago when I was working in D.C., and he
has helped me navigate some of my most challenging professional situations. If it hadn’t been for
Paley Center CEO Pat Mitchell’s encouragement and support, I might never have spoken publicly
about women in the workplace. These three, among so many others, have encouraged me, made

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introductions, and taught me by example. Their wisdom helped me avoid mistakes—and clean up the
ones I wasn’t smart enough to avoid.

In turn, I have tried to mentor others, including friends of friends, and as I get older, children of
friends. I get so much joy out of watching the career of Emily White, who started working with me
right out of college and now runs mobile partnerships for Facebook. When I first met Bryan Schreier,
he had never worked in a tech company or traveled abroad, but he displayed unusually strong
leadership and analytical skills. I hired him to help build Google’s global operations, and he exceeded
every expectation. Years later, when he wanted to pursue a new career as an investor, I introduced him
to his current partners at Sequoia Capital. He is now a highly successful early stage venture capitalist,
and I can see the impact he has on the companies he advises. I am fortunate to have Emily and Bryan
and so many other talented people in my life.

5
Studies show that mentors select protégés based on performance and potential. Intuitively, people
invest in those who stand out for their talent or who can really benefit from help. Mentors continue to
invest when mentees use their time well and are truly open to feedback. It may turn into a friendship,
but the foundation is a professional relationship. Given this, I believe we have sent the wrong message
to young women. We need to stop telling them, “Get a mentor and you will excel.” Instead, we need
to tell them, “Excel and you will get a mentor.” `本`作`品`由``網`提`供`下`載`與`在`線`閱`讀`

Clara Shih is a superb example. I met Clara about five years ago at a conference and was
immediately impressed by her ideas about social media. She went on to write a thoughtful book on the
subject and founded Hearsay Social, a software company that helps businesses manage their social
media presence. Every so often, Clara would contact me, always with an interesting point or a
thoughtful question. She never asked to get together to “catch up.” She never asked a question that she
could have found the answer to on her own. When I was leaving the Starbucks board of directors in
2012, I gave them a few names of social media experts who might join in my place and included
Clara. She was only twenty-nine years old at the time, but she was invited to join the board.

While asking a stranger to be a mentor rarely, if ever, works, approaching a stranger with a pointed,
well-thought-out inquiry can yield results. Garrett Neiman stopped me after I gave a speech at
Stanford to explain that he had founded CollegeSpring, a nonprofit that provides SAT tutor