Shabnum Gulati

I think whenever I do something, I end up treating it like it's mine. This is both a pro and a con, but I do everything with a lot of love and care. Whatever company I work for, I end up feeling like it's my company, and I need to treat it the same way as if it was my own startup, so I give a lot to it. I care deeply about how my features are doing and how much value people are getting out of it - the end users. It's that utmost devotion to the work because I want it to be the highest quality possible. I will say it comes with a caveat, though. These days it can feel like corporate doesn't care about you as much, so I think everyone should do that with a grain of salt, because the economy and how easily companies lay people off these days can be quite heartbreaking when you treat it like it's your own.

I'm conflicted because I wouldn't necessarily think of them as young women, but just young people. On the woman front, there's never been a better time - the barriers have never been lower to be a woman in any field, frankly, so don't even focus on that. My advice is always do what you are good at and what you want to do. Make sure there's a marrying between where your talents are versus where you see yourself going, and chart that path. Ask yourself, is there a path to my dream with the talents that I have? If you don't have it, then go get those skills, but if you do have it, then just double down and stay focused on the goal. Cut out the noise. I'm very against spending too much time on social media or listening to the naysayers or over-fixating on macroeconomics. All of that is noise, and there's never been a wilder time when it comes to noise than there is now. So I would say to young people, stop focusing on the noise, just focus on your talent, chart it to where you want to be, and keep going down that path. Obviously that applies to women as well, but these days women aren't as held back.

The biggest challenge is the impending uncertainty around AI. There's a lot of hype right now, a lot of fear-mongering, and just a lot of uncertainty overall, so sometimes it can be hard to cut out the noise and just focus on high-quality work. I feel that AI is not the work - it is a means to an end. I get concerned that people like to talk more about tooling than about the actual outcome. My philosophy with tooling has always been a laissez-faire attitude - if it helps you get something done faster, that's on you. If it doesn't, don't use it. These days, companies are maybe a little bit too focused on the process of how you got something done, aka using AI, versus that it was done and done well. I would urge everyone to just zoom out and focus on what are the real outcomes we're trying to drive. There's never been a harder time than right now to cut out all the noise. The noise has just gotten to levels that are making it hard to be productive because there's so much fear-mongering, uncertainty, anxiety, the markets are wild, people are constantly talking about AI, you may or may not lose your job. Everyone just needs to drown out the noise, mute it, and just focus on the work and high-quality work. On the opportunity side, one benefit of all the uncertainty is that if you are focusing on the work, I still believe that maybe you can get a little bit farther than you could have before. We may be trending towards a world where people are a little bit less concerned with title and where the idea came from and who backed it and which individual endorsed it, versus who created output and who created something great. In a world where we may start valuing the individual contributor a little bit more than titles and manager titles and the political clout they have, that can create some opportunity for individuals that truly are passionate and have a lot to say and a lot to offer to rise above some of this noise and actually get the recognition and visibility that they deserve.