When I wrote my memoir, the publishers were really confused. Was it about me as a child refugee, or as a woman who set up a high-tech software company back in the 1960s, one that went public and eventually employed over 8,500 people? Or was it as a mother of an autistic child? Or as a philanthropist that's now given away serious money? Well, it turns out, I'm all of these. So let me tell you my story.
Kada sam napisala svoje memoare, izdavači su bili veoma zbunjeni. Jesu li oni bili o meni kao detetu izbeglici ili kao o ženi koja je pokrenula visokotehnološku softversku kompaniju davnih 1960-ih, koja je postala javna kompanija, i naposletku zaposlila preko 8500 ljudi? Ili kao majci deteta sa autizmom? Ili kao filantropkinji koja sada poklanja ozbiljne svote novca? Zapravo, ispada da sam sve od toga. Dopustite mi da vam ispričam svoju priču.
All that I am stems from when I got onto a train in Vienna, part of the Kindertransport that saved nearly 10,000 Jewish children from Nazi Europe. I was five years old, clutching the hand of my nine-year-old sister and had very little idea as to what was going on. "What is England and why am I going there?" I'm only alive because so long ago, I was helped by generous strangers. I was lucky, and doubly lucky to be later reunited with my birth parents. But, sadly, I never bonded with them again. But I've done more in the seven decades since that miserable day when my mother put me on the train than I would ever have dreamed possible. And I love England, my adopted country, with a passion that perhaps only someone who has lost their human rights can feel. I decided to make mine a life that was worth saving. And then, I just got on with it. (Laughter)
Sve što jesam, proizilazi od trenutka kada sam ušla u voz u Beču, za vreme misije "Kindertransport" koja je spasila oko 10 000 jevrejske dece iz nacističke Evrope. Imala sam pet godina i stišćući ruku moje devetogodišnje sestre nisam bila svesna šta se tačno događa. "Šta je Engleska i zašto tamo idem?" Živa sam samo iz razloga što su mi tada pomogli velikodušni stranci. Imala sam sreće - dvostruko sreće - da sam kasnije ponovno ujedinjena sa svojim biološkim roditeljima. Ali nažalost, nikad se više nisam s njima povezala. No, za ovih sedam decenija od tog nesrećnog dana kada me je majka stavila na voz, uradila sam više nego što sam ikad mislila da je moguće. I volim Englesku, moju usvojenu zemlju, sa strašću koju može da oseća samo neko ko je izgubio svoja ljudska prava. Odlučila sam da napravim svoj život vrednim spasavanja. I tada sam se latila tog posla. (Smeh)
Let me take you back to the early 1960s. To get past the gender issues of the time, I set up my own software house at one of the first such startups in Britain. But it was also a company of women, a company for women, an early social business. And people laughed at the very idea because software, at that time, was given away free with hardware. Nobody would buy software, certainly not from a woman. Although women were then coming out of the universities with decent degrees, there was a glass ceiling to our progress. And I'd hit that glass ceiling too often, and I wanted opportunities for women.
Vratimo se na početak 1960-ih. Ne bih li izbegla problem tog vremena o neravnopravnosti polova, pokrenula sam vlastitu softversku kompaniju, jednu od prvih tog tipa u Britaniji. Ali bila je to i kompanija sačinjena od žena, kompanija za žene, rani oblik socijalnog preduzeća. Ljudi su se smejali mojoj ideji jer se softver u to vreme delio besplatno u paketu s hardverom. Niko ne bi kupio softver, a pogotovo ne od jedne žene. Iako su žene završavale fakultete sa kvalitetnim diplomama, naš napredak je naišao na nepremostivu barijeru. I mene je ta barijera često kočila, i htela sam prilike za žene.
I recruited professionally qualified women who'd left the industry on marriage, or when their first child was expected and structured them into a home-working organization. We pioneered the concept of women going back into the workforce after a career break. We pioneered all sorts of new, flexible work methods: job shares, profit-sharing, and eventually, co-ownership when I took a quarter of the company into the hands of the staff at no cost to anyone but me. For years, I was the first woman this, or the only woman that. And in those days, I couldn't work on the stock exchange, I couldn't drive a bus or fly an airplane. Indeed, I couldn't open a bank account without my husband's permission. My generation of women fought the battles for the right to work and the right for equal pay.
Regrutovala sam kvalifikovane žene u struci koje su napustile posao usled udaje ili kad su zatrudnele po prvi put i organizovala ih u udruženje koje radi od kuće. Začetnice smo koncepta žena koje se vraćaju na radna mesta nakon pauze u karijeri. Bile smo začetnice raznih novih i fleksibilnih metoda rada: podele poslova, podele zarade i konačno, suvlašnistva, kada sam dala u ruke zaposlenih četvrtinu kompanije samo o svom trošku. Godinama, bila sam prva žena u ovome ili jedina u onome. U to vreme, nisam mogla da radim na berzi, nisam mogla da vozim autobus ili avion. Zapravo, nisam mogla da otvorim ni račun u banci bez dopuštenja mog supruga. Moja generacija žena se borila za pravo rada i za jednakost plata.
Nobody really expected much from people at work or in society because all the expectations then were about home and family responsibilities. And I couldn't really face that, so I started to challenge the conventions of the time, even to the extent of changing my name from "Stephanie" to "Steve" in my business development letters, so as to get through the door before anyone realized that he was a she. (Laughter)
Niko nije očekivao mnogo od ljudi na poslu ili u društvu jer su sva očekivanja tada bila vezana za dom i porodične obaveze. Ja to nisam mogla da prihvatim, te sam počela da preispitujem norme tog vremena do te krajnosti da sam menjala svoje ime iz Stefani u Stiv u pismima poslovnog plana kako bih se lakše probila pre nego što iko shvati da je 'on' ustvari 'ona'. (Smeh)
My company, called Freelance Programmers, and that's precisely what it was, couldn't have started smaller: on the dining room table, and financed by the equivalent of 100 dollars in today's terms, and financed by my labor and by borrowing against the house. My interests were scientific, the market was commercial -- things such as payroll, which I found rather boring. So I had to compromise with operational research work, which had the intellectual challenge that interested me and the commercial value that was valued by the clients: things like scheduling freight trains, time-tabling buses, stock control, lots and lots of stock control. And eventually, the work came in. We disguised the domestic and part-time nature of the staff by offering fixed prices, one of the very first to do so. And who would have guessed that the programming of the black box flight recorder of Supersonic Concord would have been done by a bunch of women working in their own homes. (Applause)
Moja kompanija, koja se zvala Honorarni Programeri, upravo je to i bila, i nije mogla početi kao manja: na trpezarijskom stolu, i finansirana ekvivalentom današnjih 100 dolara, finansirana mojim radom i zajmom na moju kuću. Moj interes je bio naučnog tipa, a tržište komercijalno - stvari poput platnih lista, meni su bile dosadne. Zato sam morala da balansiram između razvojno-operativnog posla koji je imao intelektualni izazov koji me je zanimao, i komercijalne vrednosti koju su klijenti cenili, stvari poput izrade rasporeda teretnih vozova, voznog reda autobusa, nadzora zaliha - mnogo, mnogo nadzora zaliha. I konačno, posao je procvetao. Prikrili smo zaposlene koji rade od kuće i one na pola radnog vremena tako što smo ponudili fiksne cene. Bili smo jedni od prvih koji su to učinili. I ko je mogao da pretpostavi da je programiranje crnih kutija supersoničnog aviona Konkord napravila grupa žena koje su radile od kuće? (Aplauz)
All we used was a simple "trust the staff" approach and a simple telephone. We even used to ask job applicants, "Do you have access to a telephone?"
Sve što smo radili baziralo se na jednostavnom principu poverenja među zaposlenima i telefonu. Čak smo znale i da pitamo kandidate za posao: "Imate li pristup telefonu?"
An early project was to develop software standards on management control protocols. And software was and still is a maddeningly hard-to-control activity, so that was enormously valuable. We used the standards ourselves, we were even paid to update them over the years, and eventually, they were adopted by NATO. Our programmers -- remember, only women, including gay and transgender -- worked with pencil and paper to develop flowcharts defining each task to be done. And they then wrote code, usually machine code, sometimes binary code, which was then sent by mail to a data center to be punched onto paper tape or card and then re-punched, in order to verify it. All this, before it ever got near a computer. That was programming in the early 1960s.
Rani projekat bio je razviti softverske standarde za protokole kontrole upravljanja. Softver je bio i još uvek jeste zastrašujuće izdržljiv, što je bilo od velike vrednosti. I same smo koristile standarde, čak smo bile plaćene da ih ažuriramo tokom godina, te ih je na kraju usvojio i NATO. Naši programeri - setite se, samo žene, uključujući homoseksualne i transrodne - radili su sa olovkom i papirom kako bi nacrtali dijagrame koji su definisali svaki zadatak koji je trebalo napraviti. A onda bi radili kodiranje, obično kodiranje za mašine, a ponekad i binarni kod, koji bi se tada slao poštom u centar podataka kako bi bio utisnut na papirnu traku ili karticu bušenjem i onda ponovno izbušio kako bi se proverio. Sve ovo, pre nego što bi došao i blizu kompjutera. To je bilo programiranje u ranim 1960-im.
In 1975, 13 years from startup, equal opportunity legislation came in in Britain and that made it illegal to have our pro-female policies. And as an example of unintended consequences, my female company had to let the men in. (Laughter)
Godine 1975, 13 godina nakon početka, donesen je zakon o ravnopravnosti polova u Britaniji zbog čega je pro-ženska politika zapošljavanja postala nelegalna. I kao primer neželjenih posledica, moja ženska kompanija bila je prinuđena da zaposli muškarce. (Smeh)
When I started my company of women, the men said, "How interesting, because it only works because it's small." And later, as it became sizable, they accepted, "Yes, it is sizable now, but of no strategic interest." And later, when it was a company valued at over three billion dollars, and I'd made 70 of the staff into millionaires, they sort of said, "Well done, Steve!" (Laughter) (Applause)
Kada sam osnovala svoju kompaniju žena, muškarci su govorili: "Kako zanimljivo, uspevaju zato što su mala kompanija." Kasnije, kada se proširila, prihvatili su: "Da, sada je veća, ali bez strateškog interesa." I kasnije, kada je kompanija procenjena na preko 3 milijarde dolara, i kada sam 70 zaposlenih učinila milionerima, rekli su nešto tipa: "Sjajno obavljeno, Stive!" (Smeh) (Aplauz)
You can always tell ambitious women by the shape of our heads: They're flat on top for being patted patronizingly. (Laughter) (Applause) And we have larger feet to stand away from the kitchen sink. (Laughter)
Uspešnu ženu uvek možete prepoznati po obliku glave: spljoštene na vrhu od snishodljivog tapšanja po glavi. (Smeh) (Aplauz) Imamo i veća stopala tako da stojimo što dalje od sudopere. (Smeh)
Let me share with you two secrets of success: Surround yourself with first-class people and people that you like; and choose your partner very, very carefully. Because the other day when I said, "My husband's an angel," a woman complained -- "You're lucky," she said, "mine's still alive." (Laughter)
Dopustite mi da podelim dve tajne uspeha s vama: okružite se vrhunskim ljudima i onima koji vam se sviđaju; i odaberite svog partnera vrlo, vrlo, pažljivo. Jer, pre neki dan kad sam rekla da je moj suprug anđeo, jedna žena se požalila rekavši: "Ti si tako srećna. Moj je još uvek živ." (Smeh)
If success were easy, we'd all be millionaires. But in my case, it came in the midst of family trauma and indeed, crisis. Our late son, Giles, was an only child, a beautiful, contented baby. And then, at two and a half, like a changeling in a fairy story, he lost the little speech that he had and turned into a wild, unmanageable toddler. Not the terrible twos; he was profoundly autistic and he never spoke again. Giles was the first resident in the first house of the first charity that I set up to pioneer services for autism. And then there's been a groundbreaking Prior's Court school for pupils with autism and a medical research charity, again, all for autism. Because whenever I found a gap in services, I tried to help. I like doing new things and making new things happen. And I've just started a three-year think tank for autism.
Da je uspeh jednostavan, svi bismo bili milioneri. U mom slučaju došao je usred porodične traume i krize. Naš pokojni sin Džajls, jedinac, bio je divno, mirno dete. Kada je napunio dve i po godine, kao magično dete iz bajki, izgubio je i malo govora što je imao i postao divlje, neobuzdano dete. Nije to bila dečija zloba, već teži oblik autizma i više nikada nije progovorio. Džajls je bio prvi stanovnik u prvoj kući dobrotvorne ustanove koju sam pokrenula da pruži usluge za ljude s autizmom. Usledile su alternativna škola "Prajors Kort" za đake s autizmom i medicinsko-istraživačka ustanova, takođe za autizam. Uvek kada sam našla rupu u usluzi, nastojala sam da pomognem. Volim da radim nove stvari i da ih realizujem. Pokrenula sam trogodišnju neprofitnu istraživačku organizaciju za autizam.
And so that some of my wealth does go back to the industry from which it stems, I've also founded the Oxford Internet Institute and other IT ventures. The Oxford Internet Institute focuses not on the technology, but on the social, economic, legal and ethical issues of the Internet.
Tako se deo mog bogatstva vraća odakle je i došao. Takođe sam osnovala institut Oksford Internet i pokrenula druge IT poduhvate. Institut Oksford Internet se ne fokusira na tehnologiju, već na socijalna, ekonomska, pravna i etička pitanja vezana za internet.
Giles died unexpectedly 17 years ago now. And I have learned to live without him, and I have learned to live without his need of me. Philanthropy is all that I do now. I need never worry about getting lost because several charities would quickly come and find me. (Laughter)
Džajls je iznenadno umro pre 17 godina. Naučila sam da živim bez njega, i naučila sam da živim bez njegove potrebe za mnom. Sada se bavim samo filantropijom. Nikada ne treba da se bojim da ću se izgubiti jer će neka od dobrotvornih ustanova brzo doći i naći me. (Smeh)
It's one thing to have an idea for an enterprise, but as many people in this room will know, making it happen is a very difficult thing and it demands extraordinary energy, self-belief and determination, the courage to risk family and home, and a 24/7 commitment that borders on the obsessive. So it's just as well that I'm a workaholic. I believe in the beauty of work when we do it properly and in humility. Work is not just something I do when I'd rather be doing something else.
Jedna je stvar imati ideju za preduzeće, ali kao što mnogi u ovoj prostoriji znaju, ostvariti je vrlo je teška stvar. Zahteva ogromnu energiju, veru u sebe i odlučnost, hrabrost da se reskira porodica i dom, neprestanu predanost koja se graniči sa opsesivnošću. Tako da je dobro što sam radoholičarka. Verujem u lepotu posla kada je urađen kako treba i u poniznosti. Posao nije nešto što radim kada bih radije radila nešto drugo.
We live our lives forward. So what has all that taught me? I learned that tomorrow's never going to be like today, and certainly nothing like yesterday. And that made me able to cope with change, indeed, eventually to welcome change, though I'm told I'm still very difficult.
Živimo ovaj život gledajući napred. I čemu me je to sve naučilo? Naučila sam da sutra nikada nije kao danas, i nikako kao juče. I to mi je omogućilo da se nosim s promenama, i da naposletku prigrlim promene iako mi je rečeno da je još uvek sa mnom teško.
Thank you very much.
Mnogo vam hvala.
(Applause)
(Aplauz)