Mitchell Baker Thinking Quotations

We have a very active testing community which people don't often think about when you have open source.

What's been most helpful to me is realizing that those times when all the heads in the room turn and look at me as if I was crazy, reinforce my own leadership capability. Because I've been in a number of those settings where I've been right. And I've been right often enough that now when it happens I don't automatically think, "Oh, my, what's wrong with me?" or "Ohhh, I must not be ready for this role," or "They know so much more than I do."

Usually, you know, you're at a table and you're the only woman, you've got this idea, you finally speak up - I mean, I've been in some settings where every head turns toward me and then they all turn away as if I've never spoken. Which I think happens when whatever I said was so out of the blue, or so awkward, that they just didn't know how to respond.

But I think it's always difficult when a product that you're using and accustomed to changes.

Many people think that open source projects are sort of chaotic and and anarchistic. They think that developers randomly throw code at the code base and see what sticks.

I guess my other advice is that it's really good to be comfortable among groups of men! It's just a very common work setting and I don't actually think about it too much, but there must be some comfort level that I've developed over the years.