Fan Favorite: The Long Game with Girls Who Code’s Reshma Saujani

Reshma Saujani (0:06)

I'm sitting there the next day. I've pissed off everybody. I'm broke. And no one's calling me.

Meghan Markle (0:15)

Oh, no.

Reshma Saujani (0:16)

No one's calling me.

Meghan Markle (0:19)

I'm Meghan, and this is Confessions of a Female Founder, a show where I chat with female entrepreneurs and friends about the sleepless nights, the lessons learned, and the laser focus that got them to where they are today. Behind the scenes, there are so many struggles that female founders don't post about. They don't even talk about the moments when you feel broken, when things don't go as planned, when simply showing up feels like a huge feat. And yet we do it, we push through. We keep smiling, we keep going out there, you get on the panel, you do the thing. And at a certain point though, it does raise the question, how do we redefine what it means to be a female founder without just running ourselves into the ground?

Reshma Saujani (1:18)

And if that happens, we're going to lose a generation of social entrepreneurs that we desperately need to continue these fights. And so we got to show them a different way. We got to do it a different way.

Meghan Markle (1:30)

Today's episode is about fighting for what you believe in and all the highs and the lows that come with it. And that's precisely why I wanted to talk to Reshma Saujani. She founded not one, but two incredible nonprofits that help close the gender gap for women. First, with Girls Who Code and now with Moms First. She's lived the pressures of building a business both behind the scenes and in the spot light. And her candid take on leading a movement. It's going to make you rethink how to fight for what you believe in. Let's get into it.

Welcome.

Reshma Saujani (2:11)

Thank you.

Meghan Markle (2:11)

I'm so happy you're here. It's been a while.

Reshma Saujani (2:14)

It's been a long time. I saw you. Different circumstances.

SPEAKER_3 (2:19)

Yes.

Meghan Markle (2:20)

Life was diff- Well, I mean, we had met 2018, I guess.

Reshma Saujani (2:25)

You were very pregnant.

Meghan Markle (2:27)

Oh my gosh. Yes. It would have been 2018, pregnant with Archie at Kensington Palace.

Reshma Saujani (2:32)

Yes.

Meghan Markle (2:33)

How did you end up at that meeting with me?

Reshma Saujani (2:36)

Because you're an amazing human and it's true. And we were bringing Girls Who Code to England and we were looking to expand and you generously met with me.

Meghan Markle (2:49)

Oh, that's kind to say generous. I was thrilled to learn more at the time. I would say even the idea of coding and STEM, do you remember that's when things were transitioning from STEM to STEAM?

Reshma Saujani (2:59)

Yeah.

Meghan Markle (3:00)

It was so new and it was definitely new for me. But I remember you came in, we sat in the audience room and I just said, tell me all about it. But it was such a great sit down because it was an eye-opener for me of so many other ways in which women were showing up for young girls. I'm curious to get into how that became your focal point. But can we just start well before that? Can we go way, way back? Take us back to the beginning.

Reshma Saujani (3:31)

For me, my parents came here as refugees. My mother was actually several months pregnant with my sister when they came. They had no money and the Catholic Church took them in, fed them, sheltered them, clothed them. So I've always had this deep love for this country and for that spirit of empathy that we shelter and that we love and then we care for those who have been displaced. So that was always in my blood, that I wanted to give back to the country, I wanted to do public service, and I wanted to fight for those who didn't have a voice.

Meghan Markle (4:14)

Which is beautiful and also completely confounding when you know more about your upbringing, how you were bullied, how you were mistreated, how you were beaten up. For a lot of people, that would devolve into, no, no, I'm not showing up in the spirit of love anymore. I've been too bruised and beaten. So can you talk a little bit about that? Because you grew up in Chicago, and what was it like?

Reshma Saujani (4:42)

You know, no one's ever asked me that before, because you're right. I could have turned to anger and hate, given what I was going through, and I went the opposite way. You know, my parents came here in the 70s, grew up in like a working class town, you know, outside of Chicago, Illinois. There were no brown people. And, you know, my mom was still wearing her sari and her bindi on her head, going to the Kmart, right? Still eating Indian food. And, you know, back then it was all about assimilation. You know, my father went to Toastmasters to get rid of his accent. Like, he literally changed his name from Mukund to Mike. He still signs my birthday cards, like, love Mike. But back then, it was like, if you wanted to fit in, you had to just change. Like, you know what I mean? And that's kind of how we felt too, right? I remember being so mad, Meghan, that like, my mom named me Reshma.