Godmother of Silicon Valley: How to Raise a CEO | Esther Wojcicki

**Marina Mogilko** (0:00)
Hey guys, welcome back to my channel. Today, we have a very special dream guest. She is so, so close to my heart. Back in 2022, my older daughter was two, my younger was one, and I was running on no sleep for almost three years. I was forgetting who I was, and it was really hard to function because I was exhausted, and I still had to work. That's when my friend recommended a book by Esther Wojcicki, The Wash Way or How to Raise Successful Kids. I started reading about her difficult childhood, how she raised three dollars in Silicon Valley as a teacher.
See, this is the reality of working from home with the kids. She was that teacher who knocked on Steve Jobs' door, asking for computers and walked out with Macs. I kept thinking, if she was able to pull it off, then I will be able to do it too. We sat down, I took some of her principles and bought them into How I Parent. And today, we're sitting down with Esther. She's known as the godmother of Silicon Valley. She raised three amazing daughters. Susan Wojcicki was the YouTube CEO. She actually convinced Google to buy YouTube.
Unfortunately, she passed away two years ago from lung cancer at 56 Janet, her second daughter, is a researcher at UCSF. And Anne is the founder of 23andMe. She was Sergey Brin's first wife. Her company was once valued at billions of dollars. And then it went through bankruptcy and then she bought it back. Three daughters, three completely different lives, one mom. I really want to know, how do you raise kids who know how to fight for what they believe in? I really want to know how I can use her upbringing principles, not only to raise them, but also how do I stand up after mistakes? How do I keep trying? Let's do it. You've seen so many revolutions being here in Silicon Valley, from analog to internet, from computers to devices. Now, you're seeing this AI revolution. Do you think it's different from what you've seen before?

**Esther Wojcicki** (1:55)
Well, it's different because the device is different. But it's actually not different in the sense that it's a technological device that we have to learn how to use.
I still don't think they've done the cell phones correctly with kids, because what they're trying to do is ban them.
And so then I have to ask, what in history has been a successful ban? Okay, so they banned alcohol in the 1920s. How did that work? And then they tried to ban drugs in the 1980s. Just say no. How did that work? So these bans just don't work. And now they've banned social media in Australia. And did you know what's going on now? The kids are all using VPN. And so they're thinking of banning VPN. It's just crazy. Instead of doing that, they should teach the kids how to use it intelligently. The main thing you should know is how to use AI to ask good questions and not to use AI to do your math homework for you. Because then you're just cheating yourself.

**Marina Mogilko** (3:02)
Yeah, it's just tough. Like how do you teach your kids to navigate that? Because it's so easy to just replace your critical thinking with AI. Like just tell me what to do and it tells you.

**Esther Wojcicki** (3:11)
They need to know.
No one tells them that. No one says, you're cheating yourself. Why don't they tell them that? I don't know.
But you are cheating yourself. What you should do if you want to do it, is you should try to do whatever problem it is. Write an essay or do a math problem. Try to do it yourself. Then put it into the AI and ask the AI to give you feedback.
Then it can act like a teacher. But just to have the AI do it for you, I mean, what a crazy thing. Do you want AI to live your life for you? So the reason I don't think so is just let's look at the skills that we're looking for when we hire. You're looking for people that can solve problems, creative thinkers, people that get along well with other people. And so if you don't train kids to work collaboratively in groups and to think creatively, then what kind of employees are you training for the future? So that's how I use AI in the classroom as a collaborative device. And that's how I've been using computers in the classroom since I first started. You know, I started in the 19, it's shocking, 1980s.

**Marina Mogilko** (4:30)
Yeah.