0:00:00.988,0:00:02.889
When I wrote my memoir,

0:00:02.889,0:00:06.566
the publishers were really confused.

0:00:06.566,0:00:10.800
Was it about me as a child refugee,

0:00:10.800,0:00:16.304
or as a woman who set up a high-tech[br]software company back in the 1960s,

0:00:16.304,0:00:18.380
one that went public

0:00:18.380,0:00:22.963
and eventually employed over 8,500 people?

0:00:22.963,0:00:27.470
Or was it as a mother[br]of an autistic child?

0:00:27.470,0:00:31.925
Or as a philanthropist that's[br]now given away serious money?

0:00:31.925,0:00:34.569
Well, it turns out, I'm all of these.

0:00:34.569,0:00:37.469
So let me tell you my story.

0:00:39.779,0:00:46.446
All that I am stems from when[br]I got onto a train in Vienna,

0:00:46.446,0:00:51.483
part of the Kindertransport that saved[br]nearly 10,000 Jewish children

0:00:51.483,0:00:53.851
from Nazi Europe.

0:00:53.851,0:00:57.860
I was five years old, clutching the hand[br]of my nine-year-old sister

0:00:57.860,0:01:01.813
and had very little idea as to [br]what was going on.

0:01:01.813,0:01:06.504
"What is England and [br]why am I going there?"

0:01:06.504,0:01:13.241
I'm only alive because so long ago, [br]I was helped by generous strangers.

0:01:14.911,0:01:18.446
I was lucky, and doubly lucky[br]to be later reunited

0:01:18.446,0:01:20.885
with my birth parents.

0:01:20.885,0:01:27.917
But, sadly, I never bonded [br]with them again.

0:01:27.917,0:01:31.227
But I've done more in the seven decades[br]since that miserable day [br]

0:01:31.227,0:01:33.003
when my mother put me on the train

0:01:33.003,0:01:36.290
than I would ever have dreamed possible.

0:01:36.290,0:01:39.398
And I love England, my adopted country,

0:01:39.398,0:01:44.469
with a passion that perhaps only someone[br]who has lost their human rights can feel.

0:01:45.831,0:01:52.188
I decided to make mine a life[br]that was worth saving.

0:01:52.188,0:01:54.449
And then, I just got on with it.

0:01:55.709,0:01:58.524
(Laughter)

0:01:59.264,0:02:03.465
Let me take you back to the early 1960s.

0:02:03.465,0:02:07.953
To get past the gender issues of the time,

0:02:07.953,0:02:14.443
I set up my own software house at one[br]of the first such startups in Britain.

0:02:14.443,0:02:20.301
But it was also a company of women,[br]a company for women,

0:02:20.301,0:02:23.325
an early social business.

0:02:23.325,0:02:27.001
And people laughed at the very idea[br]because software, at that time,

0:02:27.001,0:02:29.074
was given away free with hardware.

0:02:29.074,0:02:33.808
Nobody would buy software,[br]certainly not from a woman.

0:02:33.808,0:02:39.745
Although women were then coming out[br]of the universities with decent degrees,

0:02:39.745,0:02:43.299
there was a glass ceiling to our progress.

0:02:44.309,0:02:48.985
And I'd hit that glass ceiling too often,

0:02:48.985,0:02:52.550
and I wanted opportunities for women.

0:02:52.550,0:02:57.042
I recruited professionally qualified women[br]who'd left the industry on marriage,

0:02:57.042,0:02:59.293
or when their first child was expected

0:02:59.293,0:03:04.484
and structured them into a[br]home-working organization.

0:03:04.484,0:03:09.069
We pioneered the concept of women[br]going back into the workforce

0:03:09.069,0:03:11.611
after a career break.

0:03:11.611,0:03:15.394
We pioneered all sorts of[br]new, flexible work methods:

0:03:15.394,0:03:20.646
job shares, profit-sharing, [br]and eventually, co-ownership

0:03:20.646,0:03:24.092
when I took a quarter of the company[br]into the hands of the staff

0:03:24.092,0:03:27.912
at no cost to anyone but me.

0:03:29.582,0:03:35.773
For years, I was the first woman this,[br]or the only woman that.

0:03:35.773,0:03:39.539
And in those days, I couldn't work[br]on the stock exchange,

0:03:39.539,0:03:43.300
I couldn't drive a bus or fly an airplane.

0:03:43.300,0:03:49.193
Indeed, I couldn't open a bank account[br]without my husband's permission.

0:03:49.193,0:03:53.715
My generation of women fought[br]the battles for the right to work

0:03:53.715,0:03:58.207
and the right for equal pay.

0:03:58.207,0:04:02.068
Nobody really expected much [br]from people at work or in society

0:04:02.068,0:04:04.566
because all the expectations then [br]

0:04:04.566,0:04:08.461
were about home and [br]family responsibilities.

0:04:08.461,0:04:11.298
And I couldn't really face that,

0:04:11.298,0:04:17.287
so I started to challenge[br]the conventions of the time,

0:04:17.287,0:04:23.142
even to the extent of changing my name[br]from "Stephanie" to "Steve"

0:04:23.142,0:04:24.891
in my business development letters,

0:04:24.891,0:04:27.369
so as to get through the door[br]before anyone realized

0:04:27.369,0:04:28.750
that he was a she.

0:04:28.750,0:04:32.054
(Laughter)

0:04:32.054,0:04:39.214
My company, called Freelance Programmers,[br]and that's precisely what it was,

0:04:39.214,0:04:44.287
couldn't have started smaller: [br]on the dining room table,

0:04:44.287,0:04:49.681
and financed by the equivalent[br]of 100 dollars in today's terms,

0:04:49.681,0:04:56.978
and financed by my labor and [br]by borrowing against the house.

0:04:56.978,0:05:02.615
My interests were scientific, [br]the market was commercial --

0:05:02.615,0:05:06.640
things such as payroll,[br]which I found rather boring.

0:05:06.640,0:05:11.752
So I had to compromise with [br]operational research work,

0:05:11.752,0:05:15.183
which had the intellectual challenge [br]that interested me

0:05:15.183,0:05:22.850
and the commercial value [br]that was valued by the clients:

0:05:22.850,0:05:28.108
things like scheduling freight trains,

0:05:28.108,0:05:34.297
time-tabling buses, stock control,[br]lots and lots of stock control.

0:05:34.297,0:05:38.545
And eventually, the work came in.

0:05:38.545,0:05:42.300
We disguised the domestic and[br]part-time nature of the staff

0:05:42.300,0:05:47.440
by offering fixed prices,[br]one of the very first to do so.

0:05:47.440,0:05:50.755
And who would have guessed[br]that the programming

0:05:50.755,0:05:54.699
of the black box flight recorder [br]of Supersonic Concord

0:05:54.699,0:05:59.908
would have been done by a bunch [br]of women working in their own homes.

0:05:59.908,0:06:06.682
(Applause)

0:06:07.392,0:06:12.323
All we used was a simple [br]"trust the staff" approach

0:06:12.323,0:06:14.504
and a simple telephone.

0:06:14.504,0:06:20.225
We even used to ask job applicants, [br]"Do you have access to a telephone?"

0:06:22.175,0:06:25.194
An early project was to develop[br]software standards

0:06:25.194,0:06:27.434
on management control protocols.

0:06:27.434,0:06:33.636
And software was and still is a[br]maddeningly hard-to-control activity,

0:06:33.636,0:06:35.747
so that was enormously valuable.

0:06:35.747,0:06:37.971
We used the standards ourselves,

0:06:37.971,0:06:40.989
we were even paid to update [br]them over the years,

0:06:40.989,0:06:45.253
and eventually, they were adopted by NATO.

0:06:46.323,0:06:50.450
Our programmers -- remember, only women,

0:06:50.450,0:06:53.896
including gay and transgender --

0:06:53.896,0:06:58.939
worked with pencil and paper[br]to develop flowcharts

0:06:58.939,0:07:02.596
defining each task to be done.

0:07:02.596,0:07:06.509
And they then wrote code, [br]usually machine code,

0:07:06.509,0:07:08.776
sometimes binary code,

0:07:08.776,0:07:13.506
which was then sent[br]by mail to a data center

0:07:13.506,0:07:17.724
to be punched onto[br]paper tape or card

0:07:17.724,0:07:22.051
and then re-punched, [br]in order to verify it.

0:07:22.051,0:07:25.387
All this, before it ever got[br]near a computer.

0:07:25.387,0:07:30.046
That was programming in the early 1960s.

0:07:31.566,0:07:36.701
In 1975, 13 years from startup,

0:07:36.701,0:07:39.912
equal opportunity legislation [br]came in in Britain

0:07:39.912,0:07:46.824
and that made it illegal to have [br]our pro-female policies.

0:07:46.824,0:07:50.400
And as an example of [br]unintended consequences,

0:07:50.400,0:07:54.072
my female company had to let the men in.

0:07:54.072,0:07:59.014
(Laughter)

0:07:59.014,0:08:01.418
When I started my company of women,

0:08:01.418,0:08:08.317
the men said, "How interesting, because[br]it only works because it's small."

0:08:08.317,0:08:14.136
And later, as it became sizable, [br]they accepted, "Yes, it is sizable now,

0:08:14.136,0:08:17.355
but of no strategic interest."

0:08:18.125,0:08:25.274
And later, when it was a company[br]valued at over three billion dollars,

0:08:25.274,0:08:29.877
and I'd made 70 of the staff [br]into millionaires,

0:08:29.877,0:08:33.397
they sort of said, "Well done, Steve!"

0:08:33.397,0:08:37.683
(Laughter)

0:08:37.683,0:08:41.969
(Applause)

0:08:41.969,0:08:46.255
You can always tell ambitious women[br]by the shape of our heads:

0:08:46.255,0:08:49.580
They're flat on top for being [br]patted patronizingly.

0:08:49.580,0:08:55.521
(Laughter) (Applause)

0:08:55.521,0:09:00.084
And we have larger feet to stand[br]away from the kitchen sink.

0:09:00.084,0:09:01.737
(Laughter)

0:09:01.737,0:09:05.562
Let me share with you [br]two secrets of success:

0:09:05.562,0:09:11.781
Surround yourself with first-class people[br]and people that you like;

0:09:11.781,0:09:18.065
and choose your partner[br]very, very carefully.

0:09:18.065,0:09:21.278
Because the other day when I said, [br]"My husband's an angel,"

0:09:21.278,0:09:23.764
a woman complained --[br]"You're lucky," she said,

0:09:23.764,0:09:25.790
"mine's still alive."

0:09:25.790,0:09:28.807
(Laughter)

0:09:33.117,0:09:38.174
If success were easy, [br]we'd all be millionaires.

0:09:39.054,0:09:46.048
But in my case, it came in the midst[br]of family trauma and indeed, crisis.

0:09:49.258,0:09:57.532
Our late son, Giles, was an only child,[br]a beautiful, contented baby.

0:09:57.532,0:10:01.465
And then, at two and a half,

0:10:01.465,0:10:04.738
like a changeling in a fairy story,

0:10:04.738,0:10:08.170
he lost the little speech that he had

0:10:08.170,0:10:13.442
and turned into a wild, [br]unmanageable toddler.

0:10:13.442,0:10:15.524
Not the terrible twos;

0:10:15.524,0:10:21.457
he was profoundly autistic [br]and he never spoke again.

0:10:24.387,0:10:29.734
Giles was the first resident in the first[br]house of the first charity that I set up

0:10:29.734,0:10:33.304
to pioneer services for autism.

0:10:33.304,0:10:36.304
And then there's been[br]a groundbreaking Prior's Court school

0:10:36.304,0:10:38.724
for pupils with autism

0:10:38.724,0:10:42.844
and a medical research charity,[br]again, all for autism.

0:10:42.844,0:10:47.823
Because whenever I found a gap[br]in services, I tried to help.

0:10:49.313,0:10:54.583
I like doing new things [br]and making new things happen.

0:10:54.583,0:11:01.159
And I've just started a three-year [br]think tank for autism.

0:11:01.159,0:11:06.434
And so that some of my wealth does go back[br]to the industry from which it stems,

0:11:06.434,0:11:10.017
I've also founded [br]the Oxford Internet Institute

0:11:10.017,0:11:12.510
and other IT ventures.

0:11:12.510,0:11:16.795
The Oxford Internet Institute[br]focuses not on the technology,

0:11:16.795,0:11:21.607
but on the social, economic, legal[br]and ethical issues of the Internet.

0:11:23.887,0:11:30.909
Giles died unexpectedly 17 years ago now.

0:11:30.909,0:11:34.689
And I have learned to live without him,

0:11:34.689,0:11:39.469
and I have learned to live [br]without his need of me.

0:11:39.469,0:11:42.829
Philanthropy is all that I do now.

0:11:42.829,0:11:45.188
I need never worry about getting lost

0:11:45.188,0:11:48.697
because several charities[br]would quickly come and find me.

0:11:48.697,0:11:52.667
(Laughter)

0:12:00.807,0:12:04.885
It's one thing to have an idea [br]for an enterprise,

0:12:04.885,0:12:07.112
but as many people in this room will know,

0:12:07.112,0:12:10.025
making it happen is a very difficult thing

0:12:10.025,0:12:18.117
and it demands extraordinary energy,[br]self-belief and determination,

0:12:18.117,0:12:22.322
the courage to risk family and home,

0:12:22.322,0:12:27.491
and a 24/7 commitment [br]that borders on the obsessive.

0:12:27.491,0:12:31.475
So it's just as well[br]that I'm a workaholic.

0:12:31.475,0:12:36.706
I believe in the beauty of work when we[br]do it properly and in humility.

0:12:38.153,0:12:43.522
Work is not just something I do[br]when I'd rather be doing something else.

0:12:45.612,0:12:47.756
We live our lives forward.

0:12:47.756,0:12:50.990
So what has all that taught me?

0:12:52.210,0:12:55.846
I learned that tomorrow's [br]never going to be like today,

0:12:55.846,0:12:58.899
and certainly nothing like yesterday.

0:12:58.899,0:13:02.306
And that made me able to cope with change,

0:13:02.306,0:13:06.634
indeed, eventually to welcome change,

0:13:06.634,0:13:11.666
though I'm told I'm still very difficult.

0:13:11.666,0:13:13.801
Thank you very much.

0:13:13.801,0:13:21.081
(Applause)