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Tech veteran pens Silicon Valley chick-lit book

April 25, 2018 Updated: April 26, 2018 5:24pm

In the midst of the #MeToo movement and revelations of sexual harassment in Silicon Valley, it’s an interesting time for a female Silicon Valley executive to pen a book about her life in the inside track.

Anna Yen — who grew up in Woodside and Saratoga, and spent decades working in investor relations for Pixar and Tesla and has several start-ups under her belt — hasn’t written a “Brotopia” tell-all. Just the opposite: a humorous, fictionalized autobiography that has all the makings of a (tech) chick-lit summer hit.

“Sophia of Silicon Valley,” (William Morrow; 368 pages; $17.99), released April 10, does give a picture of Yen’s struggles in juggling big egos who have big demands as they push for big results. We see it through the eyes of Sophia, a twentysomething trying to please her Taiwanese immigrant parents, who want her to go to college and marry well.

As Sophia’s career unfolds, her promotions and firings are sparked by her propensity to speak in blunt, unfiltered terms. (Yen leaned in long before Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg was urging women to make themselves heard at the table). Many characters and firms are loosely disguised (or composites of) Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, and the law firm of Wilson, Sonsini, Goodrich & Rosati, while the names of actual watering holes like the Rosewood Sand Hill hotel, the Dutch Goose restaurant and Blue Line Pizza are sprinkled throughout.

Unlike many women in the real Silicon Valley, Sophia has no difficult encounters with sexism, but she does battle several life-threatening medical conditions, wrestle with relationship troubles and copes with a death before finally achieving an equilibrium by defining personal and professional success on her own terms.

Yen, a managing director at Ellipsis, a San Francisco investor relations firm, appears at Kepler’s bookstore in Menlo Park on Thursday, April 26, with Jon M. Chu, the director of the upcoming film “Crazy Rich Asians,” in a chat led by Michael Whalen, professor of communications at Santa Clara University.

Q: Where’d the idea come from and why did you write this?

A: I wrote it probably three years ago. It was after Steve Jobs had died and I read the obituaries. I did not read the Walter Isaacson book (“Steve Jobs,” Simon & Schuster, 2011). But I did hear how people reacted to it, especially some of the Pixar folks that I knew. My memory of him was very different from what was portrayed about him in the book. I thought it would be good to one day tell the story of my experience in a voice and through a lens that very few other people would see. And I feel very fortunate that the people who did really know him felt I really nailed him — the character of Scott Kraft (based on Jobs) was the person I really knew. I met someone at a dog park who happened to be a literary agent. She said it sounded great. It gave me the confidence to go forward. Steve was very much about what his legacy was going to be. So now, as an older adult with no children, I wanted to leave something for my nieces, in particular, who I wanted to be strong.

Q: Are you as unfiltered and blunt as Sophia? How has that worked for or against you?

A: It makes me feel a heck of a lot better. I say what I think. If you want to talk to me about it, you’re going to get a straight answer. That came from my mother and father. I don’t know if I’m stereotyping, but there’s no filtering in our house. It’s “You look fat,” or “Those pants make you look squatty.” As you see in the book, it gets me in a lot of trouble — I’ve been fired so many times. It underscores the fact that it’s hard to be a woman in the valley. If a man had been that direct, it may have been taken another way.

Q: I’m halfway through the book, which is full of high-powered men. Will I find any high-powered females?

A: The women in the book are all strong women. They’re not Sheryl Sandbergs. But all the characters are inspired by people who have mentored me. It’s a collection of stories and characters from my life. I have three sisters, two of whom are CEOs. One’s the CEO of a billion- dollar hedge fund; the other is CEO of Blue Line pizza. The other one is the VP of quality assurance at Willow. It won Time magazine’s innovation of the year. It’s a wireless, tubeless breast pump. She was doing it at Thanksgiving. You wouldn’t know you’re pumping. It doesn’t make any noise. The editors cut out the sisters from the book, except for one, and most of the friends.

Q: We’ve seen a lot of women coming forward in recent years about the sexism in Silicon Valley. Emily Chang’s book “Brotopia” hit a nerve. What was your experience?

A: I have had a Cinderella career, for the most part. When I worked for my boss at the law firm, or reported to the CFO or CEO, you’re generally very protected. If the CEO and CFO respect you and don’t treat you poorly, then no one else will. Have I seen it happen? Absolutely. I’ve seen men and women treat men and women poorly. I’m not intelligent or intellectual enough to pontificate about this. It’s not my jam; it’s not my thing. But I do want to say I’ve seen it happen. I think why people are so caught off guard about Silicon Valley is that we’ve always known there were glass ceilings on Wall Street and sexism in Hollywood, but Silicon Valley is supposed to be a place where you could be and do anything. This is where we create things that change the world, where geeks in high school became billionaires. It’s utopia. What alarms people is that they learn, when they get here, it’s actually not true. That’s what shocked people and why “Brotopia” had such an impact.

Q: What career or life advice would you give women reading the book?

A: This is for women or men:

1. Take things six minutes at a time. I got that from my time working at a law firm. You bill in six-minute increments. I was so busy, I’d start to spin my wheels. I had too many clients; I’d get overwhelmed. I’d become completely unproductive, running here running there, trying to stay above water. If I focused on, ‘What do I have to do right now?’ it got me into a mind-set, and rather than panic about the 1,800 things I had to do, I’d do one of them.

2. You’ve got to just go — jump, close your eyes and jump. Don’t be afraid. Because nothing has to be forever, if you don’t want it to be. That’s true if you’re contemplating a new career — or anything. Don’t be afraid to do it — you don’t want to be sitting there a year later wondering if you should do the same thing or not. But so many people do it.

3. Expectations kind of ruin everything. Just take it as it comes. Go enjoy — or not enjoy. Expectations don’t help you.

Carolyne Zinko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: czinko@sfchronicle.com

‘Sophia of Silicon Valley’ chat: Anna Yen will be at Kepler’s bookstore in Menlo Park on Thursday, April 26, with Jon M. Chu, the director of the upcoming film “Crazy Rich Asians,” in a chat led by Michael Whalen, professor of communications at Santa Clara University. For ticket information, go to www.keplers.com.

Carolyne Zinko

Carolyne Zinko

Style Reporter

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