The journey from a homeless girl to a senior employee of Google, Intel and a successful start-up with a company with hundreds of millions of dollars

“My freshman year of college, when I was studying Calculus II, the guy sitting next to me asked what my major was. When I said I was undecided, he advised: “Well, you should study engineering, because you’re obviously very good with numbers.”, Bryant recalled. He also told her that engineering had one of the highest starting salaries for a bachelor’s degree, and this caught Bryant’s attention.

At that time she admitted: ”I’m so tired of being poor and I know I won’t be able to continue living in this poverty“. Right after that, she went to her advisor to declare her major as a hardware engineer. Since then, she has focused on her studies and has not hesitated about her choice.

This decision set Bryant on a career path that took her from an executive at Intel and Google to NovaSignal, a health technology startup based in Los Angeles, where she is now a Managing director.

However, to get what is, Bryant had to overcome many difficulties.

Homeless at the age of 18

Four months before graduating from high school, Bryant’s father told her that she needed to move out. He had a strict rule that by the time she turned 18, she and her sisters had to live separately. ”All my belongings were taken to the lawn in front of the house. I had to pack everything into my Volkswagen Beetle and leave‘, Bryant recalls.

For the rest of her senior year, she lived in her sister’s apartment, friends’ house and sometimes slept in her own car. After graduating from high school, she applied to American River College, a local free community college, and found an apartment near campus.

”Things were very chaotic at that time, but I promised myself I would get through it”, Bryant said of this changing process. She had no one to ask for financial support, all of them overcame it with courage and determination.

Launchpad for a first career

Looking back on her life, however, Bryant found that at every stage of her career, she had someone to support her along the way.

During college, Bryant worked as a waiter at different restaurants, as a hostess at different restaurants. She once met a couple who used to come every Sunday after church for a meal. They kept asking for Bryant to serve as their staff. Sometimes having to wait up to 20 minutes to clear the table in her area, they still see her as a nice and polite employee.

When her husband Bill Baker learned that she was studying to become an engineer, he assisted her with an internship at Aerojet, a manufacturer of rockets and rocket propulsion engines. It was also one of Sacramento’s largest employers at the time.

”The recruiter called me and said, ‘If Mr. Bill Baker has backed you, you’ll be in for an internship. This job made me a competitive candidate for Intel. That’s when I realized the true power of having people to support and help, especially when they’re willing to use their fame and status for someone less fortunate.”, CEO of NovaSignal said.

Adapt or die

When Bryant joined Intel in 1985, Silicon Valley was going through hard times and seeing many collapses. At that time, women made up only 5.8% of engineers in the US.

At the time, Bryant was the only woman in the room and quickly realized that to fit in, she had to be “one of the boys.” During her second week of work, she was meeting with male employees in the office when one of them cursed, then he turned to Bryant and immediately apologized for using vulgar language in front of women. . She also calmly responds in the most casual way so that they don’t feel the need to change their behavior because there is a woman here.

Later, Bryant realized that the only way to get them to collaborate with her and become successful on a team like this was to adopt their outspoken and aggressive style. “At that time, I thought: Either adapt, or die“.

Before leaving Intel in 2017, she held a variety of roles including product manager and President of Intel’s Data Center Group.

However, during her time at Intel, she always had one thought in her mind: Stay or quit? She loves her job, but feels that there are not many opportunities for advancement, and the salary is also lower than that of her male colleagues.

The problem was that at that time, she had two young children and was the main breadwinner of the family. When facing this difficulty, a real opportunity came and helped her career once again flourish.

The secret of success

After leaving Intel, Bryant spent a year as CEO of Google Cloud. She also served as an advisor and Board member for several smaller startups before joining NovaSignal as President and CEO in 2020.

Google Cloud CEO (COO) Diane Bryant leaves the company after more than a year in charge

The decision to quit a job at a well-known Fortune 500 company to lead a startup came from Bryant’s constant anxiety and a small crisis with the fortune she was diligently building. build.

“I’m not young anymore, so I want to do something big to contribute to the world. At that time, I thought, would it be better to be in a job where I could both boost a company’s revenue and profits, but also make a strong social impact?,” said Bryant.

NovaSignal uses artificial intelligence (AI), ultrasound and robotics to measure blood flow to the brain, which can help identify blood clots and other neurological abnormalities such as stroke or dementia.

She said: “I can’t imagine another job that requires so much empathy as I did at NovaSignal. We must empathize with the patients we serve, with our clients, our doctors, what their standards of care are and how we must fit into the medical context.“.

She also emphasizes the importance of being an empathetic leader in order to remain in control. “I could name each of our 125 employees, what motivates them, and what it takes to succeed. When you have a startup, you usually only have one or two people for each title. So if we lose one person we lose the entire function of the organization.”

But the most important skill Ms. Bryant has learned from her experience as a senior employee is confidence, even though sometimes you have to pretend to be confident. She shared: “In the past, in my career journey, I was a lack of confidence, like most women. But you need to push yourself to fight even though you sometimes doubt yourself. Tell yourself: ‘I will win, I will succeed’. It is the courage to face every obstacle along the way.”

“No one wants to work for someone who says, ‘I’m going to die’ all the time. You have to be the one to say: ‘I can do it’“, said Bryant.

According to CNBC