In this episode, Brenda and Vlada dive deep into the emotional and professional complexities of becoming a CEO, especially as women with leadership styles that defy traditional, male-centric norms. Vlada shares her initial reluctance to take on the CEO role at her company, influenced by internalized ideas of what a leader is “supposed” to look and act like. Brenda echoes these experiences, reflecting on her own journey and the misconception that competitiveness must look a certain way. Together, they affirm that authentic, relational, and heart-led leadership has a powerful place in the tech world.
They unpack how women, particularly at the founder or CEO level, often perceive and internalize failure differently. Vlada speaks candidly about how many women, herself included, are overly self-critical, often viewing missteps as personal shortcomings rather than natural parts of growth. She advocates for reframing failure as experimentation, likening it to how toddlers learn to walk by falling repeatedly without judgment. Brenda agrees, emphasizing that failure can offer some of the most valuable lessons and clarity about what truly matters. Brenda and Vlada encourage women to release perfectionism, embrace imperfection, and lead with both courage and compassion.
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Our guests contribute to this podcast in their personal capacity. The views expressed in this interview are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology or its employees (“AnitaB.org”). AnitaB.org is not responsible for and does not verify the accuracy of the information provided in the podcast series. The primary purpose of this podcast is to educate and inform. This podcast series does not constitute legal or other professional advice or services.
Transcript of the Episode
[00:00:00] Vlada: We came as refugees. I came in middle school and so I had a really hard time and I didn’t even think to ask for help and I didn’t speak English well enough or know the system enough to go to a counselor or a teacher, or. Anything. And from my perspective, the adults who saw it didn’t do anything about it.
[00:00:18] So then it’s like, okay, I’m on my own. I just have to figure it out.
[00:00:21] Brenda: That’s Vlada Bortnick, co-founder and CEO of the messaging app. Marco Polo, she is talking about her early days in the US when her family came here from Ukraine as refugees. Years later, in an interview with Inc. Magazine, Vlada would talk about how those experiences.
[00:00:40] Shaped her. She’d say, when you are a refugee, you just figure things out. When things get hard, you just push through. You can’t fail. That hard earned resilience has served her well.
[00:00:53] Vlada: Every day I was showing up to school knowing that I’m gonna be bought into. In a way that I, it’s a little bit like a big entrepreneur.
[00:01:02] I hate to say this, but, but there is a sense of like, experiments failing. You’ll, you’ll feel like you got punched in a, in a gut and you just gotta get up.
[00:01:10] Brenda: Vlada went on to study computer engineering at Northwestern. Work at Microsoft and eventually took the leap to founder. But when she did, she found her resolve challenged again and again.
[00:01:23] Vlada: So we actually iterated nine different times before we got to Mark Apollo
[00:01:28] Brenda: through it all. It wasn’t just flat as grit and determination that kept her going. Instead, she viewed all her choices as experiments to be learned from, but that worldview was put to the test when she was faced with a turning point in her role at Marco Polo.
[00:01:46] See Vlada co-founded Marco Polo, but she wasn’t always, its CEO.
[00:01:51] Vlada: I did not want that job. I don’t know anybody like me in that role. Nobody looks like me.
[00:01:56] Brenda: So how did Vlada work through those doubts and figures to become the powerhouse CEO she is today? And what advice does she have? For how we can all reimagine the way we look at our choices and their outcomes.
[00:02:10] Good or bad. I’m Brenda Darden Wilkerson, and this is be the Way Forward my conversation with Vlada Bortnick after the break.
[00:02:30] Well, I am so excited for today’s guest, Vlada Nik, welcome to the show.
[00:02:37] Vlada: Thank you so much for having me here. I’m really, really excited to be here. Huge fan of the organization.
[00:02:43] Brenda: Well, thank you. I’m so excited for everybody to get to know you and for us to get to know each other even better. Um, you are the CEO, you’re the founding CEO of Marco Polo.
[00:02:54] Vlada: I. Yes. Co-founder, my husband and I are co-founders together.
[00:02:58] Brenda: Okay. We’ll give him some credit too. Okay. He’ll give us some credit.
[00:03:01] Vlada: Yeah.
[00:03:03] Brenda: So Marco Polo is a wonderful app and I know that many folks listening who use it religiously are excited to hear more about how you thought about it when you founded it and you founded it so that you and your kids could stay connected with your family overseas.
[00:03:19] Is that right?
[00:03:20] Vlada: Yeah, there were the motivation for us starting the whole companies, actually it started with just thinking about how we wanna model for them the way we want them to be when they’re grown up. And so that got us thinking about, okay, what do we want for them? And of course, like any parent, when you ask, what do you want for your kids happiness was the answer.
[00:03:41] Wow. Uh, I think the difference is that my, my husband and I are audacious enough to think that if we just write all the research books. And if we just watched all the TED talks right. Then we could engineer. This is obviously before we had the kids. Right?
[00:03:58] Brenda: I was gonna say, you sound exactly like I was thinking the same way.
[00:04:01] Vlada: Ah. And then of course, like the thing that came up consisting was relationships. Like how important relationships are to happiness. You know, the Harvard study, the longest study ever on happiness shows that you can have all the things. Money, fame, yada, yada, yada. If you don’t have relationships, you will not be happy.
[00:04:20] So for us, you just won’t. Yeah, exactly. I mean, we all feel it intuitively, but it’s this notion like how do we prioritize and, and what do we do to actually have close relationships in our lives without is feeling like work. So this purpose of helping people feel close really came out of that before we had an idea of what we’re gonna do.
[00:04:39] Brenda: And it’s so important because we’re relational beings. You know, um, and we found out even more how important it was during Covid where we mm-hmm. All had to kind of go home and especially for people who lived alone, not being able to be connected had an impact.
[00:04:59] Vlada: Yeah. And it’s, it was really interesting for us to us, ’cause we’ve been around before the pandemic, but, you know, I like when social media became really popular and texting became popular.
[00:05:10] I think somehow as a community, we all decided that quantity of connections was more important than quality of connection. Yeah. And so also we’re prioritizing, you know, 100 followers and 200 friends, and there’s only so many emojis I can send to express how I’m feeling. And our focus has really been about, forget about the number, how about the depth and the quality of the connection.
[00:05:36] It’s not enough to just send a little sentence. Yeah, with an emoji at the end, like my face communicates the real emotion. Um, right.
[00:05:44] Brenda: And you even talked about that. People could um, they could hear your tone. I mean, tone is important and you don’t get that in a text.
[00:05:53] Vlada: Yeah, exactly. But you know, with Marco Polo, that’s the beauty of it is you can really see what I’m trying to get across.
[00:06:00] Brenda: I wanna talk about your early years. So when you were 11 years old, you came to the United States from Ukraine as a refugee. You landed in Kansas. I am from Kansas City, but the Missouri one. Oh.
[00:06:14] Vlada: So yeah. So close. Um,
[00:06:18] Brenda: but I wanna talk about something you said in an interview with Inc. Where you discussed your early days in the us mm-hmm.
[00:06:25] You said when you’re a refugee you just figure things out. When things get hard, you just push through. You can’t fail. I think that is so powerful and appropriate for a lot of us, and I’m wondering if you could elaborate on that.
[00:06:41] Vlada: Yeah, it’s, I think my parents, when we came, they, we came as refugees. They came with no money.
[00:06:48] They literally left all the money behind that. We didn’t have a chance to sell any of our belongings. We just got on and explained that we could and we left, and so. There was no, like, there’s no chance to fail or complain. It was just, you just gotta do it. And in some ways, like that’s what allowed for me to be an entrepreneur.
[00:07:09] Yeah. Because I mean, I, you know, Skype is shut down. Can you imagine like Marco Polo is outlived Skype. That’s insane to me. It is amazing. But that’s awesome. Yeah. I mean there are, they’re are heroes. It’s like, it’s what inspired, ’cause that’s how we use to communicate to our family early on. But like yeah, there’s hospitality of like, you just do whatever job they need to do.
[00:07:31] There’s no re or I can’t do this. You just figure out a way to make it work and, and I think being creative with limited resources. Came from having very little and being able to figure out how to stretch a dollar stretch, whatever thing the resource that I had, how to communicate what I need in a way that would give me some results.
[00:07:54] Like all that came from that time when I came here.
[00:07:57] Brenda: What, what an amazing example you are. You’ve made the lemonade out of the lemons. It helps others know they can too. So what was your own founder journey like? I, I’m sure that it came with ups and downs. Can you talk to us about that?
[00:08:15] Vlada: It started like I was saying, with our family, and so we had this, this, we decided that we were gonna work on something that was really meaningful to the world and meaningful to us.
[00:08:23] And for us, it became this thing around relationships and the purpose of helping people feel close was born. Pretty unusual founding story for us, because most people I know have this like an idea. And they’re like really excited by this idea, or they’re excited by the financial opportunity and they’re going for it.
[00:08:41] And for us, we were the only ones that I know of who had just the purpose. Like we didn’t have a specific idea in mind. And so then it was like, okay, how do we bring this purpose to life in a way that really respects the purpose, but is also a good business? And so we actually iterated nine different times before we got to Mark Apollo.
[00:09:02] I think this is why having a purpose really matters because like in my previous companies where like I’m not as attached to the purpose and it has been more of, of a, a specific idea, when the going gets tough, it’s easier to give up.
[00:09:19] Brenda: Oh, absolutely. I mean, it’s, it’s part of, you know what I, I love about, you know, knowing your why, you knew your why, and so that is going to help you buy or, or find the best solution, which is, is, as you said, you know, you went through nine different possibilities and you found the best one that suited the purpose.
[00:09:39] And, and that’s gonna give, I think in any product, give it life that it wouldn’t have if we do it the other way around. And, and I understand people who do it that way. Um, but I really applaud you, uh, for, for your strategy.
[00:09:53] Vlada: Thank you. Yeah. It’s really, it’s really been working for us and you know, it really was key to how we set up the company.
[00:09:58] Like we really thought about what is something we wanna work on forever. It was actually a combination of thinking about like, the business, but also the how, like how do we wanna work every day? How do we wanna set up the structure, you know, so we were remote from the beginning. Which was in 2012. That was pretty unusual.
[00:10:19] Married couple working together also pretty unusual, you know? But those are all pieces that the how was really important to us. It was interesting because through those nine iterations, we had several of those that had millions of people using it and we chose to walk away from it, which is pretty also unusual.
[00:10:37] Brenda: Yeah, it is. But again,
[00:10:39] Vlada: the purpose really, really mattered. And the how we got to was really important and it had to have growth and retention, and we wanted to monetize in a way that would align with our values, which meant like we knew from the beginning we did, did not wanna do advertising. We wanted to be a subscription based, uh, product so that our customers were actually the people who were eating the product, not advertisers.
[00:11:01] Like we weren’t willing to give up on that.
[00:11:04] Brenda: That is amazing and I love it. So, Marco Polo has been around since 2014. And like you said, Skype is going away, but you’re still here. I want to ask though, was there a moment at any time that really tested your ability to look at the world through this lens of experiments?
[00:11:24] I mean, you seem pretty resolved about it.
[00:11:27] Vlada: I’m pretty resolved and I’m, I was just trying to see, like, I really think it comes from being bullied. What happened was when I was in Ukraine. We had somebody come and join our class and people were not nice to her. And I was like, that’s not okay. And I took her under my wing and, and she be, you know, she became a friend and so on.
[00:11:45] And then when I came to us and all of a sudden I was being bullied, it was just like, mm-hmm. What is going on? Just shocked. And I was like, me, honestly. And I didn’t even think to ask for help. Because I think at the same time, my parents were having such a hard time finding jobs, like putting food on. I mean, in my world as a, you know, 12, 13-year-old, I’m like, that got bigger fish to fry than dealing with my issues, which is a silly thing, you know?
[00:12:13] Yeah, of course. Like, oh my gosh, my kids were saying that to me. I’d be terrified, but that’s what was going on through my head. And I didn’t speak English well enough or know the system enough to go to a counselor or a teacher or anything. And, and it, and from my perspective, the adults who saw it didn’t do anything about it.
[00:12:28] So. So then it’s like, okay, I’m on my own. I just have to figure it out. And so I think that Resolve is sort of started building, like, okay, I’m just gonna, I’m gonna make something. I’m gonna do something. And it’s a little bit of like, I’m gonna prove to them,
[00:12:45] Brenda: yeah,
[00:12:45] Vlada: that they should mess with me. And still, every day I was showing up to school knowing that I’m gonna be bullied and in a way.
[00:12:55] I, it’s a little bit like a big entrepreneur. I hate to say this, but, but there is a sense of like, experiments failing. You’ll, you’ll feel like you got punched in a, in a gut and you just gotta get up, you know, get up and try it again. You go for it.
[00:13:09] Brenda: Yeah. I mean, I think it’s great. I, but I also understand something really interesting that you didn’t want to be the CEO and that it took a lot of convincing.
[00:13:19] Vlada: Yeah, I did not wanna be, so my husband actually was a CEO first. He was a CO for I think six, seven years, something like that. And, uh, we were invited to a panel or teach a class at GSB and one of the students asked a question like, Hey, how did you guys decide that he’ll be the CE? And, you know, we gave our answer.
[00:13:41] He is one who was MBA and like all, you know, all these things. And I honestly didn’t think too much about it, but it really stuck with my husband. Because at that point he was like, I don’t know why. Like, just because I have, I’ve had this job. I don’t know why we couldn’t change. And the company was shifting from this like, um, changing ideas all the time to like, okay, we have Marco Polo, it’s stabilized.
[00:14:05] We’re really looking for this next chapter in our company journey. And his assessment was that actually my skillset was better suited. For this next chapter. And so he approached me and I was like, uh, I mean, look at all the, if you search tech CEOs, you know, like what are the images you see? Nobody looks like me.
[00:14:28] Brenda: Oh, well that’s a whole nother story, right? That’s a whole other conversation.
[00:14:33] Vlada: Like there’s no way. And even honestly, even women, I was like, I really dunno. Any ceo, male or female who has the same kind of. The leadership as I do. And so I really was a hard no for a while and then he worked on me and like, okay, if he’s really believing that’s actually the best thing for the company and he’s seeing something in me, then let me give it a some more thought.
[00:14:57] Brenda: We’re gonna take a quick break, but when we come back, there’s lots more of my conversation with Vlada Bortnick. And the top three takeaways I got from Vlada story that I wanna make sure that you take away too. See you soon.
[00:15:21] You didn’t want to be the CEOI
[00:15:24] Vlada: did not want that job. I don’t know anybody like me in that role, but there is a part of me that’s like, uh, ambitious and competitive. That was like really also intrigued. So we actually decided to run an experiment. He started to give me more and more responsibilities of the CEO so that I had a chance to get a feel for it.
[00:15:45] ’cause I didn’t know if I was gonna really like the job. And honestly, for me, I was like, I don’t need that kind of exposure. I won’t be able to be that aggressive. Like I had all these images of right, what a CO is, and I’m like, I’m much more relational feelings. You know, I can talk about the vision, I can talk about like how to set up teams, but like if you’re gonna ask me, like grill me on the spot for a question, I will not be able to do that.
[00:16:10] I will not be able to like do all the math in my head on the spot. You know, like all these things that I were just like false beliefs. So slowly but surely I start taking on more of the COE job without the position actually being given to me. And then I also at the same time, joined the community.
[00:16:30] Called leaders in tech and it’s a community that was really fundamental in, in changing my opinion. It’s like the first time where I got to meet other founders who actually led with their heart much more than with their head. And I was like, oh, there’s lots of different ways to be CEO. Yes, there is. And uh, and for the weaknesses that I have, I can hire people on my leadership team who can make up for my weaknesses.
[00:16:56] And it’s really much more of creating an orchestra. As opposed to being a soloist. Yeah. You know, like, so basically by the end of the year I was, I was doing enough of the job. I was, I had enough interactions with the board and I had enough of a support community that I was, that I said, okay, I’ll, I’ll.
[00:17:15] Unwilling to try it.
[00:17:17] Brenda: You know, there’s so much there. And you know, I’ve been in this role now seven and a half years, and it was not more than maybe two months ago that I was on a meeting. I also am in a couple of CEO. Groups and we were talking and you know, there’s not all male, but it’s pretty male, the, the group.
[00:17:37] And, um, they were talking about competition, you know, and how they were competitive. And, you know, as they were talking, I felt like I wasn’t competitive. And you know, as CEOs, as leaders, we’re always talking about, um, we always have to think about succession planning. And so I’m thinking, okay, at some point if I wanna hand this over to someone else, this role over to someone else, I need to start thinking about who that person is.
[00:18:04] And so as I’m listening to them, I’m thinking, well, do I need to find someone that’s more like them? You know, as they were describing Yeah. Their competitive nature. And they kind of stopped and blinked at me and they’re like. Brenda, you are competitive. And then when I thought about it, I was like, I am, but in a different way than the way they describe it.
[00:18:24] And so it’s part of what you were saying. We have this image of what A CEO is. It’s very male. Right? Very. ’cause it’s been male. Yeah. For such a long time. Um, and, but one of the things that I say to women all the time when they wonder if they fit. In, in a space or in a role, I say to them, you know, really you’re, what’s missing?
[00:18:48] We already have all of that other energy. Good or bad. It’s, it’s what it is.
[00:18:55] Vlada: Mm-hmm.
[00:18:55] Brenda: You don’t need to go in there and mimic it.
[00:18:59] Vlada: 100%.
[00:19:00] Brenda: Right? Yeah. And so I, you know, and I love how you came to that over time. I think that that shows that you, you and your husband work really well together, uh, which doesn’t always work out when I know.
[00:19:13] Vlada: Yeah. Right. I, I love what you said. I think that’s so true. And the, and the thing that I found too is because it’s with you that’s missing, it means that there’s a lot of people who wanna work for somebody like you.
[00:19:26] Brenda: That’s right.
[00:19:27] Vlada: I. And they’re not getting a chance to do that because you haven’t been there.
[00:19:31] Brenda: Right. And I love what you said about, you know, the heart being in there because in my mind, the highest end use of technology is in service of people. And how do you serve people without having your heart involved in there some way there’s, it just doesn’t make sense.
[00:19:47] Vlada: I 100% agree with you and I, I actually think that’s.
[00:19:50] For me, that’s part of the problem where we’re at right now. Yes, I understand that part of the running a business, of course you have to optimize for profit, but there gotta be guardrails.
[00:20:00] Brenda: That’s right. Like
[00:20:00] Vlada: wellbeing of our people who are using the products have to be part of it.
[00:20:06] Brenda: That’s right. And I think
[00:20:06] Vlada: that comes from the heart.
[00:20:08] Brenda: It does. It absolutely does. And so conversations like this I think are important to make sure the people who have something to give are not holding back because they think they lack something just because they don’t fit that, that model.
[00:20:22] Vlada: Yeah.
[00:20:23] Brenda: I couldn’t agree with you more. So this season we’ve been unpacking failure, what it looks like and how folks approach it.
[00:20:32] So. What kinds of conversations do you hear among women at the founder, CEO level when it comes to discussions of failure?
[00:20:40] Vlada: Yeah. I, I, um, when I first heard about the show, as you might know, I was like, failure, I don’t wanna talk about failure again. It’s like all we talk about and, and it’s like, yeah. I just find that especially female founders tend to be so hard on themselves and they are, you know, I’m so hard on myself all the time and oh my gosh.
[00:21:02] It just doesn’t have to be the way, and I don’t hear that as much from many male founders, you know? And yeah, and I just think like, I’m trying to change it for myself and people that I, that I know that it does. It’s not really a failure, it’s really about experimentation. Uh, one of the best images I had was my executive coach, um, Dana Chapman.
[00:21:23] She told me, think about babies. Yeah. When they’re learning how to walk, they’re falling all the time.
[00:21:29] Brenda: They
[00:21:29] Vlada: are. They don’t think of it as sailing.
[00:21:31] Brenda: That’s right.
[00:21:32] Vlada: They’re just like, oh, I’m up again. That’s right. And I’m gonna fall and I’m up again. I’m gonna fall. And that’s what we’re doing. That’s life. That’s right.
[00:21:40] So there’s not a right and wrong way. There’s just experimentation and titling is okay. And so I’ve really been on this path to just like Florida, you’re just toddling. You get to create messes. Mistakes are okay. It’s part of beauty of Life. Like let’s embrace it.
[00:21:59] Brenda: I love it. I love it. And but, but think about it.
[00:22:02] I think we swing negative as women because we are taught to make people like us, right? Little boys are not. Yes.
[00:22:12] Vlada: I want, yeah.
[00:22:14] Brenda: Years ago, I, um, learned to ice skate, loved it. Great exercise. Mm-hmm. Took me about four times longer than it should have. Why? Because I didn’t wanna fall down. Mm-hmm. And they’re these little kids just zooming around me and getting in my way and didn’t care.
[00:22:31] And they’d fall down and. It meant nothing, and they’d get right back up and they went circles around me. Right. So, totally. I think it’s really important, especially when you’re trying to do something new or something hard. This sort of attitude. Yes, because failure, you know, and I, I say this all the time, I’ve learned more from what we call.
[00:22:53] Our failures, then the successes, because now I know it doesn’t work. Yes. Or it wasn’t satisfying to me. I thought that was something I wanted or I thought it would work well for me and it didn’t. Now I know, uh, not to do that and to try something else. 100%. So like you mentioned how Marco Polo had nine iterations of the product, there would be people who, who would look at some of those iterations as failures, but they obviously weren’t.
[00:23:19] You said you had people in them. Yeah. Um, but obviously some things that we do, they’re not gonna be perfect, but we don’t want to view them as failures. So how are you interpreting those moments where an outcome. Isn’t so favorable, like what advice would you give to the founder that’s out there listening to this?
[00:23:41] Vlada: Uh, the biggest thing is to focus on the learning. So if there’s a way you can shift your mental model from, there’s the right and there’s the wrong, but instead the, it’s a question, what am I learning? Then all of a sudden there’s actually no failure because you’re. Like you have to work really hard to not learn something and, and Marco Polo is actually a great example of that because from almost every single iterate, like different idea we had, it’s what Marco Polo is.
[00:24:10] We took pieces that we learned that worked well and it’s what made Marco Polo. And so it’s again this like shift in, can you be a little bit more conscious about what is the experiment you’re running? What is it that you’re hoping to learn? And then just what did you learn? So sometimes you might be surprised the way you learn.
[00:24:30] Brenda: Oh, I’m always shocked. I’m, I’m always shocked at the tangent, you know, the tangential thing that shows up. The thing that we just, I never would’ve thought that this is something. That we would’ve learned or I would’ve met this person or we would’ve ended up in this particular space. Can you give another example of how someone else might have seen something that, that you did as a failure and you took it and like you said, it’s become part of the product that you have today?
[00:25:07] Vlada: I mean, it’s literally like everything that we’ve done. We run experiments. First we’ll take a percentage of our user base and we’ll do like a small experiment to see, okay, what’s resonating, what’s not resonating, and then based on that we’ll do a little bit more. And at some point we say, okay, it’s good enough, we’re gonna roll it out.
[00:25:25] That I can’t think of a feature or thing that we didn’t do that with. So a great example is we’ve traditionally been a consumer company. We’ve been focused on family and friends, and how to stay in touch with your loved ones. And recently we’ve been seeing that businesses are using market polo and a lot more businesses than we thought.
[00:25:44] And so on one hand you could say like, my gosh, you guys have been around for this long and you’re just now looking B2B. It’s a great opportunity. That was a failure, but instead for me it’s like, oh no, we’ve been focused on consumer. And now it’s a good chance to expand to B2B. And now within business, what are we gonna try?
[00:26:01] So like I’m now seeing that there’s a, a lot of property managers using Marco Polo. So now I’m running this experiment of talking to as many property managers I can over two weeks to understand what their challenges are. And you know, I think it’s important to time box it because I don’t wanna spend forever and just to form an opinion based on that.
[00:26:21] And so it’s a combination of how they’re using Marco Polo. Talking to property managers who’ve never heard of Marco Polo, looking at the data, the market research, and then I’ll make a recommendation. Okay, is this a segment that’s interesting for us or not? So that’s an example of running an experiment and you can call at the end of it, oh, we failed.
[00:26:38] We didn’t come up with something for them. Or we could say like, great, what a great learning. Now we know, right? That is ask for us, so it is for us, and move on.
[00:26:45] Brenda: I love it and I feel like it’s a mindset and I can, I can hear it. I hear your mindset that obviously is, is part of your success, and so I’m curious how this, this mindset or this technique shows up in your day-to-day life as, as a person and as a manager.
[00:27:03] You know, being a CEO involves a lot of interpersonal communication and team building, and that’s not always easy. So, oh my gosh. Do you apply these experiments to interactions with your team?
[00:27:16] Vlada: Absolutely. I’m such a huge fan of personal development and, um, conscious leadership. And so one of the things that we, it started as an experiment, but now it’s something that we do is we one-on-ones.
[00:27:33] I start with reveals. So a re reveal is something. So instead of being like, Hey, how’s the weather over there? How are the kids? Which is great banter. There’s nothing wrong with it. We start with like, Hey, what reveals do you have? And it could be something like, um, hey, I know we had an agreement that you were gonna send me the financial updates on Tuesday, and I still haven’t heard from you.
[00:27:58] Like the story I made up was that you’re not prioritizing this enough. I would like to see dah, dah, dah, dah. Or it could be, Hey, my kid’s been really sick for the last few days and I am not getting enough sleep. So if I’m coming off a little bit more grumpy, just know it’s something to do with you. It’s because of this.
[00:28:15] So we, so that was an experiment that we, that I tried and it’s certain, it’s stuck. I think reveals is like an example where it’s a chance for us to be a little bit, like, take a little bit of a risk and say what’s actually going on? Um. It’s been, it’s been working actually pretty well, and I’ve been experimenting with like being more direct about some of the things that I wanna see change in the company.
[00:28:40] So, you know, this whole AI craze, uh, which is not just a craze, it’s actually like changing how we work. And so I’ve made some statements like, Hey, I’m really nervous that we’re falling behind. Like, I don’t hear enough conversation or chatter about this. Tell me what’s going on. And. I’m, I’m often in a conversation we’ll say things like, I’m scared to say this to you, or I feel uncertain how this is gonna land on you, but let me try this and I hope I’m not sounding defensive.
[00:29:06] Like, so there’s ways that, there’s language that I’ve used to sort of make it clear that on might fall my face and am I creating a big mess? And I’m gonna trust that we have a relationship that’s gonna be okay and it’s gonna make it through.
[00:29:22] Brenda: I love that. I mean, that’s authentic. Um, and it prepares people for whatever filter that they might have been using had you not said that right.
[00:29:37] And it increases the communication, which. At the end of the day is the, is the goal. I mean, you, you have a communications product and you’re using communications, uh, to, to run your relationships, and I think that’s amazing.
[00:29:53] Vlada: Well, thank you. I mean, and honestly, it’s important to have the kind of culture where you’re able to communicate and give feedback back and forth so that if you do create a mess, there’s a process in place.
[00:30:05] They can find out about it quickly enough, they can clean it up. It’s not avoiding the messes, right? It’s how do you set up systems in place so that you can clean them up quicker?
[00:30:17] Brenda: Well, I mean, especially as we talk about technology, there’s this thing called tech debt. Yes. I think, right. What you’re doing is avoiding the relationship debt.
[00:30:28] Mm-hmm. Which I think that’s a really good way of
[00:30:31] Vlada: thinking about it. I love it. Right.
[00:30:33] Brenda: I love it. Absolutely. So what advice do you have for our audience when it comes to navigating failure? Because you’ve, you, you’ve almost like resisted that, that word, that label, and I love it. I’m gonna, I’m, I’m gonna go back and, and bathe in some of what you said, because I think it is such a better way of looking at things, but you have to, we have to relearn it.
[00:30:55] Okay. Yeah. So while people are thinking about it as failure. Yeah. Or they look at it as, I failed. You know, I didn’t get that thing done when I was supposed to, or it didn’t make the amount of money that it should, or I didn’t get chosen. What, fill in the blank. What are any final words of wisdom or inspiration that you would have for them?
[00:31:15] Through the tough times when it feels like nothing is going right?
[00:31:20] Vlada: Yeah. I would say talk to yourself like you would talk to your best friend. Because chances are the way you’re gonna talk to your best friend is gonna be way nicer. So true. You roll tears off, you know? Or, or if you have a kid, think about it.
[00:31:37] Like what would you say to a kid if they came to you and said, mom, I really, I just failed this test, or I failed this try out or whatever. And try to channel that for yourself. Yeah, and I, and I find that if I can. And actually like feel those feelings like, oh yeah, I had this vision. It didn’t work out that way.
[00:31:57] Allow, allow the sadness and the grief, but also the compassion and the empathy. But I think the easiest way to start is talk to yourself like you would to your best friend. You could just remember that I think like it’s ready gonna be there because it’ll turn into compassion and love, and I think that can unlock a lot.
[00:32:14] I think the other advice I would give to every woman I know is ask for help. Because there hasn’t been a single time when I’ve asked for help and I didn’t get it. It’s only in my head that like, I wish I, I wish I asked for more help when my kids were born. I don’t know why I thought I had throw it by myself.
[00:32:33] Yeah. You know, there’s no trophy. You don’t get a trophy. Then you were the best mom ever because you did it all the nights by yourself, like Right. Nobody keeps score, you know? No. Even now, I could ask for more help. I’m sure. But I think that’s why it’s, it’s gonna be surrounded with other founders who are supportive.
[00:32:54] Brenda: Okay. So that’s like almost the best advice that you’ve given today. Uh, are you seriously, I mean, right. So what happened to get you from not asking for help to being able to ask for help or, or knowing that it’s important to ask for help?
[00:33:11] Vlada: It’s been an iterative process for me. Um, so in college, my first time I applied for a, an internship at Microsoft.
[00:33:19] I did not get it, and the recruiter really was surprised I didn’t get it. And afterwards I was like, look, I’m, I’m done. Like, I’m just a kid from Kansas, I’m not gonna get a mic. And she was like, no, no, no. This is a mistake. You are gonna, you are supposed to be at Microsoft and the next time you’re gonna apply again and I’m gonna help.
[00:33:43] And so it was the first time when somebody like was very insistent and then I was able to get in and then got a scholarship. So my senior year was fully paid and like it would’ve been so easy to give up. So I think she was really, uh, her name is Jessica Ward and she was just like amazing recruiter. She like really believed in me and pushed me through and that really was like, oh wow, if I just get some help.
[00:34:09] But it wasn’t until some years later that I read research actually from Stanford that said that there’s a misconception that people think that if you ask for help chance, are people gonna say no, but way more people are happy to give help Yeah. Than you Like. It’s vastly underestimated how much people wanna help and how much do they love to help.
[00:34:30] Brenda: People do wanna help people. And and actually you are helping them to allow them to help. Yes. Yeah, exactly. Well, Lada Bortnick, I, I, I just, there aren’t words for how amazing this conversation has been. Thank you so much for being with me today. We, we should be best friends. I think that’s what I think I’m in.
[00:34:52] Okay.
[00:34:53] Vlada: Okay. Thank you. It was so fun. I really, really appreciate it. Okay. And let’s be best friends.
[00:34:59] Brenda: Let’s be best friends. Besties. Yay.
[00:35:01] Vlada: We’re already that. I think
[00:35:03] Brenda: so.
[00:35:03] Vlada: Love it.
[00:35:05] Brenda: So many thanks to Vlada for sharing her story and for taking on the question of how we think about failure, even though it’s a word that she tries so hard not to use.
[00:35:17] And honestly, that’s probably the biggest takeaway for me. So let’s start there. Number one, think of it as an experiment, not a failure. Florida’s whole philosophy is that success isn’t the only useful outcome. If you treat every project as an experiment, then even when something doesn’t go as planned, you’re learning and that learning just may be the key to success.
[00:35:45] What I love most about this is that. It’s not just about coping after the fact, it’s setting yourself up from the start to win no matter what. Number two, there’s lots of different ways to lead. Vlada questioned whether she was CEO material because she didn’t feel she fit the classic mold, but then she realized, so what?
[00:36:11] The mold is outdated anyway. And I can relate. For years I thought that because I couldn’t quote sports terms or act like the men, that I wasn’t a classic CEO either, but I was wrong. Instead of trying to change, we can find power in leading our own way, playing to our strengths and building a supportive team around us.
[00:36:35] So whether you’re running a company or leading a project, you do you. Number three, ask for help. Seriously, it sounds so simple, but so many of us struggle with it, and you know what? We gotta get over it. It’s like Vlada said, when you ask for help, more often than not, people are happy to give it. This isn’t just Pollyannish wishful thinking.
[00:37:03] There’s multiple studies. Including the one from Stanford that Vlada mentioned that backed this up. So the next time you need support, ask for it. If you want to know more about Vlada and her work, we’ll have links in our show notes. And if you’ve never used Marco Polo before, give it a try. See if you can see the influence of LA’s approach in the product.
[00:37:26] As always. If you enjoyed our discussions, then please follow B The Way Forward wherever you listen to your podcasts. And if you can please take a moment to rate and review the show. It really helps other people discover these conversations. And of course, you can also watch video episodes of this podcast on the AnitaB.org channel on YouTube for more information on how you can be the way forward.
[00:37:54] Visit AnitaB.org. B The Way Forward is hosted and executive produced by me, Brenda Darden Wilkerson. Sound Design and editing by Ryan Hammond. Mixing and Mastering by Julian Ksky. Our associate producer is Kelly Kyle. Additional producing help from Faith Kroy. Operations Coordination for AnitaB.org by Quentin Sprull and our Creative Director.
[00:38:21] For AnitaB.org is Deandra Coleman. Executive produced by Dominique Ferrari, Stacey Book, and Avi Glijanksy for Frequency Machine. For more ways to B The Way Forward, visit AnitaB.org.