Elissa Shevinsky speaks about her life, work, and Lean Out in Williams Magazine:

As she made her way in her career, she says she responded to “the dominance of white male nerd culture” in tech constructively: by founding her own startups. That way, she says, “You create your own culture, and you create your own path. I love my companies, because I hire everyone who’s there. If someone is out of line, I can fire them.”

Calling herself a “serial entrepreneur,” she worked in product development for several startups and co-founded an online dating site called MakeOut Labs before joining Glimpse, an app for disappearing text messaging.

She also published her first book in June, an anthology called Lean Out (OR Books). With a nod to Facebook CEO Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In, Shevinsky calls her book an exposé on the reality of the tech industry for women.

“I can speak from my own experience: I have dropped out of more than one company because bigots were not going to let work get done,” she says. “Women are leaving tech, and it’s clear that intolerance is a real factor.”

To read the rest of the profile, visit Williams Magazine.