Laura Yecies: "Good Life"
This Week's Guest: Laura Yecies
ABOUT THIS EPISODE
Today’s guest is an experienced CEO and strategic technology leader who shares her story from learning BASIC at Dartmouth, where co-developer of BASIC John Kemeny had been president, to marketing Netscape when it was sold in a box, to being the CEO of two venture-backed startups.
Laura Yecies is now combining her long career in tech and her passion for healthcare in her current role as CEO of SyncThink, an eye-tracking technology with profound implications for neurological health.
She's been the recipient of many awards, such as the 2011 Gold Medal and 2012 Silver Medal for Female Executive of the Year for the Stevie Award for Women in Business. She's also been the Top Female CEO of the Inc. 500 for the year 2012 and was a U.S. Department of State TechWomen Mentor.
Laura also touches on what it’s like to be the only female CEO in a room of 50 of her counterparts and the ways she encourages parents (and companies) to approach balancing work and raising a family. Her episode is rich in humble confidence that makes you want to hear her whole story.
Show Notes
BOOKS AND ARTICLES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE
Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead, by Sheryl Sandberg
Brogrammer culture article from Inc.: New Report: Sexism in Silicon Valley Is Really Pretty Awful
Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, by Michael Lewis
State Department of Justice lawsuit against Microsoft Wikipedia article
Laura’s recommendations for Behavioral Economics books:
Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioral Economics by Richard Thaler
Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions, by Dan Ariely
Laura’s personal blog “The Kitchen Sync”
More About Our Guest
CEO, Strategic Technology Leader, Startup Advisor
Laura Yecies is the CEO of SyncThink, a leading brain health analytics company. A Silicon Valley veteran, she has successfully led multiple startups and top brands.
Yecies was previously the CEO of two venture-backed startups. As CEO of SugarSync, she led the company for four years through an aggressive business and product growth phase growing from zero to $25M in revenue and signed several strategic partnerships leading to significant valuation increases. SugarSync was later acquired by J2Global. She joined the Catch.com team as acting CEO to help develop the company's business model, where they expanded the product footprint and built strategic alliances, before successfully selling the company to Apple in 2013.
She was the Vice President of the Netscape browser division at AOL where she was responsible for the development of Netscape 7.0 and the launch of the Netscape browser in 23 languages. After leaving Netscape, she joined Yahoo, where she served as the Global General Manager for the Yahoo Mail division. Following her time at Yahoo, Yecies was the VP of Marketing at Check Point Software where she served for three years.
Yecies received her MBA from Harvard and an MSFS from the Georgetown School of Foreign Service. She received her A.B. Magna Cum Laude in Government from Dartmouth.
