We have such a huge demand for engineers in this country, both male and female. We need to find a way to do a better sales job on these young girls so we can get them interested in a field that is very rewarding.
If some day you're struggling with math, and you think, 'I don't think I can do this,' you can - you actually can. Everybody has their hard days - I definitely had mine - and you get through them, and you learn from that stumble, and then you're onto the next problem.
Deals are always a bit lumpy. We look at, 'Is it solving a problem for us?' And if it does, we move to acquisition.
We try not to look at everything through a competitive lens.
Wireless technology is creating entrepreneurship on a small scale that allows a single woman to set up a business in a small village or a single farmer or fisherman to access and disseminate market information in order to get the best price for their products.
Over the course of my career as an engineer-turned-tech evangelist, I've had the privilege of travelling the world and seeing the extraordinary impact of mobile on people and communities across a broad range of cultures and socio-economic strata. In many ways, mobile is a democratizing force. It empowers us. It inspires us. It extends our reach.
Microsoft is a much bigger company than Qualcomm - a much bigger company - and there were a few days where I thought, 'I don't know if I can do this. It's huge.' My job was to come into the company and grow new businesses, and I thought, 'I'm not sure,' but it's all worked out pretty well.
I think there really needs to be a culture change because young girls are very interested in math and science, but somewhere along the way, they veer off of that.
When a culture is broken, the cracks show - morale is weakened, but so is profit and performance. That's why culture has to be at the core of any business transformation.
The 14th of 15 kids, I was the second youngest - not a coveted spot on the family totem pole.
When text messaging first came out, you could only text within your network, whatever operator you had. It seems silly now, but once those walls came down, all sorts of applications and services were built on top of that. It ended up being good for everybody.
I spent almost 25 years at Qualcomm before joining Microsoft, so in a sense, I grew up at one company. During that time, I made a very big shift from the engineering side to the business side.
Qualcomm has seen firsthand the transformative power of mobile technology as part of many projects created through its Wireless Reach initiative - programs around the world that help educators, health care workers, and entrepreneurs take advantage of mobile technology.
It's up to you to define your own brand of leadership and your own version of success.
I had to find my own terms for success, and it wasn't anything like what I was told to do.
Great things happen when you converge services and devices.
'Rather than fighting over a piece of the pie, can we grow the pie?' is really our model.
I can still hear my mom's voice echoing through the house, reminding me and my siblings to 'Make your beds!' It seems like such a small thing, but when you're one of 15 brothers and sisters like me, those small reminders about the importance of discipline and order are critical.
I spend a lot of time in the Valley. I'm probably down there every other week or so.
Acompli is just a great example of a fabulous app.
