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Diane Bryant has worked at Intel since graduating from college in 1985. In those years, she’s done a lot and seen a lot.
As the semiconductor giant’s senior vice president and head of its data center business unit, she oversees more than $14 billion in annual revenue, mostly from selling chips for servers and supercomputers. But as you’ll see in the video below, that business is growing to encompass new areas like networking and storage gear.
Bryant also has some strong opinions on Intel’s chances at squeezing a few more years out of Moore’s Law than most critics expect.
All very interesting, but so is her personal story, part of which she shared at last week’s Code/Enterprise Series: San Francisco. Bryant became an engineer by accident when a guy sitting next to her in a calculus class suggested she change her major because that’s where the best-paying jobs were.
She arrived at Intel at a time when it was dominated by men who tended to curse a lot in cantankerous meetings. She quickly learned to “swear like a sailor” to get by. (Times have changed: Dropping f-bombs in meetings is now frowned upon at Intel.)
As a result, she had a lot of say about what works to encourage women to choose tech careers and what Intel is doing to advance them: Through a combination of sponsorship and advocacy, 25 percent of its vice presidents are now women.
At a moment when we’re having a wider conversation about the diversity of the workforce at tech companies, I found it interesting to hear from someone who has already navigated these tricky waters. You will, too: The full video of Bryant’s conversation with myself and Re/code’s Ina Fried is below.
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
