Susan Wojcicki

I have tried in my role of being one of the first women at Google, let alone the first woman to have a baby, to really try to set the tone that this is a great place to work for diversity reasons.

Though we do need more women to graduate with technical degrees, I always like to remind women that you don't need to have science or technology degrees to build a career in tech.

Underrepresented employees already have to overcome discriminatory barriers in their careers; they shouldn't be expected to volunteer their time to help their companies do the same.

Coding is like writing, and we live in a time of the new industrial revolution. What's happened is that maybe everybody knows how to use computers, like they know how to read, but they don't know how to write.

Rarely are opportunities presented to you in a perfect way. In a nice little box with a yellow bow on top. 'Here, open it, it's perfect. You'll love it.' Opportunities -- the good ones -- are messy, confusing and hard to recognize. They're risky. They challenge you.

I think about my own career, and when I graduated from college, the Internet didn't really exist yet. And so not having a specific plan, being able to be opportunistic at the end, is what enabled me to make some of my best decisions, which is to go to places that were growing but that I didn't plan to have happen.

Unless we make computer science a priority, we risk making gender, class, and racial disparities worse as jobs flow to those with a computer science background.

I don't feel like I'm a perfect mom, and then there are times at work where I feel like maybe I wasn't perfect here because of constraints on my time. But having the sum of both of those things going on in my life makes me a better mom at the end of the day, and I think gives me really important perspectives in the workplace as well.

CEOs need to say, 'We're going to make sure this is a great environment for all types of people.' I was a beneficiary of that. I got support from the leaders of Google - all men.

In every organization, there are many people, from senior leaders to first-time managers, who have the power to elevate women in the workplace. I wouldn't be in the position I'm in today without several key people in power believing in me and giving me a chance to succeed.

Whether it's salary or a promotion or a job, I think it's important for women to ask for what they think they deserve.