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CAROL BARTZ I
run a design software company. Our most famous product, AutoCAD, is used
to design many of the things that you see around you everyday: from the
buildings in your city to the roads and even the cars that your parents
drive. I started this job in 1992, but I have always loved math and science
and technology.
Growing up math really excited me. At the time, I never knew that it would lead to running a software company like Autodesk, but when I was in school the idea of using desktop computers to design buildings, cars and other things was just a dream. That is what makes my job today so fulfilling. We are helping people do their jobs more efficiently. Being a CEO is like being the manager of a softball team. The biggest part of the manager's job is to figure out how to win the game. And the game changes everyday. These changes include: who are we playing, what are their strengths and weaknesses, who is playing well on our team, and what combination of strategies will give us the best advantage. At Autodesk we think about who our competition is, what our customers want and need, and how we can play a winning game. For me a typical day at Autodesk includes meeting with people who are developing new products. We talk about what the product does and how it can help our customer. We are specifically interested in how we can use our technology to make it easier for customers to do their very complex, demanding jobs. Developing a new version of a complex product like AutoCAD, can take hundreds of software engineers two or more years. I meet with smaller teams from this group every couple of weeks to hear about what they are doing, to ask questions, and to encourage them. One of my most important jobs is to encourage Autodesk people to take another look at their problems and to keep them enthusiastic about their work. Part of my job involves meeting with our customers who include everyone from architects to rollercoaster ride engineers to designers of video games to people who create maps. I get a chance to see how our products are used, what customers like and what they don't like. The most important part of meeting customers is the ability to listen. The thing that I like most about my job is that it is new everyday, and I am finding that just about everything that I studied in school and have learned in my career I am now using in my job. You can find out more about Carol Bartz from this insightful interview conducted by Jill Wolfson of the San Jose Mercury News for their "The Revolutionaires" series at Interview with Carol Bartz Carol recently presented a speech at the Girls in Technology Conference held in San Francisco on June 30,1997 and sponsored by the Sacred Heart Schools. We have a copy online.
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