Ruchi Sanghvi

Engineers love to optimize problems. Now I optimize logistical problems. I ask: 'What's the goal? What are our constraints? What is the optimal, elegant way to get to that goal within those constraints?' I break it down in terms of a data funnel: 'Where in the funnel are we inefficient?' That analytical background really helps.

I was one of the key people responsible for building Facebook's News Feed. When we launched it in 2006, users hated it. There were 'I Hate Facebook' groups; random people organized protests. We even hired a security team.

Cove is essentially a collaboration, coordination and communication tool for the administration of organizations and communities, from the Stanford Graduate School of Business Entrepreneurship Club to church groups and schools.

Women need to understand that it is possible to stay in the workforce. A lot of women decide to take a back seat in their professional careers even before they are pregnant or are ready to have children.

When I started out in Facebook, it had only 20 people. I saw it grow to a thousand employees and from five million users to over a billion users. I saw it evolve from a service that served college students to one that served the world.

The journey from employee to entrepreneur was a complex and taxing one for an immigrant like me.

Just ask for what you want. I requested a six-month break from Facebook to visit my parents; I asked to switch projects. I told my husband it was time to get married after six years of dating!

My dad owns a company that lends equipment to industrial projects. I've been obsessed with taking it over since I could talk. I'd follow him and repeat conversations about how many tons of cranes were arriving. He said it was a man's world, so I studied electrical engineering because it was related.

When I started Cove, I spoke to three immigration lawyers who gave me a long checklist of things to do before my company could hire immigrants.

Kids in college often look for mentors and role models to model their careers after, and women don't have the equivalent of a Steve Jobs or Bill Gates. I think it's a self-perpetuating loop.

Facebook has woven itself into the fabric of our lives and the foundation of the Internet. I think everything will be redefined because people are using their real identities on the Internet.

The team was unbelievable, and Dropbox was a really easy, simple-to-use product. Both Aditya and I believe this is the technology company we want to be working at now, and it has the potential to be the next big technology company.