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Ryan Burgess
All right, welcome to a brand new episode of the front end, happy hour. As you've heard in probably some of our episodes, this year, we've done a spin sprinkling in some interviews with each of our panelists that we've called our sidebar interview specials. I don't know what you want to call it, but we're going deep on each of our panelists on their backgrounds or careers, just to really answer some of the questions that people have asked us throughout the years. So I get the opportunity now to interview surely, surely, whoo. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to maybe go deep on your background. Oh, my God,

Shirley Wu
thank you for taking the time and so excited to talk to you about myself.

Ryan Burgess
I mean, it's an easy subject, right? Like, you know, the answers. It's like one of those ones to be like, I got this

Shirley Wu
do I don't know. I feel like it's like harder to talk about yourself.

Ryan Burgess
It really honestly is. Let's start off easy. Surely. Where'd you grow up?

Shirley Wu
Oh, yeah. Okay, so this is actually a little bit of a long answer. I was born in the Philippines. But my parents are both Chinese. So we went back to China when I was two, then we moved to Japan when I was four. And then we moved to SoCal when I was 10. And then I've been in the US since Southern California.

Ryan Burgess
Yeah, I guess we should clarify that. That's good. Yeah, we're where we're in Southern California. Where did you move to?

Shirley Wu
I it was right outside of LA and Ventura County. Like 10 miles from the beach. It was really nice. But I did grow to hate the beach, actually.

Ryan Burgess
You hate the beach? How come?

Shirley Wu
It was a really stupid like middle school mistake I made where okay, this is gonna sound really spoil. But for our middle school every year, like the kids that like I guessed, were well behaved, quote, unquote, I can't remember that. But there was like a point system. And so if you like got more than like, a certain number of points, then your end of the year reward was like a day at the beach. And then like, they would get in and out cater to you. Um, and, and in seventh grade, I went, and it was an overcast day. So I was like, I don't use sunscreen. And I got a second degree burn on my back. And I've kind of disliked it since very stupid reason. Because it's not the beach is full. But

Ryan Burgess
no, but that huge of a sunburn is not a good feeling. So yeah, I mean, I get it. Like, it's just like, I won't even bother at the beach. I don't even have to risk it again.

Shirley Wu
That's fair. And that was when I learned that UV rays go through clouds. I didn't

Ryan Burgess
know, mistakes, and you learn from them. Right? Like, that's when you're 12, I guess make them when you're tall. So I take it to from that little story to that you were like one of the good kids because you were awarded for going to the beach.

Shirley Wu
Yeah, I, I cannot deny it. I mean, I'm, I guess, Asian American child. And then as an Asian American child, I was expected to behave a certain way. And I like to say that I have my teenage rebellion in my mid 20s. And that's when I refuse to listen to my parents because believe it or not, Asian parents, or at least Chinese parents have an opinion on what you do. Well pass, like after you graduate from college. And that was when I was like, Nope, I'm financially independent. I will. You can give me advice, but I am not obligated to listen to them anymore.

Ryan Burgess
That's fair. I did that a lot sooner, but took you a bit longer I guess.

Shirley Wu
I when I was a child, I was like, I'm not gonna bite the hand that feeds me

Ryan Burgess
this you know, you're just a lot smarter than me. Surely that's all like, what brought you like you and your family? Like this is not a small move. We're talking countries. What brought your family to move to Southern California?

Shirley Wu
Oh, yeah. So all of the moves that we had. Were because my dad got new jobs and new opportunities in those different places. Yeah, yeah. All of them were because of my dad's job. And they were and I guess it's because he's like such a very specific research scientist that like he got very specific jobs and like different countries.

Ryan Burgess
Awesome. Oh, that makes sense. And were it was it an exciting moment to be like, Oh, I'm moving to this weird country or

Shirley Wu
Oh, man. Okay, so this is where I speak about a little bit like unpleasant things, which is, so I grew up in Japan, in my life kindergarten to elementary like fourth grade. And I grew up in the Japanese countryside as the only Chinese kid and then elementary school full of, you know, Japanese kids and then naive knees, where there was really big discrimination against anybody that wasn't Japanese, or white, honestly. So I got bullied a lot, I got called names I got, I got, I don't know, got into fights, I got ignored all the like little kid bullying tactics. And so I actually was really relieved when my parents were like, we're gonna, we're gonna move to America. And I'm like, thank goodness, like I was kind of like, I was kind of sad about it. Because there were aspects of living in Japan that I loved. I had, like, started to make some friends. But it was also kind of really tumultuous. And for actually, I'm extremely grateful to my parents for having made the decision that they did. Apparently, one of the other places that were that they were considering, like, my dad had gotten a job offer six months prior to the, like the US job offer, he had gotten one from Germany, like a German company. So if like the US company hadn't, I guess reached out around the same time, I will be speaking German. I mean, I'd be, that would be really cool. But like, I really appreciate the decisions that they made for us, like for their kids, because they were like, oh, it'd be better for us to move to the US because there's better education opportunities for like, and I'm just really grateful that they made that decision. Because I can imagine that if I had grown up in Japan, I'd be a completely different person. I think I would be like very much lacking self confidence because of the way I was bullied. Because I think when I was a kid, I thought it was all my fault. Like, I thought I just was like, not likable. And then I came to America, and like people didn't bully me. And I was like, oh, so it wasn't all because of me. And so that was really helpful for my self confidence. And then also, I think I wouldn't have gotten into tech, if I was in Japan still, because I think I think there's an even stronger social pressure for girls to not be into the math and sciences and like to be, you know, that, like, our goals, when we grow up should be like a happy marriage and like being a good housewife. And so, yeah, because of that one decision my parents made, I am who I am now, today.

Ryan Burgess
I mean, we're all thankful for it too. Because like I've ever met, then I've never been to Germany, so that, you know, yeah, number of happen.

Shirley Wu
Yeah, I am so happy about like, all of the people I've gotten to meet, like, through the conferences that we've been to, and just like, Yeah, I'm very grateful.

Ryan Burgess
I always love that, too. So you're growing up in Southern California? What are some things that you like to do as a child like other than I mean, not go to the beach, we know that, but

Shirley Wu
that's very nerdy. And, like, still very nerdy. But I think some of the I was thinking about this about like, my childhood because I listened to your episode, and I loved and I loved how you were talking about, like, how much you loved R and like, like, skateboarding and then getting into graffiti and how there's always been like, a very creative side to you. And I was kind of thinking about my childhood and how like, one of the things that were really fun and good about Japan was like, I wrote so much manga, like Japanese comics. And there used to be this culture. I don't even I don't know if there's still this culture. But there was like a culture called like, Tata Yomi, which means to like, go to a bookstore, and then just read, like, stand there and read comics because back then in the 90s, like people wouldn't the book shopkeepers wouldn't yell at you. If you just took a book off the shelf and start we started reading it because you're sampling it, but like, you can sample all the way to the end and never buy anything. So my friends and I used to like go to bookstores, like on Sunday mornings, and just like quote unquote, sample manga for like the entire day. And I think because of that, when I got to America, I really, really miss As to like, you know, being able to read the manga watching the anime, the Japanese dramas. And I was in like a very non Asian suburb right outside of LA like with like, like, still even now there's like, no good boba shops within like a 15 minute driving. Yes, I know, even now and 2022. So I like had no access to like manga, right. And so I actually turned to the internet and like looking back now, my first eye Yes, like, brush with code, not really code, but like kind of that side is like with IRC because because I figured out that I could download all of the original raw Japanese, like manga, and like, and I can download all of them through IRC. So like, I started going into those chat rooms, which meant I started getting introduced to people that were scan leading. So I actually helped scan like I helped to translate from like Chinese and Japanese into English for a while. And then I saw that they were making websites to host their scanlations. And that's how I got into like Photoshop and like, making websites and like, I learned HTML and CSS. And I, like I remember freshman, sophomore year, like my joy was like, during the school day, I would dream up what my new website design would be, I think I went through like 12 or 13 Different designer, like different designs, like it would be like v 12. And then I would come home. And I will like, make it in Photoshop and like lay it out with HTML. And I never got into JavaScript because it was too intimidating. Like I knew nobody, like none of my family members were like computer scientists or software engineers. And our town was like a biopharmaceutical town. So like, nobody around me were software engineers, I didn't know anything about code. So JavaScript was extremely intimidating to me. But I always thought it was so cool to be able to make something on the internet. And that's, that's how, like when I got into and our high school didn't even have computer science classes. But when I got to high school, or when I got to college, I was like, I want to take a CS class. And that's how it was all manga actually at one point. I know, right? I won't point I actually, quote unquote, managed other people to help me upload like scanlations onto my manga hosting website is a nerdiest?

Ryan Burgess
No, it's like, I mean, you learn so many skill sets off of something that you love. And it's like, you're learning all these things to enable yourself to do this one thing. And then while doing that, you're building up the skill set and being like, Wait, actually, like doing some of these things like Photoshop and building a site? Now I have one follow up question. Where do you host these sites? Like I think that can tell a lot about the time and everything to oh my gosh, were you like publishing? I always think back to like, my early times of HTML was like the geo cities Angel Fire, what was the thing at a time?

Shirley Wu
Oh, my God, I I forgotten what domains I used to have. I, I think probably geo cities, I don't remember what my website was hosted on. It was like one of those free hosting services where you don't get your own domain name. But I do remember that because it was free, we don't get any storage, right? So then I'll end the like, like, the scanlations are images that are like, I mean, now it's very small files, but back then they were like very big files. So we will upload them to photo bucket. And so I used to have and the the people that I managed were like the ones that had different photo bucket accounts, because photo bucket has Yeah, a limitation like a like a storage limitation. So like, you know, I had people that were had multiple photo bucket accounts, and they were like, responsible for uploading different chapters of manga. Um, and then I remember at that quote, unquote peak of my website, I was getting called enough traffic that I could apply to this like special like domain. It was like a special web hosting platform dedicated to only manga and anime websites. And if you could prove that you had enough content and traffic, then they gave you your own donate domain name and a certain amount of file storage so that you don't have to rely on photo bucket. That was that was the peak of my career.

Ryan Burgess
So cool. I mean, super rewarding to at that point where you're like, Yeah, this is like I've made it. I've done something pretty impressive that people are noticing. So that's really cool.

Shirley Wu
Yeah. And then I had to shut it down because I had started taking AP classes.

Ryan Burgess
I love it. So this is like leading you right into college, then at that time or university?

Shirley Wu
No, no, this was this was like my freshman and sophomore year, and then junior year, I was taking like four or five AP classes. So it's like, I can't handle this.

Ryan Burgess
Fair enough. So So built up the love for computers coding. And then like you said, your high school did not offer any computer science. So you went to university and decided computer science?

Shirley Wu
Nope, no. Um, so this is another weird part about my, like, weird logic, which is, um, my parents are very math and science oriented. So I'm from a young age, like our family activity was that we would sit down and do like math problems together. So like, by the time that I graduated high school, I have basically taken like, all available math and science classes like that my high school had. And by that point, I was like, I don't want to do this anymore. Like, I'm like math and science doubt, I'm gonna do the complete opposite. And for a 17 year old brain, the complete opposite of math and science was business. I went and declared undergrad business, and I thought I was gonna go into investment banking. And into finance, which I think what I didn't realize at the time is, like, I love I liked finance the most because it had to do with numbers, because I actually really liked math. And then, but I, like took CS classes on the side. Um, I took one my freshman year, I loved it, but I was not good at the tests. I'm a really shitty test taker. And so I think that was my first C in my life. Um, and the thing with our business major at our school was like, really weird where you got into the University. But to get into the business program, you have to apply your sophomore year to get in your junior year, like, you can't even just declare the major, like you had to get accepted to be able to declare it. And like, like, 50% of the application was GPA. So I was like, Yes, I'm not taking any more CS classes, because I'm so shitty at it. Um, so I didn't take another CS class until my junior year and when my junior year after I had gotten into the business program, I was like, Well, I'm already here. I guess I can screw up my GPA now. So and I loved my CS class. So I started taking more CS classes. And the more CS classes I took, I was like, wait, I frickin love this. Like, I love this more than the finance classes or business classes I'm taking. And I had, like two investment banking internships. And by the end of my summer, junior year, I was like, I don't think I can do as investment banking. I don't think it's like, my personality. I don't think I can work like 100 hours a week and be happy about it. So my senior year, I went into my senior year of being like, Yeah, I'm gonna try and get a software job. I don't think this is realistic. But I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna I'm gonna try and double NCS. And when I told all of my friends, they were like, Dude, we knew this was gonna happen when you first said that you weren't going into business. We were like, what? We knew you would come back around to like something mathy. And so yeah, senior year, I just took like so many computer science classes. And then it was actually really hard because I had a lot of insecurity, like a lot of insecurity. Because I was going up against like, our school CS program is like one of the top in the nation and then like, I was going up against those people that had like, taken CS classes all four years and done all of their internships out like different like I Google and Facebook, and I was like, why would anyone hire me like for full time? But I think what I did I knew back then was that for a lot of good hiring managers, the passion and excitement is what's important. And I had a whole story about why I wanted to get into tech, which is that I realized that business wasn't for me. And I wanted so desperately to get a software engineering job because I loved coding. And that really resonated and that's how I was able to get my first full time software job out of college and, and I went to a big data company called Splunk. Doing a

Ryan Burgess
Friday. Yeah, we know a lot about Splunk. That's awesome. So that was your first job out of school, like done, you're in it? Where is Splunk? Located? Like, because I'm following like, you were in the south, like South California. Now you're moving up north? Oh,

Shirley Wu
yeah. Yeah, sorry. Um, I went to university at Berkeley or in it was I went to Berkeley. So I was already in the bay. And so it was really easy for me to just like, cross the bridge to SF. So Splunk is headquartered in SF. To this day, one of my favorite friend happy hour episodes is the one about impostor syndrome. And I know we did it again. But that resonated so much with me, because I know, I think like that whole experience of, you know, landing a full time job after only three semesters of CS co coursework with no internship experience, I thought I had somehow just, like, faked my way. And like, I couldn't believe that anybody wanted me, like my manager is to this day, one of my favorite managers I've ever had, and he was so good. He's like, No, you made it here for a reason. Like, you're, you're really good at what you do. But at that time, I was like, so blinded by my own imposter syndrome. I couldn't believe him. And yeah. And so I just, I just want to say like, to anyone that feels impostor syndrome, like, I, I get it. And I think the only way that I got out of it was just like, I think that imposter syndrome, like it gave me like a amount of desperation where I just wanted to learn everything I like. That's how I got out of it the second time or the first time around. And then there was like, waves of imposter syndrome later in my career, too, that I think we've talked about.

Ryan Burgess
Yeah, I think it's one of those things that doesn't fully go away. You have moments of it, and but I also like, the positive side of it, too, is that you're like, it forced me to really learn more and just feel like, yeah, I still need to, like keep pushing myself, which, I mean, sometimes that's a positive side out of it, too, because imposter syndrome can be pretty crippling. So it's almost like good that it was a big driver. Yeah,

Shirley Wu
it was very crippling. While it was like suffocating while I had it. But I am grateful that I think I can now recognize that it was also unhealthy the amount of like, overworking myself I was doing. But I also do appreciate the work that my past self put in. So too, because that's, I am where I am now, because of the all the imposter syndrome and desperation and the work that my past self has put in. Yeah, it's hard.

Ryan Burgess
It's not easy, but I love it. Thank you. So first job Splunk. How long did you stay at Splunk for I

Shirley Wu
was there for a year and a half. And I was there at a very interesting time. So I actually signed that week after Splunk had gone public. So I actually thought that I like I actually thought I had lost my offer. Because like the recruiter was non responsive for like two weeks after they gave me the verbal offer. And like and then later on, I found out it was because they were busy going public and celebrating. And so I think I got my offer, like the same day or the second day after they went public. But it was such an interesting time because I think we went from like, I joined when there was about 400 people. And then a year and a half later when I left, right, not even a year and a half. It was like, yeah, when I left it was like 12 or 1300 people.

Ryan Burgess
Wow. That's small. That's pretty quick growth. Yeah. And

Shirley Wu
I think that um, that's one of the big reasons why I left because I think they were just having so much growing pains that I just wasn't getting work like for six months. I wasn't put on any major projects because they kept on being like we need to figure out the roadmap and like things kept on getting scrapped, and like they were tried to put me on something and then that we get scrapped for something else. And then. And so like they had me on that waiting pattern to like, try to put me on something that was more stable. But because of all the growing pains, it was just, I think one of the key moments I still remember is like, Oh, my mom loved my Splunk shop. And she's like, What do you mean, you don't do anything, you still get a nice salary and all those stock options, your stocks are doing like so well, like, and I'm like, Mother, I am 23. If there's any time in my life for me to be like fighting, and like hustling, and working hard it is now. So moment, when I knew that I needed to leave was like, there was one day when I was working from home. And literally, I got one bug in the morning, I fixed in 30 minutes and one bug in the afternoon. I fixed in 30 minutes. And then I'm marathon and finished a whole Japanese drama series. And I was like, it's nice to be getting paid to do this. But also, I think this is better when I'm like 15 not 23

Ryan Burgess
I hear you. It's like there's those moments where you're like I have I don't need to be comfortable right now. It's like also yes, for us. And like, I feel like engineering. It's just like, you want to keep learning. And if you're just like not being challenged enough, it can get really tall. And I mean, I personally couldn't sit there and just have nothing. I've been in those jobs. So I I totally get it.

Shirley Wu
Yeah, I totally agree. I think a lot of us that are so like love front end and are so involved in it is because of how fast paced it is. And like the learning is, I really do think the fast paced learning is what keeps it exciting, even like a decade later.

Ryan Burgess
Yeah, I couldn't agree more. So you decided, you know, I gotta get more challenges. Try something differently. What what did you do next after Splunk?

Shirley Wu
Yeah, yeah. So one of the really great things about being that Splunk was that it was a big data company. And I was on one of the front end teams, and oh my god, I can't wax poetics about how good my manager was because he likes shielded us from all of the politics. But another thing that he encouraged was he was like, Hey, that was around when d3 had just come out. So it was like a year after d3 had just started in my like, first week or so he was like, Hey, you're not on any projects yet. And there's this like, new thing called d3 we're interested in, um, do you want to give it a try? And I was like, Okay. And so he kind of just like helped me, like, so it like kind of helped me get into d3. And I ended up loving it because I'm one of the things I guess I didn't mention earlier is that I actually also loved art, like drawing and painting growing up. And so I actually like, did watercolors since I was like four or five never like, always, like very amateur. But I did do art classes for all four years of high school and entered competitions. And I loved painting. And I loved drawing, but I gave it up all cold turkey and university because I was like, I would just spend like all day drawing or a painting, and not really, and I do my homework out like the last two hours. And I feel like I could only get by on that because it was high school. Yeah. But then when I got to university, I was like, I definitely cannot sustain that. So I just like quit drawing did join a graphic design club in college. But I think I did explain that in my interviews. So my manager was like, you want to give this d3 thing like this data visualization thing I try. And I loved it because it was it was math, and it was code and it was art. And so once I fell into that, I knew that for my next job, I wanted to do something like data visualization related. And that's how I landed up a startup that was a an enterprise security company called Illumio. And I was there for two and a half years. And it was like a really great experience because I gained so much technical, like technical skill from that. Um, if my first job at Splunk gave me like confidence with d3, then my second one gave me a lot of confidence about like, how to build a product or how to help build a product from the ground up like from scratch. And that's where I really did a lot of d3 with like first with Backbone, then with React and thinking about software architecture, but also like kind of like into our team lations like, how do you convince others about your idea? I learned so much from a technical aspect at that job. And I think that's what set me up really well, from at least a technical perspective, when I decided to quit and start freelancing. That's kind of my like, next step.

Ryan Burgess
That's really cool, too. I love that like, going from Splunk, like, super data, like oriented, right? Obviously, like Splunk is, that's a big product, ground date, big data. And then so you're like, cool, I got some exposure to data, then more to the visualization aspect of it. But even leaving Splunk you're like, I was super bored. Like, I was barely doing anything. And then getting thrown into the startup, which taught you so much like I think that, you know, just even hearing, like going back to your mom and being like, hey, you know, like, I wasn't learning at Splunk, I wasn't growing. And then just jumping to that next roll was so useful. It shot you into the next thing, which is really cool to hear. I am curious, what made you decide, Hey, I've done two jobs. I want to now be fully on my own and freelance, which, to be honest, can be very scary. And I'm sure you had moments of scariness doing that.

Shirley Wu
Oh, my God, it was so scary. Imagine explaining that to your very Chinese parents.

Ryan Burgess
Thinking that two is going back to the Splunk. And thinking about it that way. I'm like, Yeah, I bet Surely his mom had something to say about this.

Shirley Wu
Yeah, I'm what I'm really thankful about my parents is they've always been like, very supportive in the sense of like, they've never been the kind of like Chinese parents that are like, You must be doctor, engineer, lawyer, lawyers, the last one. And so they never they were like, as long as you're happy. My dad used to be like, you know, as long as you don't end up in jail. He's like, Yeah, um, but he, like, would step in once in a while, like, when I got my first See, he was like, What are you doing? But yeah, so they've always given me a certain amount of freedom to choose, like, what I want to do they do help like, little like, I don't understand your decisions. But you do you. So yeah, it's definitely very interesting, because like, my parents definitely came from China with a goal of stability. And their daughter is like, I'm gonna go do one of the most unstable things out there and freelance. And, yeah, it was really scary, especially the, for the first six months when I'm, if I remember correctly, in my first six months, I made $20,000. It was very little. And but I think, and I do also want to say that I'm not a very risk taking person, or at least before that, I didn't think I was a very risk taking person. And that's the experience that kind of taught me there's like a difference between like, calculated risk and like, like a risk with like, a certain amount of confidence that it will pay off versus like, just blind risk. But one of the biggest realizations I had was at the startup, especially my first year, because like, first year, you feel like you need to put in your time and like, prove your worth. And so for my first year, I was literally working like nights and weekends, like the, you know, like the typical young startup life, especially coming from like, how it was like Splunk. And so I was giving it my all and I'm really proud of the work I did. But one of the things I realized one of those, like late nights when I like looked up and it was like 9pm, and I was still in the office. And I was like, Wait Why am I putting it? Like, why am I basically sacrificing my nights and weekends for someone else's dream. And then I started like, and then they became a lot more like, clear of that a job is where the employer is exchanging money for my time, and I just said something very obvious. That time is the expectation is something like nine to six. And if time is one of my most valuable resources, why am I giving up more of that resource for the same amount of money because we're all salaried? And that's when I realized that with the extra time I have I want to be working on my own dreams than someone else's dream. I was 24 and this felt revolutionary. And so that's and I stuck it out for a while because I loved by while I mean two and a half years, which I feel like in startup years is like five years. Yeah, I

Ryan Burgess
was gonna say I'm actually a while like it honest. So yeah, I think I think to my career, and I'm like, yeah, it's usually a couple years at a place. So that's, that's a fair amount.

Shirley Wu
Yeah. And so I stuck it out until like, and I'm really proud of the fact that I quit. There was also a lot of unfortunate politics that have happened. And so but I was really proud that I quit not because of the politics, but because I had, I had also realized that the product that had helped kind of build has started to kind of enter like a maintenance phase. And that made me realize that I very much enjoy the upfront building, and not as much the kind of like maintenance, which I highly respect people that maintain, because that is a hard job. But I just knew it wasn't for me. And that's when I realized, like, I loved the coding and data visualization part of my job. But I did not really care about enterprise, like enterprise security as an industry. And that's when I decided that I wanted to try freelancing so that I can try my hand out like a lot of different industries and kind of see what I like, and then maybe settle back into a full time job. And, and the surprise or not surprise is that what I ended up loving was the freedom of freelancing. And I have never gone back to a full time job since.

Ryan Burgess
But which is cool, because you've found what you love. That's really cool to hear. And so yeah, yeah, you've been able to work on some pretty amazing projects, too. And like just amazing clients that you've worked with and done so many cool things that I personally have enjoyed seeing your work that way. So I think, like, cool to see that what's, how do you have some favorite projects, or ones that like, stick out where you're like, Oh, that was like, really something I'm super proud of?

Shirley Wu
Yeah, I have a few that were like, they shifted like, there were like mental shifts and how I think about my career. But before that, I just wanted to kind of finish saying about the freelancing that it was a risk. But I had also, at that time, fortunately had some amount in my savings that I had, like, six months of padding. And I like, and so that allowed me I can I feel like this is a whole other episode of like freelancing and how to get into freelancing. But I think the few things I do want to say for anybody that might be interested in it is like having that padding was extremely helpful, because it gave me the luxury of being able to say no to projects, I didn't think were a good fit, and not have to be desperate about taking on things for money. And also, I had to promise my parents that if I didn't make the same amount, my first year freelancing as I did a full time job, then I would go back to a full time job. And that made me really work hard.

Ryan Burgess
I kind of like that though. It's it gave you that the here's the line that I need to meet and like giving yourself that drive and meeting those expectations, which sometimes it's like being freelance or you know, any of that, like, you have to hustle, like going into a job and like, it's just like, I have to do this work. And I know that someone's taking care of that part for you. But when it's on you, you have to hustle too. So yeah, that's really cool. I like that having that like line in the sand. Yeah,

Shirley Wu
thank you. Yeah. For the projects. I think one of my first favorite projects is like the the Hamilton one. It's called an interactive visualization of every line and Hamilton is such a long name. But um, it's basically a what we call in the data visualization world a scrolly telling where as you scroll, the visualization animates. And then there's certain stories that I kind of weave together with the visualizations from my analyses what I learned about the musical and at the very end, I give like an interactive visual tool for exploring the lyrics, the theme, the recurring themes, and the characters. That one was a big one, because it was the first time like, my work has gotten that amount of attention. And, um, it made me realize two things that I'm the first thing being that what I thought was like this little thing, this little data visualization thing that I liked doing that feels kind of silly and not serious could actually reach people. And there was like, a lot of people that were like, Whoa, I didn't know coding could be so cool. And there was actually a lot of women young women that were that were like, I'm taking a CS class right Now, and I didn't know that code could be so beautiful. And that was like, Holy crap. And then my favorite tweet was like, this mom tweeted me that like, she and her son were learning how to code together. And that they were big Hamilton fans, and that when he got back from school that she was going to share it with him. And I was like, Oh, my God, like, I didn't know my work can bring like a mother son together. And it was a very beautiful moment. Wow, that was kind of like I'm

Ryan Burgess
moved by. That's amazing.

Shirley Wu
Thank you, thank you. That was like one of the big mental shifts of like, I think I had, I had, I have this tendency to not take myself seriously or downplay myself. So that was like one of the big moments where I was like, kind of a confidence booster. And then there were another one that I got to work with my friend naughty, and The Guardian, the US Guardian team on a project called bust out. And there was this big investigative journalism piece about how American cities buy bus tickets for their homeless people to kind of essentially shuttle them to another city. And that was the piece in which it was a big one that like, actually, there were like, actually inspire like policy talks. And, and that was a moment I was like, oh, again, this silly, this thing that I thought I was just doing when like silly thing I was doing can actually be serious and actually, like, have an impact. And that was really cool. And then I did a few others, more for like art museums. And I did one with SF MOMA that made me realize how much I appreciated creative freedom, and how much I loved art still, because it was being an artist was like a four year old dream that like when I was a four year old, and I gave up on it, because I realized that it's hard to make a good sustainable living as an artist. And then I realized that was also the moment I realized that I love data visualization, because it's the closest thing to art that I can still get a tech company to pay for. Yeah, and I think one last one is a project I did call legends, which is a 3d visualization of women, Nobel Laureates. And that's when I realized that out of the almost 1000 Nobel laureates, only 5053 are women. And that's,

Ryan Burgess
yeah, that's so little, yeah, I have

Shirley Wu
a whole reveal with that project where each woman is representative to Crystal and you can like, like, navigate amongst them and read about their accomplishments. And if you kind of like quote, unquote, like fly up, you can see them arranged by decade. And you can see how few of them there are per decade. And then the reveal is that each of the stars floating around them represent one of the 893 or 190, something men that have gotten the award. So that's also really informed kind of the topics, the datasets that I'm interested in since, yeah, that was a

Ryan Burgess
lot. Oh, I love it. I mean, because I've seen a lot of these pieces. So hearing you talk through them is like really exciting, too. And one thing that I'll just say that stuck out to me that I've always loved about your work, and even did data and visualization in general. But I think I've always seen you take it to the next level. It's not just a dataset, it's it's, it tells a story like the Hamilton one, it's telling a full on story. And even just the last couple that you said there, too, it's pointing out that there's this clear problem or misrepresentation of women. But it tells us whole story. And it's done very beautifully. And so it's like true real world data that draws attention. And it's not just like me sitting there reading a bar chart or, you know, a nice little part pie graph. Like, it's not that. And I think that that, to me is really much where you've tied the art and data to tell a story. And I think it is super powerful. So but I get it too is like sometimes you get in your own head. And you know, you're like yeah, I mean, no one's gonna care about this so much. It's really cool, but like, they don't care, but they do. And that's really cool. Yeah, thank you. Obviously, you've been doing freelance for a while now. Your peers still doing some freelance, I think but it's also you've done a new journey, which is going back to school. What made that change happen? Yeah, I

Shirley Wu
actually I'm not freelancing currently. And I decided to not freelance out all for the two years I'm in school. I just couldn't handle both. I think I'm like a very like one track minded person. But yeah, thank you for asking. Um, so one of the opportunities I got while I was freelancing is that I started this project called Data sketches with my friend, Nadi. Bremmer, who's absolutely amazing. Like, she just creates beautiful, stunning, but like, also, like you were saying, like, visualizations that have a story that like, is very much like, brings people in, we worked on a project called Data sketches, which we actually talked about a little bit on a previous episode. And the premise of data sketches was 12 topics. And for each topic, we both make a data visualization from scratch, and we write about the data gathering process, the data exploration, the design and the code. And we got the opportunity to write a book or turn all of those documentation into a book. And, and, and that was an amazing process. But homeboy, I was so burnt out. And that was kind of our one of our previous episodes was about what it's like to write a book. But I realized, once we turned in the manuscript for that book, that I had, like spent a whole month just staring at my work and staring at my words, talking about my work. And I was so burnt out that I was like, I don't think I want to look at my work anymore. Like, I don't think I want to do what I used to do. Which is extremely ironic, because one of my like, when we first signed the book deal, and I was like, Oh, I hope this gets us more clients in the space that I'm doing it like, I hope it gets us or it gets me more clients working on projects that I love. And then we turned in the manuscript. And now I'm like, I don't think I want to do this anymore. And so I went through like a good few months of burnout, where I was like, I don't know what I want to do, which was like, very like, didn't help that it was middle of a pandemic. But also, I think it was just really weird to have something that I used to love, which is like coding and AR and data vis and like, not want to touch it anymore. And that was when I realized, like, I think I want that was when I realized, like what I still love is the learning. I think what I've always loved, like we mentioned before is like learning new things. And I think more than data visualization itself, what I loved was that there was so much to learn, and trying to get better at the craft. And I think once we had written a book, I felt like I had learned all that I wanted to learn in that field. And and so that's why I decided to go back to school, because what I realized is I love learning, learning stimulates me, but also that one of the things that I do still love is trying to tell stories with data, like finding those nuggets of stories is really exciting. So I'm now back at grad program at New York University called ITP, which is kind of this program at the intersection of art and technology. So using emerging technology to make art. And I'm here because I've had kind of this like yours long dream of like, what would it look like if I can take the data visualizations that I created for the screen? But instead of something flat and two dimensional? What if it becomes a whole, like physical world immersive experience? And what would that be like to tell a story? So that's what I'm trying to explore here of like, what are the technologies that enable that? Is it even possible? But also, what does it mean to kind of shift from like a freelance, you know, I think this is another thing I've been doing a lot of like, and like reflection and this is another thing of like, I've always tried to make myself small. I think it's just my background of being Chinese woman and being like a woman in tech. I think I've always subconsciously or unconsciously made myself small and like, so what does it mean for me to transition from kind of like an Icee of like a designer developer to something more like a creative director role, like what does that look like for me? And what does it look like to be a creative director that can tell data stories in a lot of different mediums? So that's what I'm trying to Explore hair.

Ryan Burgess
I love that. No, I love how you just like you bridge the gap to more learning. And then like, here's where I want to go with in the future. Maybe before we fully close out, or I have one question that if you were to do something different, I feel like you're doing different things. So this might be a little different in asking it. But like, if you didn't do tech at all, what would it be? Like? If you started over? What would you choose? Oh, no, it's not in finance. I know that I

Shirley Wu
did that and decided not to do that. I don't know. Maybe I'm just like, so hyper focused on when I was a kid, I wanted to be an artist, I wanted to actually for like a like, brief blip of time, I was like, I want to go to Pixar and be like a computer graphics. person, I didn't even know what computer graphics really meant. I was like 10. And so there are dreams I've had when I was a child. But I think what's exciting for me now is that I've, I'm closer and closer to accomplishing those dreams, but from a path that I would have never imagined as a child, which is the tech part. Like I think I would have been like a mediocre artist professionally. But I think weaving technology into it has been really like using code using software for the creative expression has been so fun. So I can't I don't know how to imagine. Even Even if I'm saying even if I say artist, like I can't imagine being an artist without the tech part now. I don't know another can like chill, retire you traveling around the world be like a career. Because that would be like if you take the tech Oh my god. Okay, hopefully short story when I was in Japan pre pandemic, hi. We met this person that split his time between San Francisco and Tokyo. So he would like you know, do half the year so he would I he would do the spring months and Tokyo because spring is beautiful in Tokyo, then he would do the summer months in SF because you know, like summer in Tokyo is sucks. Thank you would do the fall months in Tokyo because it's again, so beautiful with the like the color change, and then you would go back to SF for the winter. And then he like gave us his business card because everybody in Japan has a business card. And it just said, I can't even remember his name anymore. But it says something like travel, travel yoga Wine Enthusiast. That's my life goal.

Ryan Burgess
Sounds pretty good. Yeah, I like that title. That sounds really nice. That's really cool. Yeah. All right. As we close out, what would you like to leave the listeners with a piece of advice or any last words,

Shirley Wu
there's something that I've been thinking about a lot while I've been back in school, which is that I'm obviously on the older side of the student demographic on my program. And a lot of the other students are much younger, like, maybe straight out of undergraduate or like only a few years out of there. And they have like a hustle and drive that I no longer feel. I just feel really tired. And I want to take it chill. And so I've been trying to be better at taking it chill. And so I've been trying to remind myself that I'm I put in the time in my 20s. And I'm reaping the benefits of that now. And my taking a break now and taking it slow is a gift I can give a give myself in the future because I'm sure I'll also reap the benefits of my taking a break from the hustle and the quick pace. And then workaholism and just taking some time for myself to really like I guess give myself space to figure out what it is that I want to do next and not get swept away with like the hustle of everybody around me especially because it's New York and then I don't think that was any sort of like sage advice for any of our late and like listeners. But I hope that if anybody feels the way that I do right now, having gone through two years of a pandemic and feeling really burnt out and not really sure about life. I hope that at least is helpful.

Ryan Burgess
No, that's super helpful. Well, thank you so much surely for taking the time and you know, sharing a lot of interesting background. I hope our lives Sisters really enjoy it Thank you

Shirley Wu
Thank you Ryan