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How Do You Break Into an Industry While Breaking All the Rules?

NPR | By NPR/TED Staff

Published October 2, 2015 at 9:00 AM EDT

Part 4 of the TED Radio Hour episode The Meaning Of Work.

About Dame Stephanie Shirley's TED Talk

What's in a name? For tech entrepreneur Dame Stephanie Shirley, bidding contracts under the name "Steve" enabled her to launch and grow a freelance software company with a virtually all-female staff.

About Dame Stephanie Shirley

In 1962, Dame Stephanie "Steve" Shirley founded Freelance Programmers, an innovative software firm that initially only hired women, a rarity in the male-dominated industry.

When she retired in 1993, Shirley had built a billion-dollar company and made millionaires of 70 of her staff members. Now a philanthropist, she supports research to study autism spectrum disorders and strategies to improve the IT industry.