How to Transcend the Lottery of Birth | Stephanie Lampkin | TEDxSFState

The lack of upward mobility is worse in some regions of the US than it is in most 3rd world countries. Now more than ever in American history, if you were born poor, you are more likely to remain poor into adulthood especially if you were born into membership of a marginalized group (Woman, Black, Latino, Disabled, LGBTQ). Stephanie Lampkin, who was born poor and a member of most of those groups, talks about how she transcended losing the lottery of birth to become a Stanford & MIT graduate and now successful founder & CEO of Blendoor.
Stephanie Lampkin is the founder & CEO of Blendoor, a recruiting application that hides candidate name and photo to mitigate unconscious bias in hiring. With a 13 year career in tech spanning companies like Lockheed, Deloitte, Microsoft, and TripAdvisor, she is all too familiar with the difficulties faced when one doesn’t look like the prototypical engineer. Through technology and data, her mission is to reduce bias and challenge the assumption that homogeneous environments are a meritocracy. Stephanie holds a BS in Management Science & Engineering from Stanford University and an MBA from MIT Sloan. Stephanie has been honored and featured in numerous publications including MIT Tech Review 35 under 35, Forbes, NPR, Tech Crunch, and Black Enterprise. Stephanie’s mission is to effectively demonstrate that investing in diversity yields positive returns socially, financially, and technologically.
This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at