Lean In

has appeared grateful for a chance to discuss the subject. I alsomake it clear that I am only asking for one reason: to make sure they aren’t limiting their options unnecessarily.
    In 2009, we were recruiting Priti Choksi to join Facebook’s business development team. After we extended an offer, she came in to ask some follow-up questions about the role. She did not mention lifestyle or hours, but she was the typical age when women have children. So as we were wrapping up, I went for it. “If you think you might not take this job because you want to have a child soon, I am happy to talk about this.” I figured if she didn’t want to discuss it, she would just keep heading for the door. Instead, she turned around, sat back down, and said, “Let’s talk.” I explained that although it was counterintuitive, right before having a child can actually be a great time to take a new job. If she found her new role challenging and rewarding, she’d be more excited to return to it after giving birth. If she stayed put, she might decide that her job was not worth the sacrifice. Priti accepted our offer. By the time she started at Facebook, she was already expecting. Eight months later, she had her baby, took four months off, and came back to a job she loved. She later told me that if I had not raised the topic, she would have turned us down.
    Like so many women, Caroline O’Connor believed that someday she’d have to choose between career and family. That day came sooner than she expected. Caroline was finishing up at Stanford’s Institute of Design when she was offered the chance to start a company at the same time that she learned she was pregnant. Her knee-jerk reaction was to think that she could not do both. But then she decided to question this assumption. “I began thinking of my dilemma as I would a design challenge,” O’Connor wrote. “Rather than accepting that launching a successful start-up and having a baby are utterly incompatible, I framed it as a question and then set about using tools I’ve developed as a designer to begin forming an answer.” O’Connor gathered data from dozens of mothers about their experiences and coping mechanisms. She didfieldwork on sleep deprivation by taking a night shift with foster infants. She concluded that with a team culture that drew support from her husband and friends, it would be possible to proceed with both. O’Connor now refers to herself as “a career-loving parent,” a nice alternative to “working mom.” 4
    Given life’s variables, I would never recommend that every woman lean in regardless of circumstances. There have been times when I chose not to. In the summer of 2006, a tiny start-up called LinkedIn was looking for a new CEO, and Reid Hoffman, LinkedIn’s founder, reached out to me. I thought it was a great opportunity, and after five years in the same position at Google I was ready for a new challenge. But the timing was tricky. I was thirty-seven years old and wanted to have a second child. I told Reid the truth: regrettably, I had to pass because I didn’t think I could handle both a pregnancy and a new job. His reaction was incredibly kind and supportive. He tried to talk me into it, even volunteering to work full-time at the company to support me during that period, but it was hard to see a path through.
    For some women, pregnancy does not slow them down at all, but rather serves to focus them and provides a firm deadline to work toward. My childhood friend Elise Scheck looks back fondly on being pregnant, saying she has never felt so productive. She not only worked her usual hours as an attorney but organized her house and put five years of photos into albums. For others, like me, pregnancy is very difficult, making it impossible to be as effective as normal. I tried writing e-mails while hovering over the toilet, but the situation didn’t lend itself to effective multitasking. Because I had already been through this with my first pregnancy, I knew what I was in for. I turned down Reid’s offer and got pregnant—and extremely nauseated—a few months later.
    Any regrets I had about not taking that job evaporated when, about seven months after my daughter was born, Mark offered me the opportunity to join Facebook. The timing wasstill not ideal. As many people had warned, and I quickly discovered to be true, having two children was more than double the work of having one. I was not looking for new challenges but simply trying to get