Stories

Where Art and Tech Collide: Randi Zuckerberg

There’s no one way to reach a dream

Randi Zuckerberg is a CEO, entrepreneur, writer, radio host – and was one of the first people to work at Facebook. She’s had plenty of success in the business field, but she’s also been working hard to pave the way for many other women in tech just like her.

But this isn’t exactly where she expected to end up. 

A Broadway Dream

Randi was born and raised in New York by two parents, who both had their own practices – her dad was a dentist, and her mother was a psychiatrist. From an early age, Randi was exposed to the idea and commitment of entrepreneurship. Not only that, but she was consistently being exposed to new tech with her dad being a dentist.

But Randi didn’t want to follow in her parent’s footsteps from the beginning. In fact, she always  said she would never end up like her mother and go into psychology. Instead, her big plans in life were to become a Broadway star.

But, when music school didn’t work out as Randi had planned, she ended up having to rethink her career direction entirely. So, where did she end up?

Studying psychology at Harvard University. 

Although her brother, Mark, notoriously dropped out of the Ivy Leagues to pursue his own business, Randi stuck with her degree and graduated. While she was there, she kept up with her passion for music and the arts, and joined an acapella group. All the while, she never found a true interest in the practice of psychology like she did the arts – but she did start finding an interest in how psychology worked within the business and marketing fields.

When she graduated in 2003, Randi ended up landing a position at one of the biggest ad agencies: Ogilvy. At this point, she was sure she was already peaking in her career. Everything was great – until she got moved to the digital marketing team.

All of her friends were working on cool TV campaigns, and Randi was on the sidelines. At the time, digital marketing wasn’t huge. It was a niche, but growing industry, and soon enough – it ended up becoming an asset to Randi’s career.

Her small digital marketing team quickly became one of the fastest-growing, and she got to work on a variety of different projects. She worked on building the American Express credit card, and even got to work on the Special Olympics.  

Randi noted that working with Ogilvy was empowering and inclusive, and women were equally being represented and valued in the company. So much so, that she didn’t think the glass ceiling was an actual thing…

And then she stepped into the tech industry.

Her next job after Ogilvy was managing a TV show for Forbes (which aired at 5am on Saturday mornings). And it wasn’t long before her brother, Mark, messaged her asking if she would come to help him as a digital marketing consultant for a weekend. He needed some advice and help in the marketing department for the startup he was running: thefacebook.com. 

Randi agreed to go down to Silicon Valley and spend the weekend giving him some advice. But little did she know, she would be there a lot longer than just a weekend.

From TV to Tech

When Randi got to Facebook, she was inspired by the amount of passion that this small, 10-person team had. The pace, the opportunity, and the innovation was something that struck her – and Mark ended up offering her a job. Randi knew she was going to accept the minute she was sitting in a boardroom, and the team looked at her for her advice on which logo they should pick for the company. 

Although Randi’s career was going in a good direction – she was managing a TV show just a year after she had graduated from college — she still knew that getting to that level of trust and authority in a company would still take forever. Yet, at thefacebook.com, she had it within a weekend. 

So, she took the job.

The next decade of her life would be in Silicon Valley working in tech. 

When she started working at Facebook, she wore many hats – as is the typical startup life. But she also had a pretty big impact while she was there. You know Facebook Live? Yeah, that was Randi’s idea! And, one thing Randi brought into her career in tech and marketing from the beginning, was supporting non-profits and helping organizations that would do good for the community and world at large.

But although she had so much influence, was playing an important role, and working for one of the (now) biggest companies in Silicon Valley, it wasn’t all a positive experience.

After working with an advertising company where women were equally represented and treated at the workplace, being a woman in Silicon Valley meant that gender played a role in her everyday life. On panels, while her male colleagues were asked deep questions concerning companies and growth, she was met with questions about parenthood. When she walked into the boardroom, there were hardly any women.

And had she not been a white woman, and the sister of the CEO of Facebook – it likely would have been much worse.

Not only that, but the work-life balance wasn’t sustainable for her. She had other passions, especially as an artist, but the culture at Facebook left no time for outside interests — you were consumed in technology and social media at all times. But this piece of her career journey was still an incredible and defining part of her story.

Just a year after leaving the company, Randi was already building her own media company, Zuckerberg Media. She even ended up getting the chance to actually live out her childhood dream – performing on Broadway. She got a call asking if she wanted to star in Rock of Ages as an attempt to bring in a new demographic of audience members to buy tickets.

So after just 7 rehearsals (and none of them even on the main Broadway stage), Randi was finally performing in front of an audience. 

Although it was literally her dream come true – Randi realized through this that being a Broadway actress wasn’t necessarily all that she wanted to do. She learned her skills were best used in producing because she didn’t want to do something so repetitive, where she was always being directed by someone else.

With that said – she did go on to win 2 Tony awards for it. So it was a pretty good run while it lasted.

The Best of Both Worlds

Over the years, Randi has also developed a new passion – one that marries her love for the arts and the tech world together in one.

Crypto and web3.

With NFT artwork blowing up in 2021, Randi has jumped into the industry and started collecting. And while it’s mainly a side-hustle for her, she also sees other kinds of real-world opportunities that this space has – especially for women in tech. 

Women and other marginalized communities have been left out of so many important spaces over the years, from STEM, to government. And today, the crypto space is made up of just 5% women. Randi wants to see this change, and wants women and everybody who feels unwelcome in the space, to finally get in on the ground floor while this new industry is being built. 

These are where the careers of the future will lie, these skills are going to be in demand and this technology is going to be showing up more and more in our daily lives. That’s why Randi’s been advocating for women and bringing girls into STEM, crypto, NFTs, and web3. She sits on the brand advocacy board at Okcoin, with the goal of making the user base 50% women by 2025 – and she’s also just launched a beginner course on NFTs and web3 with Nas Academy!

Randi has been involved in so many different industries. She runs her own children’s TV show with Zuckerberg Media, Dot Complicated, which questions the dominant role that technology and social media is playing in our lives. She’s published best-selling novels, hosts a radio show where she interviews entrepreneurs – and now she wants to share it all with you in her Academy.

If Randi’s story has taught us anything – it’s that you don’t just have one calling. You can find a balance between pursuing many different passions and dreams. She’s shown us that even if you don’t end up on a Broadway show as a full-time actor in the exact way that you’ve imagined it – it doesn’t mean you’ve failed. The common way to get somewhere, or the way you expect yourself to get somewhere, isn’t the only way.

In fact, taking a different path can let you discover other things that you’re equally, or even MORE, interested and passionate about. As Randi Zuckerberg said in a podcast episode from The Startup Story:

“If you do have a dream, there are a hundred ways to realize it.”

And sometimes – the unexpected ways are the best ones. 

Web3 Community

For the first time ever, top experts have come together with Nas Academy to form a web3 learning community – and you’re invited!

Whether you’re launching an NFT project, investing in Bitcoin or NFTs, or are curious about how web3 works, you’ll discover that “community” is the foundation of the web3 space. And now, you can join a vibrant and supportive community full of web3 enthusiasts like yourself.

This community offers a safe space to network, learn, and collaborate with some of the most innovative thinkers around the world. On top of that, we’ve pooled all our resources to give you access to thousands of dollars worth of Nas Academy resources (including our best-rated classes) all under 1 subscription.

By subscribing to the Nas Academy Web3 Community, you’ll also be invited to join exclusive events and workshops with the world’s leading experts – an opportunity that you won’t easily find anywhere else. So, if you’re looking to learn more and discuss web3 with others who share your interests, subscribe today and join the movement that’s changing the Internet.