DEO Profile: Ayah Bdeir
Interactive artist and engineer
Ayah Bdeir is an interactive artist and engineer with the elegance and composure of a diplomat. She is the creator and CEO of littleBits, an open source library of modules that snap together, making it easy to prototype, learn, and have fun with electronics. Bdeir’s goal is to move electronics from the hands of experts to those of artists, makers, students, and designers — a vision quite worthy of a DEO.
We interviewed Bdeir in a brightly colored conversation pit at a TED conference in Long Beach, California. With crowds milling about and the next session rapidly approaching, she calmly and quickly relayed how much she’s accomplished in her first thirty years and described her goals for the future.
Can you recall any early childhood experiences that shaped you?
Yes, there are multiple occasions that I can recall, but one that stands out happened when I was about eight years old. My dad was a very tech-savvy man in Beirut, where I grew up. My mom worked, so I didn’t know that women were raised differently from men. My dad bought my sisters and me a Commodore 64, a dot-matrix printer, and lessons in software development.
When my dad traveled, he’d bring us 3.5" floppies as gifts. One time, he brought home software to make greeting cards. I became obsessed with this software. I played with it for hours and printed out the results on the dot-matrix printer. I made cards and “Welcome home” banners for my dad, and anything else I could get it to create.
This was an important part of my creative expression as a child. As this passion evolved, I learned to write software so I could design my own stuff. I learned to express myself through digital media and it’s stayed with me.
When was the first time you remember expressing yourself creatively?
I’ve always been creative. In school, I was always restless, reinventing the assignments. I was always interested in construction tools, like Legos. My parents noticed this early and did a good job of developing both my left and right brain. I learned both math and design.
When did you first realize you could lead?
I’ve always been leading, even when there was no one to lead. I led my plush toys. At sixteen, I watched the Pippi Longstocking movie and got very excited about extracurricular classes. My school was very traditional and didn’t offer this. So I formed a lobby to demand extracurricular classes. We got one AV class. But this gave me the idea that if something wasn’t there, I could make it happen.
The first expression of my entrenchment in the Maker Movement happened at seventeen, when my girlfriends and I created a small Maker’s Faire in Beirut. We had carnivals where people went, played games, and bought stuff, but I felt these were meaningless. I wanted to create a fair where everyone could make something. We called it L’Atelier des Enfants. We got five hundred people to attend along with sponsors. We led the courses, guiding people to make something and take it home. This was thirteen years ago, and even then I was tired of kids buying and not making.
Have you made any course corrections yet in your career?
Lots of them — I wanted to be an architect, but my parents wanted me to be an engineer. I did what they wanted, but I hated it and spent all my time trying to think of how to make it into something I liked. I wanted to do a double major in design, but couldn’t so I sat in on classes anyway. After undergrad, I applied to the MIT Media Lab for graduate school because they were beginning to support the Maker Movement.
After grad school, I moved to New York and worked in financial services. I was making good money, but one day I couldn’t take it any more and I quit. I took a fellowship at EyeBeam.org (a key player in the Maker Movement) at a sharp pay cut, but teaching there was a source of energy to me.
At work, I iterate all the time. I think this is a very important trait. I’ll try something and then shift if it doesn’t work.
What prompted you to start your company?
I didn’t start out to create a company. I wanted to solve problems. To do that I had to create products, then I needed to create a company to distribute the products.
The problems I wanted to solve? One is that developers were creating devices as one-offs even though much of the functionality was the same.
They weren’t sharing the core parts with others, building on each other’s work. In an extension of the open source movement, I wondered how I could make electronics modular.
Another problem was that I saw materials evolving over the past decade — cardboard, plastics, and so on. I felt that we were at a time when light, sound, and touch sensitivity needed to become creative materials.
littleBits is the result of my attempts to solve these problems. We now have twenty-two people. Our office in New York is a wonderful open space where we host workshops. We’ve done two successful rounds of funding: Joi Ito and Nicholas Negroponte have supplied seed funding. Our second round came from True Ventures, Khosla Ventures, and others. We offer thirty-nine products and are designing forty to fifty more.
Has your role at the company shifted over time?
Yes. Last year my biggest challenge was the amazing response to our products. I was overwhelmed just responding to the inbound. I spent most of my time just trying to keep up. My role was very reactive, solving problems as they came. I focused on tactical challenges and day-to-day issues, but also I kept experimenting. I was trying to figure out the relationship with schools and with stores, how short our product life cycle is — anything that I could experiment with.
Now I’m no longer fighting fires. I have a good team. I have a handle on my relationships. Now I’m taking a more active role in those relationships. I still have experiments going on because I think this is a complete innovation in design, technology, open source, and manufacturing. We haven’t figured it out yet.
What are your strengths at work?
I’m a problem solver. I’m very good at identifying problems. I can see what is not working ahead of it actually happening. The solution to the problems often doesn’t come from me, but I’m very comfortable in asking people to collaborate and getting the solutions.
My other important trait is infused in our culture. It’s “no ego.” The best idea wins. It doesn’t matter where it comes from.
And your weaknesses?
I try to reinvent too many things. I obsess about a problem at the expense of other stuff. Last year we had a spam problem with our website. I spent an entire week trying to reprogram the website. There were more important things I could have focused on.
Can you describe your leadership style now?
Yes, my leadership style is changing as the company grows. Some pieces I’m trying to maintain and some have to change. When I first started I led by doing. I saw a cartoon where everyone was in a boat and the leader was helping everyone pull it forward, while the manager was giving instructions on how to pull. That image stuck in my mind. I felt I wouldn’t be able to lead if I wasn’t in the weeds with everyone else, among the details. If I wasn’t doing the work, I wouldn’t know what’s possible and what’s unreasonable.
I’m keeping some of this style, but now I lead by doing modules of the work then giving it to others so I can also focus on more long-term issues and direction. For example, I will get involved with an initiative and work with everyone as it’s being developed. I’m very proud that I can take feedback and iterate. But as an initiative takes off, I move on to something else and let others take over.
How do you lead in an industry that is constantly changing?
Change is not unique to us, but certainly it’s very common among technology companies. It’s just our reality. To deal with it, you have to learn every day. I’m constantly asking other founders questions, talking to staff members, and reading online comments from users. I have to learn every day but I also want to learn — I find it fun.
If people are resistant to change or can’t deal with it, they don’t stay with us long. Whether they make the decision or we do, they leave. We surround ourselves with people who can change easily. Sometimes there’s a downside to this. Sometimes we think too much about changes. Like when we choose new software — is this the best calendaring software or is this new version better? Sometimes I just have to say, “This is not perfect, but we’re going with it.”
Do you think innovation depends more on process or people?
Our approach has definitely come from my engineering training. The process is basically have an idea, test it, iterate. We’re all constantly inspired by everything around us. Whether I’m at an art gallery or a hardware store or watching Top Chef, I’ll see something that inspires me and I’ll email it to everyone. We all do this, so I’d say our innovation is a combination of people and process. We inspire each other and iterate.
The best idea wins. It doesn’t matter where it comes from.
What do you love most about your job?
I love going to events, demos, and workshops and seeing people use littleBits. I love seeing their faces light up — whether they’re big or small, the reaction is the same. First there’s this moment of wonder, followed by this moment of empowerment or comprehension. I love seeing this happen. If I’m having an off day, it just picks me right up. When I don’t have events to attend, I search YouTube for videos from users who want to show what they’ve created.
Is corporate culture important to you?
One of the best pieces of advice I got when I started my company was to hire for cultural fit before skills. I’ll choose someone with cultural t and the ability to acquire the right skills over someone who’s overqualified but isn’t a good cultural fit. If we don’t get the cultural fit right, it causes all kinds of problems — resentment, ego battles, gossip. Ego just can’t exist at littleBits.
We’re a culture of people driven by a passion for our mission and for what we do. Because we’re driven by our passion to help others be creative, we accept that a solution can come from anyone — it can come from me or an intern or from user feedback. It doesn’t matter. We only care about finding the best solution to the problem. We’re also not about punching a clock or strict schedules. We’re about accountability. As long as you get the work done, we don’t care how long you work.
Do you control or influence your corporate culture?
Some parts of it I control, for instance, the no ego thing. I’ll intervene if I think someone is gossiping or letting their ego get in the way. I’ll tell them directly, “This is not what we do here.” But our mission also attracts people who are passionate about what we do. They don’t join us for the money or the perks. They join us because they want to spread tools of creativity, enrich the lives of children, and help make the world better — not because of our 401(k) program or vacation policy.
Is the space where you work important to you?
Our space is very important. In fact, it was a very deliberate decision and I spent an inordinate amount of time looking for it. I knew we couldn’t move into just any space. We had to stay in Manhattan and below 14th Street. This is the creative heart of New York. It has the right cachet to attract a certain type of person — different from who we’d attract if we were in Brooklyn.
Also, we chose a loft building with high ceilings and open spaces in a charming, six-story building. We don’t even have a building manager. In it, we created common spaces. We have a studio with electronics and machines. We have a play space — not a pretend one, but a place where we want people to play. We have toys everywhere and it’s colorful. It’s a very unique space and you experience it the minute you walk in.
When you’re gone from the scene, what three things do you want to be known for?
One, I’d like to be known as a problem solver. Two, that I helped bring other people’s creativity to life — people who maybe didn’t think they had it in them to make creative things. Three, that I was ambitious.
