01:11
Maria Burns Ortiz Highlight
You can’t just kind of dip your toe into things. It’s only when you go all in that things start to work.
About Maria
- Says her path into technology wasn’t traditional, but the longer you work in tech, the more you start to realize that very few people actually have a “traditional” path into tech.
- In college at NYU, she was a journalism major; after graduating, she wrote for ESPN.com.
- She loved her job, but at age 23, she realized that writing articles about “the Clippers doing yoga” wasn’t making a difference in the world, and it was no longer fulfilling to her.
- She wanted to help her mother start a gaming company, but she was hesitant because she’d just had a child, didn’t know if it was the right time.
- Her mom told her, “That perfect time will never come,” so she decided to just jump in and commit.
- Together, they started 7 Generation Games, an educational gaming company.
- Left journalism after working in that field for a decade, but assures road-trippers that it was the right choice; says they shouldn’t feel obligated to continue down a path they don’t like.
- Says that as a Hispanic woman, she’s faced difficulty in the tech and media worlds, but she uses any discouragement or doubts about her credentials as fuel to motivate her forward.
