Laura Weidman Powers Biography

Growing up in the diverse upper West side of Manhattan, Powers met and interacted with people from all walks of life. From her neighbors and classmates at school to her mixed-race household, she received firsthand experience early on in life about what diversity looks like.

“You see everything in New York,” Powers said in an interview with Techies, “You see wealth. You see poverty. You see the best and the worst of society. You see people from all backgrounds. You hear every language being spoken on a daily basis. It’s just such a multicultural upbringing, that I think it really shaped my view of what the world can or should look like.”

After earning her bachelor’s degree in psychology and Spanish from Harvard in 2014, Powers worked in the non-profit sector for a few years before deciding to move across the country to attend Stanford University. At Stanford, she enrolled in a dual JD and MBA program and worked at a tech startup in Los Angeles in product development after graduating.

Creating Code 2040 for the Future

After working at the startup for a year, Powers left her position- and one day, found herself getting coffee with an old Stanford classmate, Tristan Walker. There, she and Walker discussed how it was projected that people of color would be the majority in the United States by the year 2040, but the tech atmosphere in 2012 still lacked diversity and inclusiveness.

From there, Code 2040 was formed: A non-profit dedicated to making sure people of color are proportionally represented in the tech industry by taking apart and overcoming the barriers that are currently present. Starting with a Fellows program to be the entry point for recent graduates going into technology, Code 2040 grew into hosting retreats and workshops as well as working with tech companies to help them improve their diversity.

Through Code 2040’s Fellows program, Black and Latinx students and graduates are placed in internships with tech companies while attending career-building workshops on the weekends and at night for 10 weeks. Since 2012, they’ve worked with over 250 companies in technology to advance Black and Latinx talent and built a large network of both students and professionals.

Making Waves in Tech

Powers joined the Obama Administration in 2016 as a senior advisor to U.S. Chief Technology Officer Megan Smith. Throughout her six-month term, she focused on diversity within tech and entrepreneurship hiring processes.

In 2018, Powers decided to step down from her role as CEO of Code 2040, to better fit the needs of the company and to follow her own professional and personal goals. After her successor was ready, she traveled the world for a year with her husband and baby.

Today, she’s an operating partner at Base10, a technology investment firm. There, she leads the Advancement Initiative, the program that donates half of the firm’s profits to creating scholarships at Historically Black Colleges and Universities.

Powers’ advice for students is to find a community.

“I find my most effective mentors are my peers, people who have different strengths and skill sets but also people who just have my back and who I can admit my failures to,” she said in an interview with Techies, “I think if you’re in a situation where you’re not around your network, crafting a professional one can go a long way to making it feel like a more welcoming and exciting place.”

Keep up with Laura on Medium.