

Radio Interview with Stephanie Shirley - DanBC
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05pmvl8

======
DanBC
She was born in Germany in 1933, came to Britain as a child aboard the
kindertransport Jewish refuge trains; she went on to become an early example
of a programmer selling the software that she wrote. She changed her name to
Steve so that she could do business, and her company was doing affirmative
action (her company mostly employed women) until the 1970s Sexual
Discrimination Act made it illegal.

This radio programme is not a technical interview but it's interesting.

> As a young woman, Stephanie Shirley worked at the Dollis Hill Research
> Station building computers from scratch: but she told young admirers that
> she worked for the Post Office, hoping they would think she sold stamps. In
> the early 60s she changed her name to Steve and started selling computer
> programmes to companies who had no idea what they were or what they could
> do, employing only mothers who worked from home writing code by hand with
> pen and pencil and then posted it to her. By the mid-80s her software
> company employed eight thousand people, still mainly women with children.
> She made an absolute fortune but these days Stephanie thinks less about
> making money and much more about how best to give it away.

Here's her Wikipedia entry:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Shirley](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Shirley)

