This month I got the chance to chat with author Kyla Zhao about her new book, Valley Verified! I hope you enjoy our conversation, I found Kyla’s thoughts on the intersections of art and tech to be absolutely fascinating, and love the insight into her writing process. I hope you enjoy!
About Valley Verified:
Imagine Legally Blonde meets The Devil Wears Prada, but this time Elle Woods is tackling the cutthroat startup world. In Valley Verified, our heroine Zoe is forced to leave her fashion job in New York and move to Silicon Valley, where she joins an up-and-coming tech startup. In this sink-or-swim environment, Zoe must tackle judgmental coworkers, eccentric tech billionaires and her own insecurities to prove she’s more than just a fashionista in a land of tech bros.
About Kyla Zhao:
Kyla Zhao writes novels starring Asian women in fun settings like high society, the fashion industry, and Silicon Valley. Her first book The Fraud Squad was a book pick by Good Morning America, a #1 new release in Asian-American literature on Kindle, and featured by media outlets such as Vogue, Elle, Cosmopolitan, Buzzfeed and so on. Kyla was also selected by Forbes for its 30 Under 30 list and Tatler as a Leader of Tomorrow. Her second novel Valley Verified comes out worldwide in January 2024.
Kyla now works in Silicon Valley after graduating from Stanford University in 2021. She’s still trying to understand why Californians adore hiking and Patagonia fleeces so much.
Newsletter: kylazhao.substack.com
Instagram: @kylajzhao
TikTok: @kylazingaround
Twitter: @kylazhao_
Valley Verified, out Jan 16 2024, is available for for purchase here, and signed copies available here!
Interview:
Valley Verified is partially inspired by your own life—like your protagonist, you left a writing job for a role at a Silicon Valley tech startup. How much of your experience did you include in the novel? Did you find it challenging to separate yourself from Zoe?
I started writing Valley Verified right after I left my fashion job at Vogue in Singapore (my hometown) and moved to Silicon Valley to work for a tech company. As a fresh college grad with a background in the humanities, I felt out of place among the male engineers and data scientists at my company who hold STEM degrees. Everyone seemed like they knew what they were doing—unlike me.
Creating Zoe’s story gave me a safe space to explore my own imposter syndrome and insecurity that I didn’t have what it takes to succeed. Like me, Zoe had just made a big geographical move (from New York to Silicon Valley) and was now alone in an unfamiliar environment. She had also just made a big career pivot, going from a fashion magazine to a tech startup.
I didn’t feel the need to separate myself from Zoe because I believe that imposter syndrome is a universal feeling that never quite leaves us. Chances are, there will be readers out there who can relate to what Zoe goes through in the book. And I hope my novel can help open up conversations about feeling inferior and insecure because these feelings are so valid and should be more normalized!
All of us are familiar with the many terrifying stories of corruption, abuse, and discrimination in the tech world these days. Valley Verified is a story about a young woman finding her way in a male-dominated space—what did you want to say with this novel about Big Tech and how you see it changing?
Sexism and gender discrimination still exist in the tech world at all levels. While I’ve been lucky enough to not face any explicitly discriminatory behavior, I’ve heard horror stories from friends who have not been nearly as lucky, who have had their competence doubted or been outright harassed for being a woman in a male-dominated industry.
In Valley Verified, the sexism presents itself in all sorts of ways—just as it does in real life. From more overt ways, like women feeling pressured to dress a certain way before meeting a male investor. To smaller ways, like a male coworker asking Zoe to order office snacks even though it’s not her job.
I also wanted to explore how society pits women against one another and makes it seem like a zero-sum game where only one or a few women can rise to the top. While the rare female tech executives are rightfully lauded, that inadvertently creates an impression that there’s only room for a select group. That’s why in Valley Verified, I crafted a dynamic cast of female characters to who learn to support and look out for one another despite their personality differences and some initial misunderstandings.
When you left your writing job to work in tech, did you always know you would come back to writing or did it come as a surprise?
Writing is a nice way to balance out my job in tech, which is more technical and data-focused. My book ventures have helped me learn to appreciate the creativity in my tech job—finding an insight among mountains of data is comparable to that eureka moment in writing when inspiration strikes me and I suddenly see how the story would unfold.
Similarly, my tech job has taught me a more disciplined approach when it comes to writing, and I now think of creativity as both art and science. I use an Excel spreadsheet to keep track of my writing progress; and just like how I’d create a project plan at work, I would also come up with a detailed book outline before I start writing.
Writing novels is a very different kind of beast than writing for publications, what was the process to transition from magazine writer, to tech professional, to novelist?
Writing a book feels more vulnerable than writing for a magazine. As a book author, it’s my name on the cover, so I don’t really have anywhere to hide unlike at a magazine where the publication’s reputation shields me. That said, it’s also more fulfilling to write a book because the story is entirely of my own creation!
Writing a book also feels more like a marathon than a sprint, since a novel could be ~100,000 words while a magazine article is only a couple thousand words. Between starting the first draft and the book coming out, Valley Verified took two years—sustaining motivation is sometimes a challenge when I have to re-read and re-write my own work many times over. 😉
What were you reading while working on this book? I’m curious if as a writer you find it helpful or distracting to comb through different sources for inspiration? (And selfishly I’m always looking for a recommendation!)
I try not to read books outside the genre I’m writing in so that it doesn’t affect the tone of my novel. I learned this the hard way from writing my debut novel, The Fraud Squad, which is meant to be a fun and breezy women’s fiction set in glamorous high society. But halfway through the drafting process, I started reading a war trilogy. Subconsciously, the tone of my book became darker and my characters became moodier. I had to rewrite the book almost entirely to get it back on track.
But I also try not to read novels that are too similar to mine so that I don’t get subconsciously influenced by another author’s approach. I do enjoy reading non-fiction books about the topic, which help me in crafting a more realistic, holistic portrayal. For instance, Brotopia by Emily Chang and Uncanny Valley by Anna Wiener exposed me to the experiences of other women in Silicon Valley.
Besides books, I get inspiration from social media too! On TikTok, I follow several people who work in fashion marketing. Their content was helpful when I was writing Valley Verified because the main character, Zoe, runs marketing at a fashion tech startup.
When you write, do you find it helpful to imagine your audience? Is there an ideal reader that you’re hoping this novel can reach?
I started writing this book to come to terms with my own insecurities in a new environment and job. I didn’t have an audience in mind, but I think many others would resonate with how I felt because imposter syndrome is so universal.
Valley Verified is for people who are confronting changes—be it in their career or other parts of their life—and are trying to adapt to this new reality while figuring out how they fit into the world around them. It’s for anyone who has ever felt lost, overwhelmed, or down about themselves. I hope Zoe’s story helps them realize those are perfectly valid emotions and they aren’t alone in feeling this way.