That’s very generous, she said. May I ask what inspired this? I want to help kids like I used to be. I said the ones who have to do it alone. I stared out my office window at the ocean. Can we make it anonymous? Absolutely. I’ll draw up the paperwork. I endowed it with $5 million. The money I could have given Tyler, could have given my parents, could have used to buy their approval.
Instead, it would help 25 kids over the next 5 years get the education I’d had to claw my way toward. It felt good, better than good. It felt right. Mom called 17 times over the next week. I blocked her number. Dad emailed asking me to reconsider. I deleted it. Tyler sent a long text about family loyalty and how I’d regret this.
I blocked him, too. Rachel called to check in. How are you holding up? Better than I thought I would, I said. Honestly, it hurts, but it also feels like closing a door that should have been closed years ago. Good. They don’t deserve you. She paused. Hey, speaking of not deserving, you remember that documentary filmmaker I told you about the one doing a piece on women entrepreneurs in tech vaguely.
She wants to interview you. I showed her your company’s growth numbers and she freaked out. You’d be perfect for her series. I hesitated. I’d always avoided publicity, preferring to keep my head down and work. But maybe it was time to stop hiding. Okay, I said, “Set it up.” The interview happened three weeks later in my office.
The filmmaker, a woman named Sarah Mitchell, was sharp and insightful. She asked about my background, my company, my journey from broke college student to successful CEO. I told her enough about working three jobs, about starting my company on a shoestring budget, about clients who didn’t pay, and the months I couldn’t make payroll.
About the nights I stayed up coding until dawn because I refused to fail. You must have had great support, Sarah said. From family, from friends, I said, from my husband, but family. I shook my head. They weren’t part of this story. Her eyes sharpened with journalistic instinct. Would you be comfortable elaborating on that? I thought about it about protecting people who’d never protected me.
About keeping secrets that only served them. They didn’t believe in me. I said simply, “They didn’t support my marriage, my career, any of my choices. So, I built this without them. And honestly, I’m proud of that. I’m proud that I didn’t need them.” The interview aired 6 weeks later as part of a PBS documentary series.
I didn’t watch it at first, too nervous about how I’d come across, but Rachel called me immediately after it premiered. Adeline, holy you need to watch this. You’re incredible. I finally watched it that night with David. Seeing myself on screen was strange, but Sarah had edited it beautifully. She’d woven my story together with four other women entrepreneurs and somehow made us all look powerful and human at the same time.
The segment about family struck a chord. Sarah had included my quote about building success without them, then cut to shots of my team at work, my employees laughing in meetings, and the scholarship fund announcement I’d made public the week before. The narrative was clear. Adeline Chen didn’t need her birth family because she built her own family from scratch.
Leave a Comment