Public Radio East serves Eastern North Carolina by providing news, fine arts, and informational programming that challenges, stimulates, educates, and entertains an intellectually curious audience.

© 2026 Public Radio East

Public Radio East
800 College Court
New Bern, NC 28562

EIN 56-1802728
Public Radio For Eastern North Carolina 89.3 WTEB New Bern 88.5 WZNB New Bern 91.5 WBJD Atlantic Beach 90.3 WKNS Kinston 89.9 W210CF Greenville
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
US

How Do You Break Into an Industry While Breaking All the Rules?

Part 4 of the TED Radio Hour episode The Meaning Of Work.

About Dame Stephanie Shirley's TED Talk

What's in a name? For tech entrepreneur Dame Stephanie Shirley, bidding contracts under the name "Steve" enabled her to launch and grow a freelance software company with a virtually all-female staff.

About Dame Stephanie Shirley

In 1962, Dame Stephanie "Steve" Shirley founded Freelance Programmers, an innovative software firm that initially only hired women, a rarity in the male-dominated industry.

When she retired in 1993, Shirley had built a billion-dollar company and made millionaires of 70 of her staff members. Now a philanthropist, she supports research to study autism spectrum disorders and strategies to improve the IT industry.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

US
NPR/TED Staff