In those same 10 years, women are getting more and more of the graduate degrees, more and more of the undergraduate degrees, and it's translating into more women in entry-level jobs, even more women in lower-level management. But there's absolutely been no progress at the top. You can't explain away 10 years. Ten years of no progress is no progress.

Without fear, women can pursue professional success and personal fulfillment-and freely choose one, or the other, or both.

Facebook is a really exciting place trying to do something really important that I really believe in. And it matters.

I'd worked on leprosy and malaria in India [at the World Bank] and asked myself the question: Why do we let 2 million children die every year around the world for not having clean water? Because they're faceless and nameless. So, for me, Facebook looked like it was going to solve the problem of the invisible victim.

I have never worked for a woman, and I have never worked with a lot of women.

I think now is our time. My mother was told by everyone that she had two choices: She could be a nurse or a teacher. The external barriers now are just so much lower. If we start acknowledging what the real issues are, we can solve them. It's not that hard.

Real empathy is sometimes not insisting that it will be okay but acknowledging that it is not.