No industry or country can reach its full potential until women reach their full potential. This is especially true of science and technology, where women with a surplus of talent still face a deficit of opportunity.

My hope in writing 'Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead' was to change the conversation from what women can't do to what we can.

It's hard to visualize someone as a leader, if she is always waiting to be told what to do.

When my mother took her turn to sit in a gown at her graduation, she thought she only had two career options: nursing and teaching. She raised me and my sister to believe that we could do anything, and we believed her.

I don't hold myself out as a role model. I don't believe that everyone should make the same choices; that everyone has to want to be a CEO, or everyone should want to be a work-at-home mother. I want everyone to be able to choose. But I want us to be able to choose unencumbered by gender choosing for us.

I spent most of my career, including my time at McKinsey, never acknowledging that I was a woman. And, you know, fast forward - I'm 43 now - fitting in is not helping us.

The most important thing we're doing differently is that we talk openly about gender at Facebook.