Confidence is key when anyone sets out to accomplish their dreams, especially as more and more women reach within to find the strength to plunge into leadership, entrepreneurship and innovation within the science and technology fields.

Sarah Gerweck (pictured), founder and chief architect of AtScale Inc., recently received recognition for her work as one of the Top Women Entrepreneurs in Cloud by CloudNOW, a non-profit consortium of the leading women in cloud computing, and she knows firsthand how to find the confidence and to do what one is passionate about in the midst of extreme challenges.

Gerwick spoke with Lisa Martin (@LisaMartinTV), host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during the recent CloudNOW event. They discussed building confidence when chasing one’s dreams. 

[Editor’s note: The following answers have been condensed for clarity.]

We’re here celebrating women who have founded companies — technical entrepreneurs, venture-backed companies, really hard things to achieve. Give us the backstory at AtScale.

Gerwick: So a number of the founding team came out of Yahoo, where in the analytics group we were seeing that the scale of data that companies were operating with was changing and the operational environment was changing with both public and private clouds. So we realized that this was just a sort of pivotal moment in the change of the way business was being done in [Silicon Valley] and that there was this great opportunity to really help companies connect to their data wherever that data might be and whatever types of data they might have.

You knew from the time you were a kid, ‘I love this; this is what I want to do.’ What inspired you to continue doing what you love, and step out of a comfort zone of a large company like a Yahoo?

Gerwick: The key thing to me is you have to sort of just believe in yourself and be your own champion, because really everybody out there who accomplishes these things takes these steps and says, ‘This is going to be my moment; this is going to be my thing.’ And I think whether you’re a woman, or a minority, or a man, or anybody, you just have to be confident in yourself. Look for the things that you really enjoy and become an expert in that area. And that’s sort of something you walk into over time, and develop that confidence to strike out and do some amazing things in your life.

How do you find that for those next generation, or even those that are in tech now? To help them take stock of what’s really important to them?

Gerwick: Whether [it’s] a boss or a co-worker whose done interesting things in their lives, or an old teacher, or a present teacher — I think finding somebody who can sort of give you that story of like, ‘Here’s how I felt.’ Because you have to have confidence in yourself; but really, nobody feels confident all the time. Everybody gets anxious or fearful before doing something new. That’s part of it. And sort of learning to look back and say, ‘Well, I’ve been successful in the past, and I’ve overcome these obstacles, and I’m ready for another one.’

Something interesting is the concept of imposter syndrome and how many people suffer from it. But even sometimes acknowledging, ‘Oh, this is something that a lot of people that have confidence now didn’t have back in the day. I can overcome this as well.’

Gerwick: I think everybody has a little bit of imposter syndrome at times. I just think that the world can seem like such a big and challenging place — but really, it’s all made of people, and they all have the same sort of interests and desires. But deep down we’re all people.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the CloudNOW “Top Women in Cloud” Innovation Awards event.

Photo: SiliconANGLE