Mathematics thinking was "clear," she said, but computer science classes never made any sense. "We honor business leaders such as Elon Musk, but we don't always pay attention to those who started those technologies," said Netguru CEO Marek Talarczyk. "[I had} no idea what I wanted to do, I was interested, kind of, in anything," she said, "as long as it didn't involve computers!" "That's the usual path people take: physics, math, computer science, and then humanities." "I got as far as quantum mechanics, and then I was out of there," switching to mathematics and later to computer science. Perlman's strategy early on was to take on the hardest science problems, starting with physics.
"But I was always the best in math and science," she recalled. "I never took anything apart because I was afraid I would break it." "You hear about these engineers who grow up taking things apart, but I was never like that," Perlman told the audience. Perlman, who studied under AI pioneer Seymour Papert at MIT, first earning an undergraduate degree and later a PhD, is an unlikely computer science hero. "We want to make those invisible breakthroughs visible, that's the ambition." "Sometimes innovation happens at a lower level," added Johnson, referencing a realm of almost invisible technology that "just works," such as networking protocols underlying the internet. Johnson echoed the sentiment and said, "Because innovation has generated such vast fortunes, when we think about world-changing ideas, our attention is drawn to the shiny objects of wealthy people."