About

Welcome, Internet. My name is Betsy Masiello and this is my blog. You can also find me on Twitter and Google+. This blog is mostly a selfish venture: I wanted a space to actively record the process through which I’m arriving at current thinking on a range of topics relating to technology. Someday I’ll have a good laugh looking back at the evolution recorded here. If you find it enjoyable or insightful along the way, all the better.

I am currently on Google‘s Public Policy team based in Mountain View, where I work at the interface of public policy and product teams on a range of issues, primarily privacy. Given the topics I write about here this disclaimer is very important.

In a previous life I was a consultant at McKinsey & Company, based in their Atlanta and later Silicon Valley and Madrid offices. I often get asked by aspiring college and MBA students how I enjoyed my time as a consultant and if they should consider the same path. It’s a topic about which I’ve given a lot of thought, and written a brief blog post on.

Academically, I hold a BA from Wellesley College where I studied Computer Science and Economics. I wrote my senior thesis on privacy and biometric surveillance, which epitomized a liberal arts education: I often tell people I wrote a Philosophy thesis in the Computer Science department. I also hold a SM from MIT’s Technology & Policy Program. My research on TCP/IP service identification was under the tutelage of David Clark, whose way of thinking about the net has significantly influenced my own. I later read for a MSc in Financial Economics at Oxford  as a Rhodes Scholar, where I was also an affiliate with the Oxford Internet Institute.  I used to think I’d stay in academia forever, but I couldn’t decide which discipline to choose: business, law, computer science, or some variant of sociology. If a truly interdisciplinary academy gets off the ground, I might be tempted to return.

And now a bit of trivia: I’ve lived all over the US and in Spain, South Korea and England. I didn’t like the food in Spain very much, but was in food-heaven living in Korea. The same can be said for the countries’ respective wines, although there is a special place in my heart for the Spanish PX. My favorite store is Powell’s in Portland, OR, which I’ve only visited once but to which I do wish I lived closer. I’m afraid of large bodies of water. I belong to Red Sox Nation. I was an All-American field hockey player and one-time marathoner, but my joints are aging prematurely and I now have far more modest athletic ambitions: cycling, pilates and yoga are as close to running as I get these days. I have always wanted to learn photography, but have never made the time. Which brings me to a final credit owed: the header photo for this site was taken by my dear friend Alan Cheng in the top floor of San Francisco’s de Young Museum.