Seek Forgiveness, Not Permission

“It’s better to ask for forgiveness than seek permission.”

It’s an axiom that was popularised by Grace Hopper.

How do you get into a university you're barred from?

Grace Hopper was born in New York in 1906.

She wanted to go to university and study mathematics.

It was a very unusual option for women at the time.

“I loved mathematics all the way through school, especially geometry. I used to draw pretty pictures with it. It’s not really unusual for a woman to have an interest in mathematics. Actually I think you’ll find an equal number of girls have it as boys. They just get discouraged when they’re younger. They hit a hard problem and somebody’s apt to say, “Oh, girls can’t understand that.” They’re not encouraged by teachers or parents.”

And the best place to study mathematics near New York is Yale University.

But women couldn’t go to Yale.

It was an all male undergraduate school until 1969.

So she applied to Vasser, a college that was founded to offer advanced education to women.

She applied when she was just 16.

But she was turned down because of her Latin scores,

So she applied again the following year and this time was accepted.

She graduated as one of the outstanding students of the class of 1928.

As a graduate she was now able to study for a Masters at Yale.

And at Yale she earned her Phd in mathematics and mathematical physics.

"The ladder of success is best climbed by stepping on the rungs of opportunity." - Grace Hopper

How do you join a navy that doesn't accept women?

Grace Hopper had always wanted to serve in the navy.

“I’d had a grandfather who was a rear admiral and I would have loved to have been in the navy from the beginning but at the time when I was growing up they didn’t take women.”

When WW2 broke out things changed.

Looking to free up men for the front lines, the U.S. started accepting women into the Naval Reserve.

She immediately applied.

But she was turned down for being too old (34), and being 6.8kg below the minimum weight.

So Hopper fought for an exemption.

And in 1943 she was sworn in.

She graduated first in her class at the Naval Reserve Midshipmen's School.

“Rules are made for people who aren’t willing to make up their own.” - Chuck Yeager

How do you revolutionise something when no one thinks it’s possible?

With her expertise in maths Grace Hopper was sent to work on one of the first US computers - the Mark I.

The Mark I was huge - 15.5 metres long, with 530 miles of wire inside and it weighed almost 5 tons.

The software was hardware, with new equations entered by manually flipping switches.

Her presence was initially met with skepticism by the computer's designer Harvard Professor Howard Aiken.

But she soon proved herself to be an outstanding programmer, and was asked to write the operating manual.

After the war Grace Hopper stayed on in the Navy Reserve while continuing to work on experimental computers.

Hopper saw that there was an opportunity to improve things by developing a programming language that would use English words.

“It’s much easier for most people to write an English statement than it is to use symbols. So I decided data processors ought to be able to write their programs in English, and the computers would translate them into machine code.”

But she was met by skepticism, “They told me computers could only do arithmetic."

“But nobody said, ‘You can’t do that.’”, so she started working on it in her spare time.

“It took two years before they began to accept that concept. They had to because it worked.”

It was the first computer compiler, the FLOW-MATIC.

Her compiler evolved into COBOL, a computer language for data processors that is still used today.

Grace Hopper paved the way for the distinction we now have between software and hardware.

“Humans are allergic to change. They love to say, 'We've always done it this way.' I try to fight that. That's why I have a clock on my wall that runs counter-clockwise.” - Grace Hopper

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On a side note, Grace Hopper is also the person that popularised the term “bug” for a computer malfunction.

In 1947 one of the team found a moth stuck in a relay of the Mark II computer.

Hopper taped it into the log sheet of that day with the note, "First actual case of bug being found".

That page is now in the Smithsonian.

On another side note, the bulk of the AI services we use today run on NVIDIA processors that they named the GH200 Grace Hopper™ Superchip in her honour.

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Seek Forgiveness, Don't Ask Permission (Sometimes)

In 1986, Grace Hoper retired from the navy as a rear admiral, the same rank as her grandfather.

At the time of her retirement, she was the oldest active-duty commissioned officer in the United States Navy (79 years, eight months and five days).

It was a career that revolutionised the field of computing.

To achieve all that she did, she had to constantly fight for her place in a male dominated time and sector.

If she’d waited for permission none of this would have happened.

She got there by doing the right thing and getting agreement later.

One final and essential point about seeking forgiveness instead of asking permission, is it’s not an excuse to just do anything you want.

The key thing is the quality of the idea.

As Grace Hopper said in a longer version of the quote, “If it's a good idea, go ahead and do it. It is much easier to apologize than it is to get permission.”

Grace Hopper succeeded because she pursued good ideas.

So when you have a great idea, don’t let other factors hold you back from taking action.

Be more Grace Hopper.

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Lynn Gilbert, “Grace Murray Hopper”, Women of Wisdom (2012)