A tech entrepreneur’s climate and Covid motivated move from San Francisco to her husband’s home state of Maine allows for time to reflect, reconnect and start a new chapter rooted in purpose | Grace Chen

I’m excited to invite you to my conversation with Grace Chen. Grace is a big thinker, product engineer, former tech CEO, musician, mother and self confessed pickleball fanatic. After studying Management Science and Engineering at Stanford, Grace began working in the Silicon Valley tech world. She worked at several large companies before co-founding Common Networks - a start-up aiming to bring affordable, high-speed internet to the masses.

Several months into the pandemic, Grace and her husband Ryan decided to go visit his parents in rural Maine so that they could escape the wildfire smoke, stay at home orders, and their small San Francisco apartment with two restless kids. Grace had recently become the CEO of her start-up and was pitching to banks, venture capital firms and companies from an unreliable wifi signal in the small community of Unity, Maine. Despite the technical obstacles, the pace of life in Maine agreed with Grace and she found herself feeling more at ease and happier than she had been in years.

After just a few months, Grace and her husband Ryan decided to move to Maine permanently. They didn’t even return to pack up their apartment in San Francisco. In December of 2020, Grace’s company was acquired by Meta. She worked remotely for Meta until quitting a few months ago. She is keeping busy by volunteering at her kids school and figuring out ways she can plug her skills into the community. Her goal for this next chapter is to be a net positive in the place where she now calls home.

This is a story about tenacity and overcoming obstacles, plugging your energy and passion into your community, and the importance of rest and reflection after periods of intensity and change.