21. Social Workers in Tech: Inside Content Policy at Spotify with Jerrel Peterson, MSW

Taylor (00:00)
Hello everyone and welcome back to the Social Work to Wealth podcast. I'm Taylor and guys, Faith is here.
Faith Voss (00:07)
I'm back! I'm here! ⁓
Taylor (00:10)
And our guest, Jerelle, which I will get to in a moment. ⁓
Jerrel Peterson (00:10)
you
Taylor (00:18)
But yes, Faith has been on maternity leave and she's back with us part time-ish. So yeah, welcome back, Faith.
Faith Voss (00:20)
Yes.
Yeah.
I'm happy to be here.
I'm excited. I couldn't miss this. I had to, I had to join for Jarell cause his story is just too cool to miss. So yeah, back part-time ish. That's a good way to put it. think. Yeah.
Taylor (00:29)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yes.
I love it. Yes.
We are talking again about tech social work, which I am just really becoming obsessed with. And like, as a listener, you may be hearing a lot of tech social work episodes, in the, you know, just in the future, because this is just such a fascinating field. And, you know, I, I talked with Leslie and she was on the podcast and she corrected connected me with Jarell.
Um, who works at Spotify. There's a social worker who works at Spotify crazy. So, um, we're here to talk about his journey and the things that he does and, all of that. So yeah, Jarell, if you could just share briefly what you do. Yes.
Jerrel Peterson (01:27)
Yeah, thank you so
much for having me. I'm really excited to be having a conversation with you all and helping social workers understand all the ways you can add value in different places. So me, I'm a director and I'm the head of global content policy at Spotify. So my team is responsible essentially for researching and writing what we call the platform rules. And so these rules govern all the content.
on the platform, everything from music and podcasts and audio books and playlists and all of those things. And we cover ⁓ every content issue from abuse and harassment to violent extremism to issues that impact youth and minors on our platform. What I'd like to say is if it's happening offline, it's happening in online spaces too. It's a very... ⁓
Taylor (02:11)
Yes!
Faith Voss (02:13)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Jerrel Peterson (02:16)
It seems to make a lot of sense to folks given how much we live our lives online. But when people sign into their favorite app, they're not thinking about all the risks of not just only being there, but hosting content and sharing personal things about yourself. So my team is responsible for that primarily. But we also work with a lot of global experts who advise us on how do we involve our platform and our policies and our products in really safe ways, not just in compliance with regulations and all the laws that govern.
Faith Voss (02:28)
don't know.
Jerrel Peterson (02:45)
a lot of the places where the platform operates. But if we're going to bring a new feature, how do we make sure it is safe by default? And one of the things that Taylor and I spoke about in the past is features that acknowledge that people on a mental health spectrum, for example, too, and policies that acknowledge that. A lot of policies assume that everyone's having a really amazing day or week and is fully socially evolved and aware.
Taylor (03:01)
Hmm.
Jerrel Peterson (03:12)
But we know that some people using our platform are depressed and are thinking about suicidal ideation, for example. So we don't want policies that punish those folks. We want interventions that provide them resources in real time, meet them where they are, and let them know folks are worried and thinking about them. That's at a core of what my team does.
Faith Voss (03:12)
you
Taylor (03:31)
Yeah. I love that you said like, if it's happening offline, it's happening online. And that's, that's like, I was just telling Faith before we got on this was that's kind of, I feel like the epiphany that I had this week where I was just like, do we need the amount, like the, the same workforce that we have for social, of social workers in person, do we need that same amount of manpower, like online? We clear, we do. Right? Like,
Faith Voss (03:53)
Mm-hmm.
Jerrel Peterson (04:00)
Thank
Taylor (04:01)
It's just, I don't know, it's just mind blowing because it's just not something that we really talk about in school and, just this being a path that's possible, which so obviously is why we're so excited for you to be here. but in terms of, let's start with, we're going to get back to what you do and some, some other things, cause so interesting, but in terms of like your journey into social work, early career, like what junior social work, can you talk a little bit about your.
Faith Voss (04:01)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Jerrel Peterson (04:18)
Yeah.
Taylor (04:29)
you know, internships and just kind of like your progression.
Jerrel Peterson (04:31)
Yeah,
yeah, yeah. So when I graduated from undergrad, we were in a recession. The economy had just tanked. So there were no jobs. And I had a lot of student loan debt. So I was really focused on getting this high paying job because I went to a good school. And coming out, that's not what happened. But even in recessions, like the helping professions are always hiring and they need folks because people are struggling, especially during
those times. And so my first job was providing direct services. I was working with people with severe mental illness doing rehabilitation coordination. So I would go to their house, talk to them about their treatment plan, make sure they were taking their medication, take them to their appointments, etc. And then from there, I moved on to low income families and seniors. I worked for Head Start in DC. And I really, really loved that work. The challenge that I felt in direct services is the people who decide
Faith Voss (05:18)
Okay.
Jerrel Peterson (05:26)
what programs get funding, what best practices are out there, or even the kind of things we highlight, often never had to worry about food or healthcare or housing or education. And so I wanted to transition into roles that help me kind of address some of the systemic issues that create the inequality that we see and that we try to manage every day as opposed to just helping people be okay ⁓ in their current situation.
Faith Voss (05:36)
Right.
Taylor (05:51)
Mm-hmm.
Faith Voss (05:51)
you
Jerrel Peterson (05:53)
And so I ended up going to University of Maryland because they offered a dual program, a macro and a clinical. Everyone does clinical your first year, and then you can do macro. So my first internship was with a soup kitchen called So Others Might Eat in DC, which was fantastic, a really, incredible organization. And then my second placement actually ended up being at the White House, the Office of National Drug Control Policy. And there was a social worker there who had been career public servant.
And she helped me start thinking about how social work skills are valuable in a macro ⁓ setting, particularly on that kinds of work that we were doing. She helped me think about influence skills. She helped me think about advocacy and not just shining a light, but using storytelling to compel people to action. All things that I knew in a really, really small clinical sense, but never at the scale of like the federal government. And then from there, I moved on to a national nonprofit in San Francisco.
doing work to help increase access for higher education and health care for young people in California. Then I got laid off. Then I had just moved across the country and I was living in San Francisco, which is very expensive and I had no job. And a friend was like, you live in San Francisco, why don't you work in tech? Did you know that Twitter is hiring for their trust and safety team? And I was like, I don't have a Twitter account and what the hell is trust and safety, right? And so after a lot of informational interviews,
Faith Voss (06:57)
Mmm.
Mm-hmm.
Right.
Jerrel Peterson (07:18)
with folks who worked there. None of them were social workers that I met, but they came from government entities, primarily some of came from law enforcement or they came from big nonprofits focused on human rights and those kinds of things. And when they told me the issues that they worked on, I was sold after the first conversation. So I was lucky enough to get an interview and get through the process and really demonstrate my value. And I've been doing that work ⁓ for about the past 10 years now.
Faith Voss (07:44)
Wow, that's really cool to hear kind of your progression into tech and kind of your early experiences. Do you feel like if you were to look back in those first few years after grad school or even in your field placement, are there professions you wish you had heard about or different career possibilities you wish you had heard about at that time? Or do you feel like you got a good, I don't know.
Jerrel Peterson (08:09)
Mm.
Faith Voss (08:13)
layout of different opportunities or do you feel like it was pretty siloed or limited?
Jerrel Peterson (08:17)
Yeah,
it wasn't limited. I imagined at the time finishing my degree that I would go into politics or public policy. But even then, that was in the context of like some of the big foundations or the big nonprofits, maybe a federal employee. But I didn't really like that. I'm being honest, tech was not on my radar at all. Also, I was on the East Coast and we don't talk about Silicon Valley and all that. Who cares? It's a distraction at that time.
Faith Voss (08:20)
Yeah.
Jerrel Peterson (08:45)
When you live in San Francisco, that is all you talk about, right? ⁓ And living in DC, either you work for, as a consultant, or you work for the federal government. That's what folks are thinking about. Tech was not on the radar at all. And then also, even when I was in SF, and I would meet tech people all the time, I'm like, I'm not technical, I can't build anything. I'm not an engineer, so you don't need me. But then joining one of these companies, you realize that it's a company. So it's got...
Faith Voss (08:46)
Hmm.
Hmm.
Right.
Right.
Jerrel Peterson (09:13)
every single kind of job that you would need to run a business. Engineering is part of it, which is why they are tech company. They've got lots of engineers on staff, but they also have marketing, comms, PR, trust and safety, public policy, right? They've got all those things. And a lot of the big tech companies have ⁓ massage therapists and regular therapists, all these folks on staff for their employees because of their benefits they provide. So there's actually so many jobs in a tech company that aren't just writing code.
Taylor (09:42)
Wow.
Faith Voss (09:43)
That's really cool to hear too. Cause I think, right, when you think about tech, it's like social workers in tech. Like what? Yeah, exactly. I'm not technical. Like I work with people, you know? Yeah.
Taylor (09:48)
It's like, I'm not an engineer.
Jerrel Peterson (09:49)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, I can't build anything. I have been trying, though.
I feel like that will be the ultimate flex, because I'll talk about this, but a lot of my work is collaborative, and we work with engineers all the time. And a lot of times, engineers are like, yes, I could build that thing for you, but we've got to deprioritize it. And I would love to go in and be like, actually, I'm glad you're on board, because I wrote the code myself. Like, here you go. Like, deploy it. So I'll let you all know when I can do that. But right now, not technical.
Faith Voss (09:57)
⁓ yeah.
Taylor (10:13)
Yeah, Jarell. I love that.
Yeah, yeah, for sure. so when you were transitioning like into Twitter, I remember when we had talked about how you, you kind of had to educate managers and the people who were hiring you and in these, you know, interviews about like what social workers do and we don't only just take kids away. so.
Jerrel Peterson (10:19)
Okay.
Faith Voss (10:19)
Sick. Yeah.
Jerrel Peterson (10:36)
Yeah
Mm-hmm.
Taylor (10:41)
I'm just curious about like, just how that interview process was and was it difficult and just, yeah.
Jerrel Peterson (10:48)
Yeah,
it was, it was hard. It was really, really hard. It was that translation of the skill. So the things I would get is like, some rude things like social workers just take kids away. How could you add value? Right? Like really honest, I heard that from a recruiter. I'm not going to say what company, but that hurt, you know, I was like, you just don't know a lot of social workers and what we do and the kind of value we add to society at large. Right. But I think that question of
here's someone who's hiring for a particular role on a trust and safety team, and they're trying to find out who is really good at that, and they're not thinking about me. In most cases, they're thinking about, who did this at another company? I'm gonna pick that person first, because they can do it there, they can do it here. And so you have to do a lot of translating for them around how the skills and experience and training that you have could add ⁓ value there. And so the things I think about is,
Tech environments are fast-paced, right? They are constantly shifting and moving and reprioritizing. And so I spoke a lot to that in my resume and my interviews, having to switch priorities based on funding, based on interests of the organization. I think a lot of people are like, nonprofits are so different than for-profits. But if the thing doesn't make money or get funding, then they're not going to do it, either one of them. And so as the funding shifts,
Taylor (12:01)
Right.
Faith Voss (12:13)
Mm-hmm.
Jerrel Peterson (12:14)
priority shift there too. So I spoke a lot about that. I also talked about situations of ambiguity. When I was doing direct services with people who are struggling, you don't always know what the best answer is or what the best intervention is going to be, but you're there and you're in the moment. And so you have to figure it out and hopefully you're leaning on your training and best practices and your community practitioners around you to have an impact with someone. And so I spoke a lot about that because I know in tech.
you're working on challenges that you don't always know what the answer is or what the impact will be. If they're building a new feature, you can't say, well, when we did this 10 years ago, it did X because the feature didn't exist, the technology didn't exist. And the harms are unknown at this point too. So I spoke a lot about my comfort with ambiguity and then crisis and stress management too. Social workers have a lot of experience with crises and high-stakes situations. That happens a lot.
Taylor (12:47)
Mm.
Jerrel Peterson (13:12)
in trust and safety work online. You can imagine we talked about folks having a mental health crisis and they're on your platform reaching out for help too. Or you could consider everything from like my time at Twitter when there's political dissidents on the platform and there are very real consequences for them and their country for speaking out against their elected officials to having to intervene to lock their accounts down so that their tweets aren't being used against them. Those are the kinds of things that our folks get pulled in.
Taylor (13:38)
Whoa. ⁓
Faith Voss (13:38)
Wow.
Jerrel Peterson (13:41)
to do and we collaborate obviously with legal and public policy and government affairs and sometimes law enforcement on those things. being comfortable in a crisis and being the calm one in the room is not because I'm just a calm person, but I've got lots of experience having to deal with this. And so I, as I was talking, kind of like how I'm talking to y'all right now, the higher managers were like, okay, well, I guess we could take a risk with you, you know, Mr. Social Worker, right? But then...
Faith Voss (13:55)
Yeah.
Taylor (14:03)
They're like, ⁓ yeah, that makes sense.
Faith Voss (14:04)
Yeah
Hahaha!
Jerrel Peterson (14:11)
I actually found
out that there are lots of social workers who are in tax. We've got quite a bit of community of folks who are successful at doing the same thing. And our goal is to kind of normalize this. And when you see a social worker, especially for trust and safety, you should be thinking, well, they've got the skills intrinsically and from their training to go to do this work really well at scale.
Taylor (14:30)
Yeah, that's so cool. I didn't, I mean, I just realized, like, as you were saying that of just, yeah, just talking with these managers and showing like, these are the, these, this is what we can bring to the table and educating people about what social workers, like the skills that we have. feel like just with this podcast too, we are also sharing with the world and the, you know, the country, the community, our communities of just like, these are things that social workers can do. Like, look at how impactful you're being.
Faith Voss (14:31)
Wow.
Jerrel Peterson (14:42)
Thank
Mm-hmm.
Faith Voss (14:58)
Yeah.
Jerrel Peterson (15:00)
Mm-hmm.
Taylor (15:00)
so anyways, that's so cool.
Faith Voss (15:01)
Yeah. And like being
trained, we're trained on systems and understanding how a system impacts, whether it's a family or a community, well, like tech and some of the companies you've worked for, it's just a big system with all these different ways that, you know, people can be impacted. And so like those skills actually really are translatable to that. It's really cool to hear you kind of lay it out. I love that.
Jerrel Peterson (15:19)
Exactly.
100%. 100%. I
Taylor (15:28)
Mm-hmm.
Jerrel Peterson (15:29)
think a lot about, I'm not sure if you all remember, there's like Yuri Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems model. And it's like the person in the environment. And then they're also in this large macro thing. And like, that image is like burned in my head. But that's exactly how I think about my work. When we have an issue online, I'm thinking about the user and probably where they are in the world.
Faith Voss (15:38)
Yes.
Taylor (15:39)
For sure.
Faith Voss (15:43)
Hahaha.
Yeah. Yeah.
Jerrel Peterson (15:51)
⁓ their region's understanding of what these online spaces are for or the norms in these spaces too. And when we're thinking about interventions, even if it's the right approach, if they don't understand it, right? If it's not repeatable or transparent, is that the right thing for us to be doing or are the ways I think about our work? And then I also think about the context of our platform and a larger ecosystem. Most people with their iPhone don't just have Spotify on their platform. Like they've got
all the other platforms as well, and they're looking for some kind of consistency, especially when they're in crisis. What is the best practice for when I'm struggling? And I shouldn't have to figure it out, depending on which app I open for me. And so all of those things, to your point, Faith, are really, really relevant, and by default, are how social workers think about our work. And it's novel and new to a lot of my colleagues.
Faith Voss (16:36)
you
That's really, really fascinating. okay, getting more into like what you do now, your roles and your responsibilities in tech. So for, for our listeners who may not be familiar kind of with, ⁓ your position, can you explain what does it mean to be the head of content policy and like, what does a day to day kind of look like for you? Or just give us a little bit more of maybe like ins and outs. Yeah.
Taylor (16:48)
you
Jerrel Peterson (16:52)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
A lot of things. Most of my day
is three parts. ⁓ So it's research and writing, ⁓ it's managing escalations or issues as they come up, and it's education too. And it can vary. Some days it's all education, other days it's issues. so research and writing. A lot of times my team is looking at the trends that we are seeing online and understanding ⁓ what...
Intervention there should be or what policy should be in place if it ends up manifesting on Spotify Even if not, we still want to understand it and know what's going on. ⁓ and it's everything from Who are the top fans that are beating with each other right now because what they're doing is they're doxing each other They're harassing and abusing each other online. And so knowing that what those pockets are is like something that we are aware of We're in the culture. We're in music but also
thinking about everything from the high risk scenarios. You all remember the Tide Pod challenge where kids were eating Tide Pods, right?
Taylor (18:11)
Leslie, I think
Faith Voss (18:12)
Yeah.
Taylor (18:12)
Leslie
brought that up on the podcast too. Yeah.
Faith Voss (18:13)
Yeah.
Jerrel Peterson (18:15)
Exactly. And it's like, well, what's our policy towards eating Tide Pods? And it's like, people are not supposed to eat them. That's the policy, right? Like it's one of those things where my team is then kind of calling to think about not just what is the issue, but what is the principle that guides this? What is housing manifesting on our platform? Do we agree that we want to ensure that we are addressing dangerous challenges that target youth? Because youth probably aren't in development level to be able to defend themselves or think critically about what they're seeing and engaging.
Faith Voss (18:16)
crazy.
Don't do it.
Jerrel Peterson (18:43)
And so we might want to draw a hard line around that. And then we start thinking, well, what is that line? Is that line punishment? Is it education? Is it lockouts or timeouts, right? Is it downranking or hiding? All of those things based on the egregiousness. And then from there, once you're kind of aligned on the principle and the policy and the approach, it's getting it built and bought in. So who are the engineers that could build this intervention? Can we get buy-in from our public policy folks who to go defend and speak to this externally?
Taylor (19:03)
Mmm.
Jerrel Peterson (19:12)
all that collaboration happens before something you see in the app comes up.
Taylor (19:16)
Wow.
It's like the policy is the intervention, which is so interesting. But what were going to say, Faith?
Faith Voss (19:17)
This sounds like policy. Yes.
Jerrel Peterson (19:21)
Mm-hmm.
Faith Voss (19:24)
No, like it sounds like you're literally working in government in tech. Like I'm listening to it and I'm like, yeah, I'm like, you are like, you know, talking to stakeholders, trying to ⁓ lobby certain groups. Maybe you're like trying to get people to understand why this would be important. And you're creating kind of checks and balances or boundaries around really ethical issues. Like, because, and I don't know, I'm not very good at knowing internet things, but
Taylor (19:28)
your government in this organization. Yeah.
Jerrel Peterson (19:38)
Yeah
Hmm?
Faith Voss (19:50)
The
internet's kind of like the wild, wild west, right? It's not like we have this, government really regulating a lot of the internet, I don't think, and that's part of what's so great about it, but also what's so risky about it. So you're like in the weeds of like creating safety in the internet space for youth, for, I mean, it's just like fascinating hearing you talk about it.
Jerrel Peterson (19:52)
Okay.
Mm-hmm.
Taylor (20:09)
Yeah, totally.
Jerrel Peterson (20:10)
Yeah, and we're
also humble about it too. We operate in almost every major market around the world. And while I can obviously speak to the experience of being like a black person in America, right, I don't know what that experience is like in other countries where I don't even have that context, even historical parts of it. And so we don't try to. That's when experts and our partnerships become really, really helpful for us because
Again, social workers, we don't just want to do the thing, we want to do the right thing. I think that makes sense and helps people ultimately be better afterwards too. And that means being accountable for some of the harms that are created in these spaces. And most of the time it is unintentional. But even if it's unintentional, it's still harmful. And so we have to kind of be accountable for that in a way to do something about it.
Taylor (20:42)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Yeah, you know, when I think about Spotify, it's like, that's my main like music listening platform, podcast, whatever. And when you talk about like abuse and a harm and harm, and I'm just like, can you, can you give us a little bit more, more info about that?
Jerrel Peterson (21:04)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, I totally
can. I totally can. And again, I operate a lot of folks in trust and safety operate from understanding that the majority of ⁓ people on the platform are not bad actors, right? It is our job to look at all the bad things, but 99 % of the time things are fine. Or ⁓ people are violating rules unintentionally because they don't know what the rules are.
Some platforms aren't transparent, but they have rules or those rules came a lot later after the platform was created. so users are being moderated and they're like, well, when did y'all start caring about this? I haven't known this for 10 years on y'all platform. Y'all are targeting me because I'm black. You're targeting me because I'm from this country or because I'm a Republican or because I'm a Democrat, right? They don't understand why you're doing the thing or the principles that guide it to. And so...
Taylor (21:54)
Mm.
Jerrel Peterson (22:07)
For me, a lot of time, I'm always thinking about how do we do the right intervention, but also an intervention that's transparent for them. But as I mentioned before, if it's happening online, it's happening online spaces too. So a lot of the unintentional abuse we see are folks who want to be the next popular true crime podcast, right? They found a crime in their neighborhood, somebody killed the elementary school teacher. We don't know who it is, but they feel like it's their job to solve it. So they turn their phone on and they're like,
I think it was so-and-so. That person lives at 152 Huckleberry Lane, right? She works here. She does blah, blah, blah. And then not realizing they are putting this on the internet for the world to see. And if someone believes you, and they could show up at your house trying to hurt you because they believe that you killed the school teacher, you know, kind of thing. And so it's, the intent isn't necessarily bad in most cases, but you are publishing.
Taylor (22:43)
You
I'm that person in, putting that person in harm's way.
Faith Voss (22:48)
Yes,
harm's way.
Taylor (23:01)
Of course.
Jerrel Peterson (23:04)
publishing someone's private information online for the world. And this is everyone who's got access to your podcast. And that could be a small few who are primed to do something or it could be a very, very large audience. And so a lot of platforms have policies, including Spotify, around posting private information from individuals without their consent and taking interventions there. But even in that case, the intervention might be, let's take this down because that person's at risk because of it.
especially if it's shared non-consensually. But it might be education, too. That like, I'm not sure you're aware, but these are the risks when you put someone's home address on the internet without their consent.
Faith Voss (23:37)
you
Taylor (23:42)
How do you send, you send that to them just like through like an email or.
Faith Voss (23:44)
Great.
Jerrel Peterson (23:47)
Yep, if you've got an
email address, most platforms will communicate you with the email. I would say best practice in Gold Star is actually in that, right? Or even Gold Star would be in the app, but timely. As soon as you're about to publish it, it's like, looks like the title of your podcast might be a home address. Are you sure you want to do that? Like that's what we'd want to get in the industry kind of thing.
Taylor (23:50)
Right, right.
Faith Voss (23:55)
you
Yeah,
Taylor (24:08)
I see, I see. You mentioned,
Faith Voss (24:09)
that makes a lot of sense. Yeah.
Jerrel Peterson (24:10)
But I think
it's it's it's it's complicated right because there are also lots of really good Use cases for putting private information on the internet I remember at Twitter covering some of the the major hurricanes that were happening It was that really big one in Texas when I was there at the time and people were publishing their home address Because they were like send services to come get me. I'm trapped right there were tweeting About it and so in that moment the platforms like we're gonna allow this and we had automated systems taking it down and we had to
Taylor (24:11)
go ahead. Yeah.
Faith Voss (24:33)
I can't.
Jerrel Peterson (24:40)
work cross function and make sure that content was still available so people could get help there too.
Faith Voss (24:46)
So it's not black and white, right? It's dynamic. There's so many different, yeah, gray. Yeah, yeah, right.
Taylor (24:46)
Wow.
Jerrel Peterson (24:47)
Yeah, it's gray all the time. social workers live in the gray, don't we? Right?
Taylor (24:53)
Yes, yes, definitely. have one
more question. Okay. The Spotify, I'm just like mind blowing. It's my mind is blown. ⁓ you talked about if someone's having like a mental health crisis or like what, how does that manifest through a platform like Spotify? Like, you know, what have you seen?
Faith Voss (24:59)
It's fascinating. I know. Yeah.
Jerrel Peterson (25:00)
Mm-hmm.
⁓ For playlists,
right? So people can talk about their suicidal ideation or the songs they listen to to cope with ⁓ their thoughts about hurting themselves. anybody can title their playlist anything that they like. And so in those moments, that can be really alarming and concerning to others, especially if you don't know the person, you don't know if this is real, are they gone, what happened to them.
Taylor (25:37)
So like a, so
Faith Voss (25:37)
Mmm
Taylor (25:38)
they could like title a playlist, like my last songs or something like that. That is just imp. Gotcha.
Jerrel Peterson (25:42)
Yup, songs before I die, right? You know, kinds
Faith Voss (25:45)
So what
Jerrel Peterson (25:45)
of things.
Faith Voss (25:46)
would be the intervention there? If you were to see that, or that would get flagged somehow through your systems, what would be the intervention?
Jerrel Peterson (25:53)
Well, a few things.
So if you are searching for suicide and self-harm terms on the platform, the first response you get is not content, it's a response from us. It's like, if you are experiencing challenges, here's where you can go to get support. And a lot of times those are localized resources that provided to us by a third party, because we want folks to know even if they're not, they're being hyperbolic or et cetera, they know their support's out there, not.
Faith Voss (26:02)
Yeah.
Hmm.
Got it.
Jerrel Peterson (26:22)
that you should continue with or develop a plan and all of those things. ⁓ And so that comes from research and experts like Jet Foundation and others who partner with us on those things. And then depending on how it manifests on the platform, we want to also be doing an intervention that is timely and makes the most sense for them to. What we want to avoid is punishment. A lot of times people are doing this because they're reaching out for support or they want someone to notice. And so you don't want to shut that door.
And again, I know that from my social work training, but how we got the business to be bought in to is through the third party experts and the researchers who studied this for their lives.
Taylor (27:01)
Wow, that's fascinating. ⁓
Faith Voss (27:03)
That sense. Yeah.
So much good work in the online. I'm like, this is a lot, right? Like it makes sense. Social workers need to be in tech or social worker. Yeah. Which I think like, ⁓ one of the other questions we had for you was, you you said you worked at Twitter and I'm curious, like what did your role look like there? Like what kind of work did you kind of do? You mentioned a little bit with like the hurricane.
Jerrel Peterson (27:10)
Thanks.
Yeah.
The same work, I
think at Spotify, I talked about the three kinds. So it's policy and research and writing. It's the escalation, like things are really, really bad. Then also lot of education internally. I'm meeting with executives. I'm meeting across my children's teams, helping them understand our issues, why they matter, and what they can do about them, especially the folks who are really passionate. About there is so much we can do in this space and to be done, especially as the technology accelerates and is available in everyone's life.
Faith Voss (27:32)
Yeah.
Jerrel Peterson (27:57)
At Twitter, it was those three things, except mostly escalations and urgent issues. Our, my former VP did a really fantastic Ted Talk years ago where she talked about the challenges of scale. And so if there's a one in a million chance that something really, really bad was happening on the platform at any given moment, because Twitter had 500 million tweets a day, that meant
500 times a day around the globe something really bad was happening a kid was being trafficked in a DM right or someone was threatening to kill Themselves or threatening to blow up a federal building or something anywhere in the world or they've got their phone out and they're watching a natural disaster Unfolded people are being killed or on live on Live like live stream essentially right and that's that's what it felt like we were in the trenches
Taylor (28:49)
Stream, yeah. Yeah.
Faith Voss (28:50)
Yeah.
Jerrel Peterson (28:55)
all of the time. again, social workers, I think are uniquely positioned for that kind of work because we are sensitive to the signs of burnout, right? We're always thinking about what it takes to be resilient. How do we fill our kelp so that we can do good work? And I think that time used every little bit of social work training I had because we saw some of the worst of the worst stuff. Twitter was where people broke news. It was where people talked about how they were feeling. It was very, very real and very, very human.
Faith Voss (29:23)
Yeah.
Jerrel Peterson (29:24)
especially at that time when I was there. so, again, if it was happening offline, it was happening there too, in real time.
Taylor (29:30)
Yeah.
So your job, like when you know, you're going to work at Twitter, like what is your job? What's the task for you to do? Do you need, you're just going through tweets and looking at, just trying to like, okay, no.
Jerrel Peterson (29:44)
No, no, no, no. Usually for me and my team, when something was gray and or represented a gap in our policy or high profile and it really needed alignment on not just what to do, but what are our principles that we can defend, that's when my team was looped in. But that was often too. And not because we were bad policy practitioners or anyone at the company was bad. It was the relationship between what was happening offline
and our policies and the technology too. So you think about a platform just to talk to someone else, right? And you layer on the fact that everybody in the world can see that conversation, including people with context about what you're talking about and people without it, right? That's one big dynamic that colored a lot of our work. Think about Game of Thrones, if you watched it, right? And someone sharing a clip of one of the sexual violence scenes from that, that was all over.
Taylor (30:41)
Oof.
Jerrel Peterson (30:43)
that show and then someone sees and like, this is promoting rape culture. And it's like, you didn't want, yeah, you didn't, they think it's pornographic. They don't know where it's from. They didn't watch the show because it's not available in their country, for example, but they're reporting it. And we're having to be accountable for that too, because it's sexual violence in the video that everyone can see, right? It's everything from those misunderstandings from people witnessing versus what's happening or how people talk ⁓ to the technology itself.
Taylor (30:47)
⁓ like they report it. Right.
Faith Voss (30:47)
Yeah, right.
Mm-hmm.
Jerrel Peterson (31:11)
Right? And then missing disinformation as well. People have their phone out thinking they are sharing in real time what's going on. But as social workers know, a lot of people can be looking at the same situation and taking very different things away from it. And so when you lay your video on top of it too, even if it's first person, there are lots of interpretations about what could be going on. Or when you think about the complexity of culture too.
also an out gay man. And I think about the videos I see online of people boating or drag queens getting ready. And then folks who don't have that context, whether it is or that content is illegal in their country, right? All of those things make for a wide variety of messes and escalations that platforms have to deal with and explain. And then you give them all.
Faith Voss (31:45)
Mm-hmm.
This is so, I'm like sitting here just like in awe listening to you talk about, I'm like, because honestly, and I, because you're, there's so many layers because you're right. The internet is not like one country or one state or one county or one family. are every country. there's like layers of gender and race, and then there's like culture and then religion and then, and then
Taylor (32:04)
I know.
There's so many layers.
Right. Like Twitter is in what, every country, you know?
And culture... yeah.
Jerrel Peterson (32:28)
and language,
too.
Taylor (32:29)
In
Faith Voss (32:30)
And language,
Taylor (32:30)
language.
Faith Voss (32:31)
and there's so many layers here. And not only do you need, yeah, like you have to think about that when you work with a family, right? Like a family can experience trauma in five different ways, right? So then you think about how somebody's experiencing a video and then the amount of people in the different cultures and the different layers, it's fascinating. And then you think about, well, we don't only need social workers who understand all of that, but you need...
So like our profession is not diverse. So like it's a lot of white women, right? In our profession. Well, you need people in tech who are from diverse backgrounds and diverse cultures who can understand these nuances and these layers. It's just, yeah, my mind, that's what my mind is thinking about. Yeah.
Jerrel Peterson (32:59)
Mm-hmm.
you
Yeah, and feel empowered, feel empowered to speak up to it's it's
not enough to have a diverse group of folks that those folks don't feel empowered like their own identity experiences are relevant here and can be valuable to because I think a lot of folks in corporate spaces generally want to come in and just kind of simulate and be like don't notice any difference about me. I'm here to my job and make money. But for me, I think again, for my social work practice, I encourage my team to lean
Taylor (33:24)
Mm-hmm.
Faith Voss (33:24)
Yeah.
Taylor (33:34)
Yeah.
Jerrel Peterson (33:42)
into that because context is everything in our work. When we're talking about artists in India, for example, I didn't grow up there. I don't know who the top five artists in India do, but I have people on my team who do and they can tell us those kinds of things. And I'm like, don't be silent in that moment. Let us know. We want to do what's there too. But you're exactly right. just talking about a family and how they can experience issues and then kind of going back to that ecological systems model. like there's also culture and norms.
around that as well. And these norms are in online platforms too. And a lot of times we're thinking about what kinds of norms and incentives are we creating and reinforcing simply by how the platform is designed. And a platform like Twitter or social media platforms generally are designed to amplify the things that are really, really scary or emotionally charged that gets a lot more clicks, a lot more engagement. And that dynamic can make for really
really bad outcomes that only exist because the platform exists. One of the things that used to really bother me are fight videos. I'm not sure what your experience was in middle school, but a lot of times you get to fight. You see people fight. But when I was growing up, they fight, and whoever saw it saw it, and then we all move on, and we all graduate and go on. But now these videos live forever online, and it's not just your school and your classmates that know about it.
Taylor (35:00)
Yeah.
Jerrel Peterson (35:05)
It's the world. And you've got people who are much older than you, who don't know you, who don't speak the language, having an opinion about whether or not that person beat you up good enough, right? And it's like how young people are supposed to manage, that is kind of beyond me. But it's an issue that only exists because the technology exists and how it's shared. And so my main goal is to ensure that platforms are accountable for that and doing something about that to make sure people are okay.
Taylor (35:17)
Yeah.
Absolutely.
Hmm. Super interesting. Okay. Let's do it. So let's talk about compensation, career growth. if you could share just your salary progression or just, or general salary ranges that you've seen for, for tech roles that social workers would be, you know, eligible for.
Faith Voss (35:33)
That's awesome. Should we get into compensation and career growth?
Jerrel Peterson (35:37)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah. Yeah. So
tech generally pays really well, especially if you're one of the big companies. If you have a startup, it might vary depending on what the startup is and what they do and where they're based. But when I started at Twitter, I came in at what they would call the entry level role. And so obviously,
Excuse me, as you heard, I had experience before I got there. had a whole career and a life before I got there. I also had a graduate degree. And so even though I came in that entry level, my starting salary was 90,000 plus equity too. And so for me, I didn't negotiate because that was about 30,000 more than I was making doing my public policy role that I loved. Right. And I was really, really good at before I got laid off. Yeah.
Faith Voss (36:29)
Nice.
Taylor (36:39)
And you're just like, 30k more? Yes!
Faith Voss (36:40)
for like 90, that's
Jerrel Peterson (36:42)
And so when
Faith Voss (36:42)
such a, that's.
Jerrel Peterson (36:43)
they called and said 90, I was like, all right, when do I sign?
Faith Voss (36:46)
Exactly! That's exactly...
Jerrel Peterson (36:48)
Why are you sitting
here quiet on the phone? Just email it to me, all right? I'll get it back to you ASAP. So it was higher than what I was making before. But then also, it was about $50,000 higher than what I was doing when I was giving direct services. And so for me, I remember calling all my family. I remember coming home to my partner and being like, we're getting a new apartment. I just have a Twitter. Yeah. I was like, we are going to be fine. This is it. And then when I got there, I was just like, all right.
Taylor (37:01)
Yeah.
Faith Voss (37:01)
Mm-hmm,
mm-hmm.
Taylor (37:08)
Yeah, we're going shopping.
Jerrel Peterson (37:18)
I'm gonna stay here until y'all fire me. I'll make $90,000 for the rest of my life and I'll move on. Like literally that's what I was thinking. I just proved myself. This was 2015. And so it was really just like, let me just prove myself because this is fine. And then equity, and so kind of taking a step back. When you get a job in tech, most platforms provide what they call total compensation. So the offer they discuss is actually really, really high. So what they do is your base salary plus your equity.
Taylor (37:24)
What year was that? What year was that? Okay.
Faith Voss (37:25)
Yeah, we're here. Okay.
Jerrel Peterson (37:47)
and your equity is usually in the form of RSUs or restricted stock units. Have you all spoken about that on the platform? So restricted stock units are stock in the company, but they're restricted in the sense that they vest over time. So if you get $10,000 as part of your equity package, you can't just take $10,000 out of your charge slot. What it means is after your first year, usually one third of that
Faith Voss (37:52)
Hmm. We haven't, we should, yeah.
Taylor (37:54)
We haven't spoken- we haven't. No. Yeah, get-
Jerrel Peterson (38:15)
is available for you to withdraw. And then every three months, a certain chunk comes out till after four years, you would have gotten that full $10,000. That's how it works. And equity tends to be the thing that folks or companies can play with the most. So if they push back or not your base salary, they can likely change your equity and increase that for you. You should always negotiate.
Faith Voss (38:24)
Okay.
Taylor (38:38)
you
Jerrel Peterson (38:42)
And there are other things you can negotiate too. If they're like, we're hard on your equity and we're hard on your salary, they might give you a sign-on bonus too, which is something else I learned that I should have asked for because other people joined and got $5,000 just for saying yes, right? And the only stipulations with a sign-on bonus is you usually have to be at the company for a year or they make you give that money back, right? So don't like, so people aren't joining a company, get in $10,000 and being like,
Taylor (38:55)
Yeah.
Faith Voss (38:56)
Ha ha ha!
Right.
Taylor (39:09)
Mm-hmm.
Faith Voss (39:11)
and then bouncing. Yeah. Yeah. ⁓
Taylor (39:12)
Bye!
Jerrel Peterson (39:12)
and then getting offers over and over, right? So that's
a domestic relation. again, I was like, there is no social work job I apply to that they're like, here's money just for saying yes.
Taylor (39:24)
Here's money just for saying yes. I mean, I'm seeing that now with like healthcare positions, like social work because we're very needed there, but like here's money for just saying yes. Here's equity in the company. Like that's a conversation that if I was a new, I mean, new grad, no one has talked to me about this. No one in my family, you know, if a lot of us are first gen college students, it's like, we don't have people to kind of advise us on things like this, you know?
Faith Voss (39:24)
Right.
Jerrel Peterson (39:26)
Hmm?
Mmm.
Faith Voss (39:35)
company.
Jerrel Peterson (39:51)
Nope.
Faith Voss (39:52)
Right, right.
Taylor (39:54)
Do tech companies also offer like, I don't retirement benefits and like matches and things like, okay. Yes. Like that's yeah. Yeah.
Jerrel Peterson (39:59)
Yes, 401k all the above, really good parental
service and supports, all the bells and whistles. And again, once I got the salary, I was like, I don't care. They were going through the benefits. was like, okay, great. Yeah, I was like, do y'all want my first child? I don't care. I'm making money, all right? I didn't really care about.
Taylor (40:13)
Like I'm making 90k as a social worker! I'm good!
Faith Voss (40:14)
Do you know how much is this?
I'm set.
Jerrel Peterson (40:26)
that kind of stuff. And so they have so many benefits. And it's like, great, fantastic. Now as like, I've been doing this for a while and like the owner, our first homeowner stuff, like those kinds of benefits make a lot of sense. And I care a lot about my health and now my eyes are getting bags, I'm getting older. So like all of those benefits now make sense to me. But then I was like, well, my base salary, like you don't have to give me anything. Like this is fine. Like I'll be all right. You know, and as you stay with a company, like you get the stock that best over time, right? You also get
Taylor (40:41)
I'm
Jerrel Peterson (40:56)
pay bumps and increases. It's very, very normal to get like a 2 to 3 % bump every year just because if the company is doing well and so you grow over time. And so I won't say how much I make now, but it is more than that and it has grown. The expectation is that it will grow and as you move up a level, it will increase significantly. And most folks, some of the things I see people do, especially people of color is to move.
Taylor (41:08)
That's fair. Yes.
Faith Voss (41:10)
Yeah, that's fair.
Jerrel Peterson (41:23)
and hop around because as you hop around, you're renegotiating your salary and reassessing what the companies think your skills are worth. I always encourage people I mentor to like still do interviews, even if you're happy in your job, still do interviews, find out what your skills are worth on the market because in corporate spaces, this is a transaction, right? You may do good heart, trust and safety work, but if the company thinks it's not important, they will fire you, right? And so be there for the right reasons.
Taylor (41:27)
Yes.
Mm-hmm. Yeah. ⁓
Faith Voss (41:53)
which you're kind of getting
into the next topic that we want to talk about too, which is like advice for social workers who want to get into tech. ⁓ cause I would imagine a lot of our listeners as Taylor and I are feeling are like, this is so amazing. This is so cool. Like,
Jerrel Peterson (41:58)
Mmm.
Taylor (42:05)
We're we're like fan, we're like fan girling over this
Jerrel Peterson (42:06)
Mm-hmm.
Taylor (42:09)
over this niche or this, this like path for social workers.
Jerrel Peterson (42:10)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Faith Voss (42:11)
Because
it's just not something we talk about in grad school at all. We talk about direct client care. We do not talk about this. So it's fascinating. what would be some first steps social workers could take if they're curious about tech? Kind of dipping their toes in, what would be your advice there?
Jerrel Peterson (42:15)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm. So
if they're curious about technology, specifically about trust and safety, I would encourage them to start reading. There are so many articles. Now that you all know about trust and safety and content moderation, I feel like you're going to see articles now every day. There is something about how YouTube or Snapchat or Instagram or Meta or whoever messed up royally related to how they moderated or didn't moderate content. There's so much out there about like
Taylor (42:54)
Mmm.
Jerrel Peterson (42:56)
online regulation and how that's impacting. I'm sure you've seen the things about like, um, countries saying, you have to be 18 to use social media. Now, like all of that stuff is related to trust and safety and online content moderation. So I would encourage them to get curious. Um, I'm one of the advisors for the trust and safety professional association. So TSPA kind of like how we have the national association of social workers. It's TSPA does the same thing for folks in my profession too. And they publish tons of resources and case studies online.
Faith Voss (42:57)
content moderation,
Cool.
Jerrel Peterson (43:26)
about issues that platforms have tackled, how they managed it, and other resources there. So read, definitely. When it comes to the artifacts, so your resume, I always encourage folks to be thinking about the three things I talked about, too. How are you talking about how you work in a fast-paced environment, addressing ambiguity, being flexible, being good in a crisis. But also, the thing I see most that's missing from resumes is the so what.
Taylor (43:33)
that's fascinating.
Jerrel Peterson (43:56)
You need to make sure you talk about your impact because even if I don't know what social workers do, you having an impact, making a business better, impacting their bottom line, making them more efficient, achieving strategic goals, all that stuff is generally understandable in corporate spaces. And so I always tell people, if you've got a line down that says, provided ⁓ counseling to 40 seniors, right, or my case loader is 40 clients, et cetera.
That's fantastic. You're having a big impact, particularly in a community. But I would say I did that. Increasing our ability to achieve our strategic priority or address a core community that had previously not been addressed. The impact, the so what, why should I care about this in addition to quantifying is really, really helpful. Because like I said, if I don't know what social workers do, but your resume looks like you constantly have an impact at any company you're at, in any role, that's someone I'm.
Taylor (44:40)
Ooh, that's good.
Faith Voss (44:46)
Mm-hmm.
Jerrel Peterson (44:52)
generally interested in too. So always do the so what. The second thing is relationship building. Again, something that social workers are good at, but LinkedIn is your friend. It is your friend. I would encourage folks if they're interested in particular companies or particular teams, start reaching out to folks who work on those teams and definitely reach out to recruiters. I would send a note to a recruiter and say, hey, I saw you're hiring for this role. My name is Jarrell. I've got six plus years of crisis management and relationship building experience.
I'm really comfortable with situations of ambiguity. I'm really passionate about your organization's mission. I love to get coffee to talk about how I could be a good fit for your team. They don't have to respond, right? And you really only need one or two to bite because they can give you really good context about your resume, about the company, why or why not. They think you could be good. But I remember my first interview in tech wasn't actually at Twitter. It was with a recruiter for a different very large tech company, but
It had been someone I've been talking to on LinkedIn for almost five months before she was like, oh, we actually have this role that you might be a good fit for. And so the relationship building piece is also really important. If you're just applying online, good luck to you. Like people still get jobs that way, right? You're not necessarily skipping the line, but just know it is so easy to apply for a job. And if you're at, you're trying to get one of those good companies, like when we open a role at Spotify, overnight we have thousands of people.
Faith Voss (45:59)
you
Taylor (46:08)
Hahaha!
Faith Voss (46:09)
Hmm.
Taylor (46:14)
You're right.
Jerrel Peterson (46:21)
apply, right, because they all want to work there. so it's who you know, but also humans are taking shortcuts, right? If I have the choice of reading a thousand resumes versus I've got 20 people who show an initiative in my inbox on LinkedIn, I might start there, especially if some of them sounded interesting to me. And then once I've exhausted that and anyone that the hiring manager already had in mind from the industry,
Faith Voss (46:22)
Oh, I'm sure, right. Right.
Taylor (46:22)
⁓
And so it kind of becomes who you know.
interesting.
Faith Voss (46:47)
Mm.
Jerrel Peterson (46:50)
then I'm gonna go to those thousand resumes, but also I'm not gonna read a thousand resumes, because you can't, no one's got time for that. So you're gonna spot check, like who was at Facebook, who was here, that kind of thing. And so the relationship building a piece, getting on people's radar and getting the insights of what companies are looking for, I think is the best way to land a job in tech.
Faith Voss (46:55)
No.
Taylor (46:56)
Yeah, no, definitely.
Mm-hmm.
I love that. Yeah.
Faith Voss (47:11)
It's something
that we hear from a lot of, you know, people who come on the podcast is like networking and like putting, just send the email, get in the sentiment, DM, like get in their inbox, right, Taylor and be bold about that. Cause I think we, yeah. Yeah. A theme.
Jerrel Peterson (47:20)
Mm-hmm.
Taylor (47:25)
Yeah, we need to be, I know, I think that's, this is another time for us to be
Jerrel Peterson (47:27)
Mm-hmm.
Taylor (47:30)
like social workers. Be bold, like you got this, you're awesome. You have amazing skills that you can bring to the table and like toot your own horn, go after it. Like we have to put ourselves out there. think sometimes we just kind of, like you said, it's easy to apply to a job online. There are thousands of people that are doing it, but.
It's sometimes we have to, we have to take that extra step to, to really move the needle or break it, break into an industry that you've never been in. feel like, especially with that scenario, it's like, yeah, you really need to be proactive. Like just applying and not really following up with people and not making connections isn't going to really help.
Jerrel Peterson (47:57)
Yeah.
Faith Voss (48:08)
Yeah.
Jerrel Peterson (48:08)
Yeah, let the company tell
you no, right? I see a lot of people who are so bold and applying. So I'm like, sir, you know, you can't do this job, right? But you apply and you sent me a note on LinkedIn. And it's just like my favorite thing to accept. But like, work in trust and safety. A lot of times the roles say safety, safety policy, safety specialist, etc. And so we get lots of EMTs and firefighters who are applying. And I'm like,
Faith Voss (48:12)
Yeah.
Hahaha
wow.
Jerrel Peterson (48:35)
You
do a different kind of safety. So like, I'm not doing CPR on anybody at Spotify, right? And I'm so glad that you are certified in CPR, but you can't do this job. But that person applied, sent me a note on LinkedIn, reached out and is ready to come save lives, right? like, I'm like, let, and then have other people who are like, I didn't think I could do it because you know, I've never worked in tech. And I'm like, no, you're a social worker. You got tons of skills. Like, let us tell you no. Like, don't discount yourself. Yeah.
Taylor (48:36)
This has a different kind of safety.
Faith Voss (48:42)
you
Taylor (48:48)
Aww.
Faith Voss (49:01)
I love that.
Taylor (49:01)
Mm-hmm,
absolutely.
Faith Voss (49:02)
Yeah. That mental like leap that social workers have to overcome, which is like, I can't work in tech. don't, I'm not technical and like convincing ourselves. get in our own way. We get in our own way. And part of that is grads graduate work and like what we are funneled into our messaging that we receive. ⁓ yeah. So. Yeah.
Taylor (49:08)
We get in our own way.
Jerrel Peterson (49:09)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Taylor (49:15)
Our messaging, yeah.
Jerrel Peterson (49:16)
Mm-hmm.
Taylor (49:19)
Yeah, for sure.
Jerrel Peterson (49:20)
It's hard. You asked the question around
the transition to Twitter. That was one of the hardest humps for me. I was respectful of time too, but just really, really quickly when I started, as I was observing the people around me who had larger career aspirations than Twitter, like I told you, I got there and I got my sound and I was like, I'm just gonna stay here until y'all let me retire. Right, kind of, but then the other folks who were getting promoted, who were getting bigger projects, they were outspoken. They were constantly selling their impact and their skills and talking really loud.
Faith Voss (49:27)
Yeah.
Taylor (49:38)
I'm
Faith Voss (49:41)
You
Taylor (49:48)
You're so right.
Jerrel Peterson (49:50)
And I was just like, I'm team, proof is in the pudding. Look at the things I've done. I don't have to tell you I'm great. Look at my work. Ask about me kind of thing. And I was like, that doesn't really work in corporate spaces. And it's like, then I need to get comfortable talking about my impact and the skills I bring and the unique perspective that I have on my work too. That's just.
Faith Voss (49:59)
Hmm.
Taylor (50:00)
It doesn't really work, I've, yeah. I feel like even in nonprofit I felt that way.
Yeah.
Jerrel Peterson (50:17)
It's a mix of personality, right? But also I think our training, like we are in the background. If a family does really, really well, or a system or project scales, it's like, great. I'm so glad I got to help that. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Faith Voss (50:23)
Yes.
Taylor (50:28)
Yeah, we're not going around being like, yeah, look what we did. Look at that policy I passed and whatever. You know what I mean?
Faith Voss (50:31)
Yeah.
Taylor (50:33)
But maybe
we need to, maybe we needed a podcast episode about this of just like, how do we talk about ourselves and like, how can we kind of bring more of that in? So yeah.
Jerrel Peterson (50:43)
Even if
you're just pretending, ⁓ my partner and talk about, we turn it on, right? Like I can turn it on. I can be, I can make you think that the work I do is the most important work at this entire company and that everybody should care about it, right? And that's what I learned when I was doing my practicum at the White House. It's like, how do you make your issue someone else's issue and get really comfortable selling the importance of it and marketing yourself and your skills as a solution too.
Faith Voss (50:49)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Taylor (51:10)
Yeah, that's... I love it.
Faith Voss (51:12)
Yeah,
that's good. Before we let you go, I feel like we need to ask this one question, which is kind of more macro. And it's more about like, why do you think so many social workers are leaving the field? And could tech and like getting into tech be part of like a solution, like an attractive way to maybe retain talent, bring talent back to the field or like recruit talent?
Jerrel Peterson (51:20)
Mmm.
Mmm.
Hmm?
Faith Voss (51:41)
I don't know if I'm making sense.
Jerrel Peterson (51:42)
I
think it could be. So in terms of why, I can imagine lots of reasons based on my experience. Underpaid, under-resourced, under-appreciated, overworked, right? All of those things were true when I was doing it. for me, my focus, like I said, was I wanted to have a larger impact. And it felt like working at a more macro level meant I could impact not just the communities or the individuals that I cared about, but...
Faith Voss (51:54)
Yes.
Jerrel Peterson (52:09)
larger systems and structures. And I'm really, really lucky that my role allows me to have a positive impact in the lives of millions of people who use our service from all over the world. And in having that kind of aspiration for more scale, more money kind of came with that. I remember people just always say, do what you're passionate about, follow your passion and money will chase you. And I was always like, the money's going real slow. Like it's not even close, right? But I think in my case, thinking about
Faith Voss (52:33)
Yeah!
Jerrel Peterson (52:39)
tech and scale has helped in that way. And so it could be an answer for a lot of folks. It's not for everyone, right? There are a lot of trade-offs in working in corporate spaces too. And I'm sure like even that long exhale, Taylor, like I think you know, right? There are microaggressions. There's all kinds of things that come with being in these spaces. There can be really cutthroat, right? Everyone's not your friend here. Not everyone's bought into the mission or even cares about it, right?
Taylor (52:48)
Yeah.
Faith Voss (52:48)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Taylor (53:08)
Oof.
Jerrel Peterson (53:09)
all
those things I think I took for granted in some of my previous workplaces that are the trade-offs you make for that extra salary, right?
Faith Voss (53:11)
So true.
Taylor (53:13)
Interesting.
Ooh,
that's interesting. Hmm.
Faith Voss (53:17)
Yeah,
Jerrel Peterson (53:20)
You can do a whole episode on that. Happy to come back and talk about the challenges of being in corporate spaces.
Faith Voss (53:23)
Yeah, we've... Yeah. Yeah.
Taylor (53:26)
Yes, you will be back.
I'm already saying it. You're coming back. ⁓ This was amazing. ⁓ Thank you so much, Jerelle, for being here and sharing all of this. just like, I hope everyone thinks this is as interesting and fascinating as Faith and I do, which I think that they will because we've mentioned multiple times that.
Jerrel Peterson (53:30)
You
Faith Voss (53:31)
You're
coming back. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Yeah.
You
Jerrel Peterson (53:44)
Hahaha
Faith Voss (53:48)
Fingers crossed, yeah.
Taylor (53:51)
this is just not a conversation that we've had in school or just really as I've gone through the profession and yeah, it's like, I just learned about this last month. So this is amazing. yeah, this is a call out. If you love this episode, this content, just give us a little something, give us a little review.
Jerrel Peterson (54:02)
Mm-hmm.
Faith Voss (54:03)
Right.
Yeah.
You
Taylor (54:15)
We recently saw some comments on Spotify, which seems like a new thing that people can comment on an episode. ⁓ Surprise! So let us know what you think about ⁓ this content. And as always, thanks for listening and we'll talk to you later.
Faith Voss (54:22)
Yeah.
Jerrel Peterson (54:22)
Surprise.