The moment that changed Marian Croak's life wasn't when she devised any of the 200-plus patents that improved internet communications and made her famous.
Nor is it when she was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. It wasn't even when Google — yes, the massive Google unit of Alphabet — named her vice president of responsible AI and Human Centered Technologies.
It was when Croak, 69, almost set the house on fire.
Learn From Mistakes Like Marian Croak
To be specific, it was her family's home and she was in her early teens. Her father, Raymond Rogers, had only recently given her a chemistry set that he'd designed and assembled for her as a special gift. He wasn't a scientist himself — he was a residential real estate broker — but he knew how interested Croak was in math and science. The gift made her feel like a real scientist.
Then, reality stepped in. She was home with the babysitter. She accidentally combined some chemicals together that weren't supposed to be mixed. Poof! The chemicals sparked and lit some nearby newspapers. The fire scorched the walls before she was finally able to put it out.
But the key is what happened next. Her father's reaction insured that the flame of her passion for scientific discovery wasn't doused. When her dad found out about the fire, he didn't yell at her. Nor did he take away her chemistry set. Instead, he worked with her to figure out exactly what chemicals she had mixed so she could fully understand how and why the fire happened — and wouldn't happen again.
"Neither of my parents ever got annoyed at me about my experiments," said Croak.
Rise To The Top Like Croak
Good thing. She has since become one of the nation's most decorated, most recognized, and most successful inventors. The fact that she's female — and Black — well, that only emphasizes the real size and scope of her nearly seven decades of accomplishments. She's one of the first two Black women inventors inducted in the National Inventors Hall of Fame.
Most of her patents involved improving communications with people over the internet using Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) Technology. The technology allowed folks to make voice calls using a broadband internet connection instead of a regular (or analog) phone line.
Keep in mind, she was around for the Wild West days of the internet, when connections would always drop and half the time you couldn't even hear the other person.
So, most of her inventions and patents were about making communications over the internet seamless. That's what got her into the Inventor's Hall of Fame in Washington D.C. two years ago.
"I guess I just love to invent things," she said. She also has received prestigious awards for her text-to-donate technology, inspired by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and the Haiti earthquake in 2010.
Many of Croak's innovations are in telecommunications as she joined AT&T Bell Laboratories in 1982. It was her first job after college. Croak attended Princeton University and the University of Southern California where she received her doctorate in quantitative analysis in 1982 if the date needs to be included. Bells Labs was a hotbed for innovation. Croak worked there roughly 30 years.
Find What You Love
That's what she's been doing for 42 years — inventing things. And she's evolved somewhat from inventor to the leadership role of a mentor to future inventors.
Great leadership, she says, requires persistence, wisdom and courage. "It takes courage to walk into the future because there is so much uncertainty," she said.
At Google, she takes her AI role very seriously. She knows that AI has the potential for tremendous benefits — like disease detection and climate change control. "Ways to meet the deepest needs of humanity," she said.
For example, her team has worked on methodologies to help improve maternal health for expectant moms in developing countries — to ensure they receive proper treatment and make certain the fetus is not in distress.
At the same time, she knows that because of the massive amounts of data and the nature of AI, there are potential risks associated with it that, she says, "Can amplify the worst type of stereotypes and provide misinformation."
That's some responsibility.
Set Your Priorities
She's done all of this while raising three kids — a daughter and two sons. She says she's always tried to make certain that her kids are her top priority. The trick, she says, is for that priority to always be the case — yet for those working under you to still feel your total support.
Perhaps no one understands that better than Tiffany Deng, who is Croak's chief of staff. When she was first offered the job, she felt totally intimidated. After all, just like Croak, she had three kids, as well. "She encouraged me not to be afraid," says Deng, who has since embraced the job. "She reminded me that I will always prioritize my kids — and give them the best of myself — and she gave me the confidence that I could do both jobs really well," said Deng.
Ironically, Croak credits her three children for her success. "They help to flip the switch for me in terms of thinking about my approach to engineering — and to think more creatively," she said.
Then there's that unique quality that Deng sees in Croak that she's seen in few other leaders: the ability to bring folks together from vastly different areas.
There was plenty of discussion, disagreement and even upheaval at Google back in 2022 when Croak was put in charge of pulling together the AI team that she now leads. "We were bringing together different teams that had all been operating under different areas — and suddenly they were all together under this umbrella organization," said Deng. But Croak succeeded by taking the time to speak individually with everyone. "She didn't make herself bigger than the job or bigger than the moment," Deng said. "She made herself available to talk with people."
Structure Your Day
For her, that creative thinking begins early.
Most mornings Croak is up by 5:30 a.m., when she starts each day, she says, by "centering" herself in bed in a quiet way before starting her day. Since the pandemic, she's mostly worked remotely because she has an autoimmune disorder. Even then, she tries to show up in person at the office at least every other month in order to have some one-to-one time with employees.
See Opportunity In Problems
But when did she first see the promise of a future career in science? She loves this question. Way back when she was five years old, a plumber came to the house to fix a leak.
She followed him around the house and constantly hounded him with questions. At one point the plumber ordered her to be quiet. But it wasn't because he was frustrated with her. It's because he was trying to do his job — analytically.
"The plumber told me that he was trying to listen to the way the water was flowing so that he could find the leak," she said. That's when she knew. She knew that she would fix things for a living — not as a plumber, but as a scientist.
She's been fixing things — and leaving her mark — ever since. And sometimes she gets recognition in the most unusual places.
Croak is included in the United States Patent and Trademark Office Collectible Cards series. That basically means she is right up there with Babe Ruth, Roger Maris, and Shohei Ohtani.
Yep. You can actually buy a Marian Croak trading card.
Marian Croak's Keys
- Pioneering inventor with hundreds of patents now Google's vice president of responsible AI and Human Centered Technologies.
- Overcame: Sparking a household fire as a young girl while experimenting with a chemistry set.
- Lesson: "It takes courage to walk into the future because there is so much uncertainty."
