"Google would never hire a person like me."<br /> <br /> <p>That's what I told myself as I walked away from the college campus recruitment booth in 2005. I was a huge fan of Google products like Search and Gmail, so the idea of graduating and getting a job there was a dream -- a fantasy akin to making it big in Hollywood or on Broadway. But getting hired is much like dating, and I didn't see myself as Google's type. I thought that the kind of software engineers that made it into Silicon Valley tech companies were all the same -- a bunch of brilliant White and Asian guys with Ivy League degrees. I figured they came from good homes with well-to-do parents, affluent enough to afford the luxury of tinkering with expensive gadgets in their parents garages.</p><br /> <br /> <p>That was not my story. I grew up a foster kid living in Compton, California. In 1988, the infamous gangsta rap album "Straight Outta Compton" was released and the city became notoriously known as the murder capital of

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