“The fact of the matter is you make the best decision you can at the moment you’re making it. Her freshman dormmate Systrom had passed her name off to a headhunter at the company, and she was offered an interview to join their marketing team. On the very day she arrived in the city, she received an email from a recruiter. LA presented multiple opportunities for Aniobi - namely, the chance to be one of the first 50 employees at Twitter. “Writing Episode 501, which took place at Stanford, it was almost this love letter to how met because, had it not been for Stanford, we never would have met.” We were just two Black girls at Stanford who liked each other,” Aniobi said of her friendship with Oliver. Even when we met, neither of us were involved in writing or producing or anything.

“It’s just staying in touch with someone that I just loved as a person. On Wednesday nights, they ran the four-person writers room out of her apartment. After watching the first episode, Aniobi knew she would be joining something special. Oliver told her that she and Rae had launched a web series and were looking to hire writers. Upon taking the leap and moving to Los Angeles, months later, Oliver reached out to Aniobi. Amy Aniobi, executive producer of 'Insecure' It just validates the experience of a Black girl who likes both hip-hop, rap and Black American culture and also can live in the awkward ‘I don’t fit in here’ space. It’s the permission to be exactly who you are as a Black woman walking through the world. What ‘Insecure’ means is the permission to contain multitudes. We support it, just do the best at that.’” They were always like, ‘OK, that’s the path you’re going on. “They didn’t understand what I was up to, but they always loved and supported me. “It was a lot of recalibrating their instincts,” Aniobi said. Her Nigerian parents didn’t quite get it at first, but her mother always wanted Aniobi to go back to school and get a master’s degree.Īniobi said her father told his friends his daughter was getting a “master’s of entertainment and television science,” tacking on science as any typical Nigerian dad would. So Aniobi applied to the University of California, Los Angeles, which she ultimately attended from 2009 to 2011. I want to have a conversation with the culture. “Then I realized I had studied American studies, which is culture.

“I remember having that conversation with her and then being like, ‘Damn, why am I not going to film school?’” Aniobi said. (Photo: Frances Ampah)Īniobi told Oliver she should apply to the University of Southern California.

Her love for a wide array of subjects led her to becoming an American studies major. Surrounded by aspiring tech founders and engineering wizards, artsy Aniobi was an anomaly as an undergraduate student at Stanford University.

Watch silicon valley season 3 episode 1