How one woman technologist single-handedly created thousands of jobs

Leah Busque, founder of TaskRabbit, is passionate about creating a community of “micro-entrepreneurs” — people who work autonomously on a part-time or full-time basis.

Her company, which only operates in a limited number of geographic areas so far, has already created several thousand opportunities for this kind of work. On the site, people list their needs for help with specific tasks, from running errands to moving furniture. Other people, called “taskrabbits,” get the job done and are paid by the posting party for their services. Some TaskRabbit users are able to make full-time jobs out of their TaskRabbit activities.

While the service still has a lot of expansion to do (TaskRabbit currently operates in Boston, the San Francisco Bay Area, New York City, Chicago and greater Los Angeles), Busque has created a fascinating way of solving two problems at once: meeting the small and immediate needs of the middle class while helping the willing-to-work make money.

In this interview, Busque also talks about how being educated in a women-only environment helped guide her toward a career in technology and how her perceptions of gender roles changed once she got into the tech workforce as an engineer.