Berkeley Innovation Podcast

Episode #15 In this Foundercast episode a group of Berkeley students interviews Anna Lee, technical co-founder of Lioness. Her startup is a women-led sexual health startup. They are building the world's first and only smart vibrators that improve understanding of sexual pleasure and body through biofeedback data. Intro Music: https://www.bensound.com

Episode #14 This episode features Michael Seibel from Y-Combinator (YC) sharing about Product Market Fit when he was on campus for the "Decode Silicon Valley Startup Success" DeCal class offered by the Sutardja Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology (SCET) at UC Berkeley.

Episode #13 In this "Tech Uncovered" episode, take a journey with a group of current Berkeley students as they explore how they should be thinking about launching a startup based on their class project. They chat with a fellow student startup founder, a venture capitalist, and a congressional aid about their AI facial recognition project.

Episode #11 Faculty Insight Interview with Ken Sandy. Ken is technology Product Management veteran. He's and SCET Industry Fellow and teaches the first Product Management course offered in Berkeley Engineering, with over 400 PM alumni. In the episode we learn about Ken's PM journey, teaching at Berkeley and his new book; “The Influential Product Manager – How to Lead and Launch Successful Technology Products.” It's a highly practical and approachable guide to becoming more effective and navigating the challenging collaborative aspects of the product manager’s role. 01:58 - Born in Australia 02:41 - Engineering 05:28 - San Francisco 06:16 - McKinsey & Co. 07:22 - Transition to Startup 17:41 - Empathy as a PM 21:44 - Being a Product Manager 24:14 - Teaching at Berkeley 31:26 - Book "The Influential Product Manager" 39:56 - Mindsets of a PM 45:16 - 5 Questions to Understanding Customers 52:35 - Steve Jobs the PM 56:13 - Engineering Collaboration 58:23 - Fun

Episode #12 Global Perspectives episode featuring a group of current BerkeleyGlobal entrepreneurship students chatting with Berkeley alumnae Rachel Williams. She is the head of Head of Equity, Inclusion & Diversity Talent Acquisition at X The Moonshot Factory at Google Alphabet. Rachel shares with the group of students her unique perspective about inclusion, culture, and leadership... she even has some fun digging into real world situations so you hear how leaders on the front line of today’s firms think. 02:41 - Background 04:05 - About X 07:10 - On Diversity 08:25 - On Inclusion 10:20 - Employees being authentic selves 12:01 - Humility 12:58 - Hiring process 16:39 - Leading your first team 19:45 - Tricky situations 33:36 - Fast & Curious 37:40 - Character 40:51 - Academic background in hiring 42:49 - On culture 48:30 - In time of crisis - People first 50:49 - Who creates culture 53:57 - Culture insights 56:20 - Final thoughts and advice

Episode #10 Foundercast episode featuring Ofek Arush and George Passantino, cofounders of Quokka Brew. Hear how George and Ofek launched their startup, from coming up with the idea, naming, to launching the business. 00:19 - Introduction 01:45 - Childhood friends 02:15 - Their first business 02:43 - Entrepreneurial spirit 03:38 - The muffin men 06:07 - Berkeley 07:20 - How Quokka Brew was born 08:38 - Ready to drinks 11:44 - Research 14:11 - The breakthrough 18:34 - The Quokka name 21:17 - Traction 23:50 - Team of ambassadors 27:37 - Where to get Quokka Brew 32:45 - Fun

Episode #9 This Student Stories episode features Alec Willerman, a BerkeleyHaas senior who was recently recognized as Best Course Coordinator in SCET classes during the Fall 2019. In the episode, Alec shares his journey, what he wants to do in the future, and his experience as a course coordinator.   00:36 - Introduction 01:37 - Winning the Best Course Coordinator Award 02:11 - Facilitation Skills 05:46 - Getting to Berkeley 06:34 - Education & Grading 08:09 - Facilitating learning 09:17 - Path to being a course coordinator 14:53 - A Curious Kid 15:20 - The troublemaker 17:29 - Business has a bad rap 20:15 - Transformational experiences on campus 23:31 - Fun

Episode #8 Foundercast Episode featuring Expensify Founder & CEO David Barrett. During his talk on campus at the Newton Lecture Series, Barrett shares his core philosophy of identifying the biggest problem you can, then go to work immediately to solve it. Take a listen! 00:56 - Introduction 03:56 - All the experts are wrong 05:47 - Don't trust me. Don't trust the VCs 06:39 - The CEOs are going to lie to you 07:56 - Everyone's going to fight for you 09:10 - Have you tried to change the world? 12:37 - Good ideas have to sound bad 16:02 - Traveling the world with a knapsack 19:50 - How Expensify started 23:57 - Q&A

Episode #7 This Newton Series Classic Episode features Marissa Mayer talking on campus when she was still VP of Search Products and User Experience at Google. She shares her journey to Google and some of the exciting things she was working on at the time. Mayer would go on to become CEO of Yahoo.

Episode #6 In this Foundercast episode, DoorDash Co-Founder & CEO Tony Xu has a fireside chat with Vicky Howell during our SCET Newton Lecture series in the Fall of 2018. Tony shares his journey from student at Berkeley to starting DoorDash, along with thoughts on cofounder strengths, keys to validate his business, and more. DoorDash is the restaurant industry’s “last-mile” solution and has grown into a more than $4 billion leader in the on-demand space. Today, the company is also focusing efforts on an issue particularly important to Xu, using that same logistical expertise to reduce food waste with the recent launch of Project DASH. In just five years, DoorDash has become the industry standard for restaurant delivery, and recently expanded to grocery through its newest partnership with Walmart. 00:55 - Tony introduction 03:17 - Growing up in Illinois 05:49 - Family immigrant story 06:57 - Major at Berkeley 07:42 - On entrepreneurship 09:27 - Keeping sane in school 11:38 - Going to McKinsey 14:41 - Business School 18:42 - Soft skills 19:28 - What you can't fake 20:18 - DoorDash - what was not obvious 24:38 - Cofounders and backgrounds 21:23 - The first city 29:21 - Competition 31:22 - Stickler for detail 35:19 - Delivering good 39:10 - Q&A

Episode #5 This Alumni Achiever episode features a Berkeley Engineering Leader Panel recorded March 21, 2017 as part of the Newton Lecture Series. The discussion is moderated by Amit Kumar, Partner at VC form Accel and features Padmini Pyapali of Uber, Jeff Huang of Facebook, and Sanjay Jeyakumar of Twitter. 01:04 - Panel introduction 03:29 - Berkeley experience 10:11 - Microsoft to Facebook considerations 13:37 - Zynga to Uber considerations 17:07 - Oracle to Google to startup to Twitter 19:20 - Startup terrified 20:54 - Navigating internals of a company 24:30 - Getting into management 27:55 - Tech architect path 34:01 - Getting acquired by Twitter 35:54 - Working at a lightning rod company 40:27 - Advice for students 45:36 - Q&A

Episode #4 Newton Series Classic episode featuring renowned Entrepreneur and Venture Capitalist Ben Horowitz. Andreessen Horowitz Co-Founder Ben Horowitz gave this Newton Lecture Series talk on campus at Berkeley on November 3rd, 2009, just four months after starting his new venture firm. In this episode, he shares his entrepreneurial journey, along with what his new firm was looking for in terms of entrepreneurs and companies in which to invest. 00:30 - Episode Introduction 01:30 - Ben Horowitz introduction 02:40 - How to play Quarterback in the NFL 04:10 - Controversial Computer Science degree 05:35 - Are you studying the right thing? 06:07 - The hilarious Warren Buffett 07:03 - Words of wisdom from the King of Pop, Michael Jackson 09:05 - What you need to build a new technology company 10:45 - Apple's Steve Jobs 14:17 - Story of Bernard Hopkins 15:10 - The second thing you need to build a new technology company 16:39 - How I became a CEO 20:30 - Story of America Online (AOL) to Loudcloud to Opsware 27:49 - Bill Clinton & Lesson from Colin Powell 29:10 - Is it too late to start a tech company? 33:12 - How can someone from Harvard write something so stupid? 35:12 - Would you like to know why smart people are so stupid? 39:34 - All the value in tech companies & who VCs want to invest in 41:48 - Quality of the team 42:40 - Megalomaniacs 43:59 - Great opportunities 45:31 - The biggest challenge for entrepreneurs 46:43 - Even William from Twitter and Mark Zuckerberg from Facebook 48:02 - The biggest thing to building a company

Episode #3 Faculty Insight conversation with Alexander Fred-Ojala on Blockchain, Data Science, and AI. Alex is an International Instructor from Sweden who is the former Research Director of the SCET Data Lab and co-Founder of the SCET Blockchain Lab. He helped create the DataX Framework and our popular DataX course. 00:49 - Introduction of Alex 03:00 - What's exciting in SCET Blockchain Challenge Lab 03:59 - Blockchain Use Cases 04:29 - Blockchain's Killer Application 06:05 - Commercial Application of Blockchain - Walmart & IBM Case 08:25 - Blockchain Scalability Issues 09:45 - Pruning the Merkle Tree 10:55 - What's exciting in SCET Data Lab 11:20 - Revolutionizing Global Telecommunications Network 13:21 - Natural Language Processing & Understanding 15:19 - Contextual Understanding, Dude! 16:32 - Next big technology opportunity for entrepreneurs 17:22 - Destroying businesses 18:24 - ICO Scams 19:56 - Monetization paths for Blockchain startups 21:25 - Value layer versus ledger 22:06 - The Web 3.0 - We own our data 23:15 - What we have in blockchain now that we didn't have in the past 24:29 - Doubts of blockchain 25:25 - The tipping point of blockchain - Angry Birds 27:15 - Decentralized applications 28:43 - Trust in blockchain, cryptocurrency, and money 32:05 - Adoption inflection point 35:31 - Blockchain alternatives 36:51 - Satoshi Nakamoto & blockchain precursors 38:19 - Work shifts with AI 41:10 - Value transition 44:03 - What should students do on campus 44:50 - Programs for professionals 46:29 - Fun!

Episode #2 Faculty Insight Moor Xu, Sutardja Center "Game Master" for many of our experiential learning modules shares what goes into the games. 00:45 - Introduction of Moor 01:30 - How and why games 04:14 - What are you thinking about when you come up with a game 05:10 - Construction of an entrepreneurial game 06:50 - The debrief 08:20 - Why don't other classes use these types of games 10:05 - Where do games fit in 11:30 - Games in corporate training 14:20 - What should executives think about when helping their teams 16:05 - What should other educators know about using games 18:55 - How do you merge theory and practical application 21:30 - Helping professors utilize experiential learning 24:10 - Evolution of experiential learning 25:50 - What skills won't be automated away with technology 25:50 - Fun! Try Everything!

Episode #1 Faculty Insight Interview with Professor Ikhlaq Sidhu, PhD, Chief Scientist & Faculty Director of Berkeley Engineering's Sutardja Center for Entrepreneurship & Technology (SCET). In this episode, Dr. Sidhu discusses the history of SCET on campus at U.C. Berkeley. 00:56 - Introduction of Dr. Sidhu 02:29 - History of SCET 03:58 - Entrepreneurship on campus before SCET 05:12 - Entrepreneurship in the U.C. System today 06:03 - About Former Engineering Dean Richard Newton 07:19 - The 95-97% of Faculty vs the 3-5% of Faculty regarding New Ventures and their impact on students 08:40 - What brought Dr. Sidhu to Berkeley 12:01 - Why Berkeley 12:59 - Building SCET 16:20 - The way entrepreneurs see the world 17:25 - Characteristics of entrepreneurs and innovators - Berkeley Method and transfer to students 19:35 - Challenge labs 20:50 - The key differentiators for innovators to learn 25:38 - Logic & content first, then soft skills 27:01 - Stories of executive learning 31:30 - What's next for SCET labs - Real, Practical ML AI Data Science classes; the hackers guide class 36:40 - Challenge lab objectives - Talent & Topics 37:50 - Long-term objective of SCET 41:45 - Engaging Industry projects 44:15 - How to engage with SCET 45:30 - Fun! Be sure to check out Professor Sidhu's new book, Innovation Engineering: A Practical Guide to Creating Anything New.