bg wesleyan liberal arts to silicon valley oct 2016
TRANSCRIPT
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Silicon Valley Internships and Wesleyan
Bhaskar Ghosh, P’20Tech Exec, Investor, Advisor
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Silicon Valley?
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BG P’20
Yale CS PhD ‘95
Wrote lots of (database) software
Built, grew, and led tech and product teams
Staying engaged: Products, Investing, Advising
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Outcome
Q&A: Throughout + End
Students become curious about Tech related changes outside New skills Cultural learnings
Be a part of Wesleyan’s growing relationship with tech and SV
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Stuff to Cover
Tech, Software, and You!
NCG and Internships in SV
Tech and Non-Tech Roles
Skill Building
Where to look?
Entrepreneurship Culture
Beyond Wesleyan
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Tech and Software
Two drivers of change: Globalization and Technology
Integral to business, work and play
Interactions and complex sharing through mobile, online
Rapid growth, changes
New business models (e.g. On-Demand, Networks), Data/AI
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The ”On-Demand” Phenomenon
Response to inefficiency of taxi monopoly
Supply side: unutilized time and cars
4 key tech building blocks: Cloud, Big-Data, Mobile, Payments
Platforms (DoorDash, Thumbtack, …)
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Quick tour of SV
To convince yourself of what the crazy kitchen of this disruption looks like.
Fly to SFO, and drive 45 miles on Rt. 101 from San Francisco to San Jose
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Tech, Software and You
Current 18-25 year-olds as well as next generation will constitute 75% of global workforce by 2025
How these generations learn, adapt, work will be different from previous generations’
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Some Quotes
“Software is eating the world.” – Marc Andreessen
“Finding happiness in work is a combination of calculation and serendipity” – Clayton Christensen
"Dime con quién andas, y te diré quién eres.” – Spanish Proverb
"Technology [driven] companies are not just for tech-nerds.” -- Anonymous
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Some Quotes. Some Implications
“Software is eating the world.” Affects what one works towards?
“Finding happiness in work is a combination of calculation and serendipity” The calculation part can be worked on.
Show me who you walk with and I’ll tell you who you are Network! Wisely.
Technology (driven) companies are not just for tech nerds. A business needs a lot beyond coding to run
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But… internships?
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Internship is an exploration
Learning: culture, teamwork, impact
Rapidly build new skills, hone familiar ones
Learn roles, develop interests
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My NCG and Intern Experiences
LinkedIn, Nerdwallet SWE Programs
Which schools?
Career-Fairs and Hackathons Diversity initiatives Relationships and departmental
connections
Value to company
Value to students
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Internships lead to roles
Two broad paths
Join a company
Be an entrepreneur
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Tech Roles
Software Engineer
Product (UI/UX, FE, Mobile, BE) Infra, Mobile, Ops, Data, Security
Data Science and M/L Engineer
Analytics: Product, Marketing, Sales, Biz
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Non-Tech Roles
Product Management (*) Design (User, Creative) Biz Operations (*) Product and Biz Strategy Digital Marketing (SEO, SEM)Analytics: Biz, Sales, Marketing,
Product [People Ops, Sales, Recruiting]
CriticalMid-large start-up, company Multi-disciplinary2/3 of roles
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Non-Tech Roles (PM and Biz Ops)
Product Management
CEO of the product Leadership Domain expertise
Biz Operations and Strategy
Paths: Analyst, Consultant to BizOps Feeder into: Marketing, Product, Sales Mid to large sized companies
No coding! Lots of common skills across these roles Cross-Team Influencing, Communication, Data-driven, People skills
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Preparing for these roles? Skills. Learning.
Non-Tech Majors
Data exploration Build a simple app Statistics (e.g. R, Stata) EQ, People Management, Interdisciplinary team-work
Wes: QAC, KAI Social Change through Tech, Patricelli Center
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Preparing for these roles? Skills. Learning.
Tech Majors
Systems (e.g. databases) Mobile and Web FE Stats ML, D/M and AI Software Engg practices Building on public clouds
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Where to Look?
Wesleyan Career Center and Speaker Series
Accelerators (e.g. 500S, YC, Hive, AngelPad) VC’s and Incubation funds (e.g. AngelList) Late stage start-ups (e.g. PLT, AB, U, P) Mid to large companies: (e.g. GOOG, FB, LNKD, GE) Hackathons, Conferences, Meet-ups, Piazza Civic Tech
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Where to Look? Civic Tech
Growing grass-roots efforts with Social Movement bent Top Goals: Government transparency, Open Data SF, NYC, DC, and more!
Models: Centralized e.g. Code for America De-centralized e.g. Open Oakland, Smart Chicago
Mostly (a) non-profit (b) for programmers (till now?) Wes students: (a) Entrepreneurship, (b) Internships
Govt
Civic Consc
Tech
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Liberal Arts, as seen by Silicon Valley
SV beginning to recognize the fit between biz-product-leadership roles and multi-disciplinary ethos and creative drive from LAC students
LAC producing entrepreneurs. Causes mind-shift in SV.
MBA? Evolution: LAC students directly going to non-tech roles
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SV Entrepreneurship and Growth Culture
Mature technology unleashes entrepreneurship
Tec and Non-tech founders alike (E.g. Airbnb, Pinterest).
Hyper-growth and rapid innovation becoming common.
Implications on personal values and group culture
Taking risk and right-till-proven-wrong
Scrappiness amidst adversity and lack of resources
Continuous learning (e.g. Tour of Duty)
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Wesleyan and beyond
Caveat: What we talked about is not for everyone.
LAC provides unique strengths
(passion, skills, culture, people) > (career)
Amazing Wes examples: Wesleyan to Entrepreneurship?, Molly, Shivani, Jonathan
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Looking Forward
Wesleyan Career Center, Events and Support Structures
I am here to help
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You will find your passion as you learn, act and adapt.
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Thank you!
Wesleyan: Jennifer O, Jim K, Nikhil, .. Palo Alto: Brinda, Milind, DD, Nerdwallet: Rajat, Geoff, Kelly, Yoni … and everyone else
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Q&A