Insights from Silicon Valley’s Brightest Minds
Over the past week, I talked to billionaire founders, Fortune 100 C-Suite executives, & creators of products we use every day. This post is a synthesis of the insights from our conversations.
How I got this opportunity & what it is
You’re probably wondering how a normal UIUC student got into this position. Well, I was selected to be a part of the Silicon Valley Entrepreneur Workshop (hosted by UIUC’s Technology Entrepreneur Center). Each winter break, the TEC takes 25 entrepreneurial students (Freshman → PhD) to meet UIUC alumni who have achieved tech & startup success. You visit ~4 alumni per day and hear about their entrepreneurial journey & lessons they learned along the way. Plus, you can ask them any question you want!
It was one of the best weeks of my life because of the friends I made & the entrepreneurs I met. I left inspired & prepared to become a successful entrepreneur.
I want to give a big shoutout to Stephanie Faraci, Kearsa Rawson, & Jed Taylor for organizing this whole trip!!! None of this is possible without them. With that being said, let’s get into it.
Notes from conversations
Tom Sun: Founder & CEO of ampUp
- EE @ UIUC → Wall St. analyst → SWE at Twitter → ampUp Founder
- You can’t treat a startup like a side project. You need to be all in.
- The 3 most useful startup skills: (1) getting customers — sales are best, (2) raising money — VCs & bankers are best, (3) building product — former PMs that talk with customers are best
- Make decisions & run experiments on products so that you can iterate
- Stay resilient because building companies is really hard
Kelly Berger: Founder of Level Up, Uptain, & Tiny Prints
- EE @ UIUC → PM Engineer at Intel → other PM positions → Tiny Prints Founder → sold Tiny Prints for $350 million → Guildery Founder → sold Guildery → Uptain Founder + Level Up Founder
- How to build a skillset: I-shaped → T-shaped → Pie-Shaped → Cone-shaped. Go deep in one skill, learn about other subjects, & repeat
- You need to build a culture early on in a company’s life span (create a culture book & value statement to get employees aligned)
- Study history to predict the future
- Timing is important to think about when pursuing business ideas
3 steps to thinking of business ideas:
- Be observant of great products, problems, & ideas (inspiration for your next big thing)
- Keep track of emerging technologies (you can use research studies)
- Keep track of emerging markets
Sundari Mitra: Chief Incubation Officer of Intel
- MS in EE @ UIUC → chip designer @ Intel → Director @ Sun Microsystems → Prism Circuits Co-Founder → sold Prism to MoSys (45x return) → VP Engineering @ MoSys → NetSpeed Systems Founder → Chief Incubation Officer of Intel
- Results > hours worked
- Put your foot down for what’s important to you. Make your environment work for you — that is the key to professional happiness.
- Entrepreneurship allows you to control you own destiny.
- When selling, don’t let people forget you or your product. Be memorable!
Samir Mitra: Founder of Reya Health
- MS in EE @ UIUC → Sun Microsystems + MBA at Santa Clara → founding member of Java programming language → founding executive of Java Mobile programming language (became Android) → Cast Iron Systems founder → sold Cast Iron to IBM for $200M+ → Prism Circuits Co-Founder → VP @ MoSys → Senior Tech Advisor to Prime Minister of India → created their digital identity system, built the broadband network for the entire country, & lots of other projects → Reya Health founder
- Make bets with good teams (this trust is driven by in-person connection)
- Dive into your current passions
- Have a great story in your back pocket people will remember you by
- Become in expert in a field where not many others are looking
- Work in a place with a culture for innovation
Ravi Thakkar: VP Product of Impossible Foods
- ECE @ UIUC → Google PM → Apple PMM → Impossible Foods
- Consumer driven products are similar regardless of industry
- Overcommunicate & be transparent
Nitesh Trikha: CPO of View
- Cisco → July Systems → View
- View is building some craaazy tech (windows with digital screens)
- Good culture → good people → good product. Culture comes first!
Martin Neumann: COO of View
- Nuclear Engineering @ UIUC → PhD → Post-Doc → Adjunct Professor → View
- Companies fail when they constantly try to reinvent the wheel. When problem solving, find other people / companies who have solved a similar problem. Then copy them and tailor their solutions to your problem.
Tom Siebel: Founder of C3.ai & Siebel Systems
- Studied history of science & tech @ UIUC → early employee at Oracle → Siebel Systems Founder → sold to Oracle for $5.8B+ → C3.ai Founder
- Get good at picking big markets early & writing
- Health x Information technology will be huge (precision health)
- Doesn’t believe AGI is coming soon
- Social media is the most destructive invention of all time
- Good book: Deep Medicine, Chip War, 1918, & AI Superpowers
- He’s always planning for when the music stops
- Work for a company with a great leader & the opportunity to build skills (Series B or C startups are a sweet spot)
Marcin Kleczynski: Founder of Malwarebytes
- Malwarebytes Founder → CS @ UIUC → kept running Malware bytes
- There is a big shortage of security talent
- Studying open-source code can accelerate learning
- Reslient team = passionate team + real professionals
- Sales is more science than art
- Sell your product to your fanatics first (tl;dr of Crossing The Chasm)
Jawed Karim: Co-Founder of YouTube
- Pursue your interests & keep an eye out for paradigm shifts in technological capabilities
Met with CMO & CTO of Bloom Energy
- No notes but this company is doing some really cool stuff (plus the grid is fascinating)
Mike Gold: CEO of Intermedia
- EE @ UIUC + President of IEEE → MBA @ Stanford → started companies from the ground up, acquired other companies, replaced CEOs in PE transactions, & eventually founded Intermedia
- Starting businesses builds equity in yourself
- Went from failed founder to top exec of $100B company in under 2 years because of the skills he learned as a founder
- He focuses on his top 20 customers
- You need to win people over when starting a company; so, be enthusiastic & confident
- MBA connections are incredible
- Intermedia has a differentiated go to market strategy (whitelabeling their software)
Met with a BD & Engineering Manager of Adobe
- No notes but seems like a great employee-centric company
Kat Mañalac: Head of Outreach & Content at Y Combinator
- Communication at Northwestern → Brand & Strategy at Wired → Chief of Staff for Alexis Ohanian (Reddit Co-Founder) → Y Combinator
- Clarify your thinking of your startup by filling out the YC application
- Clarity of thought over everything
- Solve a “hair on fire” problem
- Good pitches: (1) Team — why are you the one, (2) Traction — accelerated growth, (3) Clarity — describe problem & path to market dominance
- YC puts founders into support groups
Prashant Shah: MD of TiE Launchpad & Partner of Monta Vista Capital
- EE @ UIUC → lots of VC investing related work
- You only have so much time to make an impression on investors
- They look for team (experience, passion, & ability to sell), technology (unfair advnatage, road map, & technological depth), & market (understanding of customers, size, growth, & market leverage)
- Avoid buzzwords at all costs
- People will solve the pain they can feel vs the one they can prevent (painkiller > vitamin)
Roger Dickey: Co-Founder & CEO of Made Renovation
- Tons of personal projects → CS @ UIUC → SWE @ National Instruments → Curiosoft Founder → sold to Zynga → built tons of games → Angel investor in 15+ unicorns → Gigster Founder → Sold to Ionic → Made Renovations Co-Founder
- I would 100% work for this guy
- Distribution & marketing is very hard. So, focus on it
- Work at company first. Make all your dumb mistakes on someone else’s dime
- Personal framework for ideas: article
- How to get a great first job: Tier 1 VC series A investments → follow founders on Twitter → coffee chats with employees → figure out the company culture → message founders based on culture
- Build a small market monopoly with growth potential
- 8 interview questions that work on anyone: his Twitter thread
Shawn Carolan, Greg Rudin, & Aunkur Arya: Partner, GM, & Partner at Menlo Ventures
- Shawn studied EE. Greg studies History & Sociology. Aunkur studied Economics.
- Big personal mission statements guide you & provide comfort when you have to make hard decisions
- Pursue ikigai
- Knowledge is perishable. If you want to travel between jobs - be able to look an employer in the eyes and tell them why you went, what your goals were, & what you learned.
- Ready, fire, aim > ready, aim, fire. Most startups do the former but should do the latter.
- Books: Autonomy Mastery & Purpose, So Good They Can’t Ignore You, Resonate, & Non-Violent Communication
- If you are working at a startup, figure out if they have hit product market fit.
- Work for a kickass entrepreneur
- Be deliberate in keeping up with people who have supported you & you want to stay in touch with. Be the one that adds value & express gratitude.
- Recognize the human element in people (even in business relationships)
Amit Kulkarni: Co-Founder & CEO of heyMarket
- EE @ UIUC → PM @ Siemens → PM @ LitesScape → Manymoon Co-Founder → sold to Salesofrce → heyMarket
- Be intentional with the customers you are building for
- Monetization in the app store is tough (web apps are easier)
- Learn from Steve Blank’s customer development courses
- Start on SEO early to have efficient long-term growth (learn & build in public)
- Make sure to get user feedback from your target customers (not just anybody)
- How he plans: annual → quarterly → weekly (and he checks in on each plan to make sure they still make sense)
Vijay Karunamurthy: Head of Engineering at Scale AI
- Biochemistry & Math @ UIUC → MS @ Stanford + MBA @ Berkeley→ Search & Discovery @ YouTube → Director of Engineering at Apple → Scale AI
- Great businesses help other companies save money, make money, or be more efficient
- AI will touch every industry. Get ahead of the curve by studying statistics, philosophy, & economics
These conversations were amazing. But, the best part was the friendships I formed with my peers. I have a good feeling some us will be talking to students on this trip in a few years ;)
If you are a UIUC student, don’t miss out on this trip during your 4 years on campus.
Thanks for reading! If you took away 1 actionable insight, then I did my job well.
- Luke
If you want to reach out, DM me on Twitter. For more info on me, check out my personal website.
What I’m learning about right now:
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Blockchain
