Category: 2022

This summer, I was a part of the cohort for Duke in Silicon Valley, a course led by Duke’s I&E department. This project-based program was centered around preparing us for our journey into the startup landscape while innovating solutions to imagine a workplace for a prominent startup.

As we continued our research for the project of designing the workplace of the future, we had several visits to companies in Silicon Valley to learn from their experience adapting to the pandemic and picking the brains of top entrepreneurs to prepare us for our journey.

Through our visits, we picked up on many interesting quirks of offices in Silicon Valley, our favorite one being, of course, unlimited free food. As we marveled over huge kombucha bars and large meditation rooms, we realized how important it is to take care of the people who make a company. Be it through fun activities organized or clever conference room names, company culture seemed crucial to a successful workplace.

A highlight of our trip was our visit to Oracle Park. After watching the San Francisco Giants play San Diego, we had the opportunity to get a tour of some of the highlights of the park from the Senior Vice President of the team: Bill Schlough. Along with breathtaking views and some unforgettable stories about the construction of the park, and showing us his championship rings, Bill talked us through his journey to where he is right now and gave valuable insights for us to keep in mind.

One of our most interesting activities in class involved practicing negotiating in a context that most of us are likely to encounter: a job negotiation. For this exercise, everyone in the class was given roles that dictated which factors were important to us in the negotiation along with other contextual information to make us aware of the circumstances.

As some pairs struggled to come to a compromise that satisfied both parties, others realized that there in fact, was no need to compromise in many areas since often negotiating partners have shared interests.

“Yes, and…”

These two words we learned play a crucial role in innovation. Building on the ideas of others instead of changing them or shooting them down creates a collaborative atmosphere that fosters unparalleled innovation. To practice this, Duke in Silicon Valley students took the stage with BATS improv in San Francisco and developed skills pertaining to brainstorming and innovating through simple yet engaging exercises.

The concept of empathy and collaboration has echoed throughout the classes we have had with Professor Amato as we try to learn as much as we can from the experiences of people who have worked in different styles and innovate a proposed system of work for the growing startup.

In addition to this project, this course has facilitated growth in each student as they try to learn about being an entrepreneur from so many people who have done it. Here are some quotes from our guest speakers which I found valuable.

• “What does your future self wish you did today?”
• “The reputation you leave behind really matters. Do the work!”
• “If you help lots of people, lots of people will help you. Say yes!”
• “You are at the age to optimize risk for learning.”
• “Startups don’t run out of money, founders run out of energy.”
• “Be surrounded by the smartest people you can find!”

I’m thankful for the opportunities this course has offered me and hope to continue to capitalize on all the priceless knowledge I have encountered this past month.

Aditya is a rising sophomore at Duke University – pursuing a double major in Electrical and Computer Engineering and Computer Science. Aditya enjoys building products, watching Formula 1 races and spending time with his family. At Duke, he is a member of a premier pre-professional business organization Delta Sigma Pi (DSP), is a part of the Duke Academy of Model Aeronautics and the HackDuke organizing team. Over his gap year, Aditya worked on his EdTech startup where he talked to people involved in the startup space in Silicon Valley. He is now excited to meet more people to prepare him for his journey into solving problems using technology.

Have you ever stared into a pond and marveled at how effortlessly a duck can skate across the surface? If only the water was translucent, then you would see the fervent struggle that their two tiny legs are engaged in to keep the rest of the body afloat. This analogy was brought up countless times as we traveled through the depths of Silicon Valley over the past two weeks. Startup founders, CFOs, and Product Managers advised us to keep the cool of a duck on the surface, but paddle your heart out underneath to sustain your business. Whether it’s in a negotiation, a board meeting, or even a non-work situation, modeling the duck-in-the-pond seems to be a good strategy: remain calm, present yourself well, don’t let them see the blood, sweat, and tears it took to get here, and you will coast by. Thanks to the Duke in Silicon Valley program, I no longer feel like I am splashing among a sea of well-rounded, highly motivated, poised ducks effortlessly drifting across the water. By learning more about others’ tenured career experiences and discovering my own unique passions along the way, I now believe Ravi Gupta when he told us that “nobody actually knows what they’re doing.” At some level, we’re all frantically trying to keep afloat, but it’s those with “confidence in [their] conviction” that look better than the rest of us while trying.

            The following are nuggets of golden advice, conveyed through unusual or distinctive analogies, that I have harvested from the incredible conversations we were able to have last week:

Reed McGinley-Stempel, Stych: Visit after visit, founders would reference the difference between painkillers and vitamins, an analogy which, at first, I didn’t quite understand. Why was a passwordless authentication company or an early stage VC firm asking us, “who took their vitamins today?” I soon learned that using the painkiller-vitamin approach to a product is one of the best strategies in developing product-market fit. You don’t want your solution to be an added–but not necessary–benefit to someone’s daily routine. You want it to be so positively transformative, alleviating a customer’s pain so well that it becomes essential. I have found this framework to transcend the corporate world in guiding my everyday decisions. For example, as I roamed the drugstore aisles thinking about products I wanted versus needed, I faced a budgeted choice: a bigger bottle of Advil for my inflamed tonsils or collagen gummies for my poor nail health. I’ll let you guess which one left CVS with me.

Lauren Levitan, Faire: It wasn’t the crisp white floors or the cold brew andkombucha on tap that dazzled me about Faire, it was the energy. Lauren Levitan and her three coworkers, Jolie, David, and Grant, brightened the room with their excitement for Faire’s growing marketplace, the office comradery, and … cherry tomatoes. Yes, the warm-toned, bulbous fruit (it has seeds) that is the cornerstone of pizza and pasta. The analogy made no sense to us listening, but the Faire employees responded with “ah, yes” to Lauren’s reference. A cherry tomato, she describes, is a small act that, at the moment, seems miniscule in impact, but over time, reaps big benefits in its harvest. Making the decision to forego a fractional unnecessary cost right now can compound into hundreds, thousands, maybe millions in savings down the line that can be reinvested so much more productively into the value proposition of a company. Taking the lesson out of Silicon Valley, doing small yet effective efforts each day towards a larger academic, career, or personal goal can result in a net positive change unimaginable to the initial mind.

Deborah Liu, Ancestry:  “What am I leaving behind?” “What does your future self wish you did today?” Sitting at one end of the U-shaped classroom table, I scanned the room from Bari to my right all the way to Will across from me. As Deb asked us to “step out of today” and into the next 5, 10, 15 years of our lives, I can’t help but ponder what this room would look like then. If the ambition and thirst for knowledge in the room feels forceful now, imagine the success stories that will populate it in a decade. The Duke in Silicon Valley program has brought a group of eclectic, wildly contrasting personalities together through a shared excitement for the opportunities of the future and the hope that maybe we, as individuals or members of a larger team, will one day be the alumni who offer advice to future DSV students.

Penelope is a rising sophomore studying Biomedical Engineering at Duke University with a potential certificate in Science and Society. She hails originally from Dallas, Texas, but is now a North-Easterner living in Greenwich, Connecticut. Growing up, she always found biology to be the most interesting science and now seeks to integrate it with her passions for technology in bio or human health technology. She found Duke in Silicon Valley to be the perfect experience to expose herself to such industries and give her a real insight into opportunities beyond college. Also, as the new director of Duke Campus Enterprises’s Next Ventures division, she is excited to learn from and apply her knowledge from the I&E class to grow as an entrepreneur. Outside of school, she enjoys running marathons, reading, and researching for a cure for Alzheimer’s Disease, which she will formally continue with a Bass Connections Team in the 2022-2023 school year.

This summer I had the incredible opportunity to participate in Duke’s annual Duke in Silicon Valley program as part of an Innovation and Entrepreneurship course taught by renowned faculty member Professor Kathie Amato. The experience has been transformative, not just in terms of the skills of enterprise management I learned but also with regards to the level of quality networking and relationship-building I was able to achieve.

As I sat through classes consisting of informative lectures on business strategies, business models, interview methodologies, product design and case studies as well as speaker sessions from talented and accomplished professionals based in the valley, I contemplated what truly connected all these lessons and experiences together. This puzzlement and curiosity was addressed in one particular lecture. We had an in-class activity where we had been assigned a partner and we had to carry out a business transaction. Confidential information such as role assignment and task details were emailed to us beforehand. I happened to be a seller and my partner, Tim, the buyer in this simulation. As I initiated the offer at $1000 (to ensure profit), Tim made attempts to lower the price and we eventually settled on $700. Reconvening with Kathie, we discovered that had we worked together by sharing essential information, we could have completed a set of items and generated even greater combined profit. Instead, we seemed particularly focused on personal gain and resorted to secrecy and distrust. “Had you exchanged information and collaborated, you would have gained much more,” Kathie ensured. And that’s when it all started falling into place for me.

Silicon Valley is far from a mere collection of corporations competing against each other in a mountainous desert. It is where talent thrives and passion prevails. Where the lone-wolves struggle and the pack succeeds. The DSV program aims to teach students about these very insights into the surrounding region and its socio-economic structure. Our lectures emphasized the need to foster and maintain effective teams, not just through well-developed business models and role assignments but also through a strong social network between peers and competitors alike. Our guest speakers supplemented our learning with discussions on their own experiences in the industry and the importance of collaboration and connection. Kelly Hirano, a Director of Engineering at Meta, mentioned the way his friends were able to help him in his pursuit of early career opportunities; Fred Ehrsam, the creator of Coinbase and Paradigm, underscored the importance of seeking out the perfect co-founders; Max Cohen, CEO of Sprinter Health noted how well his VP of Operations, Ariana Afshar, complements his strengths and weaknesses as they both expand their startup; and Mackenzie Drazan, CEO of MiResource, highlighted how pertinent Duke’s academic and professional resources were in supporting her business while she operated out of her college dorm. These are the stories I shall recall and take inspiration from as I embark on my very own entrepreneurial journey in the near future.

In conclusion, Duke in Silicon Valley and, by extension, the Valley itself is marked by a unique culture of intelligent risk-taking, iterative planning and, above all, a sense of unwavering collaboration and networking. Silicon Valley’s essence lies not in the ideas and innovations it generates, but in the coming together of individuals behind those very ideas as they work to achieve exponentially more than what they ever could alone. As my fellow teammate, Aayushi, reminded us through a quote (which became a lovely inside joke for us all thereafter): “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” I believe this saying rings particularly true for the phenomenon that is Silicon Valley, California.

Muaz is a rising junior, hailing from Islamabad, Pakistan, who is double majoring in Computer Science and Statistical Science at Duke University. He is interested in exploring the development of artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms for social good as well as the evolution of network structures, particularly WiFi, LTE and the Internet. Muaz’s dream is to, one day, utilize the skills he will pick up in Silicon Valley and from Duke’s I&E Certificate to start a software venture of his own with his father who is also a software engineer back home. In his free time, Muaz loves to cook, play Wordle in each of the 3 languages he knows and build his souvenir cap collection.