Talk at Wesleyan University, 29 Oct 2016, as part of the WeSeminar series during parents' weekend. The initial intent was to share BG's experience building a Silicon Valley and how internships in SV are important, from a pay-it-forward angle as a Wesleyan parent. But as we prepared the talk with help from Nikhil and the career center at Wes, the theme grew larger to talk about the tech-driven disruption happening in the world, the culture of start-ups and how constant-learning will be part of everyone's professional future. And then about how a liberal arts education can be a huge positive in building skills, networks and careers in tech-driven enterprises, public and private.

1. Silicon Valley Internships
and Wesleyan
Bhaskar Ghosh, P’20
Tech Exec, Investor, Advisor

2. Silicon Valley?

3. 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

4. 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

5. 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

6. 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

7. 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, …)

8. 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

9. 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’

10. 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

11. 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

12. But… internships?

13. Internship is an exploration
 Learning: culture, teamwork, impact
 Rapidly build new skills, hone familiar ones
 Learn roles, develop interests

14. 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

15. Internships lead to roles
 Two broad paths
 Join a company
 Be an entrepreneur

16. 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

17. 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]
Critical
Mid-large start-up, company
Multi-disciplinary
2/3 of roles

18. 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

19. 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

20. 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

21. 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

22. 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

23. 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

24. 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)

25. 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

26. Looking Forward
 Wesleyan Career Center, Events and Support Structures
 I am here to help

27. You will find your passion as
you learn, act and adapt.

28. Thank you!
 Wesleyan: Jennifer O, Jim K, Nikhil, ..
 Palo Alto: Brinda, Milind, DD,
 Nerdwallet: Rajat, Geoff, Kelly, Yoni
 … and everyone else

29. Q&A