H@H Ep 79: Xan Wood, current FTMBA student at the Haas School of Business talks to hosts Ameya Purandare and Marissa Maliwanag about tech, venture capital, private equity, and much more. In this episode, we explore the Berkeley entrepreneurship ecosystem, the need for a venture fund dedicated to Berkeley Entrepreneurs, the formation of Courtyard Ventures Fund 2, and many other things.

 

 

On Courtyard Ventures:

"Courtyard is a fund run by MBAs and Berkeley students to invest in startups from Berkeley. The genesis of that is that students are very close to companies. We are in the ecosystem. We are able to meet with people and also know Berkeley itself… It’s not just MBA, the undergraduate level, Ph.D. level there are amazing companies coming out of Berkeley"

 

On the entrepreneurial spirit in Berkeley:

"Berkeley is a hotbed of innovation. You can tell just by walking around the Berkeley campus, it’s a huge amount of entrepreneurship and general people trying to do different things. If you just look at the kinds of developments happening in this area of the world, like nuclear fusion or other things … It highlights that there’s just a huge amount of stuff happening here." 

 

On the need for a dedicated venture fund for Berkeley:

"I read a report by a Stanford professor on the number of unicorns created by Haas MBAs. I think we’ve got 1.4 in a thousand vs Harvard’s 1.6. Berkeley as a public school is relatively siloed, the budget of Berkely per student is $65000 per year vs $235000 at Harvard and $400000 at Stanford. So as students in this ecosystem, we can really play a role to create a lubricant and help generate and push the startups forward."

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This is a special episode about the women-led Iranian uprising following the murder of Mahsa Amini. We've intentionally distorted the voice of our guests to protect their privacy and safety, as they still have friends in Iran.

For those unfamiliar with what's happening in Iran, on September 13th, 2022, Mahsa Amini was arrested by an Iranian guidance patrol, also known as morality police, for not abiding by laws relating to her dress. Three days later, on September 16th, the police informed Mahsa's family that she had experienced heart failure and had fallen into a coma for two days before dying. She was 22 years old.

Numerous eyewitness accounts, including that of her own brother and other women who were arrested that day in the van with her, made clear that she was brutally beaten during her arrest. Leaked medical scans indicate that she had experienced a brain hemorrhage and a stroke. These are trauma-induced injuries, which ultimately led to her death.

In the days since, these details revealed mass public demonstrations have broken out across Iran, decrying Mahsa's senseless death.

Listen to this episode to better understand what life is like for a woman in Iran and why this uprising is such an important moment for Iran and women all over. Learn how you can offer your support in simple yet powerful ways.

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H@H: AtB Ep 7 – In this episode, Nate Pola, Director of Programming @ Berkeley Blockchain Xcelerator and Defi Governance and Stakeholder Incentives Researcher talks to Paul Bryzek about his love for teaching, his interest in crypto, and how it culminated in him revamping the edX courses as the director of programming for Blockchain at Berkeley B@B. Nate and Paul further discuss all things blockchain from basics such as the unspent transaction output (UTXO) model, algorithmic stablecoins, and various macroeconomic principles which are used to design them to the recent Terra Luna collapse which shook the crypto ecosystem.

Blockchain at Berkeley

B@B EdX Course: Blockchain Fundamentals 

UTXO model:

Algorithmic stablecoins:

Terra Luna:

Notable Episode Quotes:

Nate Pola on the UTXO transaction model:

"It's just like making a piggy bank. And first it starts by creating smaller denominations of this Bitcoin. And so it transfers that half of Bitcoin to the intended recipient from there, it then takes the. Little piggy bank is the transaction fee." 

Nate Pola on Algorithmic Stablecoins: 

"Algorithm ones are the ones that don't have a direct one-to-one backing per se. And they instead are backed by computer science."

Nate Pola on the Terra Luna Collapse: 

"Terra had a large reserve of Bitcoin in store. And so Terraform labs sold about 3 billion in Bitcoin just to buy Terra and try to prevent the stable coin from collapse. And so all this was done with the intention to pump the new Terra Luna ecosystem and provide more reserves and more liquidity and value in the protocol."

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H@H: Ep 78 - Dr. Kurt Beyer, Haas lecturer specializing in Entrepreneurship and Innovation, Navy veteran, and founder of the California Innovation Fund chats with host Paulina Lee on her last episode for Here@Haas (originally recorded in Spring 2022). Dr. Beyer shares his journey to Haas from flying planes to writing a book to his first start-up to teaching at Haas and everything in between. This episode is filled with great advice for business and life.

On failure

“Reinvent your notion of failure, because failure is so common when you're an entrepreneur.”

On understanding purpose

“This is the critical part of understanding your purpose.  Sometimes if we listen too much to the external world, where the external world is telling us, this is the best college to go to, this is the best job to work in. We can actually be pulled away from our purpose. So what your purpose is and what you're good at can be two different things.”

On what it means to be an entrepreneur

“It's a professional who loves change, who loves to innovate. And if sometimes they're the investors, sometimes they're the employee, and sometimes they're the co-founder. It's all being entrepreneurial.”

Resource Links

• California Innovation Fund 
• Grace Hopper and the Invention of the Information Age by Dr. Kurt Beyer
• Dr. Kurt Beyer

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H@H: AtB Ep 6 – On this episode, Nick Helgeson, MBA 2022 and Johnny Antos, MBA 2022 a senior developer at Prysm Group (a consulting firm specializing in the economics of emerging technologies, particularly in the blockchain space), chat with Paul Bryzek. They share how they stumbled into the crypto ecosystem, the Web3 speaker series they created on the Haas campus, and what’s in store for the future of WEB3. This episode was recorded during the Terra Luna stablecoin collapse and Nick and Johnny provide their expert crypto perspectives. Tune into this conversation to learn more about exciting topics like token economics (tokenomics), stablecoins, and how to evaluate projects in the Defi space.

This episode is particularly notable as it was recorded during the Terra Luna collapse on May 10th, 2022. During that day the price of Luna fell from $17.52 to $1.07 and was noticeably falling during the interview itself.

WEB3 speaker series -Notion page

Stablecoins - Definition

Tokenomics - Definition

Terra Luna crash

Notables Episode Quotes:

Nick Helgeson on the motivation for starting the web3 speaker series:

“I wanted to help contribute in my own way. And so, I set out to build and deliver what's now UC Berkeley's first-ever web three course. It’s housed in the MBA, program, and MBA students can propose teaching or facilitating a one-credit class “

Johnny Antos On the difference between Web2 & Web3:

“The classic one is web2 was read, write, and interact. And now web three brings in read, write, interact still, but now you have verifiable ownership on a blockchain, which, you know, doesn't sound that game-changing maybe, but that, that opens up doors for interoperability and people actually owning their assets and moving it from one platform or one protocol to another.”

Nick Helgeson on Solana and the trilemma tradeoff:

“What's called the scalability, trilemma, and you're effectively trading off between, three things, on transaction throughput, the other one is decentralization. and then the third one is security. And so, in choosing a proof of history, consensus protocol, the Solana development team made a pretty conscious choice in optimizing for speed.”

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H@H: AtB Ep 5 – Electrical Engineering & Computer Science (EECS) and Senior Product manager from Blockchain @ Berkeley James Dai chats with hosts Paulina Lee and Paul Bryzek and shares his blockchain expertise as a seasoned blockchain developer. His diverse experiences and collaboration with The Berkeley Center for Responsible, Decentralized Intelligence (RDI), in collaboration with Professor Dawn Song, led him to identify the need for reliable content authenticity on the web, and has started his own project and is recruiting co-founders. If interested feel free to email James at [email protected]

FakeNet AI – Detects synthetic (fake) media to protect users against attacks.

Automated Market Maker (AMM) – Definition

What is DAI? Description of MakerDAO and its cryptocurrency DAI.

 On Automated Market Makers (AMMs)

“That basically allows you to take a token and then convert it to different tokens. So, if I take an Ethereum, I can convert it to Dai or vice versa. This AMM is really just a way to decentralize what is existing today as a traditional market maker.”

 On the Problem with Misinformation today

“And so, I think we can all agree, misinformation is an issue today. How we're currently trying to solve it as rather algorithmic. Facebook, AI, created this deep fake detection challenge. And the best state of the art models can only accurately classify 65% correctly.”

 On Transparency of Legal Contracts on a Blockchain

“So, you could basically make it where all the contracts are put on the blockchain as well, along with all the transaction flow. And so, you can follow legal entities on a blockchain throughout. And then track all their transactions.”

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H@H: AtB Ep 4 – Partner at NGC Ventures Andrea Chang chats with hosts Paulina Lee and Paul Bryzek and shares her industry insights as a crypto VC. Andrea is a graduating full-time 2022 MBA originally from Taiwan who moved to California to attend Haas. She previously lived in Singapore and worked at Goldman Sachs doing equity research for a few years. Later she joined NGC Ventures, one of the largest institutional investors of blockchain and distributed ledger technologies and has been a key contributor to several leading blockchain projects.

On NGC Ventures

“NGC ventures we started in mid 2018. We were the early investor in multiple public blockchains, such as Solana, Avalanche, PolkaDot, to name a few. We are also active in many defi metaverse deals.”

 

On identifying Red Flags for startups

“Timeline, like seems focus too much on the token access strategy rather than product building. And second is that often times it needs to rely on the market secondary market condition, which is hard to predict for all of us.”

 

On Berkeley entrepreneurs raising rounds

“First is to be very clear about your product and solution and your vision as is the positioning of your product in the wider industry space. And I think second is that to make the best use of the Berkeley environment, especially the talents part. Because Berkeley has so many talents, in undergrads, graduates, and MBA.”

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Taking the time to come to Haas and do an MBA can be an incredible opportunity for exploration and introspection, especially for those of us that are interested in sustainability and social impact. But the task of figuring out what you want to do next and how you want to make an impact can feel daunting at times.

With that in mind, we’ll be delving into the question: “how might we chart our path and discover our purpose” in this episode.

We are first accompanied by Professor Robert Strand, also known as “Mr. Nordic.” He is the Executive Director of the Nordic Center and the Center for Responsible Business at Haas and tells us about his career history, what motivated the major pivots in his journey, and finding inspiration in the Nordic region.

We then hear from Jenelle Harris, a Haas alum from the class of 2017. Jenelle is a Consulting Manager at Bridgespan, where she leads engagements with social impact organizations, and she is also a career coach here at Berkeley Haas, where she works with mission-driven leaders. We talk with Jenelle about how we can find purpose and meaning in our career search. 

Episode Quotes:

On work-life balance & boundaries (Jenelle)

51:56 - When I'm working with folks in the social sector, that's like one of the biggest things we're working through is, what does it look like to do this work and to do so in a way that is nourishing and doesn't leave us wiped out. And how do we both hold like the sacredness and importance of this big, important work we're doing and take care of herself and feel permission to do that too.

Some of the best advice Jenelle has received (Jenelle)

31:09 - Pay attention to those things that just continuously light you up and spark anger, because that's a clue as to where you are best positioned to be a service.

On always looking up to Berkeley (Robert)

09:32 - I can't tell you how grateful I am that I have this opportunity to be at the University of California, Berkeley. A place I've revered all my life, even as a little boy growing up in middle of nowhere in Wisconsin, I looked to the University of California, Berkeley, and it is just a beacon educational opportunity for all, for the many people. And I firmly believe that. And that's in the idea of, it's inequality of opportunity that at its core is really, you know, we can call that that's the American dream. And I think that the University of California, Berkeley is an American dream factory. 

Nordic vs. US ways of thinking about community (Robert)

24:37 - Here is where I fear that we in the United States of America have developed a “me, me, me” mindset. Hyper selfish, hyper-focused on myself. We need what I would call in a Nordic context which is still, you have individual responsibility. There is still an importance for me, but they've recognized that if they build systems for the we, each of us “me” will benefit.

Show Links:

• Robert Strand’s Faculty Profile
• Robert Strand on Coursera
• Robert Strand on Google Scholar
• Robert Strand on LinkedIn
• Robert Strand on Twitter
• Jenelle Harris on Linkedin
• Jenelle Harris’ Website

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/here-at-haas/donations

Once you have your MBS and certificate, how do you translate that knowledge into the working world and make some lasting change? Today we are joined by a couple of very special Haas MBA alumni that have developed their careers in sustainability with very different paths.

We will hear from Tracy Gray who is a Haas MBA alumni class of 2007. She is the Founder and Managing Partner at The 22 Fund, the Founder of non-profit We Are Enough focused on educating women on how to invest, and Lead Partner at Porfolia Green and Sustainability Fund. 

She tells us about her impressive career path that ranged from space engineer, band manager, mayoral advisor to finally entering the sustainability space, as well as her perspectives in the early stage impact investment.

We will also be joined by Evan Wiener. He is also a Haas MBA alumni class of 2014 and currently Head of Circular Economy at H&M with past experiences in Nike and Adidas. He tells us about his work in corporate sustainability.

Episode Quotes:

Privileges and Environmental Intersectionality and Venture Capital (Tracy)

13:21 - Especially in venture and private equity and climate investment. Once again, like crypto, like everything, they are not thinking intersectional or holistically about, you know, women and people of color experience the worst of these impacts more than anyone in the world yet we're not given the capital to come up with a solution.

We know the solutions because we experience it. So we've got, you know, privileged white guys who are telling us, here's how you're going to fix your problem. And it's not the way it should work. 

Different types of jobs in corporate sustainability (Evan)

35:52 -  Thinking that you want to work in the world of corporate sustainability is still so, so broad, right? I mean, you could be a specialist in an analytics department, you could work in supply chain. You could be building products, working in innovation. You could be a materials expert.

Circular economy (Evan)

45:17 -  Sustainability is often I think most effective when you break down silos. When you connect dots between supply chain, logistics, product, innovation, marketing, and circular economy allows companies to break those silos down.

It also allows companies to break down silos outside of their four walls. To think about how to collaborate on things like material innovation on supply chain disruptions, new manufacturing technology. Things that previously had been considered competitive, circular economy is saying, hey, we all need to solve these problems.

Show Links:

• Tracy Gray on LinkedIn
• The 22 Fund
• We Are Enough
• Evan Wiener on LinkedIn

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/here-at-haas/donations

H@H: AtB Ep 3 – Co-Founder of Two Grahams Capital, LLC Graham Bode, current Haas student soon to graduate, chats with hosts Paulina Lee and Paul Bryzek. Graham shares his Haas story, an entrepreneurial journey including quitting his cushy corporate job to pursue his own ventures full time. He initially was very skeptical of the entire space, but quickly became immersed with blockchain technology and its market dynamics. Graham is an expert at detecting inefficiencies in markets and capitalizing on them through automated arbitrage. He breaks down his strategies for dealing with the high risk and volatility in the crypto market by adhering to frameworks and fundamentals.

On his journey and why apply to Haas

“I ended up applying to Haas. It was the only business school I applied to with the intent to really delve deep on the blockchain side. So, for the two years prior to. Ultimately coming to Haas, I had fallen really deep down to the blockchain rabbit hole..”

On losing passwords to your wallet

“This is one of the costs of a system like this, a decentralized system that has no intermediaries means that the participant has Not just the right to retrieve their assets and to transact without any intermediaries. There's also a responsibility that comes with that.”

On the educational opportunities through B@B

“What I've learned is not to second guess what the signals are that the market's giving you. And one of those examples is NFTs.”

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