OneHaas

Kicking off Mental Health Awareness Month, today's episode features Somesh Dash. He was recognized as one of the top 100 venture capitalists by The New York Times and CB Insights and by GrowthCap as one of the top 40 under 40 Growth Investors.

With roots in India, Somesh Dash, the Managing Director and General Partner of IVP sits down with Sean Li to have an epic conversation around topics ranging: their shared experience of immigrating to the United States, the importance of mental health in the business space, violence against Asian Americans, the Ronald Reagan era, racism, and cultural awareness.

We gain insight as Somesh walks us through his story of coming up in Silicon Valley. He takes us to the heyday of the dotcom movement and the height of tech IPOs, what he's learned about venture capital, and how lending a quarter to a random stranger over 20 years ago led him to where he is today.

On mental health:

"Coming out of the pandemic, I really think people are going to want to maintain some of the good that came out of this virtualized world, which is being able to slow it down, think a little bit about what's important to them or not, and get the help they need. I think the reality is we're all seeing every day in the news examples of breakdowns in our public health infrastructure that are leading to some of these massive societal issues. A lot of the stuff is related to mass shootings and violence and communities—the root of it is community health and mental health. And unfortunately, the system hasn't modernized in the way that science has or that the private sector has. So, I'm bullish that entrepreneurs and startups and growth companies can make a real difference while doing it in conjunction with local state and federal governments."

On venture capital:

"Part of venture more than ever now is storytelling. It's storytelling to the entrepreneur about who you are as an individual or as a firm and why you could be a great partner to them, especially for competitive rounds. It's telling the story of the company to outside stakeholders, whether it's trying to recruit executives or board members, trying to help with customer acquisition, trying to help with the public markets story. I mean, a lot of what you do is becoming, in a sense, an evangelist for these companies."

On cultural awareness:

"And that always stuck to me, which is, even as a kid growing up here, I grew up seeing a lot of things around—it was more of just ignorance about Indian culture as I'm sure you saw, Sean, with Chinese culture. But once you expose people to it, I mean, who doesn't want to go to like a big Indian wedding?"

"I think the stories that you have, Sean, or I had, are the things that can actually sway public opinion more than just the policy or just the talking heads on cable television. And I wish there was more discourse about that because I think once people realize how much more similar we all are than different, I think the racism we're seeing, the xenophobia, naturally begins to ebb."

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• IVP
• No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention
• Trillion Dollar Coach: The Leadership Playbook of Silicon Valley's Bill Campbell
• The Far Field

An entrepreneur at heart, CEO and Founder of Xendit featured in Forbes’ 30 Under 30, shares his secrets to start-up success - from finding the right people to setting bigger things in motion.

In this episode, we sit down with Moses as he talks about how Xendit started and how he weaved its success. Leading an award-winning start-up digital infrastructure and payment gateway in Southeast Asia, he speaks about his experiences from his days at Berkeley doing 24-hour hackathons, to expanding and launching in emerging markets, and to set out to accomplish more and bigger things. 

On starting the framework and finding the right people:

“Similar thing with the Co-founder, I said, these are certain qualities I want, most important being commitment. Someone that you can build things with; you can argue with. Who actually makes the decisions? How committed are people going to be when things go badly? So those were the dimensions I cared about. And I tried to test that through a few examples.”

On setting up a business in Southeast Asia:

“I had no idea how hard it was going to be. I didn't understand fully. I knew it in theory because there are books about it, but I had no idea what it looks like in practice. What it's turned out to be is a mix of working with the right investors who can help navigate these dynamics, building relationships. Asia is all about relationships and building the right relationships.”

On dealing with potential disappointments:

“What we said to ourselves as we tried to be really rational, I think this is the Asian side of me, but it's to get rid of your emotions. And you have to be really logical and rational and say, ‘Okay, all right, it failed. What's the next best thing that we can try?’ Iterating and believing that if we kept iterating, we would eventually find something that would find a product-market fit.”

• LinkedIn
• Xendit
• High Growth Handbook by Elad Gil

What happens when you combine the tools of entrepreneurship with the lens of social change? Today, we speak with Alex Budak, co-founder of StartSomeGood, a crowdsourcing platform for social impact initiatives, which has raised over $10 Million USD to fund more than 1,000 different projects across 50 countries using a grassroots community-driven approach.

Currently teaching at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, his courses are aptly named “Becoming A Changemaker” and “The Berkeley Changemaker”.

In this episode, we delve into Alex’s passion behind empowering changemakers and reinventing leadership—emphasizing qualities such as humility, empathy, and how a changemaker mindset requires changemaker action.

On the idea for founding StartSomeGood:

“For so long I had thought that change comes from one or two big organizations like the Red Cross. I realized that actually Changemakers are everywhere in the world and that all of us can lead positive change from where we are just like this. . . . So often you couldn't raise money until you can prove your impact, but usually couldn't prove your impact until you had raised money as this terrible catch-22. So we saw an opportunity to democratize the way that we fund social ventures, believing inherently that no one knows better what a community needs than the community itself.”

On being a changemaker:

“So much of change-making is rooted in critical thinking. It's the ability to identify problems, but I would argue it's not just to jump right into solving problems. It's one of the things that I really try to work with my students on—is to kind of sit in the problem, sit in the discomfort that comes with identifying something and not being sure exactly how to solve it. . . . [T]hat allows you to make sure that you're not just solving a problem, but you're solving the right problem.”

On network-based leadership:

“The best changemakers will think of themselves through networks, not just as individuals.”

On helping fellow changemakers:

“[We] rolled up our sleeves everywhere from helping them come up with the videos that they would shoot to helping them write their copy. . . . Now, we had a secret weapon, which is that all of the people we worked with were incredibly passionate. They're change-makers. They wanted to make a difference and that story was latent in them. And so in many ways, our job was just to help pull that story, pull that narrative out of them. . . . Any changemaker who wants to lead that type of positive change—they’re driven. They have a powerful why."

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• StartSomeGood

Paul Rice, the CEO and founder of Fair Trade USA, has spent his career making a huge difference in the lives of farmers and growers. In this episode, he sits down with Bree Jenkins to share his learning journey dedicated to social change, which includes buying a one-way ticket to Nicaragua, where he started and led the country’s first fair trade co-op and ended up staying for 11 years. He discusses how sustainability and social responsibility are the real drivers of success, and he calls us to find any and all creative ways to bring purpose into business, what some call conscious capitalism.

On Fair Trade:

“And here's the secret sauce of fair trade. We require that brands and retailers pay more money back to the farm owner or the factory owner. We're not saying be more sustainable y'all, and the cost of that is your problem. That's not what we're saying. We're saying more sustainable. Treat your workers right. And take care of your environment, and the consumer is going to help pay for that through the retailers.”

On his experience with projects funded by international aid:

“I worked on a lot of really well-intentioned projects that were funded by international aid. And I'll tell you, I got really disillusioned with it. It wasn't really very effective, in my experience, in helping farmers develop their own capacity to solve their own problems and helping them to think about markets.”

On Social Change:

“I think about social change, not in terms of years, but in terms of decades. We're definitely playing the long game.”

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• Fair Trade Certified

Scott Kucirek has, hands down, the best job on Earth. He’s the CEO and co-founder of Ocho Candy, an organic (and seriously delicious) candy company based in Northern California. But Scott’s path to Ocho was a circuitous one. In this episode of the Crossroads Series, Scott sits down with Sophie Hoyt to discuss his journey from the Navy to Haas and beyond. He shares insights on how to stay the course when the going gets tough, how to know when it’s time to walk away, why consulting is just not his thing, and why Ocho is his sweetest job to date.

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• Buy Ocho Candy

On why building a company culture that prizes its people is important:

If they believed in the leadership and the vision, it didn't matter what they got paid. They were going to do it. I always felt that compensation, to a point, was not the main driver of that. Believing that you made a difference and that you had an impact was very valuable. Creating a culture that celebrated the people was important.

On his work commitment to OCHO Candy:

I'm not worried about failure. That's just going to happen. That's learning. You still learn, you still experience, and your life is about experiences, not stuff you get. It is more about doing something that looks interesting and has value, and there's a calling to it. There's no regret. I'm just moving forward.

If four years from now, I can go into any store and see people have a choice for better-tasting cleaner candy that's focused on what's inside counts, sustainability for workers and the planet, that's important to me like my values and purpose in life. That makes it worth doing.

In this episode, we chat with our special guest, Chase Roberts. Chase is an EWMBA class of 2019 and currently Principal at a venture capital firm, Vertex Ventures US.

Chase shares his journey from studying at Oklahoma University and starting his career in finance to his pivot to Sales in the Bay area at a company called Box. He then shares his decision to go to business school at Berkeley Haas and land a job at Segment, where he was involved in Business Development and launching a startup program. 

Throughout the course of his career, he has built a network of venture capitalists. He tells us how that network led him to pursue an earmarked career in venture capital at Vertex Ventures.

He also shares the investment focus of Vertex Ventures and his time spent on the data space, which led the conversation to the evolution of software tools and website development. Finally, Chase invites listeners to join his network and potentially build a partnership in the future.

On venturing into Sales - "At the time, I wasn't that excited about a job in sales because, for me, sales just carried a different connotation. I was like, I'm just going to use this as my way into the company and then see what happens from there. And so they took a bet on me, and I joined the company in an entry-level sales job. And it ended up being one of the most, the best, learning experiences of my life. You learn a lot about yourself when you're told no all the time."

Why he loves his job in Silicon Valley - "Part of the thing that gives me a lot of satisfaction in my job is I get to meet people who are the ultimate form of entrepreneurship in the software-based world. They have the opportunity to build these massive companies and not do so over 50 years but do it over five. And I'm amazed by the process of zero to one because it is incredibly hard to build something from nothing. I think it takes a lot of courage to do that. To meet with these people and, in some sense, subscribe to the belief system that motivates them to take a risk and take the hard path and try to build something great, I think it's remarkable."

How to succeed in Venture Capital - "I think that people who tend to thrive are the ones who are just curious about everything. It's not so much about going incredibly deep on a specific area, but it's getting through the surface and learning enough to be dangerous in a lot of areas."

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• The Innovator's Dillema

From her early days at Accenture to her current position at Amazon, Caroline Lee has centered her career around people. In this premiere episode of The Crossroads Series, she sits down with Sophie Hoyt to guide us through her life and imparts lessons we can all learn from. With a background in recruiting, Caroline shares with us the mantra that helped her unlock her own strengths, tells us how to ensure everyone knows about our own “superpowers,” and teaches us about the importance of setting up clear boundaries between professional and personal life. She even takes us through her journey to become *drum roll please* an American Ninja Warrior.

On Recruitment: "When you get the hire in, you're changing a life. I don't know if recruiters realize it or not because sometimes, you're just turning numbers. You've got requisitions, and it's not ever fast enough for the poor hiring manager, but at the end of the day, you're changing the life of someone. And I think that's very important and special."

One of Caroline's strengths: "I've come up with my list of three to four strengths, and one of them is creating order out of chaos. Taking the large complex problems, listening to all those, bringing it in, understanding it, and then breaking it down to what guiding principles are we going to follow. And then breaking it into manageable shades of tasks that just become defined deliverables."

What's next for Caroline: "I want to continue to inspire other people to be their best. So, if someone hears my story and says, ‘Hey, that motivated me to work out’, I'm happy. If I inspired someone to switch their jobs and gain confidence to negotiate a salary, I'm happy."

• LinkedIn
• How to Shape What People Say About You When You’re Not in the Room

In celebration of International Women's Month, Sean Li, together with special co-host Keitha Pansy, welcomes Emilie Cortes, a full-time MBA class of 2002. She is the Treasurer at Compton Foundation and the Chief Financial Officer at Toniic.

Emilie shares how being a "secret genius" paved the way for a finance career and how her love for mountaineering helped launch her entrepreneurial path.

She also talks about how she got into the global impact investing ecosystem when she joined Toniic, a nonprofit organization with a powerful mission aligned with her passion.

Emilie also explains the articles she co-wrote with fellow Haas alum Tracy Gray, which focused on community foundations and five action items that people can apply in their organizations, especially those focusing on gender equity or racial justice.

"Somebody calls me the secret genius because I don't look the stereotypical image of what a smart person looks like. I like that triple threat because people have low expectations, and then I get a chance to blow them away."

"The first issue we wanted to dismantle was the misconception that women and people of color as funded managers are more risky. I have not yet seen a single study that says less diversity is better, not one. And I've never seen or heard of a study that said polished presentations equals higher returns. So, this is really in the bias land because all the data is that women and people of color are less risky and perform better."

"If your goal is to help women and people of color and you're not helping your managers who are women and people of color, it's quite hypocritical."

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• How Foundations Fail Diverse Fund Managers and How to Fix It 

• Goldman Sachs on Women and Mixed Gender

Today, Sean Li and guest co-host Kellie McElhaney, a popular Haas lecturer and founding Director of the Center for Equity, Gender and Leadership (EGAL), chat with our special guest, Monica Stevens. Monica is a full-time MBA class of 1996 and currently the Senior Vice President of Wells Fargo Merchant Services. She is the first black woman on the Haas board and the Chair and Founder of the Haas Alumni Diversity Council.

Monica takes us back to her early years growing up in a middle-class family, her exposure to many different cultures and mindsets, and her involvement in many international activities and government, particularly in school.

She also narrates her time at the Navy, her early career path, and why she joined and quit Haas the first time before coming back years later. She then became the first African-American to win the Raymond E. Miles Alumni Service Award for her community service to Haas.

Monica shares her thoughts on diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace and the community and across different cultures.

"When you're younger, go with what you need or what you want and not create this large, unwieldy construct of the why the how, or I'm not worthy. Just do it."

"Sometimes, women who get into the role of power opportunity forget that there are others around, behind, next, that are just like them and deserve the same opportunity."

"If we just let ourselves have that curiosity and ask from our hearts, you know, with good intentions and some education, but God, don't feel like you got to read a thousand books before you can be equity fluent."

"Do one thing different tomorrow and see how it feels. If it's uncomfortable, I would say push into that discomfort. But then, if it's comfortable and pleasing, do more of that. Either way, do more and then talk about it and see how it feels and try it on. If it doesn't feel right to you, that's okay. Decide whether you want to adopt it, but do something different, and that's outside and beyond yourself. That's what we're really asking people to do; go beyond."

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• Haas Alumni Diversity Council

We welcomed Keitha Pansy from the full-time MBA class of 2002. She is currently the Managing Director at the Women of the World Endowment. WoWE provides institutional financial support to accelerate gender lens investing and promote impact for women and girls.

Keitha takes us back to her background from studying accounting at Howard University to finance at Haas and why she decided to get her MBA. She also walks us through her 15 years of blended experience within financial services working with different big companies like JPMorgan and BlackRock.

Keitha also talks about the year she traveled to different places to reflect and enjoy life for a moment. Finally, she shares how she got into impact investing and co-founding WoWE.

Why she chose Haas - "When I stepped foot on the campus, it just felt right. I'm finding my tribe. It's just that easy for me. I had paired up with a first-year who took me up into the Berkeley Hills, and there was this beautiful view. And it's so vibrant in my mind, still to this day. You can see the Bay, and you can see the mountains, which was so beautiful to me. And I was like, this is my home. It just felt right."

On finding her true purpose and making an impact - "I believe those who know that they are called for a purpose while they exist here on earth were not meant to just be consumers. We are called to do something greater. I know there's more. I want to wake up knowing that I'm having an impact. I want to wake up knowing that what I do everyday matters."

On being part of the impact investing space - "I feel like this is a full circle and what I'm supposed to do with the second half of my life. The first half was a setup. It was the training ground for my purpose-driven life."

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• Women of the World Endowment