Rich Lyons became UC Berkeley’s inaugural chief innovation and entrepreneurship officer in January 2020, having previously been dean of the Haas Business School for a decade. For the past two and a half years, he’s been tying the ecosystem together in a way that makes everyone want to participate rather than forcing them to sign up.

Rich tells us about the Berkeley-affiliated funds, which uniquely all donate a share of their profits back to the institution, and talks about how he helped create a programme teaching entrepreneurship, Berkeley Changemaker, that’s fast turning into one of the university’s most successful minors.

He also ponders why entrepreneurs often don’t even realise that’s what they are – with an example out of his own family – and discusses the lessons he learned during his time as chief learning officer at Goldman Sachs.

Follow Thierry Heles on LinkedIn.

“Funk Game Loop” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) • Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0