Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais - Part 1: TEDx Creator Krisztina "Z" Holly on Innovation, Impact, and Manufacturing
Episode Date: March 15, 2017Krisztina Holly is an MIT-trained engineer, tech entrepreneur, and pioneer. She was curator and host of the first ever TEDx (TEDxUSC) and founder of two university innovation centers at MIT a...nd USC. She hosts The Art of Manufacturing podcast and is Chief Instigator of MAKE IT IN LA, LA Mayor Garcetti's non-profit initiative to celebrate and support the nation's largest community of makers and manufacturers. Previously, Krisztina was vice provost for innovation at USC and founding executive director of two innovation centers--MIT Deshpande Center and USC Stevens–which helped launch 39 funded startups and expand innovation ecosystems in Boston and LA. She has been adjunct Professor of Innovation Practice at USC and an advisor and board member to nearly two dozen non-profit and private sector organizations globally, including the Obama Administration and World Economic Forum. I wanted to have this conversation with her to learn how how she develops and innovates at a global scale. She has a track record for building platforms for ideas and people to make an impact. I hope that you will pay attention to how she thinks about risk and risk-taking -- and -- how she approaches authenticity and building, both herself, and others -- and being able to do that at scale._________________Subscribe to our Youtube Channel for more powerful conversations at the intersection of high performance, leadership, and meaning: https://www.youtube.com/c/FindingMasteryGet exclusive discounts and support our amazing sponsors! Go to: https://findingmastery.com/sponsors/Subscribe to the Finding Mastery newsletter for weekly high performance insights: https://www.findingmastery.com/newsletter Download Dr. Mike's Morning Mindset Routine! https://www.findingmastery.com/morningmindsetFollow us on Instagram, LinkedIn, and X.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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protein, P-R-O-T-E-I-N.com slash finding mastery. And this conversation is rich. It's with Christina
Hawley, and she's best known as the creator of the first TEDx, the founding executive director
for the Deshvande Center of Technological Innovation at MIT and the vice provost for innovation in the founding executive director of the Stevens Center for Innovation at USC.
So University of Southern California and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, two powerhouses.
And she's at the center of building those centers of innovation at those
two universities. Phenomenal insight, phenomenal understanding of what it takes to be at the
epicenter and the footprint for both of those universities in building innovation. And how did
she get there? She lived it. She was involved in various startups herself. And, you know, she just has a rich understanding of what
it takes to be able to build something, how difficult it is. So we get into the weeds with
that. She's also currently an advisor to the Obama administration and the world economic forum.
My goodness. Like, so what I was hoping to learn from her is like how she develops and innovates both people and ideas
in a world-class setting on a global scale. And she's just got a track record for building those
platforms and the ideas and the people to be able to, in her words, make an impact.
So that's of interest. Obviously that's of interest interest for I think most of us on these conversations.
So currently, she's taking her efforts and she's building a nonprofit called Make It in LA. And then also she's got a podcast and she fired up a podcast called The Art of Manufacturing. And you
might hear the words manufacturing and think heavy and think like, you know, I don't know, 19th century. And she flips it on, she flips those
concepts on its head. And so anybody who's going to be bleeding for so many years on the front edge
of both technology and innovation and global thinking that's interested in podcasting and
manufacturing, I'm curious. So I hope you are too, because this is really about building people and ideas and celebrating how we can do more of that in our own lives. All right. So what,
I think you have a sense of what I wanted to learn from it. And then what I hope that all
of us will take from it is how she thinks about risk and risk taking and how she approaches
authenticity and being able to build both herself and others.
And so being able to do that on scale is of particular interest, and she's doing it.
Now, we go all over the shop in this conversation.
And that was me kind of not being able to really find the most eloquent way to celebrate
and amplify all that she's done.
But if we just took a look at the quick pass, early life, you know, and I'll decode this right now for us, early life, she was just identified
with being different and taking risks. And then the process to get into MIT as a student,
and then the process of building businesses in technology. Then she moves into innovation,
building innovation centers, both at MIT and USC. And then now her current processes
or current efforts on building a nonprofit, Make It in LA and her podcast, again, The Art of
Manufacturing. Obviously you can find that on iTunes and all the other good players that we use.
Okay. So with that, I want to jump right into this conversation. And oh, before that, actually
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it just helps amplify everything. Last thing, last thing, last thing, last thing.
You know, we just really appreciate the support and the building the base of people that are paying attention to be able to celebrate those that are doing some amazing things.
It would mean a lot to us if you told three people, maybe six people about what we're doing and really encourage them to take a listen.
Maybe they hook in, maybe they don't.
But if you could just help us in that way, eventually it's going to help keep this momentum alive.
So it means a lot to us. And with that, I want to say thank you. And let's get in right into this conversation
with Christina. Christina. What?
I always, I always say just hi that way. And people look at me like, what, are you crazy?
Yeah. So, um, we've been going back and forth for a while to be able to get this started.
And so I want to thank you for coming on.
Thank you.
Because, yeah, I don't know, well, from the cursory, from knowing you, from following what you've been able to do, I don't know anything about your industry, about engineering, manufacturing.
I know a little bit about the tech entrepreneurship that you're in, but that's just more from the cursory than being at the center stage of it, which you've been for a while. So before we turn the mic on, I said, like,
how do you get introduced? And it was just that, right? Like engineer, tech entrepreneur,
and then one other, which is an adventure. And I think that's where we connected easily on that
adventure part. So thank you for coming on. Oh, so good to see you. Yeah, it is. It's good to see you as well.
All right. So there's a few things that I want to make sure we pay attention to. And I want to be
able to craft the beginnings of how you've become, I don't know, at the center of some really
powerful stuff. And that being said, can you bring us back to like what it was like when you're
growing up and just a kind of a quick
frame of what that looked like and felt like and sounded like because all of that was shaping stuff
for what you've been able to do so far i mean absolutely in some ways i feel like who i am
was really shaped by things that happened before i was born my parents were refugees from hungary
they met in boston but they escaped escaped Hungary in 56 during the uprising,
each in their own way. Bring me back to a little history.
Embarrassingly so, I don't know what was happening in Hungary in those times.
So it was communist and behind the Iron Curtain. And I do believe that the government, the US
government was encouraging the uprising, saying that they would send in support, which didn't end up happening, unfortunately.
But so the students revolted against the Soviets in 56.
The tanks came in and it was they were held back and they kind of went on for a little while.
But that's when a lot of people that we know, immigrant immigrants from Hungary would have come to this country.
OK, so what was the group of people like that came?
So I'm trying to get a sense of your parents.
Were they revolutionists?
Were they wealthy?
Were they poor?
Were they like what was the first wave out? And the reason I ask is because the
first wave out of Cuba, they were wealthy and were waiting for Castro to fall. I would say it's not
that. It was on very different lines. I would say it's the people that had a sense of, I need to take this risk to make a better life.
And just to, they saw the writing on the wall and they said, we need to get out.
Okay.
And I would say that there's probably a very big difference in kind of a personality type of,
and of course I'm completely generalizing, but the people who emigrated out of Hungary,
the people who stayed probably.
So you can't paint all Hungarians with one brush, right? But if I think
about my parents, I mean, my father was literally held at gunpoint, like lined up against a wall
with his colleagues. He worked up at this radio station up on the tower, there's a tower at the
top of a hill. And he's just an engineer. But he was trying to protect the equipment because he didn't
want it to get messed with and the soviets came in with machine guns and line them up firing
firing squad style against the wall and they cocked their guns and they're like ready to like
raise their guns and they're ready to shoot and it was only because this voice came over the radio
saying you're needed somewhere else come right now and they said
uh you know stay right here we'll be right back yeah right you know and he goes back to his yeah
and he goes back to his um family and his brother was watching the riots and his best friend was
shot dead right next to him so they both said and they were in a family of i think five kids and
they they left the rest of the family behind they They were taken off. Who left? So my, my father and
his brother. Okay. With a friend. And so they came to America. They came to America. How did
they, how did they figure that out? Um, good question. Uh, I know in the case of my mother,
so she came from sort of aristocratic family back in the history,
but they basically lost everything both in World War I and then lost the remainder in, you know,
World War II. And her father was a very, very well-respected astronomer. So he was able to get
some papers to come visit a border town, which was very rare at the time, because the scientists knew what was going on
and that they arranged that because it was a scientific center there.
To get him out.
Yeah.
And then he loved the United States.
He had been to the U.S. because of his status as a famous astronomer.
And he knew Einstein and he knew all these amazing scientists.
And so he traveled the world.
He loved America and American ideals.
So that was definitely his.
That's where he was sick in the family.
Yes.
Okay.
So mom's, you said grandfather?
Yes.
So mom's.
My grandfather.
Your grandfather, mom's dad.
Yes.
Was like, okay, we're leaving.
We're getting out.
Yep.
We're figuring this out.
And then, so he had some access.
Your dad did it more like, okay, we got, we got to figure this out on our own.
Exactly.
So then you have two family, like almost some genetic coding to take risks.
Yeah.
Right.
Okay.
So your parents meet up in, you said Boston?
Yes.
Okay.
So they meet up in Boston, two risk takers, speaking the language, trying to figure it
out.
And then they started a family, I guess.
Yes.
And I'm an only child.
Okay. out and then, then they started a family, I guess. Yes. And I'm an only child, which I feel has its pros and cons, but I think growing up was an amazing experience in the sense that my parents,
even though they were a modest means, uh, they did fine, but you know, just, they really prioritized
education and adventure and, you know, they took me everywhere and I was, I hung out with their,
their friends.
What are the pros and cons of being an only child?
I guess you wouldn't know what it's like to be in a family system with more than one.
But on an analysis, looking back, what do you imagine?
Well, when I look around me now and I don't have kids, I think, oh, well, that's kind of lonely.
For you? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So that's a,
that's a con, but growing up and I, apparently I was, my parents have told me that I, there were
times when I felt lonely also when I was growing up, but at the same time, I think it forces you
to find your own path and your own, you know, I don't know if I'm more curious as a result. I'm a very, very curious person,
but I had to make up my own entertainment and, um, my parents were able to literally just take
me anywhere. And, you know, age five, we were going through the jungles of Belize, which is
a British Honduras at the time looking for the lost city of Lubantun or
whatever, you know, like these crazy, yeah. So when I was seven, my mom took me, we lived in
France for the summer and we also traveled around Europe. And like I said, my family was of modest
means. So this is not the, you know, I do not come from incredible privilege. I do feel incredibly
privileged, but I think that it's really that the fact that they first
prioritize that.
And also that, you know, had they had two kids, three kids, that wouldn't have been
possible.
Okay.
So what they prioritize was adventure or travel.
Adventure, um, and education experience.
I'd say experience.
Experience.
Okay.
And then I also know that you shared with me
before that you did some diving. Yes. Some scuba or underwater diving. Yes. When I was 13, I went,
I had a pretty transformative experience, I have to say. Right off the coast of LA, there's a,
you know, Catalina Island. Did you grow up here? I did. In LA? I did. Okay. So we're nestled here
in Hermosa Beach right now. How far did you grow up from here?
I was a valley girl.
Okay, yeah.
So I lived in Woodland Hills and grew up in Woodland Hills.
And although most of my friends were on the west side because I went to school in Bel Air, actually. Okay. But, uh, yeah, so I had, I went to Catalina and learned how to scuba dive at age 13
and, you know, amazing camp Catalina Island Marine Institute, but spent, spent some time there. And
I was, I was a nerd to be honest, but I didn't know what that meant. You know, I thought I felt,
I felt so out of place and I thought that I was, did you know you were a nerd at the time?
Well, I felt, I guess everyone feels like they're different when they're 13.
But I really was different.
But at 13, there's some kids that are like the cool kids and some kids that are the athletes and some kids – and that can cross over.
And then some kids are like the musicians.
There was no way to describe.
I mean I did not fit into one of those categories.
You know what's funny?
Because that – what you just said fits how I understand you, right? Well, one, I don't know
many female engineers, so I don't know if that's, I don't feel like that's a stereotypical thing. I
just, I don't know if there are many and I don't, I haven't met many, but then I also don't, my
understanding of you is that you think big and you can also lock things down logically and sequentially. And so that combination of the two, I think is really rare. Yeah. And you're nodding your head. Like, do you agree? Do you agree that?
I do. I mean, I feel, I don't think that I fit into a category and I think that that's.
What's it, wait, what's that like to not fit into a category? This is the part that like, what is that like? It's really disturbing. You know, you feel like you should. And for a while,
and I think it wasn't until I was 13 and I went to this camp that I realized, Oh,
I'm weird, but I'm not alone.
Oh, okay. So is that disturbing still now or like, Oh, okay. So back then we'll start back then. So
at 13, it's like, I don't know where I fit in. Yeah.
Okay. And then looking back, it was probably because that was the nerd part.
Yeah.
So you were interested in different things than most people.
When I was 16, my classmates were going to the, hanging out by the mall and doing those kinds of
things. And I would get in the car and I'd drive up to Ventura to jump on the Vision or the Truth, these scuba dive boats, and just spend three days with a bunch of old dudes scuba diving.
You know, because I love to dive.
And I'd just build these friendships with people that's what alone experience.
Communication is limited.
There's a lot of together time on the boat.
You can kind of make some hand signals down underneath, but it's you and mother nature
and your thoughts and your response mechanisms relying on an apparatus that's man-made.
You got your buddy and you're like signaling, really cool.
Oh my God. Awesome. You know, the okay signal. That's basically
you can write on a tablet. Yeah. So are you an introvert? No, no, you're not. Oh no. That's
pretty much an introverted experience, but you are more of an extra. You talk out loud and think
out loud and like social engagement. I gain a lot of energy from being with other people and sharing.
I think better when I talk out with other people as well.
Okay.
Do you see the world as like good stuff's about to take place or do you see it as like,
no, it's dangerous and bad stuff happens?
Like, are you more an optimist or a pessimist?
Optimist, no doubt.
Although one thing that's really disturbing to me is that
recently I've become more cynical. I hate cynics. I have to say, I hate it. They drive me crazy.
And I find myself sometimes becoming more cynical and I hate that about myself. And I don't know if
that's because the world is changing or because I'm getting older and I hate it. When you say
cynic, how do you capture a cynic? Oh, somebody who's always looking at the negative side of things and always looking for the reason why things aren't going to work.
And it just, I guess, I don't know how it's different from a pessimist.
It is different from a pessimist.
They're related.
But especially people who, I think sometimes pessimists are, they don't have to be public with their thoughts.
But cynics also tend to vocalize it, which brings everyone else down.
Yeah.
And it's the worst thing for progress.
There's a different bite to cynicism.
Yeah, I think so.
There's a bite into what they say.
Okay, so here you are, 13, trying to fit in, trying to figure it out.
You have this transformational experience over in Catalina, and then you end up diving as, as a recreation for a long time. And you became a young dive master.
Yes. So I just did everything I could really quickly to just advance in diving. I wanted to
do everything, you know, deep diving, rescue diving, you know, underwater photography,
all this. And the moment, and I was a dive master, I think I became
a dive master at age 16 or 17. And then what goes into that? Um, so what is it involved? Yeah. Like
what are the steps to become a dive master? Um, many different levels and it may be different now,
but back then, um, you do a lot of time, especially for Divemaster, you work on a boat for a while, you sort of oversee people's diving, you know, helping them out, making sure that everyone has the right buddy and being responsible, actually, for the people on the boat and or on that group.
And it's been a while.
I mean, I don't want to say how long, but no, it's been, you know, 35, or on that group in that group. And it's been a while. I mean, I don't,
don't have to say how long, but no, it's been, you know, 35 years or whatever.
So it's hard to remember exactly, but it's, it took a lot of effort and my summers were
just dedicated to it. My weekends were dedicated to it and I just loved diving.
So at a young age, you had an experience of something that you loved. You put in the time,
you put the energy into it and there were stages and steps, you know, belts put in the time, you put the energy into it. And there were stages and steps,
you know, belts, so to speak, like in a martial arts framework that were you achieved dive master.
Yes. So in some ways, interesting, like becoming connected to this, even the thought of mastery.
Yeah. You know, at a, at a young age about, I need to work to be able to get better at something. And there's some sort of process to do that.
Yes.
And I think at the pinnacle for me was the moment I turned 18,
when you're allowed to be a scuba instructor,
I signed up for the absolute next scuba instructor training course, which was I was still in high school at the time.
And my parents let me do it.
My mom said, hey, you're going to learn more from that week at Patty college than you would in high school. You know,
you've already gotten into MIT. Like, don't worry, you know, just go. I love how you just
dropped that in there. Yeah. MIT. We're going to get to that. Yeah. It's really cool. So you,
you had already like, you'd figured out how to do school well and also adventure. Well,
yeah. I mean, I was, I would say that I was like, I was not an A student.
I was an A minus student.
And I, it sounds so silly to say that, right.
But I was like B plus, A minus, whatever.
Like I was not, um, I was not good at English.
I was not good at, you know, I kind of, I was really good at the science.
I was really good at math.
And, uh.
Is it, does it mean that you were naturally good at it?
Like it made sense to you?
Or when you applied yourself in either science and math and or literature that it was easier in science and math?
Some people are gifted.
That's what I'm trying to get at.
No, I mean I was naturally good at it.
I will admit that.
But I do also think that there's a sense of people laugh when I say this.
They don't believe me.
But I say I'm not disciplined.
And it's, I know it's not, you're like frowning.
You're like, there's no way that's possible.
I think that you get the experience and the commitment not through, for me, I get it through joy and not the discipline.
So when I love something, I will put a hundred percent of myself into it, but I will not do it
for the pure sake of, Oh, I have to, or I should it's because I love it. And when I stumble in life
or a career or whatever, it's because I have not quite found that point of joy.
So for me, I love doing it so much that it was not a chore.
It was not quote unquote practice.
It didn't feel like practice.
In high school.
That's right.
For math and science.
Oh, anything.
I mean, I'm thinking scuba diving.
Diving as well.
Yeah.
I was in a band at the time too.
I mean, we just enjoyed getting together and it was not, I was not the kind of person to
play scales all the time.
Okay.
What was your instrument?
Bass.
Okay.
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back young experience supported by your parents to take risks underwater there's some there's a
process to get better at it you fell in love with it so the process was easy and it was you were
more naturally inclined to science and math and when you I don't know if
you love that or not but you when you applied yourself there it was really good did you have
to work harder than other people in science and math what do you mean okay so say you had four
peers and everyone was studying the same stuff did you have to put in the ten hours to get the
a-minus where they had to put in 20 hours to get an A minus?
Yeah, it came more naturally to me.
It came more naturally.
Okay.
So you found, so it's like, I'm trying to sort out in my mind, like the people find their thing early or because I want to, you said something interesting about when you stumble.
Yeah.
And when you stumble, like it's because you're, you're not knowing how to love something.
Right.
I think I added something in there.
What I'm trying to sort out is to people that become masterful at their craft, is it just,
are they so fortunate that they found something early or is that not the case?
And it sounds like maybe you figured something out early and it took you to MIT, one of the
top universities in the world.
And then from there, I can't wait to get to the launch of what you did next, but I'm trying to sort out the younger years to figure
out what are the preconditions that allowed people to get on this trajectory? And then did they find
something, their thing early, or did they find the process early? So actually this is something I feel
very strongly about. What I almost feel like you're getting at is this people say, Oh, follow your passion.
And I think that's BS. I do too. I do too. I, okay. I will share what I think about it,
but I don't want to, I want to hear yours if you could go first. Okay. Um, it's for me,
it's about following your curiosity. So I think that passion is what you already know
and it's very limiting, it's like okay I want
to be a scuba instructor well then maybe still would be a scuba instructor now which is fine
but I would not have had all the other amazing experiences in my life following your curiosity
it's what you don't know and you're able to ultimately connect you know I've had this
amazingly rich life with entrepreneurship
and innovation and, you know, mountain biking and, you know, the outdoors and travel and all
these different things that I can combine in unique ways that nobody else has. Right.
I love it. And then, so let's play the cynic thing. Cause I know how much you enjoy that.
So the cynic says, yeah. Okay. So you're passionate about curiosity. Is that, is that like,
I don't know, does that even work for you?
Well, yeah, I'm passionate about learning. I'm passionate about curiosity,
but that's this meta thing where it can be applied to so many different things.
So it's more of a worldview and it's a more of an, of a,
of a state of learning a state of being curious as opposed to a thing, a topic
or an area. Okay. So let me take a stab at the way I think about it. So follow your passion.
Passion is a thing and it's an inner fire, if you will. Right. There's two things that get in the
way of passion, fatigue and fear. And those are the, that's the heavy blanket that we put on that
fire. Okay. And then, so, so passion is a skill
and there's, because there's two things that get in the way of it. We can do something about those
two things. So I'm less interested in people following their passion and more interested in
people figuring out that spark where they're most alive and following that. I don't call it passion
at all, but there's that inner thing that takes place for people where
they're most alive and they're most connected. And it usually is on the edge of uncomfortableness.
It's usually on the edge of not knowing and knowing it's usually right on the edge of
their capabilities. And when we... Presumably that changes over time.
That exactly. Yeah. So you could take it long and far into, in, in one craft. You could also
go across many crafts and there's a cost to both, right? There's a dark side to both of those. If
you spread yourself out, you know, the master of, um, what's it called? Master of Jack of,
what am I saying? Jack of all trades. Like if you spread yourself across too many crafts,
you never really get to find the nuances in them because you're you keep jumping right in craft to craft and if you go long and deep in one
you miss nuances i'm sorry you miss relationships you miss like exposure to other things well
there's there's a uh kind of a saying of oh well there's these t-shaped people so that you get
you're really broad and then you're deep in one thing and i actually would take it another step further i would say i'd want at least a pie shaped people where you have then you're deep in one thing. And I actually would take it another step further.
I would say I'd want at least a pie-shaped people
where you're deep in at least two things
or somewhat deep in at least two things
because I think that innovation really happens
at the intersections of things.
And you actually don't have to be nearly.
It's always the boundary spanning
that enables those new sparks to happen
and the combinations of
things. You know, you're just thinking about cooking, for example, it's the, it's how you
combine the ingredients that matter. And there's this great cartoon, I don't remember where it was,
but it was talking about, it was showing what your contribution as a PhD student is, you know,
I can't describe it. It's visual,
but it's basically the last slide of this cartoon series is a tiny little bump on this big circle
of human knowledge. Right. And I think that bump is incredibly important, but there are other ways
of making contributions and you can actually make a much bigger contribution sometimes by linking
two things that haven't been. There's a professor at MIT for example Tom Knight is a great example of this he
was a I believe a computer scientist really really well known in his field and all of a sudden he
just decided mid-career he's going to jump and look into biotech and biology and understand that. And he created these, the new way of thinking about
these building blocks. And he combined the idea of computer programming with biology
to create this open source library of these biological building blocks. And you don't get
that by just pushing in one direction. There you go. And are you pulling
on divergent thinking or more? Yeah, I think it is like when you're pulling on one or more
functions to create something different, or are you saying the combination of the two
is something unique in and of itself? It's this interplay between divergent,
convergent, divergent, convergent. You have to keep going back and forth. Keep going back and forth. Okay. And you, your two areas, your pie shaped areas of
quote unquote expertise. I'm a dilettante.
Are you? Yeah.
No, I, you know, I don't even like the word expertise and dilettante is wonderful. But
so if you've got those two, yours is tech and engineering.
Is that right?
Well, no, I don't know.
I would say it's really moved over time, right?
So it started with engineering and then moved into tech entrepreneurship.
And then, but that's the thing is I've had so many other experiences that seem like they're tangential to that, whether it's various that what I've really become good at is to identify undiscovered talent
and ideas and helping them make an impact in the world. Wow. Really cool. Okay. So can we,
can we unpack that? Okay. Undiscovered talent and people and ideas, people and ideas. Is that
what you said? And then helping them make an impact. Okay.
I had a question before that. Maybe this question is linked. And that the question was like,
how have you been able to string together common threads or, um, even parts that fit together from
such vast experiences? That's a really weird question, but it's like, if you've had
15 different experiences, how do you string them together to create something that makes sense?
That's new or makes sense. That is different or better than somebody else has done it.
Um, Hmm. That's a big question. I know. Yeah. Well, but I think that, I think the idea is that you, if you do follow your curiosity and you do
try different things, a lot of it is an iterative process. So when I was at,
and now we're jumping around, but my most recent gig before, so before I was entrepreneur in
residence for the mayor and then now started this new nonprofit.
What does entrepreneur in residence for the mayor and then now started this new nonprofit. What does entrepreneur in residence mean?
So the idea is that the mayor had...
Of Los Angeles.
Of LA, Mayor Garcetti, he and his team had approached me to say,
hey, I have this idea to have this program for these entrepreneurs in residence.
And so what would that look like?
And help me try to figure this out. And so entrepreneur in residence is a common term, especially in venture capital
firms. But we also used it when I was at USC, for example, where you get an entrepreneur to come in
and see, keep an eye open for different entrepreneurial opportunities.
And in the case of the city of LA, it became, we were,
we are the entrepreneurs in residence. Now there's two new ones.
So that we've been four now.
We're looking,
being a liaison between the entrepreneurial community and the city hall and looking for ways that city hall can support the entrepreneurial community and also ways of bringing entrepreneurial thinking
into city hall.
So that's what it was in,
in the city.
Okay.
So the two,
the two populations are going to somehow have a symbiotic relationship where
they're feeding and learning from each other.
That's right.
In a healthy way.
Yeah,
exactly.
And I think primarily to support,
I mean,
this mayor has been very, very supportive
of entrepreneurship in the city and trying to figure out how can City Hall support entrepreneurs
because, you know, usually in government, the larger companies have the most influence
because they can afford lobbyists and, you know, each company creates the most jobs individually,
right?
So on an individual basis, an entrepreneur doesn't necessarily have very much influence.
But as a whole, especially in a place like L.A. that's incredibly entrepreneurial and is all about small businesses.
In fact, we have in the city alone 350,000 businesses.
Most of them are, almost all of them are small, medium-sized businesses, small businesses.
Is that in the county or just the city? Just the city. Oh my goodness. Yeah. It's pretty crazy.
So, um, where was I? So I think the idea being that this mayor realized that he needed to figure
out how to support that entrepreneurial community, because there there's two ways of doing economic
development. The traditional way is a race to the bottom.
And some people call it smokestack chasing, where you'll go to a big company and try to lure them to the city or try to keep them in your city.
And different cities or states end up just passing these companies around keep giving lower incentives to lower the taxes,
et cetera, but to the point where it's not actually benefiting the city or the region anymore.
But instead, the alternative is to grow your own businesses.
And is that what LA, what you're doing for LA?
So we're really looking at how do you start and scale businesses in LA?
So if somebody is an entrepreneur, entrepreneur in LA,
not the region of LA or County, but, but in the city, what would be the benefit of linking up
with you? Okay. So that's, that's a whole other story. I'm actually, so I'm no longer entrepreneur
in residence. You know, what I've done is I've launched this. So when I started that business,
that, that, sorry, when I started as entrepreneur in residence EIR, I told the mayor, I really, I'm eager to do it as long as I can focus on an area that
has been underserved. And I was really interested in exploring the manufacturing side.
Okay. Let's put a pin in that because there's so much that I think we need that we need to get to,
to get to that decision. So that decision that you said, so you built this program with the mayor support or maybe
the mayor's guidance.
I'm not sure, but you guys built this program entrepreneur in residence and the residence
is the entire city to support, to be able to have a better relationship between city
council, not city council, city and entrepreneurship.
Okay.
Rad.
Now go wind back just a little bit.
Cause you also started or curated. I'm not sure the right phrase, TEDx.
The first ever, yeah.
The first ever TEDx. So you were involved in the TED community and somehow you found your way into a position to be able to say, you know what, we should do smaller ones across smaller cities. Is that close to, was it? Okay. And then wind it back one more,
which is the first statement that you made is that you're good at recognizing people and ideas
to make an impact in the world. Okay. What are we missing in between that you, the clarity that
for you to have the clarity that you can recognize ideas and people to make an impact.
So I feel like we need to maybe go a little bit further back to like, how did you get that?
How did that become your focus? So I think that you don't really realize your path and that's
the key to following your curiosity. You don't realize your path until you look back on it. So there was no way that I ever had planned to be where I am now,
or, you know, that was my aspiration at all, because that whole role did not even exist at
the time, really. So I remember once when I was leaving, when I was leaving MIT, this is, I
don't want to like sort of go through like where I was, et cetera, but just, uh,
the, I was leaving one position for another position and the, the former, the Dean of
Engineering at MIT said, where do you want to be in five years? And it, I didn't know how to
answer the question because I said, all I know is that I want to be doing something that I don't even know exists yet because I don't want to be doing something that
already exists. So, so it was really, so I think that that is why I can't, I can't say that, oh,
I'm going in that particular direction because if you knew it existed, it wouldn't be interesting
to me. Okay. Right. All right. So do you, if you answer that question
now, five years from now, is it the same answer? Yes, it is. So do you have this thing like every
five years or every three years you start to get an itch or you start to, um, want to shift a
little bit or is it, or is it more like, I just know if I keep pushing, it'll be something new.
I think it's the latter.
You know, so I think that, uh, so when I was trying to make that decision to go from MIT
to USC, so just to answer your prior question, you said, well, you know, discovering talents
and ideas.
And so I had the, this amazing opportunity to go back to my alma mater to be the founding
director of this new center for innovation called the Deshpande Center.
And that was at MIT.
Okay.
So I was there for four years, started this new center.
And-
Post-grad.
This is, yeah, many years.
Like this is a decade after.
After you graduated at MIT.
So I'd been in tech for a decade.
And our, you know, the company had been, the startup that I had been with got acquired
by Ask Jeeves.
I was there for a couple of years.
And we can talk about those experiences as well.
But the idea that I was at this cocktail party for successful alumni and I'd heard about
this new center and I asked, oh, how can I help with a center?
And this was the chairman of MIT at the time.
He said, oh my goodness, you would be an amazing director of this.
And I said, no, no, no, no, no.
I don't want to be a university administrator.
I don't have any interest in that.
No, no, no.
I just want to help.
I want to mentor.
I want to support.
Whatever.
Just tell me.
And he's like, no, no, no, really.
You should apply.
And so they convinced me to talk to them.
And I realized that there was a vision, but no plan. And it really would be within my power to help define what this kind of, what would
a university innovation center look like?
Nobody had ever really done that before.
So that was really exciting.
So that's how I ended up here, there.
And we created this amazing model where we were giving grants and we could talk about that
in detail too, but we were, but there was a lot of things that we learned through the process of
how do you attract the best talent, both from MIT and also around the whole community to rally around
the idea of taking university research and turning it into real impact in the form of, in that case, in the form of venture
backed startup companies. And so that was, were you early in that space? Cause Stanford has done
that really well. And like some, some of the Ivy programs like Princeton are, have been late to it
because they've been, you know, they have a whole different kind of look at things. So was MIT early in that?
Yes. I would say MIT and Stanford have the best reputations, you know, historically in that space,
yet it wasn't evenly distributed. So even at that time, so MIT already had a reputation of being
good at that. I mean, always in an applied university. Okay. So what we're talking about
is being good at taking science and applying it. Yes.
And then one other step, which is find people that can fund those projects to amplify them.
So some people would say, well, why are you doing this at MIT?
It's a really great place.
The truth was that there were a lot of faculty at MIT that had no aspiration of starting a company or no idea how to.
They were really interested in doing it.
There was a lot of an amazing research at MIT that was not getting out into the marketplace.
Were you guys connected to DARPA at all?
Well, DARPA funded a lot of research at MIT over the years.
They did.
But it wasn't specifically linked to our center or anything.
So this was funded by a $20 million gift, actually actually from a very successful entrepreneur, Desh Deshmade.
What's his name? Desh Deshmade.
And what did Desh, is that? Yes. I didn't know if it was a male or
female, but it's male. Yes. So he had founded several companies
including, it was Cascade and Sycamore Networks.
So he was very, very successful.
One of the most amazing role models for me, I mean, you know, as a, as a society, as a side note,
but we often see the media tends to promote certain images of leadership that I don't agree
with. Um, you know, certain people come to mind,
there's this perception of, you need to be hard nosed. You need to be a jerk. You need to be,
you know, uh, really decisive, but meaning that you are, you know, shoot from the hip or whatever
and just be really mean spirited. And you don't have to be a jerk to be a good leader. In fact,
I'd say much the opposite. There's different models, obviously.
But I'd say Desh is one model of someone who's incredibly humble and incredibly successful.
Other examples that I've been just so lucky to have a lot of really amazing mentors over the years.
Sherwin Greenblatt, he was the first.
Who's that?
Sherwin Greenblatt is the first employee of
Bose corporation.
He ended up becoming the president as it grew to be this hugely successful company.
I met him when I was at MIT because he ended up leaving and becoming, uh, having a role
that I'm in the administration at MIT.
And he's just a wonderful human being.
He's just another example of someone who is just incredibly kind, incredibly generous, and just has been very successful in business.
And I think that there's many other examples. And I wish that as a society, it just doesn't
make good news, but as a society, we should be promoting that. Okay. And yeah, not the,
the timeliness of that statement is really large.
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What is more important?
And I want to kind of box you in a little bit if I can.
Okay.
So what is more important?
I know we're all over the place.
Well, I want to go back like in just a moment and do like chapter headings, if you will,
because I love that we talked about divergence and divergent thinking.
We're following that a little bit, trying divergence and divergent thinking, you know, kind of,
we're following that a little bit, trying to sort together a thread for you, but I want to do chapter
headings in a minute, like chapter book headings. And then I'll, I think we'll be able to get to a
thread, but if I could box you into a corner just for a moment, what is more important?
Is it relationships? Is it experiences or is it talent? And I know you're not going to like to be boxed in in any kind of way, but if you had to pick one, what is it?
Because you've described all three really well so far for you.
Hmm.
You know, I think that it's so hard to pick one, obviously.
I think that it depends on what you mean by those things.
Okay. So I think that, um, raw talent is useless unless you do something with it. Um,
experience is essential. There's no shortcut to experience.
I think that ultimately what you do with that experience and talent comes down to relationships.
I don't want, but I want to kind of give a caveat to that. I think that there's
this sense of relationships is just about kind of going networking, pressing the flesh, you know,
just being quote unquote friends and having favors for each other. And it's, it's not that it's adding,
it's creating value together. So working together with other people and trusting each other
and you need to give before you can get. So sometimes I think I give more than I get, you know, sometimes, and then I get a little
frustrated, but then other times people are incredibly kind back, you know, and a lot of
times you're just giving forward, you know, to the next generation. Um, so I think it's really based
on that. It's not favors. It's sort of really, truly creating value in the world. And then from that, and then that's
where the relationships come out of. So I think that it's a, it's a linear path. Like you start
with the talent, some level of talent, you gain experience, but then it's ultimately the
relationships that bring it to fruition. See, look at that engineering model. That's really good.
Okay. Yeah, that's really good. Okay. So, and then in that middle stage of experiences,
then for you, your particular model would be to push the edge and have as many experiences as you
can across as many different categories, if you will. Right. And whether it be diving and or
engineering and or tech and or manufacturing or entrepreneurship, right?
Okay.
Does that, is that kind of your model that maybe we're sorting out right now?
Yeah.
If we're restricted to three variables, but those are the three themes that we've talked
about so far.
Yeah.
And it's so funny because my dad would be so proud to hear that because he always was
a huge proponent of never, and my mom would agree too, but he verbalized it.
He would say that he would never try to push me in any one particular direction,
but it was so important as parents to provide the opportunities to have as many experiences as possible
and then let your kid figure it out.
And that's your role as a parent is to just give them enough space and opportunities for those experiences as possible.
And, you know, that's where it comes from.
Okay.
So you don't have children now, right?
But you had that was your model as a parenting.
Okay.
So can I ask you like a question that just happened today for me is that my son has, he's eight
and he's on the creative spectrum for sure.
He loves creating and playing with stories and making stories.
And he's just got this beautiful little creative mind, if I do say so myself.
And he, there's an evidence of that by the way he dresses and his dress is wildly his
own. of that by the way he dresses and his dress is wildly his own and he but however he never ever
ever has his his pants or shorts or whatever he's wearing aligned with his hips so the zipper is
always a little off to the side the pockets are always kind of distorted right like what what
would your parents have done if if your clothes were I don't care about the way they match or don't match and that's not what I'm saying.
But like this tiny little detail that he doesn't take any care of having his underwear and his pants line up the way that they're supposed to.
Well, I do know that – I mean in terms of the matching thing though and I know you said that's not about that but it's my mom would let me dress myself and my apparently my aunt
once asked how could you let her go to school like that and my idea of the best fashion possible is
to represent as many colors on my body at one time as possible different colored socks you know
purple green blue whatever all over and that was goal. Every time I could dress myself at one point, um, a couple of years ago. No, no, that was just, it was, I guess, really embarrassing to my aunt,
but my mom said, you know what, that's the way she wants to dress. That's totally fine. So
now that somewhat surprises me because she can also be a control freak sometimes, you know,
and sort of wants things a certain way and feels like certain things need to be just right. Um,
so that probably would have driven her crazy.
The whole like, you know, not quite aligned sort of thing.
But I don't know.
It's a small little thought about the balance between creative expression and boundary-less-ness.
Right.
Aligned with like, there's some things that, you know, need to be taken care of.
And this isn't a great example necessarily about, but there's a balance in there. As an innovator, you need to fit into society enough.
That's, that's the key. And in a, so people have often over the years, you know, asked me,
what's the difference between creativity and innovation? Isn't that the same thing? Or they
would often use them interchangeably. And I would drive me crazy because creativity is the
generation of ideas. It's the thinking imaginatively, whatever.
You may be an inventor, you create one of something, but innovation is then taking that
idea or that one, the thing for yourself. It's almost like a very self-centered thing, creativity,
then turning it outward and making it make an impact in the world. So how do you scale that
idea into something that really makes an impact? If you don't fit into society to some degree, it will be completely, it's a
constant battle and it will not be accepted and it will not be innovation. It will purely always
stay creativity. So I think that creating some boundaries for your kid, um, or at least making
them aware of it so that they're always aware and they're making that conscious choice. And I'm not, like I said, I'm not a parent, I'm not a child psychologist, so I don't know
what point in their development, psychological development, that discernment is possible.
But I do think that it is important to have certain boundaries.
And how did your parents do that for you as, as a creator and innovator and have done so
from engineering and risk-taking?
Yeah, I don't know.
I mean, I think my parents were somewhat lucky in that I was, my mom always tells me now
how I was a very responsible child.
I don't know why, you know, but I was, you know, I would be allowed to take the car and
go out with my friends as long as I would be home by 11 o'clock.
And if I was not, or whatever that time was, and if I was
not, if I was going to be a little bit late, I always called my mom, always told her so she
wouldn't worry. And, um, and I, so I was just, I don't know. I think that the trust has to go both
ways, I guess. And you just build that trust and set certain boundaries. Um, I mean, I think that
also my mom, so although both my parents are very,
very much risk takers, I would say my dad's very much a risk taker. My mom actually will
admit that she's more conventional and a rule follower actually. Where do you, where do you
fall on that risk-taking rule following? You know, I'm not sure anymore. I used to think that I was very much a risk taker. Um, but I think that
often it depends on what we're talking about. I think that sometimes, you know, I love to do
crazy stuff like jump out of airplanes or dive with sharks or, you know, any of that kind of
stuff. But then sometimes I feel like I'm doing that, but not willing to take risks emotionally sometimes. Or, and recently, since I
left USC, so I did something similar at USC, but on a bigger scale than I did at MIT. So I created
these two innovation centers. When I left USC, I was much more on my own. And this has been a new
path for me the last four years or so. And it's been more
challenging because I am an extrovert. I love to have partners. I love to have a team that it's
harder to do things without a team, you know, and it's, uh, we often forget what it's like in the
early stages, you know, the early pages of the book, you only remember the kind of the ending.
So it's hard to start over again. I feel like I'm starting over again. And so it's been a bit of a challenge for me.
So I think that as a result, I've become in ways more cautious in ways that drive me crazy. I hate
myself for it. You know? Ooh, that's a strong statement. What do you, what do you mean by that?
Yeah. When I'm just, when I am, when I don't have the confidence to just put myself out there, and I hold myself to a very high standard, I think, in terms of risk taking, because I think of myself as a risk taker.
Perfect example.
So, you know, I host a podcast, a new podcast called The Art of Manufacturing.
Oh, yeah. And it's this really wonderful exploration into the factories and studios and the minds
of entrepreneurs that are launching products or growing businesses around manufactured
products, whether it's food, aerospace, apparel and fashion, whatever.
So doing that was very hard for me because I have very high standards for my work and putting probably the hardest thing I've ever done before this anyway, was I took a standup comedy class once.
And it was the, I mean, like I said, I've jumped out of airplanes.
I've spoken in front of 1500 people.
Like none of that really phases me that much, but standing in front of 30 people pretending
like I think I'm funny is the most terrifying thing ever.
And in the same way, putting out podcast episodes where you don't get the immediate feedback
is it took a lot of courage, even though it seems so minor. It just seems so minimal on the surface of
it. So it's been a bit of a battle for me. What is it like to even talk about that right now?
It's fine. I mean, it's hard to admit when you, sort of shortcoming or, or whatever, but it's fine. I, I talk, I will,
I'll talk about it, but I think that it's, um, I think that's the first step, right.
To solving a problem is to admit that you have the problem.
That's what they say. Yeah. Okay. So, and the challenge, if I reframe that with you from
problem to challenge, the challenge is emotional vulnerability is taking emotional risks.
I, okay.
What I've noticed and what I've seen from people that are exceptional, this is the frontier.
It's not physical risk.
It's not.
That's just the way it's manifested.
You know, like the physical risk that if I do something, I break a leg or I die.
You know, that's the extreme kind of physical risk that if I do something, I break a leg or I die.
You know, that's the extreme kind of physical risk.
Or if I make a mistake, somebody else dies.
The emotional risk, way harder.
Oh, yeah.
And it's something available for every one of us.
And we're busy doing these other types of risk-taking adventures, which usually many of them are not really risky.
Shark diving can be, but not if you're shark diving with like docile sharks or in a cage. Neither one of those were the case, but. Oh, nice. Okay. Yeah. So then
you're really out there. I love that. So, so emotional risk-taking saying the thing that's
difficult to say is the, at the center of intimacy and it's, it's just doing that. So
saying the thing that's difficult to say
and then holding presence during it, that's how we build capacity for emotional, um, strength,
right? Is through the pushing of the boundary or capacity limit for that set emotion. And it's hard.
Oh my God, it's hard. It's really hard. And I think that that's, that is the frontier.
And I can totally see how creatives, artists, et cetera, become drug addicts for, you know,
alcohol abusers, whatever is that you, it's the, a coping mechanism to give yourself the courage,
either the courage to, to put yourself out there or just to just to dead in the pain of the criticism.
It's so easy for people to criticize you and it's or anyone, right?
It's so much easier to criticize and edit someone else's work than it is to synthesize in the first place.
Or create.
Or create, Yeah. And, um, I, I can really relate to what it feels like to take a shot, to, to have
that internal, um, turbulence and to let go of it. And then to be put, have stacks of arrows in my
back and it's hard and it's painful. And that's why having that support infrastructure, having
partners or having, that's why I think that's
really important. I think what we're talking about right now is this, the importance to have that
balance between openness, vulnerability, creativity, expression of ideas, and then the birth of those
ideas to maybe see if we're on the path of innovation possibly. And that process, there's an openness or a veneer that is easily, you know, transferable
between idea and expression of idea. And then at the same time, needing a hard shell from the
attack of others. Like, how do you have both? I don't know. So my, what I'm trying to sort out is
I can't, I can't do the hard shell. I can't do it because then it, it, it like, it does something really
weird to the risk taking and the vulnerability required to say the thing or do the thing that's
difficult. Right. So then I've, what I've done is loved other people. This is just me talking
about like my strategy. I love others more than you can imagine. And I, I stopped caring what
they think of me. And so if I can get those two things right, which is not easy, because sometimes self-preservation takes over love. And so self-preservation, like I need to
care about the way I look or sound or feel to other people because I need to go back to your
original idea. I need to be connected some kind of way to society. And the need to belong is so
fricking strong that it keeps us stuck. It's crazy. I mean, I think that that is a strength and a weakness of mine
is the desire to be, well, to be liked, which is pretty common.
I mean, it's common, right, as a human trait,
and to be understood, you know?
Does that go back to when you were 13 as a nerd?
I don't know.
Like not fitting in?
Not having a group? Because I don't get a sense that you didn't have relationships that you were like,
a painful 13 year old. No, no, no. I mean, I had friends, but there were a few, you know,
I had fewer closer friends. Um, I didn't have a group of friends. I had individual relationships
for whatever it's worth. But I, but I think that as a result of that, I am
very, I mean, very interested in people, you know, and I, and that's why I love, for example,
in the podcast, I love to ask questions and understand, I love to understand and be understood,
you know, and I think that that makes me really good at hosting and, and, um, and helping other
people and, and, you know, going back to the whole idea of finding undiscovered talent
ideas and helping them make an impact, giving them a platform, whether it's TEDx and helping.
I mean, I helped dozens and dozens of really brilliant people turn their ideas into these
talks. 10 of them ended up on TED.com and they got like 12 million views. I mean, like really
popular stuff, right? I don't think that that comes from being purely self-focused. It's really about trying to understand the other person than
helping them through it. Um, but at the same time, there's that see me underbelly of that
is that you're also affected very much when people don't like what you're doing and don't appreciate
what it is that you do. It just, it's crushing me when I, when I, when I help people, I do what I feel like I, I really do. I'm very giving and I really want
to help and make a difference in the world. And then when I feel like somebody doesn't appreciate
that, I'm like, screw you. Like what? I don't understand. And it's really upsetting to me,
really upsetting to me. Like it really, um, makes it hard for me to function sometimes when I just
feel like I'm not understood. And then how do you, how do you work with that? How do you get back on
the, on the horse? How do you get back on the path? You know, I, I have really, I'm fortunate
to have really close friends and colleagues that, that can help me work through it, for example. So I think that's part of it.
Part of it is, um, usually I find that I'm not, I don't get upset for very long. You know, I'd say that even, you know, really times when I'm really upset three, four days, I'm over it, you know,
often it'll be an hour, you know, but, uh, recently it's been longer though. Like I think
that I've been this last six months have been really challenging for me and trying to launch make it in la and launching the podcast and i'm
taking it much more personally than i ever did oh yeah really interesting yeah it'll be fun to see
what you create i know because before you've used your intellect and relationships and you used
you know your experiences to create more resources you know and then you like my first
first startup had a couple partners we didn't have any resources back then either. What was that startup? It was called stylist innovation, stylist, stylist innovation. What does that mean? Well, it started as a, this was before the web. We were way too far ahead of our time, but, uh, it was in 1990. We came up with an idea for home shopping over the phone.
So we actually built the prototype.
It was this barcode one that converted barcodes out of a catalog to touch tones.
So it would communicate with an interactive voice response system on the other end over the phone.
We had a patent for it and everything.
And we quickly, not that quickly, but we licensed the technology and use the
proceeds of that to pivot and turn into a software development company. And we did interactive voice
response systems. What did that go? Where did that go? The interactive got, so what is, what
is IVR or what happened to the company? What happened to your company? I got acquired by a
company called Artisoft. What is it called? Andisoft, which then I think became Vertical, I think was the name of the company. So Artisoft did networking
and then became more of like a PBX, kind of almost a reverse merger in a sense of their company.
They saw the writing on the wall, Windows 95 was coming out with the product that they had
basically included in windows. Like,
Oh,
now what are we going to do?
So they acquired our company. We had used our software to create this very inexpensive,
flexible PBX phone system,
you know?
And so they,
they acquired us and that's what happened.
So,
and then where do you go next after you're,
after you've been acquired,
did you take time off?
Did you jump right into something new?
Some time off. And I became very active in mountain bike advocacy.
So you're looking at me with this weird look on your face.
Mountain bike advocacy.
Yes.
So I was a very avid mountain biker at the time.
Started the New England Mountain Bike Patrol and hosted, like, put together this big summit for mountain bike advocates in the Northeast and became very active in, it was the largest regional mountain
bike advocacy group in the world. It was called New England mountain bike association, very
successful, very, I mean, it's still around. Um, so I did not found it. Some people thought,
have thought that I didn't know. Absolutely not. Heidi Davis did. And, uh, Philip Kyes is the
executive director, amazing guy,
uh, but, uh, did, was president of that for a while. So that was kind of my take a little time
off, did that. But after about six months, I mean, still was active for many years after that,
but after six months of not doing something, I mean, I, I was, I did pretty well with the
acquisition, but, uh, I was really thinking, okay, what's
next?
What's next?
And it was a very challenging time.
Crazy.
Like you'd think, okay, I'm, I'm now a millionaire before I'm 30 and I'm unhappy.
This is ridiculous.
But I was very, very, uh, yeah, this is not real.
I felt like I needed a purpose in life.
Okay. That's a really big deal. And then, and then you jumped into something next.
Yeah, it took a few years. So I was still sort of on this. So it was still a bit of a sabbatical,
but I went into documentary video production
and that's coming back. See, so I'm actually using this sort of the, what I learned about storytelling in TEDx, in podcasting, you know, and, and that was sort of, that was my time off.
So sort of the mountain bike advocacy and documentary production.
Did you produce anything that was beautiful? We worked with some really amazing organizations to create these series on things like math education, which is incredibly hard to get on film, right?
So a series on that for the National Science Foundation.
We did some short documentaries for the Harvard Business School publishing, sorry. So really interesting things where we would, for example,
literally be sitting in on a 360-degree review of somebody
and learning how does a 360 review actually happen
as opposed to just in theory on paper.
We also sat in at L.L. Bean and we watched the whole process,
the product development process of a new hunting boot.
And so we did a short documentary on that as well.
So those were the kinds of things that were super fascinating and really hard industry to do what you want to do.
And it was right around the time there was proliferation of all the cable channels. I mean, literally the timing couldn't have been
worse because all of a sudden I was working for the owner of this media company had been
producing Nova scientific American frontiers frontline. These were things that had a $750,000
budget for an hour show. And now all of a sudden you go to Discovery Channel and they say, okay, what can you do for $10,000 and has sharks or tornadoes in it?
And I'm not exaggerating.
I mean, that's literally what they wanted.
And it was a very different game and it wasn't really what I was interested in.
Okay.
Then after just making movies, documentaries, what did you do next?
So I went back into tech.
So my first business partner invited me to join the company called Direct Hit Technologies. So I was an early employee there.
And that was a search engine company. We got acquired by Ask Jeeves, became a product manager
there, oversaw user experience for their business to business side and e-commerce actually product manager for
e-commerce for a little bit so so i've sort of like did some rounds you know in in tech okay
okay very cool and then from mit the entrepreneurial um what'd you call it institute
mit was the dash bondi center for technological Technological Innovation. Okay. Innovation. Good. And then at USC. Yep. And USC, you built another innovation center. Yes. What was that called?
It was called the USC Stevens Institute for Innovation. Now the Stevens Center for Innovation.
Okay. And it's still alive. It's still alive. Very different focus than when I was there.
And I was also vice provost for innovation at the university. So I worked directly for,
he was the provost at the time, Max Nikias, he's the president now. Um, so he was the one who recruited me very, very, uh, compelling, charming, uh, you know, person who just was
wonderful to work with. And he really was good at enticing me to go cross country, leave MIT,
which was at the time, couldn't have
imagined a more amazing job, you know? Wow. Very cool. So I don't know if I've told you,
but coach Carol, myself and a gentleman named Dave Belasco are co-founding an institute at USC
and we're taking, yeah. And so this, it's been endowed, partly endowed, I think for,
we have three phases.
The first phase is a minor inside of the School of Business around peak performance, if you will.
And the second is a laboratory.
And the third is an institute.
And we have the first two fully funded.
And then so there's a runway for us to have a full institute.
And we're well down the path.
And so we're really excited.
And it's taking divergent sciences,
pulling them together and having a very good understanding how the best in the world work.
And then giving that to the students first and then opening up to open source thereafter.
Amazing. Yeah. So we're, we're so geeked about it. So we'll, you and I need to have some
conversations about, yeah, that'll be really fun. No, I mean, academia is a whole other world,
right? And I love living at the boundaries of things. So for me, being at that intersection of academia and the business community was incredibly rewarding and sort of did something similar, you know, as an EIR with the government as well, sort of that boundary between government and the business community. And so I see that you're probably going to be playing a little bit in that area as well.
That's exactly it. Yeah.
And it's a lot of fun.
It's challenging.
It's super challenging and it gives a platform to be able to, the stuff that I'm making up
that's grounded in science.
Like it's a place to say, well, if, well, since we've made it up, is it working?
Yeah.
And so that is going to be a really, I think, wonderful innovation process to be able to
see if the things that we're doing are actually working and we're geeked about it.
We're so geeked about it. And yeah, so we'll talk about more about that later. Okay. So that's about
the best segue we could find to have to end a part one of this conversation with Christina.
So if you enjoyed this conversation, punch over to iTunes, write a review, follow us, subscribe.
It helps tremendously. So we want to thank you for that. You can also find us on social media at Michael
Gervais on Twitter and in Instagram at Michael Gervais, as well as at Finding Mastery. Okay.
So we want to thank you for staying connected and you can punch over to findingmastery.net
for more information and part two is coming. And so thank you again.
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