Douglas Graham
Rice University
Houston (29.7° N, 95.3° W)

featuring Gabrien Clark, Analytics Lead, Nike, Beaverton, OR (45.4° N, 122.8° W)

Gabrien Clark is an analytics lead at Nike, where he and his team work with sales data to find performance trends in the marketplace and communicate their findings back to the company. He graduated from Rice University with a bachelor of science in bioengineering and a bachelor of arts in history. During college, Clark was active in several student groups, including the Rice Student Association and Rice Empower, a science outreach program. Clark joined General Motors as a business intelligence developer after he graduated, and he tackled complex problems in a fast-paced working environment before joining his analytics team at Nike in 2018.

We began our meeting with a conversation about Clark’s path from studying bioengineering at Rice to becoming a data analyst. It started with a junior year technology internship, which opened his eyes to how his bioengineering problem- solving skills could be applied to different fields. Clark subsequently joined General Motors after graduation and was immediately assigned important projects that put his skills to the test. He went on to work at Nike, a company that shared his appreciation for creatively using different software to solve problems in favor of being constrained to any specific tools.

After Clark discussed his road to Nike, he explained how his current team works together to reveal insights about company sales and present their results. They first gather and interpret data from Nike, along with a variety of retailers, and proceed to determine patterns about product sales in the marketplace. But discovering these trends is only one piece of the puzzle: Clark and his teammates must also visualize and effectively explain their findings to the company and its stakeholders. Communicating these important findings can significantly affect Nike’s planning process. On data analytics teams like Clark’s, there is a high demand for data analysts who can confidently use data analysis and visualization software and work effectively in teams. Clark advises that students interested in the field should consider building a portfolio of projects using a variety of programming languages or software that they can show to potential employers in their job search.

An interesting takeaway from our interview was that the problem-solving skills you learn through one college major can be transferred to other fields in surprising ways. For instance, Clark’s experiences on bioengineering teams allowed him to quickly adapt to team-based projects at General Motors. Though his switch in fields demanded that he quickly learn the database query and management language SQL, Clark’s broad problem-solving skill set that he fostered at Rice enabled him to conquer the challenge. His experience showed me that although some career path switches may be more difficult than others, the hard work required in any rigorous course of college study gives students the ability to transfer their skills to a large range of industries.

But perhaps the most important lesson I gleaned from our conversation was that unexpectedly tough situations often lead to unexpected growth in skill. When Clark obtained his first job after college at General Motors, the company was rapidly shifting their team responsibilities in the wake of their 2014 recalls. Because of this, Clark was assigned difficult cost negotiation tasks that were pivotal to multimillion-dollar company operations. With the help of a guiding mentor, Clark applied his engineering discipline to the work and solved complex tasks, honing his data analytics skills along the way. Facing and overcoming such a significant challenge gave Clark the skill set he needed to succeed in his current position at Nike. His daily work includes adapting to unique situations and using new data technology, abilities that he gained through hard work and determination. Clark’s road to Nike demonstrates that with the right mindset, students can transform their career paths and emerge as skilled professionals in innovative industries.

Highlights from the interview:

Everyone’s family, community, and life circumstances create an initial role for them in society. What was expected of you, and did you stick to that path or stray from it?

I guess I was lucky. I’ve never really had specific expectations for where I would end up, career-wise. I was lucky enough to have a family that was very supportive. Super early on, in high school/middle school, I wanted to be a fitness businessperson. After a while, I wanted to go into medicine, and after that, I was kind of lost, didn’t really know. Family support really helped out, and eventually when I started getting on a path to technology and data analytics, everyone was super supportive.

At which point during your educational or professional journey did you begin to envision yourself in data analytics?

I took a tech internship during the summer after my junior year of Rice. That summer was one of the big influences, and during my senior year, I was pretty open-minded about what I could possibly do. Luckily enough, we had some pretty great technology partners come to Rice to do on-campus recruiting. One that really caught my eye, because I studied bioengineering at Rice, was someone from General Motors who was previously a civil engineering master’s from Rice. He talked about his transition from engineering to tech and mentioned how it is essentially all about problem-solving, even with technology. It got me very excited, knowing that I could take my problem-solving knowledge from my engineering education and bring it to just about any other field. Data analytics within technology has tons of complex problems that people were trying to solve, so it felt like a really great fit, where I could take—not necessarily my exact education—but a skill set that I honed [during] my education. I could take that skill set and bring it over to this new career path. That was a really big, important moment for me.

Was there any specific project that you worked on in data analytics where you really felt skills being transferred from the engineering classes you had?

I would say literally my first project in my first job at General Motors. General Motors had some pretty big vehicle safety issues at the time I started. So my analytics team there picked up newly added responsibilities. All the experienced people were placed on the priority for the vehicle’s safety, but all the existing projects that they still had on their plate had to go somewhere. Because of that need, my first project was actually pretty complex. It required information and tools to negotiate parts from our suppliers and to determine what the ultimate cost of a part was, including transportation cost. How much did that cost? What is it costing the company? And helping the manufacturing plants negotiate. It was actually a partnership with the research and development team. It was very difficult, but it was one of those things where you have to say, “Okay, these are the constraints. These are the technology I’m using. This is the current data structure. These are the things I can do with that data structure. Here’s ultimately what a report can look like.” And once getting those constraints down, going through the iterative design process with partners in research and development, testing out different prototypes for designs and basically getting to final product. Then working on any improvements, clearing the bugs and maintaining that product, and eventually ending up at what we see in production. That was, I would say, pretty much from the get-go, transferring those skills, applying those rational design practices I learned in my engineering discipline at Rice, and really iterating and building something really cool that’s useful for business. 

When you were solving all those complicated problems, did you have a particular mentor or person who helped you along the way?

Yes, I had a few. Luckily, my hiring manager helped me get set up. So, when I first started, I had someone who had been there only for a year but had built a really nice orientation for doing things the right way, interacting well between stakeholders and managers in meetings. So he really took me under his wing and really helped me out along the way. One of the other groups of people that I really appreciated was this group of people called the database administrators. They’re people that are basically the godfathers of the data, where we put it and share it. They’re really cool people; they’re all kind of older and super nice. When I started my job, I didn’t know SQL. I didn’t know how to design my queries as well. They did a good job of being very patient and helping explain things, help me learn along the way. It definitely made me a lot stronger than I otherwise would have been within the technology field. I’m very grateful for that because I know a lot of places don’t have those people that are willing to help you out like they helped me out. That’s definitely something that’s an advantage in my career, and a big part of the reason why I got my job at Nike, because I knew a lot more than the typical two- to three-year person in terms of optimization. I was very lucky that I was able to find those groups of people to be another set of mentors for me.

What lead you to your current position at Nike?

I had worked at General Motors IT for two and a half years. I went from level zero, not knowing anything about that field, and not knowing the different skill sets that I would need to be successful when I first started, to the point where not only did I know now, but I was hungry for more. I wanted to use more than what was available to me. I started learning Python, I started learning more advanced SQL, how to build more on the side of open-source things at home. And I was using websites like Codecademy and DataCamp to level up. Then, I was [contacted] by a staffing company, which had a contact with Nike. The team here at Nike was basically the dream. What he was explaining to me was they didn’t believe in using any predefined, set list of tools. They believed in using whatever gets the job done the best way. Not being afraid to explore, which is something that I really, really wanted. On top of that, just from a life-experience standpoint, I’d grown up in Texas, born and raised, went to school there, had my first job, all within Texas. So, I thought, you know, Portland would be a cool place to figure out, get some new life experiences. So, it was very fortunate that the right opportunity found its way to me via LinkedIn. In the technology field, people reach out all the time, but it was kind of one of those things were nothing seemed right until that moment. And it just worked out. I’m very fortunate that the people reaching out had a great opportunity for me.

What does your current position entail on a daily basis?

Well, it varies. A lot of what my team does is work with data from our retailers that Nike works with, as well as our own internal direct data. My team in particular focuses primarily on point of sales data. For example, we’ll look at a Nike shoe, we track it, and say how much has this shoe sold through its inventory across all of these retailers. And we’re able to compare it and know the key performance indicators (KPIs) to give us insight into how exactly we did in terms of planning for that shoe. Also, examine things from an inventory standpoint and look into what we could do to improve, based on what we’re seeing in the trends across our retailers.

How do you work together with people on your team?

We work in two-week sprints, where we have a product manager who determines a set of smaller items that we’ll be working on to improve our product or products. Our team will take these individual tasks and work on it, and complete them, and move them over into to-do or in-progress or done stage. That’s a very simplified version of it. During the workflow, we talk to each other and help each other out. We communicate whenever a new test comes up. We sit together and we estimate how much work we can get done. Over time, these meetings are where we actually do estimation and talking through the tasks. We get to a point where we understand how much work goes into the product creation, what tasks we can share, what tasks are better worked on individually. Whenever we are working together, we just hop over to each other’s desks, bring our computers, have any discussion we need to talk about for the particular work at hand. And then when we pass teams along, we take notes, detailed notes, built off of the things we had been doing in the past. 

What skills would you say you use most commonly in your work?

From a technical, hard-skills standpoint, I would say SQL and Python are very important for me. We do most of our data visualization in Tableau. Also, there’s a tool called Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services. I know that may not mean much, but we use that quite a bit here and in my previous job to build something that’s called ad hoc reporting. So, a large set of people may have a shared question that could be answered with one set of visualization. Ad hoc tools allow you to basically just play with the data and answer your own questions.

From a soft-skills standpoint, I would say communication is huge. It’s very important that we’re able to talk to each other and discuss issues and be able to quickly resolve them. I would say communication within our team is very important.

Another important thing is something called business acumen. One important thing that I had to learn is that learning SQL, Python, all these other languages, JavaScript, whatever it may be, is extremely important to be able to create your products, but at the same time, the other big half of that is you really have to build up your knowledge of the data that you’re working with. In terms of Nike, that’s like really understanding how Nike conducts its business, what we deem valuable from a metric standpoint in terms of point of sales, or finance, or what we stand for in a total marketplace. So understanding those key metrics, how our business analysts look at them, and how we’re using that to drive our company forward. Understanding the whole company’s supply chain process is extremely important, because when you’re meeting with stakeholders, you’re not meeting with people who are extremely technical, so you’re not going to be talking about the ins and outs of your SQL query. What you’re going to be talking about is logic. That’s the common language. Someone who’s working within the business and making business decisions will have a logic in mind, where we look at this metric like this and this is how we feel like calculating it. To yourself, you have to translate that to a query or a calculation, but when you’re talking to a business stakeholder, you really need to be able to talk at the lowest level, the logic standpoint, and realize why it’s important and how it’s used.

Were there any skills from your college years at Rice that helped you in those conversations?

I think in engineering, one of the important things that we need to do is make things concise and succinct and to the point—and back it up with numbers and tell a very good, clean story. In terms of working with business stakeholders and keeping our communication of our team to the point and effective, I really need to use those skills I learned in college. I think it’s important for any other job as well, but yeah, being able to concisely, succinctly, and very effectively tell your story… 

How are science and technology reshaping the work that you do, and what changes do you foresee in your industry coming up? 

I think probably the biggest one is something that’s been coming for a long time, it’s constantly building, and here it’s all about cloud computing. It’s one of those things where more and more companies are doing a great job helping offload the computational needs of the company. They provide these great services that scale up very nicely and are extremely important. It’ll blow your mind if I were to show you, just from a reporting standpoint, how much stronger we got by moving to a cloud-based computing platform.

I think also what comes along with that is this idea of software as a service is also getting really big, that model where everyone is trying to be like a Netflix or Spotify, where they offer you monthly services or whatever time period. They offer you these services, but you pay a monthly fee. You scale up or down what you pay for, and your services go up and down. I think those two things go hand in hand, and I think that’s something that the field is just generally moving toward.

I think one thing that won’t be changing anytime soon is people being the backbone for data and analytics. I think it is extremely important. That’s the centerpiece of everything for me. That’s one of the most important things that anyone going into this field can learn. SQL and knowing it well, understanding your data structure well, and if you’re using cloud-based computing platforms, really understanding the ways that they actually compute and what ways can you improve the performance of what you’re building. With those platforms, understanding how much it’s costing us and in what ways we can reduce those costs—and, with that, still really great products.

What would you say is the biggest challenge facing your industry?

I would say it’s a nice challenge, but I still think that from a demand-supply standpoint, that the supply still isn’t meeting demand in terms of talented workers who come in and do a good job and help companies get along. I think being able to really get what teams need from a human-resource standpoint is going to be a big challenge. I think that’s one of the nice challenges; it’s not a typical challenge. It’s nice for workers, but it is a real challenge companies to face. One of the bigger problems is when you have some big initiative, then you have to hire for that, then you have these gaps where you have to go through a full process. For a big company like Nike, that could take quite a while, so these can often get sidetracked a bit. I think that’s honestly going to be one of the bigger challenges.

What advice would you give to a student interested in your field?

If you want to go into data and analytics, learning SQL, building products on your own, or building projects with a team, and building a portfolio that you can walk through and speak through and give details on how you contributed to building that project out. I think that’s hugely important because, ultimately, at the end of the day, someone who’s hiring you, the thing that they want to know is that you’re going to be able to take the job, and do a good job, and very effectively do everything that you say that you can do on your resume, and also things that they are looking for that you don’t know. Be able to pick up on [new things], be willing to learn, and educate yourself. And I think by building up your own data analytics-focused project, as well as building up that portfolio, would be a huge helping hand for getting hired. I think that’s one of the things that every hiring manager will have to see, a portfolio and a project that you’ve done.

Interview excerpts have been lightly edited for clarity and readability and approved by the interviewee.

Sergio Espinoza Torres
Rice University
Houston (29.7° N, 95.3° W)

featuring Jacques Zaneveld, Founder and President, Lazarus 3D, Houston (29.7° N, 95.3° W)

In 2014, Dr. Jacques Zaneveld met a resident physician who had prepared for the removal of a cyst from a woman’s uterus by doing a practice “surgery” on a green bell pepper. As ridiculous as it may sound, this is the type of practice that healthcare professionals must rely on for lack of better options. Noble efforts to improve these options and the life of others come with great sacrifice and persistence, as illustrated by Dr. Zaneveld’s interview with Longitude.site contributor Edward Sheu, a computer science student at NYU.

Dr. Zaneveld is the founder and president of Lazarus 3D, a startup that produces 3D printed silicone models that mimic human organs. He earned a BS in mathematics and honors biology with a minor in biochemistry from the University of Oregon and a PhD in molecular and human genetics from the Baylor College of Medicine. As part of his path in developing his project, Dr. Zaneveld had to learn quickly and broadly, a recurring theme on his journey. In his interview for Longitude.site, Dr. Zaneveld stressed a few powerful experiences and reflections that are invaluable for someone seeking to bring their own ideas to fruition.

The first step was finding an idea. The green bell pepper anecdote shows how Dr. Zaneveld saw a gap in the healthcare industry that needed to be addressed: there was not an accurate way for surgeons to practice their skills. Simply having an idea was not enough, however. Dr. Zaneveld emphasized how important it is to build something tangible and then go from there, since “no one would have put money behind this idea when it was just an idea.” During his limited free time at Baylor, he learned the ins and outs of 3D printing, built his own printers, and sold models at anime and science fiction conventions to earn money. He also expressed the importance of surrounding oneself with people who are knowledgeable in distinct areas and listening to their advice, so everyone focuses on what they do best. Besides knowledge and experience, sharing a vision with other members of the company holds this dream together.

Dr. Zaneveld made very interesting remarks relating to the approach of his company. Lazarus 3D uses a design process that promises consistent, realistic, and prompt production in a single facility here in the United States, which provides security and facilitates quality control. Their focus is to produce the organ models themselves, not simply to sell printers to hospitals, because that saves doctors from having to learn yet another thing. Most importantly, Dr. Zaneveld runs the company with urgency and takes challenges head-on. Taking his selling of models at anime and science fiction conventions as an example, Dr. Zaneveld said, “Is that the vision? No. But that is an important step to get there…To get somewhere, actually do something.” Lazarus 3D is a noble company that is fighting for the opportunity to address a need and make a vital difference. To overcome their challenges, Dr. Zaneveld and his team keep the main goal in mind, because “we know that this is something the world needs.”

It is an immense privilege to learn about the emergence of Lazarus 3D. This interview has shined some light on how, with enough willpower, one is able to create something new. By reading selected excerpts from the interview transcript below, you will bear witness to the kind of ingenuity, sacrifice, and urgency that Dr. Zaneveld and his team have relied on to make Lazarus 3D happen. In a climate where it is getting tougher to “make it” financially, daring to build something from scratch is intimidating, but this interview may inspire creative entrepreneurs to take the first step.

Highlights from the interview

Could you give a brief overview about what you do and what your company does?

Absolutely. There’s a massive problem in medical training today where people have almost no hands-on experience before they start doing some extremely complex procedures. If you take something like brain surgery—people will study it in the books for years, they will watch people performing these operations, but then when it comes time for them to actually do that surgery, they’re pretty much learning on the patient that they are treating. That’s not really their fault; it’s a problem with the medical system, and it’s because there isn’t any good way for them to acquire those hands-on skills. You can’t really use cadavers because it’s very hard to, in this example, find people that have tumors in their brain that are in the cadaver population. Similarly, you can’t use animals; the anatomy is too different, and it’s very hard to find them with any particular pathology like a brain tumor. And also, generic medical modeling companies haven’t tackled this problem because it’s very expensive to design and build a new training model. So they won’t do it for all these specialized tasks where there’s a limited market. Instead, they focus on larger-appeal products like a CPR trainer, which has very broad appeal. So looking at this problem, we know that hundreds of thousands of Americans die every year because of medical errors. It’s not something you can address with traditional manufacturing. I thought, well, maybe this is a problem we can solve using 3D printing.

Now, the problem is that the current 3D printers that are available through other companies cannot produce models that actually mimic real tissue. The closest you can get is something that is out of a relatively hard plastic or rubber, and those machines themselves are exorbitantly expensive. So I dedicated some time and personal resources while I was doing my PhD to develop a system to rapidly prototype in soft silicone materials, as well as some other materials, to closely mimic real tissue. What we can do with that is really solve this training gap. So if you want to learn how to do brain surgery, I can design and build a brain tumor model that feels and looks very similar to the real thing, backed up by actual data from patients and actual mechanical testing information on material. I can do that entire design and production process in under 24 hours and get it out to you. This is economically feasible because I use the exact same capital expenditure, the exact same machinery and process, to build brain tumors today and hearts tomorrow and lungs the next day. So I have a capability to target all of these different niche markets that, in and of themselves, would be small but in aggregate represent a massive problem in medicine. So that’s a quick overview.

Another very exciting thing that this technology has been able to do is to be able to be modelled to individual patients. Because we’re so fast at designing and building things, if, God forbid, you have a disease, I can build a copy of you overnight, and your doctor can rehearse your surgery ahead of time. So those are some of the activities we’re pursuing at Lazarus. We see this as a multibillion-dollar market opportunity and also an opportunity to help hundreds of thousands of other citizens get better medical care.

You gave a really great overview. One interesting thing you brought up is the patient-specific models. Giving the patient the opportunity to see exactly what is going on could also be really helpful. What do you have in mind for how these models can be used to educate the patient about what their surgery would be like and how you can make them feel more comfortable and aware with the technology?

Absolutely. So that is a side benefit, I would say, of using this technology…that it does help facilitate that communication. Medicine as a field is sort of locked off; it dramatically affects your life, but it can be very difficult to understand what a doctor is saying. What we’ve found is that when people have an opportunity to see their organs, and see what their problem is, and to have their doctor explain it with that sitting right in front of them, it can help facilitate that communication. It can help a patient to understand these…the complex terminology and what’s going on in their actual case. Much more so than looking at an MRI, which pretty much look likes a bunch of grey blobs. So to a standard patient, it’s basically impossible to see what’s going on. And that’s not true when you have a full, real, physical copy of the organs in front of you.

What would you say are the ethical concerns to having these types of models? Because you are a private company, how do you go about navigating having patient data and stuff like that?

It’s covered by HIPAA [Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act] laws, healthcare information privacy act laws. Basically what they state is that we are only able to get that information from patients which is medically necessary and necessary for us to do our job. For example, if we were to build a model of you, we would not get your name, we would not get any private information about you. All we would get is a patient’s ID and the raw MRI or CT scan data. So that is the raw black and white images looking inside of your body. That’s the only information that we’re getting. It’s de-identified other than that information. Nonetheless, we still want to protect that and make sure that we don’t share that with the world. We have security protections around that data. It is stored in a separated…HIPAA compliant database, and that database has no interaction with any other elements of our computer system, and it is encrypted behind a firewall and protected to the highest level as possible. So, when a physician uploads data, we always request that they upload anonymized data, and they can only upload it directly on this separate, HIPAA compliant secure server. And that’s really the only risk that we perceive the patients are taking on…a data security risk. That data is already created as part of their standard work up, so there is no additional information that is tracked, and the connection between the patient ID, which is what we receive, and the actual patient information is only kept by the hospital, which already has a copy of that patient’s information, so we aren’t creating any new record of that patient’s private information.

Could you explain the 3D printing process?

We follow the same process whether or not you are getting a patient-specific model or a generic training model. That is, the data—or whatever requirements the client has—are sent to Lazarus 3D headquarters. All manufacturing and production is done in a single facility here in the United States. And that’s for several reasons. One of them is that it helps us maintain security; another is that it helps us with quality control. Rather than have different facilities across the country where God knows what people are doing, we have everything standardized in a single place where we can ensure quality, we can do inspections day-to-day. Also, what we found is that selling a printer…what I firmly believe is that selling a printer to a hospital is the wrong way to go about it. Because printing is a new technology, it involves a specialized set of skills. And if I were to hand a printer to a physician, they wouldn’t know what to do with it or how to properly use it. It makes a lot more sense to have a dedicated team who can ensure quality every single time. Doctors can focus on what they should be doing, which is treating patients, and we can offer an end-to-end service, so we do everything…as soon as they upload the data, we take care of every single step of the process until they get a model that has been well-checked and meets all standards.

How would you go about accommodating more time-sensitive surgical practices?

Unless it is an emergency operation, they are typically planned at least one to two weeks ahead of time. We have made models and have hand-delivered them to a physician in as short as 16 hours. Overnight shipping of a model is not a significant concern, cost-wise. Also, there are even same-day shipping options, which are provided by certain carriers, where literally, as soon as it’s done, it gets on a flight and it goes there and it’s received. We have used that option in the past, but typically most surgeries of the types we are addressing, which initially are surgeries to remove tumors and surgeries to remove cancer…these are typically planned several weeks ahead of time, giving more than enough time for overnight production of a model, followed by overnight shipping.

When did you first see yourself working on this project? What information did you learn or what decisions did you make that made you realize that this is what you wanted to do?

So, around 2014 I met a resident who was telling me that he’d done a practice surgery on a green bell pepper, and the next day he was going to remove a cyst from a woman’s uterus. And, quite frankly, that was pretty horrifying that that was all the hands-on experience that that individual had had. And this is someone at one of the leading medical schools in the country. So it’s not like it’s better anywhere else. That was pretty shocking, and it seemed to me that 3D printing could potentially offer a solution.

So I developed a multiyear plan in order to try and address this problem. The PhD I was pursuing at the time was totally unrelated, so this was all done during nights and weekends. Step one was I needed to learn how 3D printers work and start building some of my own machines and getting them up and running. As a student, I didn’t have a lot of money to work with, so what I decided to do was build my own 3D printer from parts and then use it to make various models that I sold at anime conventions and science fiction conventions. And that paid for plastic and allowed me to do some tinkering and get familiarized with 3D printing technology. I pursued that over the course of a couple of years. Then after that, I knew that in order to follow through on this dream, I needed to figure out how to analyze data and create models of individual humans from actual PP-MRI data. So I volunteered for a study at Baylor College of Medicine where they scanned my brain. I was able to get the researchers to give me a copy of the data. I took it, and I used it to print a physical hard plastic copy of my brain, and then I used that physical copy of my brain to convince some lawyers to let me help out on personal injury cases. In personal injury cases, you’ll often have people arguing about how severe an injury is. We could provide demonstrative evidence to those cases by taking actual scans of someone from before and after an incident…using a physical hard plastic copy to show what that change was. So, for example, if someone gets hit by a truck, we can show what their spine was like before they got hit and what it was like after they got hit and then use that in a court case. Through that process, I was able to generate some money because this was very valuable to these multimillion-dollar lawsuits. I was also able to teach myself how to analyze CT and MRI scan data and produce accurate, verifiable results from that data. I did that for about a year.

After that, the remaining challenge was to rapidly prototype in materials that actually simulate real tissue. For doctors, looking at something in hard plastic isn’t that helpful. They can already see it on a computer screen. What they need is a way to actually do that surgery. Using the revenue I generated from these court cases, I did a lot of tinkering and finally got a method working to rapidly prototype in suitable silicone materials where we could adjust the physical property. I got that working on a Thursday night. I submitted a provisional patent on that technology that Saturday, which just recently got a letter of allowance from the US Patent [and Trademark] Office, so woohoo. And then on Monday, we tested it in the clinic for the first time. And the doctors were blown away. They’d never seen anything like it. And we started our first clinical trial pretty shortly thereafter…All of this, of course, when I was still a student.

Wow, that’s quite a story. What would you say are the skills that you find yourself utilizing the most throughout this journey?

The ability to learn quickly is exceedingly important. We’re still a startup, and that entails doing all sorts of things you never thought you would have to deal with. Everything from how do you vet a investor pitch to make sure it complies with all SEC [Security and Exchange Commission] regulations, to how are insurance companies going to react to this. The most important thing is to learn quickly, rely on advice from domain experts in areas where you aren’t competent, and move quickly with a lot of energy. With regards to 3D printing itself, I think the most important skills that we have and that we’re looking for when it comes to our anatomy engineers—which, by the way, we have positions available for, so please reach out—the skills we are looking for are people who are able to analyze MRI and CT scan data, who have familiarity with medicine, and who have an ability to design organic shapes. So a lot of CAD programs are really great for building a screw but not so great for building a model of a human head, and so some of the more sculpting-based CAD programs, things like Zebra, can be really effective for this kind of work. So that’s another skill set on the engineering side that we see as very valuable.

You spoke a lot about consulting for outside advice. Did you have any mentors that guided you along this path, and if so, when did you balance trusting your own intuition versus taking the advice of other experts and professionals?

Yes, absolutely. Everything that we’ve done would not have been possible without our extremely accomplished advisory board for Lazarus 3D that consists primarily of previous entrepreneurs. There’s a general partner at a venture capital firm on our advisory board. There’s five different doctors with PhDs and MDs. Some regulatory consultants who’ve taken technologies through the FDA. I think where it’s really important to pay attention to advisors is on everything, because if you’re a first-time startup founder, you probably haven’t done a lot of this before. And especially on more technical details. You probably have no idea what SEC regulations are or how to structure an investment deal that complies with all appropriate standards, but if you do that wrong, you’re in serious legal trouble. You better pay attention to someone who knows how to do it right. I think it’s important to find your own areas where you are an expert. No one else has done this before. People have never previously made copies of body parts that you can do a realistic surgery on, at least for soft tissue. And so that’s where it’s really important that I myself build up a skill and develop the expertise there that has not been done before. There are people who are really great at marketing; let them do the marketing. And as much as possible…then you can focus on what you’re uniquely talented for. Now, that becomes more possible the more research you have. So at the beginning when we were running it out of the kitchen, no way we are getting someone else to do marketing because there was zero budget for marketing. Marketing is whatever pamphlet you can put together. So I think that’s really the balancing act.

You’re giving me a lot to think about. What would you say—you’ve had obviously a very long journey—is the biggest challenge you’ve faced? And how did you keep yourself motivated to push through that?

So, we were working in my kitchen about three and a half years ago, when we had challenges meeting payroll, and that’s extremely stressful. So literally at any point in time, we were a week or two away from the company completely closing down, and especially as more people are relying on you for their income, to take care of their families, that’s extremely stressful. But I’m not sure there’s a lot I could do about it other than try my best, every day, to bring value, to keep things afloat, to get sales to stay in business. It’s extremely stressful. It remains stressful even though it’s gotten a lot better because we’ve actually shown more success, so we’re in less of a bad position financially. But it’s still not great. It’s still like, a few months from now, things could go bad.

I’m not really sure what to say other than the best thing to get through it is…both myself, and everyone else on my team, we know this is something the world needs. A lot of people are dying; a lot of people are having medical problems because this technology is not as prominent as it should be. So we need to do what we can to grow this idea, to bring this as a service to the people that need it, and that mission is really what drives you through everything. That, and the fact that both myself and every single member of our team, whenever we bring someone on, we’re extremely clear that this is very tough. This is not a standard job. It’s likely everything will fall apart. A standard startup company has about a 5-10 percent chance of succeeding, which means you have a 90-95 percent chance of failing. So going into the situation with your eyes open, aware of your risks, aware of what you’re getting yourself into…be driven by the mission and by what you have the potential to do. How you have the potential to change people’s lives.

I guess behind every great idea is a different kind of company culture. What would you say is the most unique part about your community at Lazarus?

I think the dedication of everyone involved is pretty superb. People have not joined my team because they are looking for short-term monetary gain. So, like we said, every person that is considering the job, I will flat-out tell them, “You will not make as much money here as you would anywhere else. You’re going to work much longer hours than you would anywhere else. This is the situation.” I’m not sure that it’s entirely unique, but in startups, this is unfortunately common. But if you want to have a big impact in the world, you’ve got to work for it, and we’ve got an extremely dedicated team which is willing to pull the extra hours. We have not had a weekend off in at least three weeks at this point. We’re almost at a month now that, literally, we’ve been in every single day and on the weekends, both myself and my entire production team. So that kind of dedication is what it takes, and I’m incredibly privileged to have people that share in this vision and that can work together to achieve something that’s extremely difficult.

I’m a computer science student at NYU, and I’m on the pre-medical track. I very much care about healthcare. I’m passionate about it. Your field is great; it’s at the intersectional part of technology and healthcare. What advice would you give someone who’s interested in getting themselves into this field?

I guess, go for it! Find a big problem and try and come up with a solution to that big problem that’s practical.

Another huge point of advice is don’t count on something to come in…So if you seriously have a big problem, you think you might have a solution, your plan should not be, “I’m going to go out for six months. I’m going to raise a million bucks, and that’s going to let me hire a bunch of people.” No. You figure out how you can achieve it with whatever resources you have. If you can get your parents to throw in a hundred thousand bucks, how are you going to build this company out of a hundred thousand bucks. Because if you try it the other way, you may well run into a situation where you never raise that money. Figure out a way where you start selling something right now. I know that’s really hard, but if you listened to my story earlier, that’s how you actually get somewhere. No one would have put money behind this idea when it was just an idea. I had to teach myself how to 3D print stuff, and I had to figure out how to make money doing it because, as a student, it’s not like I had another choice. So 3D printing things at anime cons it is. Is that the vision? No. But that’s an important step to get there, and trying to rely on something else, whether it’s investments or finding a partner, that can be very difficult. To get somewhere, actually do something. Actually take concrete steps towards your goal.

As someone trying to get into this field, what would you try to take away from an undergrad education, maybe in computer science, to advance yourself further?

I would not place more significant value on someone who had a college education taking particular courses versus someone who had never gone to college. What I care about is what you can actually get done. Insofar as your coursework can help you get stuff done, then go for it. Fundamentally what matters is what you can do. There’s specific things for my company that we value—again, those are ability to design things in organic shapes using certain types of CAD programs, understanding anatomy, understanding of healthcare, understanding of 3D printing, ability to use 3D printers and build them. Those can be supplemented by particular degrees and programs, but those don’t need to be. Maybe you got it because you worked in a machine shop for a while, and, honestly, I don’t care. It is what you can get done that matters.

Interview excerpts have been lightly edited for clarity and readability and approved by the interviewee.

Chidera Ezuma-Igwe
Rice University
Houston (29.7° N, 95.3° W)

featuring Jarvis Sam, Senior Director of Sourcing and Diversity Recruitment, Nike, Portland (45.5° N, 122.6° W)

Jarvis Sam currently serves as the senior director of sourcing and diversity recruitment at Nike. Jarvis majored in history, sports management, and policy studies and graduated from Rice University in 2013. After graduation, he began a career in consulting but quickly realized that it was not for him. He went into diversity and inclusion at Google and within a few years was recruited as a global diversity manager at Snap Inc. Jarvis defines his time at Snap Inc. as a formative time in his career that prepared him for his current position at Nike.

A significant theme throughout Jarvis’s career is making a change when your previous decision does not work. Often people tend to get comfortable and afraid to try new things, but Jarvis has been open to change, and these changes have led him to a senior position at one of the largest companies in the world. For his first three years at Rice, Jarvis was pre-law; he even took the LSAT. After some reflection, however, he realized that the clerical part of being an attorney was something he was not interested in. He decided to explore different fields that had his favorite parts about the law, like interpersonal communication and helping others. His coursework in history and policy explored social issues, investigated cultural phenomena, and offered a diverse array of knowledge about different cultural groups. His coursework in sports management helped him understand how businesses operate. These topics ended up particularly relevant in his current field of diversity recruitment and retention at Nike. In addition, his academic work and participation in extracurricular activities like speech and debate required him to develop the research and communication skills that are necessary for his current work. It was nice to see how you can connect your academic work in college to your career, regardless of whether you work in a directly related field.

After college, Jarvis went into consulting but immediately found that it was not for him, so he went off to see something that was a better fit. He was hired at Google where he began his journey in the diversity and inclusion space. He mentioned how influential his first manager at Google was and how he became his mentor. Jarvis turned this job into an opportunity to learn, connect, and expand his network and understanding of what attracts new hires. This experience took him to various parts of the globe including Switzerland and Brazil working on critical global diversity initiatives. His work resulted in him being recruited by Snap Inc. as a manager overseeing the companywide diversity effort. During his time at Snap, he saw the company grow from 400 to 3200 people; being in that environment gave him the opportunity to spearhead new initiatives at the growing company. Jarvis introduced the idea of having an entrepreneurial mindset at work, in the sense that as an employee you should advocate for your company as if it were your own business. At first, I was confused by the phrase, but by translating the same work ethic you would have if your company was your business, you can guarantee that you will produce good work. Jarvis has worked hard to make it to his current position after changes early on in his career path.

Jarvis has such a positive spirit; with every change in his career, he has continued to move forward and use past experiences to put himself in an advantageous position. I was genuinely inspired by Jarvis. I learned so much about having a successful career path and being open to change. I am currently not sure what my future holds, but this interview assured me that hard work, networking, and mentorship are valuable tools in whatever field that I may enter. As a Rice student, the default for people who do not immediately pursue a graduate degree, or career directly associated with their major, is consulting, but it was good to hear from someone who has a great career outside of those defaults. I realized I have a limited idea of the types of jobs that exist beyond the staples of doctors, lawyers, and professors. There are endless jobs that are rewarding and lucrative but do not have the same level of awareness. This conversation motivated me to search for careers in things I am interested in because there is a high possibility that these jobs exist and need people.

   I hope this conversation with Jarvis inspires people who are not sure about the next step in their lives and that it motivates them to work hard and find their career niche. Jarvis’s plan for his life changed drastically when he decided not to go into law and enter consulting, but he continued to push to find work that he is passionate about. The workplace advice Jarvis shared applies to all aspects of life, not just work, and I hope to use these skills in my own life.

Highlights from the Interview

You had three majors in college. How did that come about?

I studied history and public policy and sports management. I delved into the history program very early in my tenure, actually. I knew very quickly I wanted to be a history major, as at the time I was pretty set on going to law school. I took a ton of the history seminar courses, went through the process of writing an honors thesis. Then, I added the public policy major. I did a semester at University of Hawaii my sophomore year instead of going abroad. While I was there, I took a couple of classes in Hawaiian history and did some course work in the law and justice space. I studied race law and intersectionality in the law. It aligned really well and earned me transfer credit for the public policy major. I was always involved in speech and debate.

Then, in my junior year, I was working over in athletics, tutoring student athletes, and really enjoyed that experience. One day some of the guys and some of the girls on the tennis team were like, “Hey, you should take some of the classes with us.” So I took a couple of introductory sport management courses and fell in love. Just learning about the sports business, and the provocative nature of sports, and how it can be leveraged in culture was really interesting to me. So I picked up that major, and it’s been incredibly useful.

What skills did each major provide you?

When we think through the history major, it is not the most applicable from a coursework perspective. However, the skills I learned about verbal and written communication and crafting an effective argument and leveraging support of research from primary and secondary source materials is certainly something that I use everyday in my career. On the public policy side, working in the diversity and inclusive space, and having a strong understanding of how marginalized groups have been impacted in this country and then abroad— that is really the crux of what I do in framing out the moral vision and ethical case for diversity programs. And then finally my sports management degree was pretty useless in the early parts of my career, but as fate would have it, I ended up working at Nike, so it’s now very useful. 

Everyone’s family, community, and life circumstances create an initial role from them in society. What was expected of you? Did you adhere to it or stray from it, and how does your family feel?

That’s a good question. It was kind of a mixed bag for me. Myself and my siblings are first generation college students in my family, then in our extended family we’re the only three out of about twenty-five cousins to go to college today, so I would say familial expectations at the extended level was, you know, you either learn something vocationally and pursue that or try to figure out what the next step in your business is. My mom worked in education and my dad drove the bus for METRO in Houston. My brother went to college full scholarship, my sister did the same thing—so from them there was a huge amount of pressure to do well and to do better than what they had. When I look at socioeconomic capabilities, I did not grow up rich. I did not even grow up middle class. My mom, as a single parent, put us all through early, primary, secondary education. So for me that established an expectation of this new conversation about being a black male in America. I always knew what that meant and what I needed to do to be impactful.

When did you envision yourself as the current role you are now?

I was going to be a lawyer throughout my first three years at Rice. I’d done everything leading up to it, the pre-law course work, sat for the LSAT and all that jazz. And then between junior and senior year when I took my internship opportunity, I landed an internship with Deloitte and was pretty set on going into consulting—because that’s what Rice tells you to do if you’re not going to medical school—and decided to do that, and that was one of the biggest errors and greatest things that I could have done in life. I was at Deloitte a grand total of three months as an intern and six months as a full-time employee. I quit. Because it wasn’t what I wanted to do. I didn’t know what I wanted to do. Right at the same time when I was working in the oil and gas industry, I got a call from Google to come work in HR to do team and talent work. They described it to be a strategic role. When I got there and ended up being a recruiter, I started to understand the strategy behind talent acquisition and how companies can leverage their brand to hire great people.

Why did you decide not to be pre-law? I’m currently in that boat, I’m like, “Am I really pre-law?” And I’d like to know about that decision process.

I figured out that I enjoyed a lot of the more tangible elements of what you think an attorney does, and I hated all of the actual attributes of what an attorney does. So, coming from speech and debate, I loved crafting logical arguments. I really enjoyed public speaking, giving presentations in front of large audiences, and framing context and content. I do not enjoy reading contracts. I don’t enjoy, you know, doing a lot of the more commercial activities that an attorney actually does—paper pushing, billing clients—I didn’t enjoy that. So for me, it was how can I look for a field that can leverage the skill set that I actually want to use without forcing me to do the other. And that’s when I decided I wasn’t pre-law. 

Plus, the cost is like $250,000 for three years. That’s a ton of money to invest for a career you actually don’t want to do. I would give this advice: if you do not know for sure that you want to be a lawyer, and you are not one hundred percent confident in it, do not do it, at least not right away. There’s a big movement now where people are going back to law school a little bit later, similar to MBA programs. They’re getting a year or two of work experience.

Do you have someone who has acted as a mentor and has helped cultivate your interests? 

A ton of people. My mother, obviously a big one. My brother, on the family side. But then on the Rice side, David Worth, the director of forensics, my old debate coach. He was a huge mentor for me; he was one of the biggest advocates who was like, “Figure out what it is you want to do in life and what you think being a lawyer is that gets you jazzed up, and then let’s do a survey of other careers that get you there.” He remains a very strong mentor for me.

I think the most beautiful part of mentorship is that you grow most through mentoring others and then mentoring laterally. I think people lose sight of that. In my current role, I manage a team of twenty, but I’m the youngest person on the team. So I’m managing people who are forty, people who are thirty-eight, one of my direct reports is forty-five. Mentoring people who are the same level as me. So I think it’s getting out of the mindset that mentorship has to be an older person who is in a big senior role.

What led you to your current position, and what does your position entail?

I will answer it in reverse order. My current position is the senior director of diversity recruiting and talent sourcing at Nike. What that means is that my team’s mission is to develop and own the integrated strategy for how to accelerate the flow of diverse talent at Nike across all levels, all geographies, and all businesses. So when we think about engagement of retail employees, working in the Nike stores, I work in partnership with that team to build out a diversity strategy. When we think about collegiate engagement for internships, I work with that team to build out their strategy. And then I directly own and manage our executive leadership strategy for diverse talent. 

I left Google after two and a half years when I went to Snapchat in LA, where I was for two and a half years as their head of diversity and inclusion. Did some really exciting work, loved loved loved working at Snapchat. Saw the company grow from about 400 to 3,200 by the time I left. Right around the time that I had given the consideration to exploring opportunities outside, I had received an offer from Nike and Disney right at the same time, and that ultimately is what led me to Nike—to move out of LA to Portland.

What are some misconceptions you had about your job?

I think that people will often think that because a company is big and makes a ton of money that they have their whole life together, and they’re going to be in a fast-moving, high-function space. And that may be true on a lot of cases, but I think two big things that stood out for me from Google and Nike—who are recognized as very powerful brands in the industry—is they still have challenges that they encounter. Mainly in terms of people, processes, and taking a clear metrics-driven approach to understand how to basically manage and develop.

What skills do you find yourself utilizing most?

It’s mostly verbal and written communication. Understanding how to leverage that interpersonally, interculturally, and cross-culturally. I had taken a business communication class on how to communicate cross-culturally, interculturally. And turns out it was one of the most important classes I could have ever taken. It took the body of work that I do right now—I’m there being an overseer for processes, Boston for Converse, LA for Nike, Jordan for Nike Chicago. But also for Amsterdam, Germany, in Spain, in Italy, parts of South America. So understanding, as you develop global strategy, how to effectively communicate interculturally, especially when you are doing big business in greater China—which is a deeply collectivist culture, obviously not rooted in the individualistic nature of capitalism. And again, it’s the tie-in with the history major, because I spent a good amount of time studying Chinese history. 

Tell me about your favorite project.

I would say the project that I’m most excited to have worked on at Nike so far is this: I built a program for community college students, which is aimed at getting more community college students involved in products. For a Nike product, it’s footwear and apparel. So when you take a look at that industry overall and the industry that we play—only thirty black footwear designers in the whole industry. So a huge deficit in what we could be doing, and so I made a program that’s starting in January that’s going to bring twelve community college students—all diverse—from the Los Angeles area to Nike to work as footwear graphic designers and apparel designers for the company. Attempting to shift strategic programs of the product—as well as change the supply side of the house—to exhibit that we are offering opportunity for diverse talent.

Could you describe the dynamics on a team that works on these kinds of projects in regard to the structural organization—or important characteristics that are used to run a good team?

I think the ability to run a team is obviously uniquely tied to effective management and leadership. There are three key qualities that are often leveraged. Number one is transparency and authenticity. People just want to know that you’re keeping it real with them and offering effective visibility into what you’re working on, how they’re being evaluated, and how that’s serving the larger business. I think that’s critical. Number two, directly in line with that, is tying your work to the business goal every single time. You’ll hear people talk about this mantra nowadays of living your life—no matter what role you’re in at a company—as an entrepreneur. I kind of agree with that, kind of don’t. Because if I was a founder of a company, I’d be far wealthier than what you all pay me on salary. So I do not always live life as a founder and entrepreneur. What I can do, though, is work as an advocate and active leader of my business to advocate for my people and advocate for my organization and for my leadership. And so there’s a final thing from there that I think is accountability—both on your team and on you as a leader. For me, accountability is really being a kind leader. I just got off a one-on-one call about an hour ago, and I had to give one of my team members pretty direct feedback.  But I know he appreciated it as he wants to grow his career and establish better client relationships over time.

How are science and technology reshaping how you work?

I think as more and more companies take a look at what their digital capabilities and technological offerings are, they begin to understand that the biggest drivers for growth, moving forward, are how effective can you be at leveraging technology and digital capabilities to drive revenue. The challenge, though, for any company doing that is that in the diversity and inclusion space, the black community and the Latino community, don’t have a ton of access to digital capabilities, whether in the form of a cell phone or laptop. So I would caution them that it’s fine to build out these capabilities that drive growth and revenue but to recognize that the digital divide is real and singlehandedly putting those communities out of using their product.

What advice would you give a student interested in your field?

As a student, enjoy yourself in undergrad. Take challenges, take risks, go global when opportunities present themselves, especially as a student at Rice—take advantage of all the global opportunities that you have. If they are presenting an opportunity to go to Spain, to go to Turkey, take full advantage of those because that global mindset is really going to be impactful. The number two thing is take coursework in communication. Ninety-nine percent of the reason that I’ve been able to do what I’ve done in the five years since I graduated Rice is because I was doing speech and debate, and I can talk myself into or out of most things. I think students graduating—especially students studying STEM education—don’t see the value in public speaking coursework, but it’s the best thing that they can do. And I think the final piece is do not be… don’t fear quitting and saying no. When I made the decision to quit Deloitte after six months, I’d started with six other Rice students, and they were all like, “Oh, what are you doing? You know you were supposed to be here at least two years.” And I was like, “No, that is a waste of another year and a half of my life.” I would much rather quit now, quit early to pursue the best fit for me.

(Interview excerpts have been lightly edited for clarity and readability and approved by the interviewee.)

Joshua Mao
University of California, Berkeley
Berkeley (37.8° N, 122.2° W)

conversation with Vivas Kumar,Tesla, San Francisco (37.7° N, 122.4° W)

Vivas Kumar is a member of Tesla’s Battery Team, where he leads negotiations for contracts for Tesla’s battery raw materials supply chain. He graduated from Rice University in 2014 with Electrical and Computer Engineering degree. Upon graduation, he first joined McKinsey & Company in management consulting and later arrived at Tesla in 2016. While in college, Vivas joined Engineers Without Borders-USA and stayed active many years. His dedication to the organization led him to serve as a member of the board of directors and as chief of staff to the executive director, where he was involved in decision-making and represented the organization in national and international public speaking engagements.

Highlights from the Interview

What led to your current position?

For my role right now, they wanted somebody with a good mix of both technical skills, aptitude for learning highly technical content, as well as somebody who has sort of seen the business world. Somebody who is pretty comfortable around negotiating contracts, putting together proposals for suppliers, conducting mostly business meetings with executives and suppliers. I filled both of those roles pretty well. One, because I have an engineering background, the second is, because of my experience as a management consultant, I did have some of this business background that was necessary to succeed in the role.

What does your position mostly entail of doing? What do you do during a normal day of your job?

I work at the battery supply chain team. My team is responsible for sourcing all of the materials and commodities that you would need to make batteries. If you think about Tesla as a company, the one element that is consistent across almost all of the products, it’s that batteries are used for energy storage. When I talk about materials, I’m talking about like lithium, nickel, cobalt, graphite… literally just base earth metals that are used to make batteries. My job is to negotiate contracts with suppliers, mostly for lithium, but also help with the other commodities. In terms of my day-to-day, I’m only here at the office about 50% of the time. And I’m traveling basically all over the world for the other 50%. And when I am travelling, it’s mostly doing negotiations with suppliers or doing supplier visits. Whenever I’m in town, it’s usually all about progressing contracts with our lawyers, doing executive reviews, and making sure that I still stay plugged in with the company as a whole. Because there’s a lot more going on beyond our small battery team.

Do you find it difficult to adapt constantly to these changing cultures and the way you have to act? 

It’s a skill that you don’t learn in school in classrooms. It’s a skill that you have to learn solely through interactions and solely over time. I think that it’s actually one of the most fun parts of the job. I’ve always been very comfortable in many different geographies. I’ve lived in the US now for 10 years. And I was educated here, have done business here, I speak Spanish and Portuguese, so you could send me to South America and I would be able to fit in. I’m Asian. I’ve lived in Asia for most of my life. I can do business all over Asia and feel very comfortable. And if you think about the fact that we have a global supply chain for better materials, the fact that I have this background that’s very global, combined with my desire to want to travel extensively, combined with the fact that the job requires it, made me a good match for the job.

Do you use your engineering background? Because it seems like a lot of what you are doing is mainly business and management related. So does your engineering background help in any way?

I think the importance of the engineering background is not in any one formula that I use or not in any one thing that I can point to from when I was a junior in XYZ class. I think it’s just the mentality. Being able to break down a big problem into smaller problems, iteratively …Getting to a solution iteratively. Problem solving collectively, learning the ability to learn new skills and new concepts very fast… These are all skills that I learned through engineering, and I think that those are the lessons that matter most coming out of engineering school. Not necessarily things like “this is a formula that means that the heat transfer coefficient, etc.” You have Google to look up all of them for you.

Are there any misconceptions about your job?

I think that the misconception about a company like Tesla is that it’s a very engineering-heavy, engineering-focused, engineering-first type of company. The truth of the matter is that engineering is the easy part. We have enough technical talent to figure out how to make the most efficient car or the cheapest car or the lightest car. The tough part comes in convincing consumers to switch from internal combustion to electric vehicles, convincing governments that they should be changing their policies to an electric vehicle future. Convincing other businesses to work with us. Convincing people is always the really tough part and you need more than just engineering talent to be able to solve those types of problems.

What inspires you to work hard everyday?

I think the enormity of the problems that are being solved here, and the fact that we have a mission that is very tied to humanity’s success in the long-term, is what inspires me to get out of bed in the morning.

Knowing that not only me but everyone in the company is aligned around a big mission. A mission that is much larger than ourselves. That pulls you forward. That pulls you out of the rut.

You were very active with Engineers Without Borders and now you work at Tesla. What are some of the differences you’ve experienced while working at both for-profit and nonprofit environments?

I would say that in for-profit things happen faster. In nonprofits, usually you’re trying to solve problems that are much more long-term.

What is the culture at Engineers Without Borders and Tesla?

The nice thing is what unites both of these places is the fact that everybody is aligned around a mission to solve a problem that is much greater than themselves. And that results in culture where people value getting closer and closer to an answer or closer and closer to a resolution and it creates and environment as close to a meritocracy that you can get. It increases the collaborativeness of the workplace.

Is there anything that excites you about the future of these two organizations?

I’d say that generally in technology, technological improvements across all facets of our lives, the development cycle is becoming shorter and shorter. Even just in my lifetime, and I’m a pretty young person. Like I remember a time before the internet. I remember a time very vividly before the internet was something that everybody had access to, and now it’s like not even a question to have access to the internet. I think that there are more and more technologies like that that are up-and-coming. That’s what excites me. There’s no one individual thing that excites me. Just the general theme.

Throughout your career or your life, what were some of the most memorable experiences that helped you develop as who you are today?

I would say, going to my first Engineers Without Borders trips when I was in college completely changed the way I viewed the profession of engineering—how it’s a profession of service and it can be used to solve really pressing problems in humanity. Moving to America was a big deal, obviously, for any immigrant. I mean, I still remember very vividly my childhood in Singapore so moving to America was a big deal just because it showed me just how big the world is and just how different people are from around the world. I think given the opportunity to work at Tesla was a big deal because the fact that I’ve never been in an environment before where I’m surrounded by so many people that are so aligned around a mission. Where that energy just feeds off of everybody else.

Do you have any advice for college students?

I would say that college is a great time to explore.  I think unfortunately what’s happening nowadays is people are being forced to have to make decisions about what they want to do with their life earlier and earlier. It happens in very small ways, like internships recruit earlier or you have to pick graduate schools earlier, you have to pick research earlier. The thing about college is it is like a boot camp that shepherds you through its one path, going about it in a way that limits your ability to fully take from the experience what you should take. Use college as an opportunity to try out many different things; after college, you will be shocked at how few opportunities you have for exploration. Most of the world is people who show up to their desk and go to work on their specific job. And go home and rinse and repeat every single day. They don’t have the liberty to explore different ideas and different passions that you do now as a college student.

If you were to hire someone, what kind of qualities would you look for?

I think the one thing that matters above everything else is having a good attitude. You could have the smartest person but if they’re going to show up and they’re going to be disrespectful, they’re not going to get anything accomplished. But if you have somebody who is willing to learn, and admits that even … even if they admit that they may not know everything, they’re willing to learn… That person is more likely to succeed in the longer term in life. The second one is somebody who wants to solve problems actively. Who enjoys the idea of solving problems and who doesn’t get overwhelmed by the idea of solving problems. And the third is somebody who appreciates diversity of thought and diversity of culture. We’re increasingly living in a globalized world, increasingly businesses—they are much more international, much more global phenomenon. Someone who is just focused on a specific segment for a specific sector and is unwilling to think outside of that segment or sector is unlikely to succeed in the long term in our increasingly globalized world.

How do you define success in college and also after college?

In terms of success in college, I think that there’s a lot of myopia in people who think that “I will succeed in college if I get to this graduate school,” or “I will succeed in college if I get this job,” or “I will succeed in college if I check these boxes and get this GPA.” Because nobody really cares about that stuff after you graduate. What they do care about, what I do care about, is the fact that coming out of college I had a strong network of mentors, a huge group of friends who are all over the world now, and I truly feel like I had the chance to explore multiple opportunities in an academic environment that I would not have had the chance to do so outside of that environment.

And the answer for outside of college is, as you grow older, you start to realize pretty quickly that there are a lot of things that are more personal that matter a lot more to you. So, for example, when you’re not in an environment where you’re measured by grades anymore, it is up to you to develop your own scorecard for your life because nobody else is going to come and say, “if you do XYZ you’re going to get an A at life.” You have to, so, the hard part that people struggle with is they’ve gone from optimizing to somebody else’s scorecard to having to optimize toward your own scorecard, and people go a really long time in life before they realize that they didn’t spend enough time developing the scorecard themselves. So the precursor to being successful in life outside of college is to develop the scorecard for success, and the only way that you do that is if you know what your values are.

(Interview excerpts have been lightly edited for clarity and readability and approved by the interviewee.)