Last week I went to my beloved Duke Fuqua campus for a 10 year reunion. We attended a great session hosted by the awesome Jamie Jones where I pitched Trusli in front of alums and classmates. What a great day! Now it’s time to think back and offer some help for current MBA students and the graduating class.
10 years ago I graduated from Fuqua with a vague idea of what I plan to do after graduation, but without much of a long term plan for my career growth. In the 10 years, I spent time in large tech companies such as Apple and Samsung. I worked on a series of mid size to sizable EV/AV startups such as NIO, Zoox, GM Cruise and Motional. My role grew from a global supply manager at Apple focusing on software licensing, to an engineering program manager at Samsung, expanding into indirect procurement covering technology sourcing and business operations for startups, finally to heading an entire shared business serviced organization for a 1000+ person company. Finally, I took the leap and founded my own legal tech company, acting as CEO and non technical co-founder, also leveraging my experience prior to business school as a lawyer. Now, if I look back and summarize my learnings, both from success and failures, here are some tips.
1. Know what you like and what you are good at
Business school offers great opportunities to figure out what one likes. You can also poise yourself for a career change. For example, in my case, prior to business, I was just a boring corporate lawyer. However, during business school, I discovered a few things about myself: 1) I love human interactions, especially negotiations, 2) I actually enjoy a data driven approach to problem solving, such as building complex models for decision making and 3) I do have a passion for technology and innovation and would be a good fit to work at a tech company.
Knowing that I like these things, I also analyzed what I am good at: 1) I have a legal background prior to business school, which gives me an advantage for certain roles where legal knowledge is appreciated and desired 2) I have the interpersonal skills to work at a collaborative environment such as silicon valley where I interact with cross functional groups and produce deliverables together and 3) I am good at achieving goals and deliver tangible results.
Knowing what one is good at also means knowing what one is not good at. In my case, I was not good at being a corporate lawyer because 1) I prefer big picture kind of work over work focusing solely on details and nuances—a lawyer’s work by definition 2) I need a lot of intrinsic motivation (taught by the great Rick Larrick, who I had the honor to see again during the reunion), so a law job purely based on high pay but without much excitement and acknowledgment doesn’t motivate me (at least back in the day in big law) and 3) repetitive processes and procedures really bore me so I am likely to lose interest quickly and my work product will start to suffer.
My first job after business school is to work on licensing software for system on a chip design for Apple. It hits a few of the things that I like such as negotiations and data analyses, as well as a few things that I am good at such as knowing the legal foundation and provide tangible savings on tight deadlines. For me, this was much more interesting and intellectual stimulating than being a corporate lawyer. The work culture at Apple, while intense at times, was much more enjoyable and fits my personality much better than the law firm culture. I achieved excellent results and made many friends, some of which last till this day.
2. You don’t have to know where you are going right away, give yourself some time to experiment
While I could stay on this path, when the next opportunity presented itself, I kept an open mind and gave it a solid try.
From the hindsight, I really didn’t know whether I would want to stay on the procurement path exclusively or whether I should try something else. Then I met Ram Fish at Apple. In a year, he moved to Samsung to build a wearable device before the Apple Watch was released. I reached out to him and he wanted me to help him “program manage” the engineering team while helping out with some procurement/legal projects. Since I was drawn to delivering concrete results based on deadlines, I thought that was really exciting to be able to help manage that aspect. More importantly, because I have a curiosity for new tech, building a wearable device from scratch sounded super fun. During that period, my knowledge about engineering expanded from purely chip set related knowledge to entire end to end system level build, both software and hardware. I also learned a great deal in the health care space, such as FDA related regulations.
This is also the phase where I started to learn how to manage complex projects using software tools such as jira. We had a distributed, sizable team across the globe, so coordinating and leading a big team becomes a daily exercise. Finally, because we were launching a brand new product, we did things like PR, marketing, some design work, as well as event hosting. All of these will later on become valuable skills and knowledge for both my procurement career and my startup adventure.
My biggest learning during this period is to not be afraid of experimenting. Some people would transfer from an engineering focus role such as a engineering technical program manager to a more product oriented role such as product manager. Others may do the opposite. Your strengths and interest may also change over time. Being able to follow the journey and keep on acquiring skills is more important than knowing what direction you are going in that phase.
3. Large companies are great places to build the foundation
Overall, I am glad I started my post MBA career at large companies such as Apple and Samsung. There are a few advantages.
First, large companies tend to have the systems and resources to train you from the ground up. Granted, at a company at Apple, they pretty much hand you a Mac in a box which you need to set up on your own. The training is also more like learning to swim by not drowning. However, I did get to see how a world class supply chain team operates in the field. I also used excellent procurement and other related IT systems. All of this will become a foundation for my work down the road.
Second, being at a large company early in your career gives you a head start with building a solid professional network. Because you are standing on a giant’s shoulder, connections that otherwise would have been untouchable are well within reach. I built many executive level relationships with senior executives in the silicon world during that phase, many of whom will still answer my call today. As a young professional without much credential under your belt at that point in your career, the opportunity to interact and for these senior folks to get to know you personally is valuable.
Finally, the brand that comes with working for a large company is precious at that point of your career. Later on, when you set out to look for more senior positions or start your own company, this experience serves as an endorsement of your credibility. Granted, not every one that worked for a certain company necessarily deserves the full power of that brand. However, when people are drowning in resumes or pitch decks , these brands help you to earn that extra glance, which may mean the difference of yes and no.
4. Startups will give you more opportunities to acquire a variety of skills
The next phase of my career is working at a few startups.
Many people excel at their positions at large companies and can gradually move up the ranks. If you posses such skills and are offered such opportunities, it’s a great place to be as this means stability and significant financial gain.
However, not every one can find that path up. Or maybe not every one wants to. If that’s your case, working for a startup at this phase can be a very interesting choice.
First, because startups are not as established organizations, you get the choice to widen your scope and branch out to more things. For example, prior to NIO, my procurement scope was mostly in software licensing, specifically silicon. At NIO, I was able to expand that into any software for my company, be it design, simulation or cloud services. I also started doing large IT infrastructure and engineering services deals. I was able to learn a lot about EVs and AVs and be part of a blooming self driving car industry.
Second, startups offer you the opportunity to see various foundational projects that you wouldn’t otherwise see at a mature company. At Zoox we helped bring in a HRIS system and arthitectued an ERP system. We started building strategic relationships with long term mapping and annotation partners. To be there at the right time when things are starting to happen gives you a unique perspective of how things come together or how to start something in a strategic way.
Third, because startups don’t have an established team, you get to be a bit of Jack of All Trades and really learn a variety of different things. At Zoox I helped setting up a huge display screen for the forever awesome Tim Kentley Klay and bringing in food and parking services. At Cruise I learned how to enable employees to sell their equity in the private market. At Motional I built procurement and AP from scratch. If you don’t want to be stuck at one role and maybe one day step up to take a C level position, a startup offers ample opportunities to learn from operations to finance to product.
5. Working for an early stage startup is also a great way to test whether you are suitable to build one
The more valuable aspect of working for a startup, in addition to acquiring skills, is to test your ability to hustle.
Unlike established companies, startups are chaotic, disorganized, constantly changing. Your ability to deal with all the moving forces and make sense out of them is very different from working for an established company. If you see this is really where you want to be, finding out during this phase is much better than finding out when you are working on your own startup.
Sometimes working for a startup is more about what you can tolerate than what you can do. Can you deal with the risk that the company may not make payroll next month? Can you handle daily changing goals and objectives? Constant pressure from investors? Senior executives coming and going with a flip of switch? People doubting your vision, your product? Just like a boxing match, sometimes if you can take a beating and emerge from it is half of the battle.
Needless to say, startups also offer unique opportunities for you to gain significant financial gain even freedom. If the large company path is slow and steady, the startup path can offer you the chance to land outside of that two standard deviation, easily on either side. I haven’t had the change to land on the right side yet, but it doesn’t mean that it won’t happen on my next gig.
6. Ultimately, you need to love where you are at
So now you have seen how big companies work. You know you can count a steady salary yet the way up gets steeper and narrower with every position. You’ve seen the chaos and huge swing at a startup. Ultimately, you need to find a place where you love what you do.
If that’s developing your skills to become a corporate executive, go for it. Aspire for that VP role, then maybe C suite. Learn to network, manage up, ascend. Enjoy the allure of a big company and endure the bureaucracy.
If that’s finally ditching the corporate job and starting your own gig, you’ve received enough training for it. Also know that seeing others walking the path is very different from walking it on your own. From here on comes fund raising, hustling, hiring your first employee, paying for your first employee, making your first sales, the list goes on. There is never a dull moment. You’ll alternate between euphoria and barffing.
Doesn’t matter which path you choose, you must be geninuinely happy with where you are. It’s also ok to try the startup and then go back to corporate America. Many have moved between the two several times until they find their sweet pot. The journey continues.
During the session I mentioned above, Professor Jones showed us some interesting data: apparently a big percentage of startup founders begin their journey about 10 years out of business school! This may seem counter intuitive but it totally makes sense: now that you have gained a wealth of knowledge, developed deep industry knowledge in certain fields and have lived some pains, you are finally really to ditch that cushy job to tackle that pain point and start your own venture!
Questions or comments? Share with me. I am glad to geek out for 30 min and help you find your path.
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