Curtis Chen

Transcript

Hi. Hi everyone. Today we met. Curtis. Curtis Chen. So could you tell us a little bit about yourself? Okay, cool. So I'm an international student from Taiwan. I'm recently graduated from UCSD, University of California, San Diego. I'm a fourth year cognitive science, machine learning, and neurocomputation student. So I was in this club called Startup Incubator. The thing that we do is we try to help those people who are those like students that have like really strong ideas or like they have the idea, but they don't know how to actually like, you know, start working on it or form a team or they don't know about like the startup culture or even like the business side about them. We try to help them like from zero to one build their idea to an actual company and then, you know, recommended them to the VC to the resources that we have and help them recruit even their team and then help them like one day form their actual like startup and that helps us as an incubating club to, you know, having more portfolio, more success for startups and also help them to actually like complete their goal or even their dreams about having their own company or their own ideas. So tell me a little bit about your major. It sounds like very complex. So yeah, so the thing about cognitive science is that it's a very interdisciplinary major. There's not like many schools in the US or even in the entire world that has this kind of major. So to keep it like short, it's basically a mix of data science, computer science, including with the most most important part about neuroscience is also like the neural part and also psychology. We also learn like stats, but you know, that's like kind of under data science. So the thing about this major is that in general is called cognitive science, but then we specify into so many, so many, I think we have in our school, we have like five specialization. So it depends on if you want to go more into like design, you know, like the UI, UX designer or like, you know, interior designer people, or we have like clinical we have linguistic, we have linguistic, and then the one I choose, which is machine learning. And that was because my background before I transfer, I was a computer science student, I wanted to, I want before I joined like doing decide to do computer science, I want to do something about like biology, and I was really interested into psychology as well. So that's why when I decide to transfer, I want to, you know, just like involve more with my personal skill. But also, but also trying to do something that I used to like, so this is why I discovered this major at UCSD. And then I think that completely like fits my requirement about what major I want to do. And it's a very research based or interdisciplinary like major that which means that we learn so many things at one at once. And then we learn like different categories about like, indeed, like each different fields. different fields. So you not only have interest on the cognitive science, computer science, but also you have interest with human. Yes. Okay, so is there any story behind you in your early age that you may be inspired by Steve Jobs or anything? So you have interest for both? Yeah, um, about psychologists, when I started my grow up, growing up, I'm like, not really a talkative person. I don't really like talk a lot. But when I'm with like, my friends or my family that I'm really close to, everybody always say like, I'm like a person that's really good with people, and actually able to like form really good conversations. And psychology is something that I'm really close to, I'm really close to, I'm like a person that's really good with people, and actually able to like form really good conversations. and psychology is something that has always been in my mind. But I wasn't quite sure if that's like the path for me is because studying about people or like understand people's what people are trying to think or what they are thinking is something that is I really big for me. big for me. I think also because like, about why I study, you know, we try to analyzing things even like people. And that's been something that was like, caught in my attention about like how human things or like how human has this kind of way about processing different things even like, especially when it comes to new stuff. like, every different individuals has their own way of approaching things. And this will like, clarify what a company or as what we are trying to do right now, a startup where like consuming as a good container as like a startup person, or you're more of the kind of people that's, you know, just like working in office, or like doing normal job, I'm not saying doing normal job is a bad thing. But it's just like the characteristic of an entrepreneur is very different. And you can tell exactly from how the way they approach new things. And another thing about like coding is that to be honest, I wasn't, I mean, I grew up in a very traditional Asian family, Asian family, I didn't have my first computer until I was in college. So I'm very, very behind on people, you know, who's learning, you know, coding when they were like middle school, high school, and that kind of also shifts my path a little bit to cognitive science, because I started to discover that I wasn't able to catch up to people as much as I can. And the coding field, and you know, coding efforts for me, it was just like, kind of like another language or just something because you know, at that time, I was here in SF. And I was trying to find a major. It was really simple. I just want to find something that can make money. And then you know, at that time, coding is like, the most probably everybody's trying to be a SWE, everybody's trying to do engineer related job. And that's why I choose coding. Very, very simple. But then as I started growing, like learn more about it. It's not just like, you know, it's a language that easy, you can use it to create like really, really cool thing. But also because I feel like I'm behind people always. That's why I was thinking, oh, if I can develop more of my skill as like a person or more of my personal traits, and combine with like the skill that I learned as computer science, that would be a benefit for me. Because you know, just go directly with like people who has been interacting with, you know, computer for so many years, there's no chance I'm gonna win, because like, you know, they will always be developing. No matter I need to be triple, not even triple, maybe 10 times faster, more efficient or more smart than them to be able to catch up. And I don't think that's likely to happen. That's why I kind of like shifting a path should be like a better thing for me. Okay, I think that's good. Because I think I read something recently that we need the new Steve Jobs in this era, even though the technology is improving so fast, but still you need to make it more human. Yes. So there should be a problem. And I think what do you do, what do you learn, and what's your interest is quite suited for this period. They see the period where technology is so high with the society, but a lot of people haven't realized that. Yeah. Okay, that's good. And let's talk about more about that startup incubator. Startup Incubator, yes. SIC is our name, Startup Incubator Club. So we were founded like not really long time ago. It was like last year at December. The first reason why I got, you know, you can tell kind of like from my background or my while I'm studying, it wasn't quite related to startup. The only reason or like the first reason why I got interact with the Startup Incubator Club is because their founder is a really close friend of mine at that time. And then I was one of the founding members. I'm not like the founders, but I'm also like I'm the first recruiting team. So we're like the first general members of the team. And the reason why is because there were lack of people. And another time he asked me if I want to do something like this. Entrepreneurship has been like something that, you know, is always being heard in my life. But I always feel like, you know, that's like too far away from me or too different compared to what I'm doing. But since I got that chance, I just figured I need to know step out of my comfort zone about, you know, just being like introverted people as like what me and Walter was talking about. And that's actually a huge step. So when I get to like the club, you know, we start to meeting really big people. We start to raise up really, really quick. So we were like a very, very small team back in winter. But by the end of winter, we were able to form our team into like a 20 people scale. And then we were successfully able to host a hackathon that's like 200 people scale. And by the end of the next quarter, by the start of next quarter, we host one of the biggest event at UCSD is called the Launch Point. Basically, we gather like 40 plus clubs. We gather 10 plus startups that's around San Diego area. And then the professor, the scale, the other clubs that's around San Diego. That's between business and between engineering. We host like this big event for recruitment. And then for a one big thing is because at that time, UCSD was trying to shut down our makerspace due to funding reasons or, you know, school political issue. But the main goal for that event is one thing for recruitment. The other thing is to prevent the makerspace from closing down because many of our members are like engineering person. And then we all know like how important that space is for UC San Diego students that trying to create something, trying to build something, especially for startups. So we were trying to use our volume, use what we can impact to show the school that, oh, wow, this is a really important place that we're trying to. And then we ended up successfully defending the makerspace from closing up. And then later on, we just keep building up the startup team. By now, I think we have like 30 teams, 30 people on our teams. And then we have successfully raised nine of the startups from zero to one. And then two of them are actually getting founded right now. That like based on like the VC, the venture or even. And then by the end of last quarter, we even host like a hackathon with full capital. Oh, just like a few months. To be honest, they, when my friend decided to like start actually working on these things, he recruited me right away. But at that time, because I was in my senior year, I was not sure if I'm going to join in. So I told him that, Oh, I need to think about this. And then I need to, you know, I was still being trapped by those introvert things and by those, you know, comfort zone thing. Cause I feel like this is not something that is, you know, suits me or like something that I'm comfortable doing. But the thing is that I kind of changed my thoughts a lot in my senior years, because I've started to figure out that if I keep doing the same thing that I was doing, I won't be able to become someone that I want to become. It's because if you don't change, you will never become a new person. You will just be repeating yourself. Maybe you will be better, but you will never be different. And I want to be different. So that's why I try something new. That's why I try something that's like totally something that I will never do. Not even just like the younger me, but maybe like the me like a year ago will never think about doing. And that kind of ended, you know, brought me here right now at SF meeting with Walter and then talking to you guys. That's like a very, very, it's a very, very big shift in life. But also it's just like one click in mind. So, yeah. So you think it, you do it. Yes. And you successfully recruited a lot of members. Members, you know, we host like really big events. And by defending the makerspace, that's one of the things that we are most proud of is because we actually do something. We show our intactness. We show our like, we show that we are, even though we are very new, but we raise up really, really, really quick. And I think that's one thing that's like, you know, super important about startup is that you, you don't have to be the best, but you want to be the fastest. Because before everybody else do the same thing or come up with the same idea, I think people have amazing idea. It's just they execute it or not. So if you pull on the move and you do it really quick, even though, you know, it's like ugly at the beginning, it's like very simple in the beginning. But as long as you deliver the feature, that's the most important thing. And that's something that I learned from one of the founders here I met at San Francisco. He told me a lot about, you know, how perfect is definitely not something you want to go. Like there's like a very famous quote in SF, right? People always say like, you know, move fast and break things. Move fast is really, really important. I was really scary about trying new things, but because I'm like, throughout my life, the only thing that's not changing is that my life keeps changing. When I was in elementary school, I moved, I changed to school. When I was in middle school, I changed to school. When I was in high school, I changed to school. When I was in college, I also transferred. Like, you know, it's always been changing. I moved from one city to another, from Taiwan to New York, and then to Bay, and then to San Francisco, to San Diego, and then now back to San Francisco. It's always, like, moving around for me, but that also helped me develop this, like, characteristic is that I really like to try new stuff. So, for example, if I go to, like, a restaurant for, like, the second time, I would never order the same dish, even though the time, even though, like, the dish that I got last time was, like, really, really good. I still try to try something new is because I feel like there's so many things that if I don't try it, I'm probably what might miss out.