A fellow student at Berkeley Haas asked me whether I would use an AI voice replication technology for podcasting or other forms of content creation. My initial thought was why not but then I questioned why and when would I want technology to speak on my behalf? From a content creator and efficiency perspective, it might sound appealing. Concurrently, from a content creator perspective, it could sound appalling because there’s an initial and inherent issue with content authenticity. Authenticity is …
Blog Posts
I came across a Verizon commercial attempting to tackle the Participation Gap problem. It got me thinking about potential flaws in our education system designed in and for the Industrial Age but not the Information Age. Is our outdated education system inherently unequal? With the current grading system, how can teachers maintain neutrality and not develop biases towards or against students? What are the problems with this bias? The implications of teacher bias could be that disadvantaged students are further …
As a serial entrepreneur for nearly a decade and now as an MBA student attending Berkeley Haas, I am frequently asked whether an entrepreneur should get an MBA or spend the $100,000+ on a new startup. Well… “It depends.” This is the default MBA response. A Masters in Business Administration is (hopefully) designed to train you to think critically, be challenged by your peers, and remind you to make management decisions with different perspectives in mind. My Background I never …
The journey began in the latter half of 2009. This was near, what we did not know at the time, the tail of the Great Recession. My best friend from high school and his buddy had launched a marketing company in their spare time to promote online video chat services. A few weeks later they launched the buddings of an eCommerce website and asked me to co-found the company. We would end up growing the business to half a million …
I had a long discussion with some friends last night about persistence and its merits. They helped me realize that the first 30 days or even 90 days is not about building passion but rather about building good habits, consistency, and disciplined practice. We are well aware that starting anything new is difficult, that the learning curve is steep. This is why I realized it’s so easy for people to drop off and quit before they give something new a serious effort. …
In a day and age where, funny enough, people actually read more, granted it’s mostly repetitive Twitter and Facebook feeds, I like to think people are more accustomed to reading than ever before. I was fortunate to have been taught the value of reading at an early age. However, it was instilled in me that reading was less so about discovering new ideas and more so about understanding yourself better. We are highly intelligent creatures, and we incessantly absorb the …
With technology, I sometimes wonder if it’s the direction we’re bound for and it’s just our evolutionary path as humans to someday become the technology or if we’re getting caught up in it and we haven’t learned to properly harness its power in our day to day lives. At the end of the day, we are mother nature’s best tech. The question I see asked with more frequency is, “are we controlling our lives, or is technology overtaking our lives?” …
I feel like writing is one of the not-so-obvious forms of self therapy that helps us sort through our own thoughts. Although, as a busy entrepreneur, I used to feel like it was a waste of time to sit around and write when I have a million other things I should be doing. Nowadays, I’m realizing the importance of taking time for self-reflection because it leads to greater progress, and it combats mediocrity. In a recent Tony Robbins interview on …
I have this constant fear to stop doing something just because someone else is doing it. Case-in-point, start blogging or start writing a book. I have a fear that others will think I’m trying to copy them or worse, steal their ideas. I’m just going to say it out loud for my own good, because most of the time it’s more so in our own heads than in reality. Screw all of our high horses. Screw all the credit claiming. If …