Berkeley SkyDeck

In an exclusive podcast, Berkeley SkyDeck Executive Director Caroline Winnett chats with the Amazon best-selling author David Riemer on his new Get Your Startup Story Straight: The Definitive Storytelling Framework for Innovators and Entrepreneurs. What is storytelling? What are the techniques you can use to make your product story interesting? How can you create an emotional connection between your product and the customers? Tune in to hear the engaging conversation between Caroline and David and get some practical tips on effective storytelling.

In this episode, Caroline Winnett speaks to Marc Tarpenning, cofounder of Tesla, as he talks about his how he got his start, his time at UC Berkeley, his experience getting Tesla off the ground, and his current journey in the world of tech investing.    

Rich Lyons, the former Dean of UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, became the Chief Innovation and Entrepreneurship Officer for the university at the start of this year. Lyons sits down with SkyDeck’s Executive Director Caroline Winnett to discuss his vision to expand upon the university’s intellectual capital to become a major hub for visionary changemakers.

Paul Chen is a former senior investment manager at Alibaba and tech banker at Goldman Sachs who has brokered many deals between Chinese and Western companies, focusing on AI, Big Data, healthcare, robotics, autonomous cars, and other deep tech. He continues to invest in startups and stocks with his personal portfolio. He also regularly advises startups including those at SkyDeck.

In this episode we learn about the following...

- How Paul argues that the West should learn from Chinese innovation, so we not only can benefit from Chinese ideas, but also not lose our technology leadership. 

- About how Paul’s unique upbringing in China, the American South, and how his education at UVA, Stanford, and Harvard have helped give him a global perspective that has aided his investment career. 

- The ways China’s startup ecosystem has evolved over the years and how it differs from the United States. 

- How international entrepreneurs that want to take advantage and get in on China’s economy should get involved and the key lessons that American founders can learn from the Chinese ecosystem.

- The differing regulations that Chinese companies have to face and how they can affect growth. 

- His take on the recent US-China trade war, its impact, and why we should pay attention to what is happening between the two countries.