L&S Advisory Board welcomes four new members

Po Chi Wu (B.A. '66, Mathematics & Music)

Advisor/Mentor at SkyDeck

Please share how you're currently spending your time.

All of my working life has been spent in various aspects of the entrepreneurial ecosystem, from scientific research (including postdoctoral) to venture capital, to startup companies, to teaching entrepreneurship at the university level, including one year as an Adjunct Professor at UC Berkeley. Now, serving as an advisor and mentor to startup founders and their companies is a kind of ultimate expression of those experiences. My ability to understand and communicate how different stakeholders perceive value is both unusual and much needed, especially for young entrepreneurs. I am very grateful to SkyDeck for inviting me to participate as an Advisor 8 years ago. This volunteer effort helps give me a sense of purpose and is immensely rewarding personally. I particularly enjoy working with entrepreneurs from foreign countries and backgrounds, as they need special attention to learn some of the cultural challenges of developing businesses in America.

How did UC Berkeley (or if applicable, Berkeley L&S) shape your journey? 

I am especially grateful to UC Berkeley for accepting me as an undergraduate student in the Spring of 1963, when I was only 14 years old and had completed high school in Canada. At that time, some other universities declined, saying they felt I might be too young. One even suggested that I take a couple of years to travel around the world and re-apply later! When I arrived at Berkeley, I was blessed to be quite mature intellectually, and, while the scale of the university was daunting, it also allowed me to choose my own academic path. Obviously, not all of my decisions were optimal then, or even in retrospect, but I was excited and eager to learn many things. I often tell people I wanted to have a “triple major”, by adding a concentration in French, but I was one course short, and I would have been graduated with two majors in any case.

My experience at Berkeley was mostly very positive. I learned a tremendous amount, about many things, academically and in life. I was fortunate to have a family friend who was a Berkeley Professor and they helped give me a sense of belonging. My only regret, and I have very few regrets in life, is that I was in such a hurry to complete my degree requirements that I missed a lot of what Berkeley, the university and the larger community, had to offer. At the same time, my age and my personality also shaped a lot of what was possible. I didn’t feel “younger”, in fact, I felt most of my schoolmates were much less mature than I was. I was always attracted to girls who were much older than I was because they were easier and more interesting to talk to, but forming relationships was a challenge.

The diversity of the intellectual environment at Berkeley was exhilarating. I felt like I could have stayed a student forever. In a sense, the journey of entrepreneurship has followed that direction. What I learned at Cal was highly structured and that was very useful to build a solid foundation for life, but what I continue to learn in the entrepreneurial ecosystem is about dealing with chaos, uncertainty, and unknowns - a very unstructured process, and rewarding in very different ways.

For me, the three and a half years as an undergrad passed by all too quickly, and, when I was 16 years old, I was expected to choose a career direction and postgraduate education. I sought help from the Student Guidance Center, and they administered a variety of tests to determine what direction might be most suitable for me. The good news and the bad news was that I was smart, and capable in pretty much whatever I would choose to do, and I would have to decide based on my own values and interests. This was especially difficult as I was raised by academic parents and I had limited exposure to other professions. The year 1966 was the middle of the Vietnam War and the beginning of student demonstrations, so I wanted to continue graduate studies in order to avoid being drafted. The easiest choice was to continue in the Math Department at Berkeley, which I did, for one year until I had to take a medical leave of absence.

In summary, I loved my experience at Berkeley! I was inspired by some of my teachers and by the values and ideals of the university. I was blessed to have met a broad diversity of people and to be able to have independent life choices ( I lived in an apartment with roommates, never in a dorm).

What is your favorite memory and/or class/instructor from Berkeley? 

I was most inspired and found the greatest satisfaction from interacting with the professors in the Music Department. Their love of music and of teaching, the enthusiasm and generosity they brought to the classroom, and the warm personal connections were irresistible. They inspired and encouraged me to explore more dimensions of music and my own interests than I had previously expected. This was a powerful force shaping my life.

Of course, my years at Berkeley coincided with the hippie movement, which literally flowered in the Bay Area in the mid-60’s. Then, there were the student demonstrations against the war in Vietnam, including the famous Sproul Hall gatherings led by Mario Savio standing on a car. Those were powerful emotional and historically significant events that changed the world. I feel that one of the strengths of the Berkeley experience is that students are exposed to the notion that each of us can actually do something positive to change the world. This belief continues today and is part of what inspires me as a volunteer advisor at SkyDeck. Entrepreneurship is, in many ways, the next level of self-education, where we have to figure out what we need to learn in order to move our projects and businesses forward.

What is one thing you are learning and/or would like to learn? 

I believe that life is a continuous journey of learning, about as much as we make time for and invest energy in. As an undergrad student, I felt that I could spend a lifetime in the university, learning about science, history, literature, all kinds of human achievements as well as nature’s diversity. One of the motivations and rewards of advising tech startups is constantly being stimulated and challenged to learn many things I would not otherwise be exposed to - new discoveries, technologies, market opportunities, etc. - all with the intention to bring more hope for a better future, however we want to define “better”.

In today’s world, the power of Artificial Intelligence gives us a completely new kind of challenge. We no longer have to focus on acquiring mastery over specific topics or even skills. We are challenged to learn how to ask “better questions”, more effective prompts to elicit from the AI the knowledge which it can access. We have to understand how to solve problems without worrying about the limitations of our brains and what we struggled to memorize many years ago. Of course, education in the fundamental principles of math, science, literature/writing, art, music, etc., are more necessary than ever, but we have to focus on understanding how to communicate and interact with others effectively, to create communities/team that bring diverse talents and perspectives, because that is how real-world issues are resolved. My current attitude probably reflects my age, but that is not necessarily a bad thing. I am so much more aware now of the importance of community, of building relationships and bringing positive energy to every situation and to everyone we meet. We spend so much of our lives trying to meet expectations and judgments, from ourselves and others, we sometimes forget what is truly important to us - what and who we choose to love, how we enjoy the time we have, exercising talents and passions that feed our souls. Choosing (wisely) what lessons we want to learn is a critical skill for finding contentment.

What is a piece of advice you’d offer to Berkeley students today?

New college graduates have to think of themselves and their lives as entrepreneurial startups, many with only a vague dream of a future they want to create and enjoy. How can the university experience help them learn these new survival skills? What sense of purpose and meaning to life can students develop? What kinds of accomplishments will be uniquely human, and not replicable through AI? What does it mean to be a creative, loving human being in this new social organization?