矽谷大神來了｜Part1

hi everyone welcome back to my channel

this is terry and today we have a very

special guest uh stan chen stan is a

very strong engineering leader um my

mentor and you know is also a very good

friend of mine

uh right now he's uh he's an advisor for

many companies right yeah just in couple

yeah especially i think he does a lot of

like polar road map technology and

philosophy and a bunch of other things

yeah and i just feel very honored to

have him today so sam why don't you tell

us a little bit about yourself did you

begin with oh that's why opening

question back in 1995

yeah hi guys um so i was born in hong

kong um my family moved over

here when i was 12 years old

oh stan also went to walu oh yeah i also

went to waterloo uh it's the best

engineering school in canada

you always say that because you're from

hungary

we don't know one of who is like

stanford in the us

uh except they have co-op we do have a

very good um internship program

uh it's actually one of the most

important thing actually when you're

going through like university to be able

to

see different companies like um like we

did what i did i did six different work

terms and so the year right so like it

was amazing like um um just being able

to come out with that understanding

saying that i have seen how six

different company works yeah um and like

knowing what to expect like mixed

interviews as well as getting your job

so much easier um but yeah anyway so i

went through schooling in toronto and

waterloo and then i also eventually

got out as a studying electrical

mechanical engineering uh at a program

called mechatronics within science from

engineering um so basically

a bunch of automation

robotics

went into um what is it manufacturing

automation so doing plc um

and like i'm looking and studying and

like i'm trying to improve like

manufacturing processes with automation

and i got an opportunity over at cbs

radio like um from a from my friend and

i just basically said that yeah why not

try it like we got over there and

actually started my my korean software

and then from there i moved over to san

francisco and basically started going

into startup and and like did a lot of

different things like i messed up a lot

of things and i also learned a lot so i

ended up like really enjoying that kind

of career that kind of industry so have

been there since and um right now i'm

just like focusing on

building startups and and like helping

to build teams and like build products

kind of thing so

yeah so you mentioned you went from

mechatronics engineering to software

engineering which is quite a transition

i think i imagine it it's very different

right mechatronics is you're building

robotics and

more hardware like you're not doing so

much of software like did you find it

difficult or was it hard to transition

no that's the funny thing um for us like

um megatron expo um engineering um we

were the first class in there so it

consists of

the first

yeah we were the guinea pigs

to be honest like you if you ask like

different professors like different

professors is going to tell you

different things like one would say that

like this is about building robots like

like gundams um yeah that's what i love

right

or another one is kind of like no this

is all about like automation like

manufacturing assembly line and whatnot

so so there's a lot of different things

there's a lot of uncertainty and one of

the most interesting thing is that as we

were going through the program

the mindset of electrical engineering

and the mindset of mechanical

engineering is very very different

when you're talking about electrical a

lot of like um a lot of theories

actually come in very specific things

like you're talking about all

mathematical equations like proving

things from one one thing to another so

a lot of math is involved

when you get into uh mechanical

engineering there's a lot of looking up

charts a hands-on experience like a lot

of things that you will do and then say

that i will multiply this

by five for safety factors

so basically you do all the specific

calculation and say that yeah we're just

going to bump it up like five times

it's going to be safe and not happening

it's kind of like that so so like the

mentality changes already happens in

there we did also do like a bit of

programming during that time but it's

very low level

um we

did real-time operating systems i think

all these things actually helped you

actually realize that you need to think

differently in different industries but

more importantly also during co-op you

also know that majority of the time that

when whatever you study

it's not going to directly apply to what

you're going to be working on anyway so

being flexible is like actually the name

of the game um so yeah i think that's a

really good point because i did

management engineering right yeah

and we did a little bit of programming

as well and it was a lot of theories on

stats and understanding how you know how

to optimize uh you know production plan

and all that stuff oh i mean like yeah

like how much of those work do you like

those studies and those projects and

those programs that you learn actually

apply to your everyday work nowadays not

really exactly but i think school is

really good in a way that it helps you

prepare for for the industry i think

gives you an opportunity to learn how to

solve problems

and i think that's the training where

the school provides exactly value it's

it's kind of like um like i said don't

don't take things word for word for it

like it's not about the practice of like

the specific

processes that you went through or

courses that you went through but the

practice of like how you figure out

problems and research answers and making

decisions that is more important because

that's what you're going to end up doing

i think that's what

[Laughter]

looking at your linkedin and you look at

companies like google before and also

smaller companies i'm curious like from

your perspective what's the difference

between like you know smaller companies

like startups and versus like google and

why do you like to work at startups so

much

very good question man actually i i can

do a sales pitch for

waterloo internship program because the

whole thing is that like during my

internship programs like um the

different internship i get to see

different companies

and it's just amazing like you can

actually understand like do four months

over at the manufacturing plan four

months over at the giant corporation

four months at a startup kind of thing

and you get to see so much about like um

people interaction and like coffee

structure and how things work for one

thing like this it's structured like you

get into a big company someone like

google or someplace like microsoft

you are going to be doing something

relatively specific a lot of times your

your goals and as well as like your your

targets that you're trying to hit is

very well put together

um you don't have to worry about

basically anything else like it's kind

of like if you're a chef

going to a big company is that you walk

in and you say that i'm cooking the dish

like this dish and people are telling

you that like asking for you for this

dish

everything is there like all your

utensils all like all the equipment you

don't have to worry about anything you

go and cook that stuff yeah even like

the raw material is prepared for your

chocolate or whatever you just put

before you cook and then you're done

yeah right you go into a startup they

say that you're cooking um for this dish

you will be saying that so where is the

stove oh we don't have one you may have

to figure that out

by yourself utensils and exactly like do

everything yourself but at the same time

you also got the flexibility so like

it's two type of person now one type is

that you go in they see they say that ah

there's no stove there's no nothing i

can't do this

the other one is like there is no stove

there is no kitchen i can do whatever i

want like it's it's kind of like um

whatever your personality actually gets

um gets you to

to look at this like how you react to

these kind of things

no structure is it uh something that

you're happy about or something that

you're not like versus like no structure

um uh like are you going to like put

your hands get your hands dirty and do

all the other stuff or do you enjoy

actually saying that i want to focus and

building the things that i want to build

like specifically that part amazingly

that's where the preferences are like

that's how the bigger companies versus

smaller companies work i see icic

because you work at a couple different

startups and then some of them were

quiet

and and you definitely were part of

those

acquisitions right seeing companies grow

from zero to something and then acquire

eventually i assume that you probably

have reached

some level of financial freedom

and your money isn't really a constraint

anymore why do you still work

i win because i want to and i want to

say that like

we should all work because we want to if

we are given the opportunity to do so i

would say you and i are very lucky on

this like um we we are blessed with like

um

like very clear minds we are blessed

with good health right we can actually

produce and function we got into a

relatively good school and got out with

somewhat of good experiences out in our

industry where our profession is

actually making a lot of money

right

we are not too worried about money at

all right

not much financial burden and everything

why do i still work this because i enjoy

it like i

i nowadays i work because well sometimes

i tell people i'm bored therefore i work

like it's kind of like um when when i'm

able to advise the company when they

bring up questions and problems to me

it's kind of like oh i haven't solved

this before i see or hey your your idea

is amazing what you're trying to do to

the world is amazing right like like um

let me help to give you some ideas about

what i failed on and trust me i failed

on a lot of things

and and you know what like being able to

do that uh um gives me a lot of joy

so

so it's kind of like i wouldn't say that

i'm quite like crazy well off and

whatnot um but i would say that i you're

comfortable i'm comfortable to to be

able to enjoy my life and and like the

money i think the money when it gets to

a certain point like

it gives you freedom to decide it is

just that and once you get to that point

the question is like for me i don't need

more for me to have more freedom to

decide like you can actually work your

butt off like for ages and accumulate a

lot of wealth but if you don't take the

time to think about what you're happy

doing

then i don't know like it's going to be

like quite like this is your this is

your strongest years right like you're

you have the wealth you have the health

and you have you have time

you should really spend time thinking

about like why you're doing work

so i do it nowadays because i enjoy it

and i do it now because i want to help

oh on the teams and companies that

actually are trying to create do great

things yeah

so yeah and that's why i have a lot of

respect to usa

um a lot of my audience are coming from

a different background right and they

want to do software engineering because

the industry is booming

but they have no idea how to get started

um so do you have any advice

what advice would you give them

really depending on how people learn

right like um i for example i learned by

doing yeah so for me

when i started learning about software

it was because i wanted to do something

first professional experience i was an

intern at um as a silencer company not

the gun silencer like a hvac silencer so

like just air conditioning silencers and

stuff and they have to cuff things into

trucks because they are huge and giant

stuff right so they hire interns to

to go through excel and look at every

single drawing and say that okay we're

going to cut it this way and this way

and then we can put it on a truck yeah

and send it out and for me after two

three weeks of doing that i was like

there must be a better way of doing this

like they taught me like how to actually

figure out the formulas and like look at

the stuff these are all just rules

then that becomes a like something that

i wanted to do so i basically say that i

want to figure out how to automate this

so that i don't have to actually do all

these things yeah by the end of the work

term i like um we finished building this

so that um a full day of work of like

just like going through different excel

and like checking all this stuff like

becomes half an hour for it for us yeah

for me it is about finding something

interesting something that i want to

solve and then say that here is the

destination here is where i am at now

how do i get there and make so many

different mistakes and like trying

different roles and say that would this

work with this not work this work this

would not work trying things and then

eventually just inching towards that

but yeah like um um if there is research

and what not like you can do that other

ways that uh people can do there it's

like general assembly there's a lot of

coding bootcamps nowadays and tons of

tutorials

um the main thing though is that like

pick something you want to do otherwise

it becomes very boring for me at least

like if there is a sense of achievement

by the end of it if you can do something

that you will be very proud of you will

be like hey this saves my time for doing

this or that or if you enjoy having um

having your own website or whatnot and

say that now i can do this without

paying other people

other companies like i'm doing templates

and stuff and i can do it more

specifically yeah right

if those are worthwhile to you go for

those things someone that you're

passionate about exactly yeah right like

that's for me at least

yeah and i think that's how a lot of

people got started and the same for me

like i i was originally pretty

interesting you know building apps and

then my first

party was a writer yeah and

that's how i learned like php and learn

how to build about that and that's how i

got into software engineering were you

doing this by yourself what are you

doing with my roommate um that's even

more awesome like

as you're doing this if you can actually

get partners like doing this stuff like

yeah it doesn't matter if he like he or

she uh was like they know how to program

or not yeah it doesn't matter right it

doesn't really matter you you just get

to be able to bounce ideas off of each

other it's the same as entrepreneurship

but why why a lot of companies or a lot

of startups like entrepreneurs they

prefer to have a partner it's not just

because you complement each other in

skills but you actually also help each

other in raising the morales of it

because like so many times it's kind of

like i don't feel like doing this

exactly i still remember the days and

we're just trying to figure out how to

send an email from kids on the screen

and just copy the whole thing

it works and

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