1 / 8

Experiences in Industry

Follow Wei Hong's journey from Ph.D. to successful entrepreneur in the tech industry, highlighting key transitions, experiences, and advice for a fulfilling career. Discover the balance between research and commercialization, industry risks, and valuable lessons learned.

mariankelly
Download Presentation

Experiences in Industry

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Experiences in Industry Wei Hong whong@archrock.com Oct. 8, 2008

  2. My Career Algorithm • Repeat until retirement • Work on a “hot” Berkeley research project • Start company to commercialize the research • Get VC funding • Build and market products based on the research • Exit company ( or )

  3. My Career So Far • 1992 Ph.D. Berkeley CS • Research on parallel query processing. Development of Postgres • 1992 – 1996 Illustra Information Technology • Rewrite of Postgres. Pioneered object relational databases • 1996 – 1997 Informix • Brought Universal Server to market • 1997 – 2001 Cohera • Commercialize Mariposa federated DBMS. Catalog Management App. • 2001 -- 2001 PeopleSoft • Technology transfer. Completely bored. • 2002 – 2005 Intel Research Berkeley • TinyDB, TinyOS, TASK, many real-world sensor network deployments • 2005 – now Arch Rock • IP-based low-power sensor networks, next tier of the internet

  4. Rationale • Work on leading-edge technology while building products and creating new markets • Stick to high-caliber (Berkeley) people • Stay in the Bay Area • Make a buck or two along the way if lucky • Escape clause: can always find a good job in the valley with • A solid Berkeley education • A track record of delivering innovative technology

  5. What I Benefited from the Most in My Ph.D Education In addition to great advisors and fellow students • Exposure to large projects with real users • Tight connections with industry • Holistic systems perspective • Rigorous measurement and analysis • Presentation skills • Intolerance of BS

  6. Going Between Industry and Research • Not a one-way street • Early-stage startups are similar to research labs • Writing papers v.s. writing products

  7. Risks of Industrial Job • Get too comfortable • Get too narrow • Stale resume • Bad boss • Bad beurocracy

  8. My Advice • If you love teaching, go to academia • Otherwise, take a look at industrial opportunities

More Related