CEO Says San Francisco Students Should Find Mentor
The CEO of a Bay Area tech company credits much of his success to his many extraordinary mentors and suggests San Francisco students and job seekers should also seek mentors. Vik Singh is the CEO of Infer, a leading provider of predictive applications. Among his mentors was the late Jim Gray, an American computer scientist once honored with the prestigious Turing Award, described as the "Nobel Prize of Computing," and whose name is immortalized upon Microsoft's annual Jim Gray eScience Award.
What's your background and level of education?
"I have a bachelor's in computer science from UC Berkeley."
How has your education helped you in your current position?
"My education at UC Berkeley - where I met my two Infer co-founders freshman year - had an immense impact on my career. The Berkeley network has served me well by helping me get my big break and seize a highly competitive role in a hot company like Google. For example, I worked under Berkeley alum Jim Gray at Microsoft Research and Berkeley professor Joe Hellerstein (who started companies like Trifacta) served as a reference for me. Berkeley has an unbelievable computer science curriculum, a great student body (many of Infer's engineering and product hires come from there), and wonderful teaching."
"I took a variety of graduate CS courses starting my freshman year – thanks to professors like Ion Stoica (creator of Spark), who approved my enrollment in those advanced classes. This focus on theory prepared me well for Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, and their crazy technical interview questions. I also took entrepreneurship classes at Berkeley under former professor Jon Burgstone, and alongside fellow classmates like Arjun Dev Arora (ReTargeter), Andrew Laffoon and Aryk Grosz (Mixbook), and others. That experience helped inspire me to start my own company."
What career advice can you share to people interested in a management position?
"My best advice is to find a great manager to work under and learn. Tell him or her that you want to grow into management one day when you're ready, and ask for guidance, pointers, feedback and opportunities to learn along the way. In general, optimize working under the best mentor rather than making your decisions based on company name or hype."
Randy Yagi is a freelance writer covering all things San Francisco. In 2012, he was awarded a Media Fellowship from Stanford University. His work can be found on Examiner.com Examiner.com.