Adapting fast is important for your career with Nathan Hillson (Chief Information Officer, Department Head of BioDesign)

Episode Transcript
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Daniel Koo (00:00):
I always found it helpful to have a couple of
different mentors you know, onethat is further out in your
career and one that's reallyclose, maybe a couple of years
ahead, because I think they havethe practical advice that you
may be able to leverage.

Nathan Hillson (00:16):
Sometimes the best teachers might be people
that just learned the thing,like within like the last year,
as opposed to somebody whobasically learned that
particular thing you know 20years ago.
So if you try to get advicefrom somebody who's been in your
particular situation like 20years ago, that's going to be

(00:36):
super helpful for, like the verybig picture and like the
overarching, you know.
You know arcs to the, to thestories, but you might need a
little bit more precisenavigation guidance based on
like the current.
You know.
You know arcs to the, to thestories, but you might need a
little bit more precisenavigation guidance based on
like the current, you know the,the current, like you know state
of things and then, like you'resaying, somebody that's maybe
just a couple of years ahead ofyou is going to be probably much
, much better.
So I like what you're saying,daniel, that you probably want

(00:58):
almost like a portfolio ofmentors to to, to, to learn from
.

Daniel Koo (01:04):
Hey, welcome back to my Perfect Path.
For those of you who are new,I'm your host, daniel Koo, and I
welcome you to season two.
For me, at large, pivotalmoments of my life, such as
applying to new colleges,applying to new jobs or
determining what next careermove is right for me I spend
time researching and findingmentorship to determine what was

(01:25):
the best right for me.
I spent time researching andfinding mentorship to determine
what was the best path for me.
I knew that this struggle wasnot isolated to me.
Everyone struggles with this,simply because we cannot predict
the future.
However, I found something thatis second best to predicting
the future it's learning fromthose ahead of our career and
from those who've seen more andexperienced more.
After all, there are not thatmany problems that have not been

(01:45):
solved yet.
If you've ever felt unsureabout your next career move,
you're in the right place Today.
I'm excited to introduce you toNathan Hillson, department Head

(02:07):
of Biodesign at LawrenceBerkeley National Laboratory and
Chief Information Officer atthe Joint Bioenergy Institute.
His journey started with highschool supercomputing challenges
in Albuquerque and led himthrough major career pivots,
from wanting to become aradiologist to discovering his
love for physics.
Choosing lab culture overresearch fit in graduate school
and making the risk-aversechoice between a startup

(02:28):
opportunity and a stablenational lab position.
His path took him through topnational laboratories, including
Los Alamos, sandia and LawrenceBerkeley, earning a PhD in
biophysics from Harvard alongthe way.
In this episode, we'll discusscareer decision-making under
uncertainty, failing fast todiscover what you don't want,
finding mentors who can see thebigger picture and why being

(02:49):
adaptable might be your greatestcareer asset.
I hope you enjoy this onebiophysics.
Along the way, you've navigatedsome major career pivots,
weighing academia versusindustry.
Also, you know wondering if youshould go to med school or go

(03:11):
to a law firm.
Today we want to dive intothose key decisions that shape
your career and the lessonsyou've learned along the way.
Thank you so much for your timeand for being here.

Well, thank you, Daniel, very much for the
opportunity to talk with you andyour listeners.
It's going to be fun.

Daniel Koo (03:27):
Before we start, could you tell us a little bit
about the episode title?
So you chose the wordtetherball.
I want to know why you chosethat.

So, daniel, as we were kind of talking
previously, you know, some ofthe themes that I think have
come up in our conversations isthat oftentimes your career path
or your path in life is oftenkind of tethered or, you know,
constrained by your particular,you know, context or where you
grew up or the things thatyou've experienced.

(03:59):
And also, I think, in myparticular instance, the path
that I've taken hasn'tnecessarily, you know, been
straight.
It's kind of, you know, bouncedaround between you know,
different places, differentpeople have influenced me,
different events have influencedme.
So I was coming up with ametaphor and I kind of thought
that tetherball might be a goodexample.
So there's the tether, sothat's probably why I started

(04:21):
thinking about that.
Is that just that word choice?
So there's a constraint, that'sthere.
But also in the game oftetherball you have two
different players kind ofbouncing the ball back and forth
.
So I kind of felt like thatkind of captured the kind of
concept of what I was trying toconvey, do you feel?

Daniel Koo (04:38):
like it was you versus yourself, or was it you
and other people involved?

So I feel like you know there probably were
different players.
You know subbing in almostevery time.
So I guess if we have like fourkids that want to play
tetherball, what you can just dois sub in and sub out.
So maybe sometimes it wasmyself that was bouncing the
ball back, or maybe there wasjust a rotating cast of
characters that might've beencoming into play.
So maybe not only myself andmaybe not only one other person,

(05:06):
but a variety of people.

Daniel Koo (05:08):
I see I want to kind of start from the beginning of
your career, but before we dothat, could you actually
describe to us what your day today looks like?
I guess like your main missionas of right now.

So my current full-time job is I'm a senior
staff scientist at LawrenceBerkeley National Laboratory.
It's one of the United Statesnational laboratories that's
primarily supported by theDepartment of Energy.
The national labs basicallyserve the national mission in
many, many different ways, butthose also include basic science

(05:42):
and technology developmentamongst many other types of
things.
The environment itself andmaybe we'll get into this later
is kind of somewhere betweenwhat you might find in an
academic research environmentand what you might find in
industrial research anddevelopment.
So it's very important,especially at Berkeley National
Lab, that everything that we doshould have the intent of

(06:05):
publishing.
So we're trying to be very open.
We don't generally preservetrade secrets but we do try to
generate valuable intellectualproperty and support
commercialization.
My current role is largely atthis point more on the
management strategy side ofthings leadership role, types of

(06:26):
roles.
I don't work in the laboratoryanymore.
I don't do pipetting.
It's very rare now that I'llactually do any coding myself,
so it's largely trying to be acheerleader or an organizer of
others.
We work generally in a teamscience type of a setting, so

(06:48):
it's working with large teams tosolve big problems.

Daniel Koo (06:51):
Yeah, I'm sure being able to kind of conduct this at
scale at what you do is.
I think it's remarkable andquite possibly a lot of
listeners could be wanting to beat a position like you, which
is exactly why I think you'llhave so many insights to share
today.
Now that you've shared yourcurrent state, I want to kind of

(07:13):
dive back into where you grewup and your upbringing.
I know you grew up inAlbuquerque.
Did you ever imagine when youwere living there that you would
be doing what you are today?

I don't think that it was really growing up in
childhood I didn't really thinkabout it as something that
would be a real possibility forme.
On the street where I grew up,one of my friends, his parents,
did work for Sandia NationalLaboratories and Sandia is one
of the largest employers inAlbuquerque.

(07:49):
So I was familiar with Sandiaand the national labs.
I wouldn't say like, as a child, actually knew what they did.
I never actually visited SandiaNational Labs, but I think
probably what I was morefamiliar with would be kind of
the things closer to what myparents did or what their
friends did.
So my father was a dentist andmy mom was a physical therapist,

(08:13):
so much more in the medicalside of things.
I had family that had beenrunning restaurants or been
selling Westernware restaurantsor been selling Westernware.
But I mean I didn't have anydirect experience with real, I
would say, like scientists orengineers or, for that matter,
venture capitalists or, you know, investment bankers or

(08:34):
management consultants.
There's so many things that Ididn't have any direct
experience with, did you feel?

Daniel Koo (08:40):
like in Albuquerque, the environment, kind of like
in Albuquerque, the environmentkind of led you to a certain
path, Did it give a certain bias, or were certain paths easier?

basically, by being in Albuquerque.
I think in Albuquerque there'sseveral things.
I mean.
I guess the first thing aboutAlbuquerque, or New Mexico in
general, is it's not going to bea New York City or a London,
it's a.
It's a.
It's a smaller you know type ofa town and people generally
find you know a lot of theirentertainment or kind of their,

(09:16):
their leisure in the outdoors.
So if you like hiking or youknow mountain biking,
backpacking, it's a fantasticyou know place to be.
And I think the connection tokind of exploring or kind of
being in the natural environmentand learning things, I think
that probably, and the curiosityand the creativity that comes
out of that, that might havepredisposed me from some of the

(09:37):
personality traits that youmight anticipate finding in a
scientist, engineer, I wouldsuppose.

Daniel Koo (09:44):
But I guess you were exposed to science and
technology through a high schoolkind of super computing
challenge.
Could you tell us a little bitabout that?

So maybe a couple of little anecdotes, and
maybe the first one is just kindof a teaser and then we'll get
more into your direct question.
But I would say my first realexposure to science in any type
of real structured way was, youknow, when you're in elementary
school.
They'll have these sciencefairs and usually it's pretty

(10:12):
much like the parents I mean,unless you have like a super
talented kid that comes up withtheir own ideas it's usually the
parents that kind of influence,kind of like what the
experiment was.
And this idea kind of came frommy mom.
This was definitely not my ideabut it kind of got my attention
.
So that particular experimentthat we were setting up had to
do with cockroaches andcockroaches that were starving,

(10:35):
they were super hungry.
And this particular experimentwas basically, if you set up
kind of like a walking path andwe just had these elevated
little wooden sticks and one ofthe paths, there's basically a
fork in the road and thecockroach could basically kind
of walk around and decide to doa U-turn, so kind of go closer,

(10:57):
you know, back to where itstarted, or it could basically
make a right turn and a leftturn and it would basically keep
getting further and furtheraway from where it started.
And so we just had, basicallylike this, this little soup
container you know sized ofstarving cockroaches and you put
them on the start and you justkind of record okay, did it
basically choose the left in thein the fork or the right in the
fork?
Um, and it turns out that thevast majority, but not all, of

(11:20):
the cockroaches you know choseto go more of like a straight
path to get as far as possibleaway from where it started, as
opposed to like doubling back onlike where it got to.
And it kind of makes sense,right, like if you're searching
for food, like if you doubleback on the path where you just
were, like that's kind of wastedeffort, like you want to
explore the maximum amount.
So that really kind of got me,you know, got me thinking and
kind of curious.

(11:40):
So maybe that was like one oflike the first sparks of of
interest in like the scientificyou know, you know process and
here's, here's like what youthink is going to happen.
And then you actually do theexperiment and you analyze the
results and I think, even thoughit wasn't I didn't conceive of
the idea, like I got tounderstand the process.
So maybe that's one littlelittle fun, fun, little

(12:01):
anecdotal story.
So that was kind of my actualbeginning, getting to kind of
like the actual question thatyou asked.
So I think another biginfluencing factor on me and
also it'll connect back into thenational labs where I'm working
now is that another good thingabout you know Albuquerque?
You know, going back to yourprevious question that was

(12:22):
conducive to my current path isthat Sandia National Labs, as we
mentioned, is in Albuquerqueitself and then Los Alamos
National Laboratories is onlyabout an hour and a half drive
away.
And so this is back in the early90s, between Sandia and Los
Alamos they had put togetherwhat they called like the, the

(12:43):
New Mexico supercomputingchallenge and Los Alamos and
Sandia had, you know,supercomputers that they used
for their own, you know kind ofnational defense, you know type
of research.
But they were also veryinterested in, you know, you
know, future workforcedevelopment and and you know
they wanted to make sure theywere also training like the next
generation of scientists,engineers, and what they did was

(13:04):
they made accessible to highschool students, I guess even
middle school students, accessto their supercomputers.
So you basically, you know,basically they had you know
training, you know, boot campsto show you how to kind of do
software development and how toactually run yourself software
programs on their craze andthinking machines, and it was an

(13:27):
amazing, amazing opportunity.
So that was basically also myfirst kind of real interactions
with the national labs andcertainly my first exposure to
being able to work withsupercomputers.

Daniel Koo (13:39):
I think from your initial story about the
cockroaches, I think you'vealready had a kind of
disposition to science.
It seems like there wassomething inside of you that you
know.
Naturally, you know you likedexperimenting and wanting to see
the results and trying to make,I guess, an analysis out of the
results, and I think the waythat you participate in this

(14:04):
super competing challenge wasalso probably a pretty big kind
of challenge for you as a highschooler.
I'm assuming that you knowthere's a lot of time commitment
and it's also something verydifferent.
You know you're not you knowdoing homework or you know doing
something through school.
It was kind of like a separatechallenge that you had to

(14:27):
participate in.
Did you have a mentor for thisat?

all.
So they in that particularsupercomputing challenge program
they did have several differentmentors and coaches.
But you also in your ownschools you also had people that
kind of like were coaching ormentoring you and I guess maybe
this also kind of goes intopeople that you know mentored
you or kind of made significantinfluences on your life.

(14:51):
So one of the players that wasbatting at that tetherball for
me in high school was one of myphysics teachers, ray Menegas.
He had kind of like this bighead of red hair.
His nickname was Mad Dog, sothat's what people would call
him.
So Ray Mad Dog Menegas.
He had kind of this big head ofred hair.
His nickname was Mad Dog, sothat's what people would call
him.
So Ray Mad Dog Menegas.
And he was also our crosscountry and track coach and he

(15:13):
was, he's fantastic guy goodsense of humor, I think.
In in our physics classes weprobably learned calculus from
him a lot faster than weactually learned it in our
proper calculus classes and weunderstood like why you know it
was getting used or how it wasgetting used.
We didn't, of course, do alllike the formal mathematical
proofs and all the rigor that wewould do in our math class, but

(15:36):
he was just a great, you knowinspiration and I think because
of him I started to become very,you know, passionate about
physics.
But he was my, my mentor, or ourmentor I was.
I was on this, this particularproject with with another
student, jason, so so so youknow, ray Menegas was basically
our mentor for that particularyou know project.

(15:59):
So he, he was advising us,maybe not so much on the
computing side but more on thekind of the physics side of of
how you think together and theproject that we were working on,
for that was, if you'resimulating, you know, kind of
like a galaxy and you want toknow how all the stars are
moving, and they're mostly, youknow, moving, at least in

(16:19):
classical mechanics, maybe,maybe not post Einstein, but at
least in in classical mechanicsit's largely as a consequence of
just gravitational fields.
So we were just trying to usesupercomputers to compute how
the gravity between the variousdifferent stars would change
their velocities and those typesof things, and there were some

(16:41):
computational tricks that youcould kind of do to make the
problem a little bit moreaccessible.

Daniel Koo (16:46):
Anyway, that was yeah, I think.
I think you mentioned that thiswas like um related to the
three body power problem.
You know, where there's twobodies in, uh, in a
gravitational field, it'ssomewhat predictable, but when
there's three or more, itbecomes uh, I guess
exponentially harder to computeyeah so.

So I guess there's even kind of like the
recent, like Netflix series,like the three body problem.
So you can, you can have aproper closed form solution just
with a mathematical formulathat can show you how two bodies
work.
But when you get to threebodies, then to my knowledge
there's no closed form solution.
So you have to do kind ofnumerical, you know, you know

(17:27):
some simulations or numericalintegrations to kind of solve,
to solve the problem.
So that's true for three bodies.
But now we're talking about wecall it the n body problem.
So n can be like a hundred, itcould be a thousand, a million,
a billion.
I mean there's a lot of starsout there, so you can only
imagine yeah, I guess.

Daniel Koo (17:41):
Um, I think it was great that you had a mentor that
kind of took you along thisjourney and, you know, kind of
gave you kind of a newperspective on science and kind
of shaped your future as well.
You know, I think one of thethemes that I'm seeing with the
episodes that I record is that alot of people have mentors at

(18:01):
an even young age and theyreally guide, or they really
guided, their path so that youknow they can get to the next
step, the next step, the nextstep, and people who's had
mentors, you know they wouldthey all recommend that you
should get a mentor.
So I think, you know, maybethat's a key takeaway that we
can, we can take with us.
We often consider what'simmediately visible in our

(18:24):
environment, but I think newexposure to ideas and people and
that can change, shift ourperspective on what's possible,
your college days as well.
So you have your undergrad andinitially you wanted to become a
radiologist.

(18:44):
As you explained, your familyhas a medical background.
I guess, in the beginning, whydid you think that was the right
path and when did you end uprealizing that maybe it wasn't?

Yeah, so so.
So again, you you kind of aresubject to like your own
experience and your ownenvironment.
And at my particular highschool there was a family and
you know, one of the parents wasa radiologist.
And I mean, you're a highschooler and you can probably be
very simplistic andmaterialistic.

(19:17):
I certainly, you know, was atthat point in time, but I think
that family had had a RollsRoyce and I had also learned,
you know, that that they, youknow, had a had a radiologist
parent and I also kind of knew alittle bit after looking into
it, that radiology, whereas itis a medical kind of doctor,

(19:37):
they they tend at least myimpression of the time was that
they might not be spending asmuch time directly with patients
.
Doctor they tend at least myimpression at the time was that
they might not be spending asmuch time directly with patients
as other physicians, like theymight be looking at, you know,
x-rays or tomography, you know alot to make a diagnosis, but
they might not be interacting asmuch directly with the patients
.
So I thought that sounds prettyperfect.

(19:59):
Like I know, like I mean my,it's normal in my family to be
doing something in the medicalsciences.
I thought that's something thatI could do.
It sounded kind of kind ofinteresting You're, you're,
you're helping people, sothere's kind of the purpose
there.
Do you get paid a lot of moneyAt least that's what I, that's
what I understood at the timeand you don't have to, like
interact with you know peoplelike as much.

(20:21):
And I I wouldn't say like I wascompletely on the introvert, you
know side of the spectrum.
I was kind of like between anintrovert and extrovert.
But like, being able to do thatwithout having to interact with
people nonstop sounded like alike a good option.
So that's what I, that's what Ithought I was going to do.
So when I was applying for forcolleges, I largely applied to
biomedical types of programs,which not exclusively, but would

(20:46):
often be in or associated withthe electrical engineering
department.
So that's generally what Iapplied for.
So I think when I matriculatedinto Rice University in Houston,
texas that's where I went tocollege that was pretty much the
major that I had chosen tobegin with.

Daniel Koo (21:04):
It sounds like you've actually thought it
through, you know at the timeand you've considered your.
You know personality and whatyou want and you know the kind
of level of kind of financialreward that a job can give you
as well.
So it's not something that waslightly chosen, would that be

(21:26):
right?

Yeah, I would say it wasn't lightly chosen.
I would also say that it wasn'tlike any family influence that
told me why don't you considerbeing a radiologist?
It was just a conclusion that Imyself, you know, came to.
But again, that's coming backto like the tethered part of the
conversation.
I was aware of radiologybecause someone just happened to

(21:47):
have a parent at my school thatwas a radiologist.
Like maybe if there was like anIP lawyer, or maybe if there
was like a venture capitalist,or maybe if there was like a
startup founder, then I wouldhave, you know, chosen a totally
different path.
But I think my conception ofwhat was possible was totally
limited to what I was exposed to.

Daniel Koo (22:06):
So what made you change from this path and choose
a different one?

When I started taking electrical engineering
courses in college this wouldhave been when I was a freshman
I was taking the 101 electricalengineering courses, so I was.
I was taking that at the sametime as I was taking probably
like the first year biologycourse.
But because of kind of I tookadvanced placement courses in

(22:37):
college, I was already maybelike to like the sophomore you
know level in math and physics,so I was.
I was taking kind of likesecond year physics, you know,
second year you know advancedcalculus, and I was taking first
year biology, intellectualengineering and I guess it's
easy to say this in retrospectbut 101 courses are generally

(23:01):
not going to be the moststimulating or intellectually
rewarding.
I can say I hated first-yearbiology.
To me it was just brutememorization and not something
that I especially enjoyed.
And then I was taking moreadvanced physics and going back
to high school and my mentorthere, ray Menegas, and kind of

(23:22):
like how much I loved physics.
I started to really okay, Ireally like this physics stuff
and I'm not so sure aboutbiology and which is.
You know that was going to besomething that was going to be
needed for for medical you knowtypes of paths if I wanted to do
radiology eventually.
And then for the electricalengineering it was somewhat
similar, I mean my perception.
Again, this was in retrospect,I don't think this is accurate

(23:44):
anymore today, but theelectrical engineering course it
kind of seemed to me like, asopposed to physics, where you're
understanding, like, whysomething is happening, what it
felt to me in engineering wasyou just memorize a whole bunch
of solutions or formulas and youhave to know which is the right
one to apply and then how to,how to actually use it to get to

(24:05):
your solution.
But there wasn't you know somuch thinking about, okay, like
the underlying reasons for likewhy you have this, this formula
or why you choose it.
It was kind of more like youjust kind of memorize it.
Biology you were memorizingorganisms or whatever.
And then electroengineering iskind of like you memorize
solutions and you know the righttime to apply them.
So that was.
And then I was battling againstphysics, where that was kind of

(24:26):
like, where I was maybepredisposed to be passionate
about.
So I ended up deciding, okay, Ireally don't want to do this,
this engineering, you knowelectrical engineering thing.
So I switched over to physicsand maybe the next part of the
question.
If it's okay if we segue alittle bit is also kind of like
maybe why I chose to go awayfrom kind of like the pre-med or

(24:49):
radiology path and I guess Iwas getting some indications of
that because I didn't reallylike the first year.
You know biology, you know somuch.
But in my sophomore year I alsotook organic chemistry and other
kind of pre pre-req forpre-meds and the first semester

(25:11):
of organic chemistry is a lotagain of like brute memorization
, like okay, you have tomemorize, okay you know a via
this catalyst or this reactionprocess, step condition goes to
this, this product.
So lots of memorization.
And at the same time I wastaking third year physics.
So quantum mechanics,intermediate mechanics to me

(25:32):
like organic chemistry was a loteasier than the physics and it
wasn't like my most demanding,you know, course, whereas I
think the pre meds, like organicchemistry by far and away was
my most demanding course,whereas I think the pre-meds,
like organic chemistry by farand away was their hardest
course.
So they spent a lot more timeat it and it was just basically
not possible for me to competewith the pre-meds.
First of all because a lot ofpre-meds I mean this is

(25:52):
overgeneralizing things but alot of pre-meds tend to be very,
very good at memorizing.
So I was already at kind of youknow, a loss there, and then
they were able to spend a lotmore time at it.
So I think first semesterorganic chemistry was probably
like the worst grade I think Ihad ever gotten in my entire
life.
So I definitely didn't,relative to others, I didn't

(26:16):
perform that well.
So that was kind of anotherthing that said, hey, like you
know, I'm maybe just not cut out, you know, to be like a brute
memorizer and I again inretrospect, I mean I think that
physicians are so much more thanjust memorizing.
So it wasn't really necessarilyin hindsight like a fair
assessment or choice and I thinkI actually would have loved

(26:37):
going into you know, medicalrelated things, but it just kind
of drove me a differentdirection, whereas you know it
is kind of confirmed to confirmmy bias.
Maybe second semester, organicchemistry, where it's most more
about you know, retrosynthesisand not just one step.
But how do you get from A to Zand you have to be able to think
you know how do you go B, c, d,e, f, g, and that wasn't

(27:00):
something that the premeds youknow, even if they're fantastic
at memorizing, you can't.
That's an astronomical numberof possibilities and you can't
memorize your way out of thatproblem.
You have to think through it,and I think that was something
that I enjoyed, I see.

Daniel Koo (27:14):
I think that's actually a really good breakdown
of those of those fields.
You know biology.
You have a lot of memorization.
It's learning what theseprocesses do, but not really
figuring them out or modelingthem for the future.
The knowledge is already thereand preset.
You're absorbing them.
I think.

(27:34):
For electrical engineering, youspend a lot of time
understanding the solution, butoftentimes, because I studied
electrical engineering as wellin my undergrad, I know it's a
lot of catching up.
Actually, you know there's ahistory of solutions that have
developed over time.
The solutions are building offof each other.

(27:55):
So for me, the entire undergradyou know program felt like I
did computer engineering.
It felt like we were justcatching up to modern computers
and how that worked and why wearrived at this state.
And I guess we don't really, youknow, think about why and you
know the science of it and Iguess physics you know.

(28:16):
Obviously it's a very, it's avery core natural science that
kind of tackles, you know, thereally big problems of the
universe.
So I think I can really see whythat might've interested you.
What strikes out to me here isthat you listen to your own
experience and the things youwere going through, careful

(28:43):
decision, and you know, after acourse you would kind of process
it and actually listen to yourown I don't want to say I don't
know if it's feelings, or youknow certain emotions that come
up or or thoughts, but youlisten to them and with the,
with the time pressure and the,you know things like that you
were able to choose your newmajor as a physics major.

Yeah, I think I think that's, I think that's
right and I think I tried to getexposed to a lot of different
courses and ideas.
I mean, I think again inhindsight, maybe I didn't give a
fair shake or I didn't giveenough time to getting through
the kind of the 101 levelcourses and now that I know a

(29:20):
lot more, I mean biology is somuch more interesting and
intriguing than just that thatfirst layer.
So biologists eventually, youknow, have to become very, very
good at pattern recognition andbeing able to make models that
can explain extremely, you know,complicated, noisy, you know
data information and on theengineering side, there's so

(29:43):
many advantages of being able tooperate at different layers of
abstraction or having things tobe modular and decoupled and
then figuring out where cohesionmakes sense.
So I think there's a lot ofreasons like why the training
happens in a certain way, sothat maybe that's one, that's
one kind of lesson.
I think this is true in otherdomains too, like, maybe, like

(30:05):
your first six months of, like,piano lessons are miserable, but
you have to kind of just gothrough that pain to get to the
point where it's actuallyenjoyable and rewarding.
And if you don't have, like amentor, that kind of can
basically, or a parent that cankind of nudge you through that
painful transition period.
What you're resorting to isjust getting you know, backing

(30:26):
the tether ball, basicallygetting bounced around and
that's that's.
I think that's pretty much howI was doing it, like I tried a
lot of things and I just gotbounced around and I kind of
found my path based on what kindof it was.
It was reasoned, it wasn't liketotally random or just, you
know, instantaneous.
You know I'm going to, I'mgoing to suddenly change, but I
think that's, that's basicallyhow I found my path.

(30:47):
But if I had had kind of a morelike longitudinal type of a
mentor, then maybe the pathmight've been a little bit
smoother.

Daniel Koo (30:54):
I agree, For me, going into computer science was,
you know, there's the feedbackloop, for computer science is
super quick, right?
So you write code.
If it's a website, you load itimmediately.
If it's an HTML file, right andit.
I think, because of that quickfeedback loop of like, oh, I can
build things.
You know, I could see that kindof future vision of building

(31:16):
things and that helped meunderstand that computer science
was going to be fun for me,software is going to be fun for
me, but I can see how you know,with these one-on-one courses it
may not have, you know, shedthe best light on what the
actual work would be.
I think that's actually areally good insight to take away
from this.
And speaking of, I guess,bouncing around, could you tell

(31:38):
me about your experience atworking at a law firm and
realizing you didn't want to goto that kind of law career as
well?

Yeah, so this is going back to high school and
one of my mother's friends was apartner at a firm and in high
school I mean it's always niceif possible to earn a little bit
of money doing a summer job andit turned out that what this
law firm needed at the time andagain this is going back to the

(32:08):
early 90s was somebody that wasessentially just doing data
entry from like a conflicts typeof a perspective that if you
represented a client, you knowpreviously that you're not on
the opposition with that withthat same person because it
could represent a conflict.

(32:29):
So they had to take very carefultrack of like who they've
represented or potentially whothey've been on the opposing
side in the past.
And at the time a lot of thisinformation was essentially just
on these little Rolodex cards,not digital at all.
So my job is like a maybe likea freshman in high school was to

(32:50):
basically day in, you know, dayout, just take a Rolex card and
type it into like one of thesekind of like older, I mean, it's
now totally obsolete, but anolder database, you know type of
a type of a platform where theycould at mean it's now totally
obsolete, but an older database,you know type of a type of a
platform where they could atleast have it, have it more
electronic so it's more readilysearchable and preservable.
So that was my kind of like.
My first taste, you know, atbeing in a law firm is my first

(33:12):
you know actual job.
I would say I was probablygetting you know minimum wage
which was probably maybe like afactor of 10 less than what
market rate would be for thattype of a job.
But hey, you're like you're inhigh school and you, you're
you're grateful for, for whatyou get, um, but it definitely
was not like a fun.
A fun job it was.
It was monotonous.

(33:32):
Um, I could see a little bit ofthe purpose, you know, to why
we're doing what we're doing,but like it wasn't maybe that
purposeful, like I wasn't reallybecoming a master at anything,
like I wasn't any better likethe second day than the first
day, um, and I was gettingdirected what to do, so I didn't
have much autonomy.
So it was just like like Ithink a lot of people you know
say, like you know, to be likereally motivated in your work,

(33:54):
you need purpose, you needmastery, you need mastery, you
need autonomy, and it basicallyhad none of those.
So it was not a good recipe forsuccess.
But I mean, I like the peopleyou know that I was working with
and they paid me, which isprobably the most important
thing for high school student.
The next, the next year, theykind of had me change, change
tasks and I was responsible fordoing kind of filing.

(34:17):
So now it was not just likedata entry, it was more kind of
like just you know um kind offiling.
So now it was.
It was not just like put dataentry, it was more kind of like
just you know, organizing, youknow basic documents and files
and making copies.
But I would also have to coverum for the receptionist um when
they would go out for lunch ortake take breaks and I think
that was like the worst job thatI've ever had, like covering
somebody as a receptionist Um,because if you mess up like

(34:41):
phone calls, that's basicallylike the bloodline into a law
firm, like you don't want tomess up like phone calls, like
if you drop a call that mighthave been like one prospective
client that they lost or youmight have, like you know, lost
the opportunity to book somebillable hours.
So it was just it was highstress and just not something
that I enjoyed.
So I think again like learningabout yourself, like things that

(35:03):
you don't want to do, and Iworked a third year where it was
a little bit more fun because Iwas a gopher and I got to drive
around or I got to actuallystart working more on the
accounting side, which isactually a little bit more
interesting and you can see theinternals of how a law firm
works.
So I would say that the type ofwork that I was doing got

(35:24):
better and better over time.
So I think from thatperspective it wasn't so bad.
But I think the reason why Ikind of really soured on law and
again, this was just totallybased on my context and in
retrospect I think I mean evennow, like being like involved
with intellectual property lawor things could actually be
pretty interesting or othertypes of litigation and things

(35:47):
would be interesting too.
But what I saw around me inthat law firm was that people
really worked to live and theydidn't live to work.
So they all had like theseamazing, these, these amazing
passions on the side.
So my, my friends, my mom'sfriend on the weekends was a
skydive instructor and that'swhat he was really passionate

(36:08):
about and that's basically whyhe worked was to support you
know kind of this, this hobby,and the same thing was true for
lots of other you know of, ofthe, you know of the admins or
the lawyers themselves, theassistants, and I didn't really
feel like I want to be workingin a place where I'm almost kind

(36:29):
of miserable, like eight hoursa day, just to enjoy things on
the weekend or in the evenings.
That just didn't feel.
That didn't really quite feelright to me.
So, again, it was just based onmy, my context and my tethering
, but I just kind of decided,hey, maybe law is just not not
what I wanted to do I see.

Daniel Koo (36:48):
I mean, the most important thing to take out of
this is you know, realize, uh,what the paths you don't want to
go to.
You know earlier.
So you know you found this outin high school and maybe that
allowed you to kind of navigatethe science space a little bit
more.
So I think you know if we cantake away anything, it's, you

(37:08):
know, trying out those thingsearlier and you know, I guess,
process of elimination andgetting rid of those paths so
that you don't waste time onfinding your correct one.

Yeah, I think in Silicon Valley style, I mean, I
think you know failing fast isdefinitely the way to go.
And I wouldn't, I wouldn't sayand again, this is this is all
in hindsight but I wouldn't sayit makes sense to make your
decision based on how you feeldoing the work that you're doing
, because you might be doing theone-on-one level stuff, the

(37:40):
entry level stuff, but I thinkif you observe how those around
you, like the people that areactually established in those
professions, do they enjoy theirwork, do they enjoy their lives
Like how does, do you want tobasically become like what they
are?
And you can.
If you just spend like a fewmonths at a law firm, like, you

(38:01):
can see like the types of peopleand how they are and what they
do and what they care about, Ithink you can get, you can learn
that pretty pretty, prettyquickly and you can see if
you're really kind of compatiblewith that.
And I think maybe we'll get tothis in a little bit more in the
conversation.
But I think that's another thingwhere I've where I've heard
other people more in theconversation.

(38:21):
But I think that's anotherthing where I've heard other
people, for example, say youknow why they don't necessarily
want to pursue a career inacademia, because they can see
the lives that professors liveand I think they have so many
sacrifices and I think somepeople are going to be willing
to make those and other people'snot so much.
So you might not actually everwork as a professor, but you can

(38:43):
probably know pretty well likeif you want to have that
particular life.

Daniel Koo (38:47):
I agree.
And also, you know who you haveas a mentor is actually really
important at this point as well,where you know if you have a
mentor who's a professor, who'sloving their life, you know
their research subject and youknow their students and things
like that, then that mightchange you a little bit as well.
So I think you know it.
Really, we have all these kindof environmental factors that

(39:11):
kind of guide us.
I do want to talk about yourgrad school at Harvard and you
know, maybe tell us a little bitabout what you're researching
and also how you chose your labenvironment.
I understand you've had theopportunity to kind of look
through a couple of them and tochoose one.
How did you end up choosing theone that you did?

Yeah, so I think and maybe just touching really
briefly, going back to theprevious topic, I think but and
also role models are superimportant and we'll get into
that in a second when I actuallyanswer the question that you
just asked to see someone thatthey could potentially become or

(40:04):
emulate.
So I think that's a realchallenge for people is like, if
you know they kind of seenlawyers but none of them kind of
like look like them or theydon't talk like them or act like
them, or they don't necessarilyhave like the same values or
preferences or passions.
And I think if you can find arole model or a mentor that you
can kind of see yourself in,that makes all the difference in
the world.
And I think if you can find arole model or a mentor that you
can kind of see yourself in,that makes all the difference in

(40:24):
the world.
And I think for some people,depending on their context and
where they grow up, it's easy tosee those role models or find
mentors, and in otherenvironments or professions it
might be more difficult.
So I think that can also makeor break like a career path into
that field.
So I would also encouragepeople to spend, you know some

(40:45):
time to try to identify, likeyou're saying, that mentor you
know role model to really trulypursue into it.

Daniel Koo (40:51):
Yes, and a part of why I do this podcast is to, you
know, present a lot of mentors,present a lot of role models
and career paths that people canget inspired by.
So, you know, I think thatmakes perfect sense.

Exactly, daniel.
I think that's a greatcontribution of your podcast.
So I'm really happy that you'redoing it, because I think more
people could really benefit byseeing you know other types of
paths and see what's possible.
So I think that's fantastic.
So, getting to your question,when I started graduate school,
I was really fortunate that ourbiophysics program was supported

(41:26):
by the National Institutes ofHealth and they had these
training grants whereessentially the NIH would cover
the first two years of kind oflike the graduate school, you
know, tuition and costs.
And that was really importantbecause what it meant is that if
you were to do kind of like youknow, internships or we would

(41:50):
call them rotations with givenlabs, they didn't have to pay
for you.
So basically you were free tothem.
So it was kind of a very likelow cost commitment.
Sure, there would be theopportunity time of them
spending their time andresources with you, but they
didn't actually have to pay foryour tuition.
I think in other organizationsyou know universities where they

(42:10):
don't have these traininggrants and a professor like has
to support you.
You have to choose yourlaboratory very quickly because
they're not going to be willingto basically pay for you if you.
You have to choose yourlaboratory very quickly because
they're not going to be willingto basically pay for you if you,
you know, go somewhere else.
So anyway, so in our program wewere very fortunate that we
could do these rotations.
I did three different rotationsand I think what again, maybe

(42:35):
it's going back to this.
You know this tetherball, youknow type of a situation.
I thought I was predestinedgoing into graduate school to
join a very specific lab in thechemistry department, and that
was because this particular labwas pursuing theoretical protein
folding, and that's exactly thetype of research I did during

(42:57):
college in summers, where Ispent it at Los Alamos.
And I think the reason why Iactually got into this
particular program was becausethis professor in the chemistry
department thought that I wasgoing to come to to his, to his
lab, um, so I thought I wasalways, you know, pretty
predisposed to this and doingrotations, hey, that's, that's
fun and that expands yourhorizons and your experience.

(43:19):
But I just kind of thought itwas all for show, because for
sure I'm going to be going tothis one lab.
So it I did three, threerotations.
The lab that I thought I wasgoing to go to was was the
second one.
And then I went to a thirdrotation at the at the medical
school which was lesscomputational and it was more
kind of like you know, wet lab,experimental, and I mean some of

(43:43):
the.
You know the contrast.
Again, if it had been aslightly different set of
circumstances I might've made atotally different decision.
So it's all just about whathappens to you in your
particular path.
But the laboratory in thechemistry department was
exclusively male and thechemistry department was
exclusively male and they didn'thave any kind of like wet

(44:10):
laboratory space.
And while I really liked thepeople that were in that group
and one of my best friends ingrad school was in that lab it
didn't really kind of feel likea very fun environment and I
kind of knew grad school isgoing to be like probably five
years.
And do I really want?
It's kind of like the law firm,right, like I see the lives of

(44:31):
those grad students Like, isthat who I want to be for like
five years.
So I'd only worked there formaybe like a few months, but I
couldn't kind of anticipate whatthat would be like for me.
And then, in contrast, themedical school laboratory was
gender balanced and it just kindof seemed like a fun place.
The science was fantastic andactually, you know, the

(44:53):
professor, the mentor there thatI had, was unbelievable, he was
so good.
The mentor there that I had waswas unbelievable he was, he was
so good.
So, anyways, that was that was.
But but largely kind of likehow I felt in that environment
as opposed to the actual type ofof research.
Um, cause I, I for sure, likecomputational and protein
folding and and the, the medicallab that was more interested in

(45:15):
you know how, how areantibiotics, you know maze made
in the natural environment bymicrobes.
It was also very interesting,but there's a bazillion
interesting things that youcould work on in science, but
I'd rather be like in a happy,fun environment myself pursuing
it, you know.
So that was kind of how I madethat decision.

Daniel Koo (45:32):
Yeah, I was just going to ask, like at the moment
, you know, it's a five-year,five to maybe seven-year
commitment I guess I was goingto ask if you were prioritizing,
uh, like quality of life aswell.
I, I feel like, for phdstudents you know, it may feel
like a very tough decisionbecause maybe you know the field

(45:53):
that you go into is veryimportant for you.
You're becoming an expert, um,a big part of your path is going
to be set by this decision, andI wonder if you would, you know
, prioritize quality of lifeover the you know the subject
matter or I don't know, theprofessor, like what was kind of
going through your head at themoment.

So I guess maybe a couple of thoughts.
And I guess the first one and Ithink I probably even kind of
knew this about myself at thetime and I think it's, you know,
very important I think it'seven more important generally
now for people in their careersthan it was historically and
more important generally now forpeople in their careers than it
was historically.
But I think being adaptable, atleast for me, is super

(46:35):
important and super critical.
I kind of know it of myselfthat while I'm doing what I'm
doing now, there's probably amillion other things that I
could basically find purpose in,that I could master and I would
have some autonomy in I'd behappy.
So I don't think that I'mlimited to only being happy in
this one particular thing thatI'm doing now.

(46:58):
And I think that for people nowthey have to change their
careers much more often.
I mean it's much less commonnow for people to work for the
same company for like 30 years,like people change like every
every couple of years and youmight be doing, you know, very
different things.
I think a lot of peopleactually like that.
So you know some some changeand being able to contribute in

(47:19):
in different ways.
So I think I kind of I kind ofknew that, whatever I chose, I
could eventually be happy inthat particular domain you know
domain and I think, like you'resaying about the quality of life
, that was like maybe one of theprimary, you know, motivating
factors is because, hey, I couldbe happy, like intellectually,

(47:40):
in any of these different things.
I'm not going to be gettingpaid anymore, depending on where
I choose.
The future career path isprobably, you know, equally good
in all of these.
So, all else being equal, youknow why not choose the
laboratory that you're going tofeel like you're having, you're
the happiest in and having themost fun?

Daniel Koo (48:01):
Yeah, I think that's going to be very useful
information for people kind of,you know, going into PhD.
I know I have a friend of minewho's literally going through a
rotation right now across, Ithink, three labs as well, so I
think it's going to beparticularly helpful for him
listening to this.
So I guess, after your gradschool, so after PhD, what was

(48:27):
kind of like your assumed path,what were you kind of assuming
that you would end up doing, andif you have any thoughts around
industry versus academia atthat point, I think that would
also be very helpful so I thinkin in graduate school my eyes
were opened to many differentcareer paths.

So I don't think I was actually exposed to all
that much when I was anundergraduate, because either I
was actually exposed to all thatmuch when I was an
undergraduate because either Iwas, you know, in the university
, so I kind of knew what theacademic, you know environment
would be like and I worked atLos Alamos National Labs so I
kind of knew what a national labwas like.
But I was still, you know,pretty, pretty sheltered in the

(49:06):
university.
I mean, I think I had friendsthat you know had been, you know
, talking about getting jobsright out of you know undergrad
at like a management consultingplace.
So I think I was learning alittle bit of some alternative
career paths.
But I think in my graduate labthere were actually people that
after they graduated they did gowork directly for venture

(49:28):
capital firms.
People went to one of thestudents is amazing Like she did
kind of like night law school,while she was also kind of like
doing like her PhD.
So she actually went intopractice more IP kind of like

(49:50):
law like right after her PhD andshe had, I guess, her JD or the
equivalent.
So that was amazing.
There were people that wereworking in industry, so lots of
people going into thepharmaceuticals types of
companies, but there were alsopeople that were going to
fantastic academic institutionspeople that were going to
fantastic academic institutions.
So I think at that time, likethere were just a ton of

(50:13):
different you know viable pathsin front of me and I think at
the time I kind of this mighthave been maybe an instance of
just kind of kicking the can,you know, down the road.
And one thing that you canalways do or not maybe always is
too strong of a word but if youwant to postpone your decision

(50:34):
for a career path, one thingthat you could consider doing is
a postdoc.
So that's kind of like the nextnatural progression from a PhD
and that still enables you topursue careers like in industry,
in academia, and you couldstill always, you know, go back
to law school or you could, youknow, work for a venture firm.

(50:56):
So I think I was just stillreally liking what I was doing
and I think I just thought thatit would give me a little bit
more time to make a decision andalso, I mean, the real purpose
of a postdoc, and I'm extremelybiased against postdocs, like I
think postdocs should not existand they're just kind of like a

(51:18):
historical artifact.
But they are a very goodopportunity, you know, for you
to get further training in aparticular you know area so that
you can actually do the jobthat you really want to have.
And I think that's the onlyreal reason why you should be
doing a postdoc is if you needfurther experience or training
to do the job that you reallywant to have.
And my graduate school work waslargely experimental, like

(51:40):
biochemistry.
At the end I kind of got alittle bit of free space to work
more on computational thingsand protein.
You know engineering and design.
It's kind of going space towork more on computational
things and protein.
You know engineering and design.
It's kind of going back to myexperiences as an undergrad at
Los Alamos and previously evenin high school, and that was
really fun.
So I was thinking well, maybewhat I should be doing as a

(52:02):
postdoc is looking for labs thatmore tightly couple the
computational with theexperiment, because I feel like
that's where my futureprofession should be, is
somewhere at the interfacebetween the experiment and the,
the the modeling side.
So that's where I started tolook for postdoc opportunities.
That and that's how I ended upat Stanford it was.

(52:24):
It was a lab that was kind ofor kind of a joint lab that was.
That was really good, both onthe experiment side but also on
the computing side.

Daniel Koo (52:31):
Yeah, I think that actually ends up or I mean it
seems like it's it probablycontributed a lot to what you're
doing right now, right, withexperiments and also the
computational side of it all.
Could you tell us a little bitabout you know the decision
between I think you've mentionedlike between a stable lab job

(52:52):
at Berkeley versus potentiallyjoining like a startup, and like
what was going to, what wasgoing through your head and why
did you end up choosing what youdid?

Yeah, so I was a postdoc at Stanford's school of
Medicine and in my grad schoollab it was very typical for
postdocs to only work for abouta year, maybe two, before
getting a job.
I was probably a third year inand I was getting a little bit

(53:23):
antsy, even though other peoplein that same lab had typically
been there, typically like beenthere for almost like a PhD
length postdoc it was like fiveyears or something.
It wouldn't be atypical.
But I was getting a little bitantsy after about three years
and I started to kind of, youknow, indicate you know to my
boss that I was, you know,feeling like I was getting ready

(53:46):
to leave and starting to lookfor things and we can, you know,
go off into another topic in asecond kind of about that
process and what happened thereand some advice.
But I had started looking forjobs and there was a job posted
at Lawrence Berkeley NationalLaboratory where I ended up.

(54:09):
So you already kind of have thespoiler of like what the
decision is going to be, nosurprises there.
But also, you know, at afriend's dinner party I met a
co-founder of a you know biotechstartup in San Francisco and
when I met this co-founder theircompany was basically just an

(54:32):
incubator at the University ofCalifornia, san Francisco, in
their Mission Bay campus andthey didn't have even their
first employee and just talkingwith them they said, well, maybe
you could consider working withus and I interviewed with them
and they said, well, maybe youcould consider working with us
and I interviewed with them andI probably would have been the

(54:54):
first employee, number one ofthe startup company.
So, getting in very, very earlyand they were awesome.
Three great founders.
I still interact.
We're still in the same space,so I interact with some of them
from time to time.
Really good technology.
I liked the work environment,everything, space or interact
with some of them from from timeto time.
Really good technology.
I liked kind of like the, thework environment, everything.
The one thing that made mehesitant was that the the

(55:16):
compensation level at thestartup company, at least to
begin with, was really nodifferent or better than a
postdoc salary and there weren'ttoo many like actual benefits,
like I think one of the benefitswas like you can go to like
free um giants games, like soyou can go see, see baseball Um,
cause I think it was in thewalking distance.

(55:37):
Like the, the giant stadium waslike very close by the mission
Bay campus, um, which is a niceperk Um.
But I mean, along the scheme ofthings, you know, I was coming
out, I never had a job right.
So I went, you know, fromcollege to grad school, to a
postdoc.
I didn't have any, I didn'treally have any savings, I had

(55:57):
never really made a real salaryand I was looking at like
another extended period of likejust having like a postdoc
salary.
That that seemed kind of tough.
Now, to be fair, like berkeleynational lab, they were
competent, they were the job.
You know, the other option thatI was pursuing, um had a much
higher um starting.

(56:18):
You know salary and andbenefits, um, I mean, you know
the one one thing that you youmight be considering is okay,
sure, like you're getting paidless at the startup company, but
you probably have a lot ofupside in the equity, especially
like if you're like employeenumber one.
I mean that's part of the deal,right, you basically bear some
of the risk with the foundersand other early employees.

(56:41):
So people could fairly say, hey, you're undervaluing like that
equity and I think you know'sthat's perfectly reasonable.
It did.
It did turn out again inhindsight, that that startup
company was acquired and had Ijoined that startup company, I
would have ended up doing verywell, but in a different, like
parallel universe, like whoknows, like if that would have

(57:03):
happened exactly.
So I, I guess.
I guess my decision gettingback to your question was I was
fairly risk averse at that timejust because I had not
accumulated any economic assetsof my own yet.
So where, where I am now, oryou know, if you had already had
like an exit from anotherstartup company, it would have

(57:25):
been a very different decisionmaking process because I
wouldn't have been like as riskaverse to having a low salary
and I think I would have beenmuch more willing to take the
riskier upside of the equityover the salary.
But I think, I think that'sthat's that's still I think, for
for the people that arelistening, you know, to this, I

(57:46):
imagine there's going to be somepeople that are in a similar
situation where I was.
Your bank account doesn't havea lot of zeros Hopefully it's
not 0.00, but it's not likeeight zeros followed by a point
and you'll have to kind of makethat decision.
And again getting back to someof your previous questions

(58:06):
around, like kind of like thekind of the life quality type of
an issue you're going to haveto decide like how long you're
going to be willing to suffer abit to get to that first exit or
that first you knowbreakthrough and just decide
like you know what is your breakpoint and when are you going to

(58:28):
get out.
But I think eventually you'regoing to have to make a decision
and then just feel confidentthat you made the right decision
and then just roll with it fromthere.

Daniel Koo (58:40):
There are several factors for that.
I think as a founding member,you tend to get less salary and
a lot more in equity andpotential upside.
As maybe you know, if you'reone of the engineers that are
joining after the 10th or the20th, sometimes you have enough
funding at that moment to get adecent salary.

(59:01):
Obviously you wouldn't have asmuch risk.
You know, for me as a student,I worked at a startup right out
of college for a couple of yearsand you know, at that point in
time it was not important for methat I get a decent salary.
I think at that point in time,for me, I really just wanted the

(59:22):
experience and to be on theground and building something
and just coming from what youwere going through and coming
from where I was, I think youknow they're very different
decisions.
You know, and I think beingrisk averse is, you know, in
most instances it's the safestdecision.

So you know, you know who's to say what's the
right decision, but it's good toknow, understand, like all the
factors at play and, to be fair,to like what you're saying in
your experience, I think,immediately after college, like
as a grad student, you don't getcompensated very much and I
wasn't really motivated by money.
So, like as somebody that was 21years old, that was fine and I

(01:00:01):
had like a runway that I wascomfortable with and I imagine
you, daniel, were alsocomfortable with a certain
runway to just explore a littlebit after college.
But what I'm talking about inmaking this decision, we're also
comfortable with a certainrunway to just explore a little
bit after college.
But what I'm talking about inmaking this decision is after
five years of a PhD, after threeyears of a postdoc so I was

(01:00:23):
probably 28, 29 at the time andyou can imagine if you've had
friends that got jobs rightafter college and they've had
eight years of a real salary andyou've you have nothing to
basically show for it.
I mean it starts to it's, itbecomes a little bit more, more
pressing.
Especially, I mean there's Imean this wasn't me in that
particular time but also if youknow people want to, you know
start having, you know familiesor other types of things, it's

(01:00:45):
not just about you anymore andyou have to start thinking about
you know any anyways.
So it's also kind of you'regoing to be very case dependent
on, like where somebody is intheir life path.

Daniel Koo (01:00:54):
Exactly when, where you're tethered to.
I think that's.
That's the.
The context is really important.
I do want to talk a little bitabout mentorship.
Can you tell us a little bitabout what makes a great mentor
and, I guess, what kind ofqualities in a mentor that you
found most helpful?

Nathan Hillson (01:01:15):
So I guess a couple of different you know
things.
So I think I mean we talkedabout very informal mentorship,
like even going back to highschool and Mad Dog Men.
I guess it was kind of like amaybe not stated formally, but
he was pretty much like a mentor.
But I think my first realformal experience with the
mentoring program was in mycurrent role at Berkeley
National Lab.
There's kind of like a surveyforum that essentially asks

(01:01:37):
people if you're looking formentorship, what would be the
qualities that you'd be lookingfor in a mentor?
Or maybe even like who do youwant to be your mentor?
And I think part of it is Ididn't know better or that I
just didn't really, you know,think about what was a
reasonable ask.
But I think I basically askedfor the like the associate

(01:01:58):
laboratory director, sobasically like the second person
in command at Berkeley Lab.
So just going like way, wayhigh up.
And I said, hey, I would love,way, way high up.
And I said, hey, I would love,you know, for this person you
know to be my mentor.
And it just happened that thatperson was available and did do

(01:02:19):
mentorship and that was my firstexperience with formal
mentoring and that was just agreat, you know, experience.
I think one thing we should belooking for in a mentor, ideally
, is someone who can see a muchbigger picture than maybe you
can even imagine.

(01:02:40):
So I think that was definitelytrue in this particular
relationship is like okay, eventhough, like I thought, like my
horizons were pretty broad atthe time, like I definitely
wasn't playing on the same levelas the person that was
mentoring me and really got, hereally knew how all the pieces
were fitting together and howthings were moving.

(01:03:00):
So I think that's one thing.
I think coaching and mentoringare different.
Maybe we can talk about that atsome point too.
But I think one thing that'svery helpful for a mentoring
relationship is for them tobasically be able to see a lot
more than you do.
The other thing that I think issuper critical for mentoring is

(01:03:24):
that they should be fairlyarm's length, so they shouldn't
directly benefit or be hurt byany of the choices that you're
making, dependent on what theytell you.
So I think that's verydifferent between a coach and a
mentor.

(01:03:44):
That's one dimension, forexample.
So I think if you're picking amentor, you don't want your
direct boss, for example, to bea mentor because they have too
much of a conflict that yourperformance in their group is
going to influence them orbenefit them.
So ideally, if you're lookingfor mentorship in the same
organization, it's going to bein a different operational unit.

(01:04:06):
You're going to probably belooking for somebody that you
feel that you can trust, becausethere's strong kind of.
You need strong assurancesaround confidentiality.
You ideally want someone whoyou think is going to be able to
put your best interests aheadof the organization.
So you should be mentoring youknow the person as an individual

(01:04:28):
for their own careerdevelopment and progression and
not just for the benefit youknow of the organization.
So an easy way to do that islike get a mentor that doesn't
even work at your same companyor is not in the same
organization you know so, sothat that would be like one way
of going about it.
But I think looking forsomebody that has a big vision
has a really long view into thehorizon, somebody that's not

(01:04:51):
going to be biased or conflictedin giving you guidance.
And ideally, I think it's stillgoing to be important to pick a
mentor that sits in a placewhere you kind of want to be, as
opposed to somebody that's alittle bit more tangential to
somebody that's a little bitmore tangential.

Yeah, to summarize a couple of that, I guess for a
great mentor, you want them toat least be able to look at your
best interests right, also, bea good role model, also, having
done what you're doing at themoment.
One other thing that I wouldlike to add is I always found it
helpful to have a couple ofdifferent mentors.
You know, one that is furtherout in your career and one

(01:05:35):
that's really close, maybe acouple of years ahead, because I
think they have the practicaladvice that you may be able to
leverage.
Did you have someone like thator not?

So I think again , probably a little bit less
formally.
So I think there's lots of valuein what you're describing and
maybe an analogy that I wouldkind of use is that sometimes
the best teachers might bepeople that just learned the

(01:06:06):
within, like the last year, asopposed to somebody who
basically learned thatparticular thing, you know, 20
years ago.
So I think that the problem withthe way that human brains, you
know, tend to work is that we'renot necessarily like linear
thinkers and especially thelonger you've been around, like
all these, like differentinterconnections between all

(01:06:28):
these different concepts happenand that makes it very difficult
to sometimes talk in like alinear narrative and often we
learn best from more of kind oflike a linear progression, and I
think it could be.
The same thing is kind of truefor what you're talking about in
terms of mentorship.
So if you try to get advicefrom somebody who's been in your
particular situation, like 20years ago, um, you're gonna,

(01:06:52):
that's gonna be super helpfulfor like the very big picture
and like the overarching youknow, you know arcs to the, to
the stories, but you might needa little bit more precise
navigation, guidance based on,like the current, you know the,
the current, like you know,state of things and then, like
you're saying, somebody that'smaybe just a couple of years
ahead of you is going to beprobably much, much better.

(01:07:13):
So I like what you're saying,Daniel, that you probably want
almost like a portfolio ofmentors to to, to, to learn from
.

Okay, so, as the episode is coming to a close, I
do want to ask a few closingquestions.
First one is do you have anyadvice for those feeling unsure
about their career direction?
So maybe they don't have enoughinspiration or maybe they don't
feel confident in their skills.

If you have advice for those feeling unsure,
so I guess a couple of things,and I think maybe this is going
to be slightly repetitive butstated in slightly different
ways, think maybe this is goingto be slightly repetitive but
stated in slightly differentways.
Um, I think when you're lookingat kind of like an ideal, you
know type of a type of a job, itprobably needs three, three

(01:07:59):
different things.
Um, you ideally, you know, wantto like the people that you
work with.
Um, you want to be learning,you know all of the time, and
you want to feel like you'remaking a positive impact.
So I think, for people in acareer, about their current
career status or their careertrajectory, if you don't have

(01:08:21):
those three things, you probablywant to start looking to go
somewhere else.
And if where you're lookingalso doesn't have those three
things, then maybe you want toconsider even an additional
alternative.
I mean going back to kind oflike motivation and these types
of things and we talked aboutyou know it's really important
to have purpose and mastery andautonomy.

(01:08:43):
I think that can also kind ofinfluence.
You know, maybe some of thereasons why people are unsure or
unconfident about where theyare is because maybe they're
lacking.
You know one of those things.
So I think the first thing forpeople is to try to understand.
Okay, I know something is wrong, I know something is missing,
but try really hard to figureout.
Like, what is missing Is it?

(01:09:04):
I don't, like the people Idon't, you know, feel like I'm
making an impact, like I'm notlearning anything, I'm not
getting better at things.
I mean, these are all related.
If you see a potential careerpath that looks like it's going
to be very good for you, but youfeel like you don't necessarily
have the skills or training,there's a couple of different

(01:09:26):
things.
I guess the first thing is,like you can learn on the job.
So don't, if you're applyingfor a job, like don't just kind
of make the assumption that ifyou don't have 100% of the
skills required, that youcouldn't be a successful
candidate.
I mean, largely it's going tobe a crapshoot based on who else
applies for that same job.
But you can learn some of thosethings on the job.

(01:09:47):
Like you don't have to haveeverything same job, but you can
learn some of those things onthe job.
You don't have to haveeverything on day one and you
can also proactively start todevelop those skills even while
you're in your current role, butyou kind of need to know where
you want to go and what you needto get there and then you just
need to satisfy that gap andmentorship can help out.
That way you can look at, kindof like, what the job position

(01:10:08):
requirements are and get abetter understanding.
There's a variety of ways, butI don't think it's going to be
uncommon that people feel youknow unsure or have doubts or
you know, I think that's very,that's very natural and very
common.

I think that's really good advice for those
that are kind of hesitating tojump into their next field or
they don't know which directionto take.
What is one advice you wouldgive to your younger self?

So I guess, just kind of you know, reflecting
back on history, I mean, I thinkone of the things I think I've
been very, you know, fortunateand I think you know certain
people you know might might usekind of like the terminology
like you kind of like leave livelike a blessed or like a just a
, a very kind of lucky,fortunate life.

(01:10:57):
I guess one, one thing is, ifyou are adaptable and you kind
of are, are, are interested in,interested in multiple different
things, you can at least take alittle bit of comfort in the
fact that, no matter whathappens in the future and
there's lots of uncertaintiesyou're going to be able to adapt

(01:11:20):
and adjust and overcome andfind happiness on the other side
.
I think that's one thing that'shappening you know to us right
now in this country and maybesome other countries, is there's
just a lot of uncertainty andthat can be very stressful and
anxiety inducing.
But one way to kind of, youknow, maybe, emotionally comfort

(01:11:41):
yourself or intellectuallycomfort yourself along that
angle is, you know, just to relyon your own you know ability to
, you know to adapt and thingsare going to work out.
You know just to rely on yourown you know ability to you know
to adapt and things are goingto work out.
You know, I mean, I guessthere's the expression like this
too shall pass, and like you'lljust you'll get through things.
But I think emphasizing, likeyou're focusing on your ability

(01:12:02):
and demonstrating your abilityto adapt is something you know
that's going to be superimportant.
Looking back on like an earlier,you know, version of myself,
and the advice that I would giveto myself is largely kind of
like keep trusting your process.
Like pay attention, you know,to your feelings and emotions

(01:12:23):
and what feels good and whatdoesn't feel good, but don't
make like sudden, you know, um,sudden like judgments or
decisions.
Like like actually think, thinkthrough it, um, and and where
it's where it's going to go, andif you follow, keep following
that process, like everything'sgoing to be fine, um.
So I think that would probablybe be be part of it too.
Just just trust the process.

To summarize a little bit about what we went
through today.
I think the key takeaways thatI'll be kind of implementing in
my own life is trying everythingand failing fast to figure out
what you like and what youdislike.
You have to carefully plan outand listen to your experiences,

(01:13:13):
your emotions and finding outthe next really good venture
that can potentially be yournext field.
I think the second thing isdon't assume what you think now
is what you'll do later.
I think just you know from yourexperience there was a lot of
pivots in the road, but I thinkevery pivot got you closer to
what you will do now.
You know, and I think it'sreally impressive what you were

(01:13:34):
able to kind of achieve at thecurrent state.
So if that's what you wentthrough, I think there's a lot
of confidence that for a lot oflisteners that we can kind of
think the same.
The third thing is mentorship.
So having good mentors andrelying on them.
I think even at a young, youngage you were, you had a mentor
that kind of nudged you into thescience space.

(01:13:57):
If we can find those mentors, Ithink that would be most ideal
and they'll be able to seethings that we don't and be able
to guide us in that way.
And the last thing is beinginquisitive.
I think the best quality I seefrom this I guess episode from
you is that you were veryinquisitive and you invested

(01:14:17):
your time into what you believeis interesting and fun and
passionate.
So I really admire that and Iwant to implement that in my own
life as well.
So thank you so much for yourtime and I really appreciate it.

Yeah, thank you, Daniel.
Thanks very much for theconversation and the invitation
to participate.

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