May 9, 2024 • 25 mins
Eddie Baba's life journey has been a unique ride. His story unfolds from his early life experience as an Iranian refugee to his long-term path to becoming a law partner; Eddie offers up his life experience, which evolved based not on plans but on goals. Eddie's candid revelations about identity, cultural adaptation, and the power of embracing one's heritage and sexuality are extremely uplifting.
As we traverse the landscape of Eddie's life, we uncover the rich tapestry of his unique academic pursuits that meld science, art history, the law, and the fascinating career transitions that follow. His story emphasizes the importance of creativity and adaptability in life's journeys. Eddie's pragmatic yet goal-oriented approach to his profession reveals the myriad ways success can manifest.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
It's a funny thing.
I never really planned to bewhere I am.
I just did what I liked and Ifocused hard on what I was doing
at the moment rather thanhaving this grand plan, because
every time I've had this verybig plan.
It doesn't really work that way.
My name is Eddie Baba and I'm apatent attorney.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Hello and welcome to Everyone Is.
I am your host, jenniferCoronado.
The intent of this show is toengage with all types of people
and build an understanding thatanyone who has any kind of
success has achieved thatsuccess because they are a
creative thinker.
So, whether you are an artistor a cook or an award-winning
journalist, everyone hassomething to contribute to the
(00:44):
human conversation.
And now, as they say on withthe show, welcome to Everyone Is
.
I am talking to a friend ofmine who's been a friend of mine
for going over 30 years, whichis a long time.
I know you were like why do youwant to talk to me?
Because you have a reallyinteresting story and I wonder
(01:06):
if you could talk about thatjourney, because it was with
your mother and your siblings.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
I was born about a month after my father passed
away, so it was just my mom, meand my three siblings.
And in 79, the revolutionstarted.
My brother was 15, going on 16,and I was about five, and so it
was a real big focus for my momto get him out of the country
(01:31):
so he doesn't get pulled intothe revolution.
So middle of the night she justdecided we're going to leave
and go to Greece and file for apolitical asylum and come to the
US, because at that point mymom's sister was living here in
the US.
And here we are I have afive-year-old, a 15-year-old.
(01:51):
My mom, my sisters stayedbehind to kind of sell off
anything that they could selloff, and then they met us in
Greece about a month later.
We were in Greece for about ayear until we got approval to
come to the US under politicalasylum.
It was a really rough time.
We came right around the timethe hostages were taken in the
(02:13):
embassy in Iran, and to come tothe US as a refugee from a
country that was not at thattime seen as very friendly to
the US was not the easiest thingin the world.
One of the main reasons we camewas.
You know, I grew up Christianand we loved Iran.
Iran was great.
(02:33):
There's a lot of Assyrianpeople that live in Iran and the
revolution was the IslamicRevolution and it was taking it
from a really secular country toa very overly religious country
that was not friendly to notjust Christians but Zoroastrians
, hindi, anybody who was notMuslim, and it just was a really
(02:55):
rough time.
So a lot of people left andeven a lot of Muslims left that
didn't want to be living underan Islamic state.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
Where did your family relocate after Greece?
Speaker 1 (03:05):
Yeah well, Central Valley, Central Valley of
California, Very conservativefarming town, Turlock, just
south of like, in betweenSacramento and Fresno, A small
town of 30,000 people, Not a lotof people, Very conservative,
very just farming town, not alot of exposure to people
(03:28):
outside of the people aroundthem.
And I look back and it was apretty diverse area because
there was a lot of Hispanic,there was a lot of Armenian,
Portuguese.
Everyone came to the US at thattime.
It was a big influx of people.
So it really was a variety ofpeople.
But some reason, like Iranians,were just new to that area and
(03:50):
it took a while.
And I think over the next 10years, throughout the 80s, the
population grew, More and morepeople left Iran and more and
more people gathered intoTurlock.
So it definitely got betterover the next 10 years.
But when we first arrived in1980, there weren't a lot of
families like us.
I was five or six At that point.
After living in Greece for ayear, I had learned how to speak
(04:11):
Greek pretty fluently.
My brother was in high schooland he pretty much told me don't
tell anyone you're from Iran,just tell them you're from
Greece, you speak Greek, becauseit's going to be a lot easier
for you.
You tell a five-year-old goingto school don't tell them what
you are, tell them somethingelse.
Is it great, it sticks with youfor a very long time.
(04:31):
So you're closeting thatportion of yourself and then it
turns out I'm gay.
But then you have anothercloset you have to form.
So you end up very, you know,isolated and learning to
compartmentalize very early onwasn't easy.
And there's a lot of others youknow, Assyrians, people from
around the area, and it was okay.
But still I never really talkedabout it.
(04:52):
I never really talked about itwith anyone until I went to
college.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
So when I met you in college, we knew you were
Assyrian.
You seemed comfortable at thatpoint.
But was that the like you weresaying?
Was that the jumping off pointwhere you were finally like all
right, this is who I am?
Speaker 1 (05:05):
culturally, yeah, and it kind of happened around the
same time I came out.
Freshman year in college, Ifinally came out and told people
I was gay and at the same timeI was like and I'm also from
Iran and I'm a Syrian, and forsome reason that was less of a
problem and I was surrounded bypeople all my friends that were
(05:26):
just so accepting, so warm, thatrealized like, oh, it's not an
issue and, if anything, it makesme different and unique and
everyone is different and uniquein their ways.
And it was easy at that point,it was great, it was the best
environment to be in.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
It's interesting that you talk about the
compartmentalization, because asan individual, you are very
specific about how you approachthings, and we're sitting in
your office right now,surrounded by Star Wars toys,
but walls are full of post-itnotes that are very specifically
color-coded and veryspecifically focused on how you
(06:06):
want to approach things.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
It's a Japanese method of keeping tasks in order
, called a Kanban board, andeverything is color-coded in
post-its and you move them frombox to box as tasks kind of get
completed.
Organization gives me comfort.
Compartmentalizing, puttingthings in boxes, keeping things
neat and tidy in a physicalspace as well as a mental space,
(06:28):
for sure give me comfort andgive me a way to control a
situation.
Now there'scompartmentalization where you
know in a positive way is great.
Compartmentalization in anegative way is tough, like
bubbling up emotions.
You know it's in a positive wayis great.
Compartmentalization in anegative way is tough, like
bubbling up emotions, hidingyourself.
Those things are negative and Iluckily, over 30 years I've
(06:53):
gotten better at not doing that.
And the compartmentalizing andcleaning, keeping things tidy in
a physical space or where it'spositive, is the key.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
So when we were in college, you studied science and
art history.
Why science and why art history?
Why were those things of mostinterest to you?
Speaker 1 (07:16):
The science.
It's twofold One.
It was just incrediblyinteresting to me, was just easy
for me to pick up.
And the second part of it waswe came to the US with zero
money.
I grew up very poor, and inorder to advance in life I had
to have money.
I grew up where my mom was like, if you're not a lawyer, doctor
(07:40):
, engineer in Iran, you're justa failure.
And it was pushed upon me that,like you know, my dad was a
chemical engineer and so I hadto be that too and I had to get
my PhD.
It only made sense.
Anything short of that was afailure.
And so, and science, I actuallydid like it.
(08:01):
It wasn't like I was pushedinto it.
I really, really, reallyenjoyed it and so I did it.
It was easy.
I started off with just regularbiological sciences and quickly
made it on to molecular geneticsand that's what I studied in
undergrad.
And then the art history wasjust another thing that was so
interesting to me.
It was just history in thecontext of art and how society
(08:25):
moves around, and it was one ofthose things that I just I
really enjoyed the art historyclasses and I just in undergrad
you know you have to take allthese courses in all the various
areas of your electives, and Ikept picking the art history
classes as I was going through,just because I thought they were
interesting in each categorythe art history classes as I was
going through, just because Ithought they were interesting in
each category.
And two years in I realized,wow, I've like fulfilled most of
(08:46):
the requirements for getting abachelor's of art in art history
.
And so I just continued it,thinking like well, I'm already
here doing my bachelor's ofscience in genetic engineering,
let me just get it for arthistory as well.
It felt like a really goodbalance.
That was the most importantthing for me.
I really enjoyed the scienceand that challenged one part of
my brain and the art history wasjust helped and challenged the
other part of the brain.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
When you were in college, you didn't really talk
a lot about what you wanted todo.
You talk about things that youdo every day or things you had
to study, but you never reallytalked about like, here are the
things that I want to do.
And you had this path in yourhead about PhD, which I don't
recall you articulating thatthat much.
But then you went, yougraduated, you got your two
(09:29):
degrees and then you were atStanford and what were you
studying there?
Speaker 1 (09:34):
I was in the PhD program to get my PhD in
genetics.
It's a funny thing.
I never really planned to bewhere I am.
I just did what I liked and Ifocused hard on what I was doing
at the moment rather thanhaving this grand plan, because
every time I've had this verybig plan.
(09:54):
It doesn't really work that way.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
Explain that to me, give me an example.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
Explain that to me.
Give me an example From when Iwas a kid.
We were supposed to be in Iran.
Well, that plan didn't work.
We had to come here.
We were in Turlock.
We didn't have money Anytime.
You had this grand plan of 10,15 years.
It was just hard.
So I learned very early on itwas more goal-oriented than
having a specific plan.
So it was a goal, a goal of Ienjoy science, I want to have a
(10:23):
career in science.
Let me just do what I'm doingat the moment really well and
let it lead to the way it'sgoing to go.
And I let things just lead oneafter another, based on what
interested me at the moment,where things went.
Actually, when I was startedoff college I was going to be a
doctor and then quickly Irealized no, I'm not going to
(10:44):
work because I couldn't evenstand being in an emergency room
.
I was so grossed out byeverything.
And then I found geneticmolecular genetics was like wow,
the lab work is so cool, it'sso interesting, and I quickly
switched to that so that mademore sense.
So that's kind of like that'swhat I mean Like I started off
with a goal and having some formof science and then letting
(11:05):
kind of as my interests evolved,moving towards it.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
You let it breathe yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
And rather than sticking with a particular plan
whether or not it worked or not,but that was the plan I'm not
going to change from this plan.
That's where I found it didn'twork Like you got to, you got to
ad lib, I think, being goaloriented and, I guess, being
creative in that goal.
You always talk aboutcreativity being important, but
knowing that it's not a singularline, it weaves and being open
(11:32):
to experiences and beingcreative in those experiences
and how you respond to thoseexperiences, that's the key.
I mean, if you want to talkabout creativity and that and
being goal oriented rather thanplan oriented, I just kind of
went with the flow.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
Which is funny, because you don't appear like a
flow.
I'm not a flow person.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
I pivoted in ways that to me don't seem like
pivots.
But other people are like whatare you doing?
But to me it didn't feel likesuch a big pivot.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
Are you similar to your siblings in that way, or
are they planners?
Speaker 1 (12:03):
No, they are planners .
They are planners, they don'tdiverge from the plan and I
think because I was so young andwe were forced to kind of ad
lib, forced to leave Iran, cometo the US, so there's like a 10,
12 and 13 year gap between meand my other siblings, so they
were all out of the house by thetime.
I was like eight years old andI was just me and my other
siblings, so they were all outof the house by the time.
I was like eight years old andI was just me and my mom and I
(12:26):
just had to kind of ad lib to acertain extent and that was okay
and you kind of learn strengthin that.
So have a goal, but be open toedits and changes.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
So Stanford PhD you're approaching the PhD
program and you pivot and youget your master's and then you
decide, oh, I'm going to go tolaw school.
Where did that come from?
Speaker 1 (12:46):
Yeah, I was in my PhD program and kind of not jiving
here I was.
I really enjoyed it, but then Ididn't really see myself
becoming a professor.
That didn't do it for me andthen just doing the research.
While I enjoyed it, I couldn'tsee myself in a whole life of it
.
And then the genetics departmentat Stanford is right above the
medical school, and so there wasa medical school cafe right
(13:08):
underneath that.
We would always go to lunch andI went down there and there was
this poster that said what todo with your PhD, a panel
discussion.
So I'm like, well, I'll go tothat.
I went to it and there was abunch of different kind of
people post-science careers,like there was a person who
worked in the corporate world,there was a person who worked in
licensing and there was apatent attorney, and so they all
talked about alternative pathsfor people who are in science
(13:32):
and being.
You know me, I was like, oh,that sounds really cool, really
interesting.
I want to learn more aboutpatent law.
And so, while still continuinggrad school, I took a paralegal
course at Berkeley to get myparalegal certificate because I
wanted to see whether I liked itand it was like had nothing to
do with factual law patent lawbut I wanted to see what it was
(13:53):
and then I took a few courses atStanford Law School trying to
understand what it.
And that's what helped them themost, because I realized, wow,
this is really neat, it's a newapplication of science.
So I talked to my advisor andwas like I'm not going to
continue with my PhD.
She was great in helping me atleast get a master's degree from
Stanford and I applied for lawschool and ended up going to law
(14:18):
school at Syracuse because theygave me a pretty hefty
scholarship to go there.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
Yeah, that's great.
One of the things you've talkedto me about before is when you
went to law school, it changedyour brain and how you approach
things and how you think aboutthings.
So how did that change yourthought processes?
What was there?
Speaker 1 (14:37):
It gives you a level of critical thinking and
question asking that I justhadn't experienced before, and
looking at one, spotting issuesand then doing the critical
analysis from both angles.
That's what you learn in lawschool.
I mean, you can take a bunch ofclasses, but it really boils
down to those two things issuespotting and the critical
analysis from both sides.
(14:58):
And I think that was a newlevel of thinking for me,
because in science you have atheory, you have a question and
you do research trying to answerit.
Either you answer it in apositive or negative way.
It's a singular straight path.
Lawyering is a little different.
You have facts in front of you,you identify an issue and then
(15:18):
you try to figure it out.
So it's kind of like backwardsforwards, backwards, forwards
and understanding.
And I feel like that, inaddition to scientific thinking,
was combining those two wasreally fascinating for me, and
which is what I do today.
I mean, I'm a patent attorney.
I help inventors get patents ontheir inventions, mostly in
biotech, chemical and medicaldevice inventions.
(15:39):
They do the research, they havean invention, or they identify
something they've answered andthey come to me and they're like
well, this is great, we'veidentified this, and I work with
them trying to understand okay,how does this translate into a
invention and how does ittranslate into, like a
commercial embodiment, so what?
You've identified this linkbetween this protein and this
receptor.
What does that mean?
(16:01):
Oh well, it helps reduce cancercell growth.
So once somebody has identifieda link between those two things,
it can lead on to a wholeseries of inventions.
Like you can screen for acompound and see does that
compound block thatcommunication and therefore
blocking the cancer cell growth.
So that's a very simplified oneexample.
(16:24):
But like trying to find asituation like that where an
inventor has found something andI work with them trying to pull
out what the invention is,trying to find out how does this
help you start a company or alicensee, how they can take that
and commercialize it.
So it's that they've done thelinear thinking.
(16:45):
I come in after the fact.
Look at it, spot issues, try todevelop a story all the way
around that item.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
So do you think that the improvisation stuff that you
had to do as a kid helped yoube a scientist but also see
outside of the science?
Because scientists you knowpeople who are very focused in
their careers can get very inthe weeds and they can't look up
and see anything else.
Do you think that helped you?
In addition, Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
Yeah, that was.
That was exactly it.
I'm still in science.
I may not be doing the science,but I'm still heavily involved
in science.
I work with scientists everyday, researchers and just to go
back to that, a little bit likewhen I told my mother I wasn't
going to continue my PhD and Iwas going to become a lawyer,
she was just not too thrilledabout that.
She was just like, why wouldyou just change?
(17:34):
Again?
Going back to my siblings andmy mom you know they're very
singular path and have a planand don't deviate from that plan
.
And for me it was more like thegoal is to be in science, the
goal is to be with scientists.
Now, I don't want to do theresearch, but I do want to help
researchers.
If they've already done theresearch, I feel like I'm
(17:56):
working with them.
It's a different way of lookingat it, rather than just the
singular path and goal of likeI'm going to be in science and
that's it.
Even if I don't like it, I'mgoing to still do it because
that's the plan.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
Well, that's the path of like an immigrant mother,
isn't it?
You've gone through such anunstable period.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
You want stability, stability, stability for your
children Right, and you know, alot of my friends were like so
your mom doesn't want you to bea lawyer.
I, jen, I remember you werelike my dad would love it if I
would be.
It's true, yeah, it's weird,isn't it?
But it wasn't just that notbeing a lawyer, it's that like I
had a plan in place.
(18:31):
Why was I not sticking to thatplan?
I'm going to totally deraileverything.
I'm going to pick this new area.
I'm going to backtrack.
It's going to slow me down.
Why not stick with the plan Ialready have?
Well, but I am sticking to thegoal.
It's not the same plan.
The path might be different,but I'm going to enjoy it more,
(18:52):
and you know I do.
I really enjoy my work.
I really, really enjoy it.
I don't know if I could say thesame if I was doing like bench
research.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
Yeah, totally.
You know.
The moment I knew you became alawyer is when you came home and
we were in a parking garage andyou looked at the thing on the
wall where it says we're notresponsible for the stolen items
in your vehicle and you saidthat's not a negotiated contract
, so that's not valid.
And I said okay.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
Yeah, that's what every law student they get that
point.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
They get annoying.
So you came out of law school.
I mean, how do you go aboutfinding a job as a lawyer?
Speaker 1 (19:30):
My career.
There's a lot of people wantingwhat I know and at the time and
you know this was 22 years agothere were not many people who
had a law degree and a sciencebackground.
So patent attorneys were highlycoveted.
Getting a job was not thatdifficult.
The key was finding a placethat I liked, that felt like it
was a bunch of ex-scientiststhat are attorneys and that's
(19:54):
kind of how I always saw myself.
Not that I was an attorneyfirst, I was a scientist.
Not that I was an attorneyfirst, I was a scientist first.
That is now an attorney workingwith scientists.
And I wanted to find a placethat had that same kind of vibe,
not a big law firm that is onlyfocused on attorneys.
So that's why I'm at.
You know I've been at the sameboutique firm since 2001.
(20:14):
I'm a partner now.
I've been at the same boutiquefirm since 2001.
I'm a partner now.
It's great.
It's the same mentality, samevibe.
Everyone is the same type ofperspective on what they do and
what they are.
You went to a bigger firm for alittle bit.
I did and I quickly realized,yeah, this isn't for me.
I went to a very largemultinational firm with a lot of
(20:35):
offices and a lot of people andrealized, yeah, this isn't what
I want to be.
I want to be with otherscientists.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
When it comes to, I mean, you got the law job, you
went to the boutique firm, youwent to the bigger firm, you
went back.
How do you become a partner?
Speaker 1 (20:49):
If you had told me in like undergrad, oh, you're
going to be a partner at a lawfirm one day, I would have
laughed there's no way, that'snot me.
I'm not that type of person.
I had a very fixed image ofwhat that type of person would
be from movies.
I was not going to be thatperson and it's just kind of one
thing led to another.
I became successful.
I have very good clients, I'mgood at what I do.
(21:10):
My client base grewsignificantly and then I just
continued on with what I wasjust in front of me.
The option to become a partnercame up and I became a partner
and I became an equity partnerand co-owner of the firm and I
manage people.
I would have never thought I'dbe in this place at all.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
Yeah, didn't you go to the Hague at one point?
Speaker 1 (21:34):
I did so.
I work a lot with Europeanpatent attorneys, and so in
Europe there's a process calledopposition practice, so once a
patent issues, somebody can comeout and say, no, that shouldn't
have issued, it's invalid.
And so I've had several patentsfor my clients where I've had
to go to the Hague and argueagainst that, and in Europe in
Munich.
So the European Patent Officeis headquartered in Munich and
(21:55):
in the Hague, and so, dependingon what cases you get, go to
different organizations.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
So now you're successful.
Speaker 1 (22:13):
You have a wonderful husband, you have beautiful
homes, you're a successfulattorney.
So what do you do now?
I know there's no plan, butwhat are the things that you
really like that really feed you?
For the longest time we livedin San Francisco and we're very
focused on an urban life andduring COVID that kind of really
changed Working from home,being remote and really enjoying
not going into the officephysically but being at home and
so we ended up getting a placeup in wine country up here in
Sonoma County, and now it's likeI work.
(22:34):
But there's so much gardening todo, there's so much outdoors
work to do.
There's fun things that blow mymom's brain, like that.
I'm canning tomatoes and makingtomato paste and she just kind
of looks at me like we left Iranso you didn't have to do this.
Why are you doing this?
You can buy all the stuff inthe store.
Why are you in God's namemaking tomato paste?
(22:57):
But it's it's a whole newchallenge.
It's like this new thing for meto to kind of explore that I
feel like I've conquered what Ido with with my career, my
patent law not that I want tostop doing it.
I love it, I'm really enjoyingit.
But the new challenge for me iskind of this whole lifestyle of
(23:18):
being a homesteader, gardening,just being outdoors with nature
.
It's a whole different thingthan in the urban kind of city
10 years ago.
If you would have said you'regoing to move to the country, I
would again laugh in your face.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
If you could give anybody advice.
Let's just say there's a youngkid, there's a young any young
gay kid from the Middle East.
What advice would you give them?
Oh, boy.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
I, you know it's.
The world is so in one.
In some ways it's better, a lotbetter.
In some ways it's not thatgreat right now.
What's what's better is thatthe access to information and
access to find your people thatwe have now is great.
Go out, find people who arekind of similar, who have
(24:06):
experienced similar things, andreach out.
Stay goal oriented, not planoriented, and just this is
cheesy, but just know it alwaysgets better, it just does and
surround yourself with peoplewho love you and who accept you
in exactly the way you are.
That's what did it for me.
Going to college and meeting mycore group of friends freshman
(24:28):
year you included.
There was maybe like what 10 ofus, 10, 12 of us that are still
my close friends today.
If it wasn't for those people,I would.
I don't know what would happen.
I would not be where I am.
There's a level of comfort Iachieved by having those people
around me that allowed me to bewho I am, and without them I
(24:52):
couldn't have done it.
Well, I love you and thank youfor doing this with me today.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
I appreciate it.
Well, I love you and thank youfor doing this with me today.
I appreciate it.
Thank you, and I am JenCoronado.
(25:13):
Everyone Is is a slightlydisappointed productions
production Dropping every otherThursday.
Wherever podcasts are available, make sure to rate and review,
and maybe even like andsubscribe.
Thank you for listening.
It's a funny thing.
I never really planned to bewhere I am.
I just did what I liked and Ifocused hard on what I was doing
at the moment rather thanhaving this grand plan, because
every time I've had this verybig plan.
It doesn't really work that way.
My name is Eddie Baba and I'm apatent attorney.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Hello and welcome to Everyone Is.
I am your host, jenniferCoronado.
The intent of this show is toengage with all types of people
and build an understanding thatanyone who has any kind of
success has achieved thatsuccess because they are a
creative thinker.
So, whether you are an artistor a cook or an award-winning
journalist, everyone hassomething to contribute to the
(00:44):
human conversation.
And now, as they say on withthe show, welcome to Everyone Is
.
I am talking to a friend ofmine who's been a friend of mine
for going over 30 years, whichis a long time.
I know you were like why do youwant to talk to me?
Because you have a reallyinteresting story and I wonder
(01:06):
if you could talk about thatjourney, because it was with
your mother and your siblings.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
I was born about a month after my father passed
away, so it was just my mom, meand my three siblings.
And in 79, the revolutionstarted.
My brother was 15, going on 16,and I was about five, and so it
was a real big focus for my momto get him out of the country
(01:31):
so he doesn't get pulled intothe revolution.
So middle of the night she justdecided we're going to leave
and go to Greece and file for apolitical asylum and come to the
US, because at that point mymom's sister was living here in
the US.
And here we are I have afive-year-old, a 15-year-old.
(01:51):
My mom, my sisters stayedbehind to kind of sell off
anything that they could selloff, and then they met us in
Greece about a month later.
We were in Greece for about ayear until we got approval to
come to the US under politicalasylum.
It was a really rough time.
We came right around the timethe hostages were taken in the
(02:13):
embassy in Iran, and to come tothe US as a refugee from a
country that was not at thattime seen as very friendly to
the US was not the easiest thingin the world.
One of the main reasons we camewas.
You know, I grew up Christianand we loved Iran.
Iran was great.
(02:33):
There's a lot of Assyrianpeople that live in Iran and the
revolution was the IslamicRevolution and it was taking it
from a really secular country toa very overly religious country
that was not friendly to notjust Christians but Zoroastrians
, hindi, anybody who was notMuslim, and it just was a really
(02:55):
rough time.
So a lot of people left andeven a lot of Muslims left that
didn't want to be living underan Islamic state.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
Where did your family relocate after Greece?
Speaker 1 (03:05):
Yeah well, Central Valley, Central Valley of
California, Very conservativefarming town, Turlock, just
south of like, in betweenSacramento and Fresno, A small
town of 30,000 people, Not a lotof people, Very conservative,
very just farming town, not alot of exposure to people
(03:28):
outside of the people aroundthem.
And I look back and it was apretty diverse area because
there was a lot of Hispanic,there was a lot of Armenian,
Portuguese.
Everyone came to the US at thattime.
It was a big influx of people.
So it really was a variety ofpeople.
But some reason, like Iranians,were just new to that area and
(03:50):
it took a while.
And I think over the next 10years, throughout the 80s, the
population grew, More and morepeople left Iran and more and
more people gathered intoTurlock.
So it definitely got betterover the next 10 years.
But when we first arrived in1980, there weren't a lot of
families like us.
I was five or six At that point.
After living in Greece for ayear, I had learned how to speak
(04:11):
Greek pretty fluently.
My brother was in high schooland he pretty much told me don't
tell anyone you're from Iran,just tell them you're from
Greece, you speak Greek, becauseit's going to be a lot easier
for you.
You tell a five-year-old goingto school don't tell them what
you are, tell them somethingelse.
Is it great, it sticks with youfor a very long time.
(04:31):
So you're closeting thatportion of yourself and then it
turns out I'm gay.
But then you have anothercloset you have to form.
So you end up very, you know,isolated and learning to
compartmentalize very early onwasn't easy.
And there's a lot of others youknow, Assyrians, people from
around the area, and it was okay.
But still I never really talkedabout it.
(04:52):
I never really talked about itwith anyone until I went to
college.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
So when I met you in college, we knew you were
Assyrian.
You seemed comfortable at thatpoint.
But was that the like you weresaying?
Was that the jumping off pointwhere you were finally like all
right, this is who I am?
Speaker 1 (05:05):
culturally, yeah, and it kind of happened around the
same time I came out.
Freshman year in college, Ifinally came out and told people
I was gay and at the same timeI was like and I'm also from
Iran and I'm a Syrian, and forsome reason that was less of a
problem and I was surrounded bypeople all my friends that were
(05:26):
just so accepting, so warm, thatrealized like, oh, it's not an
issue and, if anything, it makesme different and unique and
everyone is different and uniquein their ways.
And it was easy at that point,it was great, it was the best
environment to be in.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
It's interesting that you talk about the
compartmentalization, because asan individual, you are very
specific about how you approachthings, and we're sitting in
your office right now,surrounded by Star Wars toys,
but walls are full of post-itnotes that are very specifically
color-coded and veryspecifically focused on how you
(06:06):
want to approach things.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
It's a Japanese method of keeping tasks in order
, called a Kanban board, andeverything is color-coded in
post-its and you move them frombox to box as tasks kind of get
completed.
Organization gives me comfort.
Compartmentalizing, puttingthings in boxes, keeping things
neat and tidy in a physicalspace as well as a mental space,
(06:28):
for sure give me comfort andgive me a way to control a
situation.
Now there'scompartmentalization where you
know in a positive way is great.
Compartmentalization in anegative way is tough, like
bubbling up emotions.
You know it's in a positive wayis great.
Compartmentalization in anegative way is tough, like
bubbling up emotions, hidingyourself.
Those things are negative and Iluckily, over 30 years I've
(06:53):
gotten better at not doing that.
And the compartmentalizing andcleaning, keeping things tidy in
a physical space or where it'spositive, is the key.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
So when we were in college, you studied science and
art history.
Why science and why art history?
Why were those things of mostinterest to you?
Speaker 1 (07:16):
The science.
It's twofold One.
It was just incrediblyinteresting to me, was just easy
for me to pick up.
And the second part of it waswe came to the US with zero
money.
I grew up very poor, and inorder to advance in life I had
to have money.
I grew up where my mom was like, if you're not a lawyer, doctor
(07:40):
, engineer in Iran, you're justa failure.
And it was pushed upon me that,like you know, my dad was a
chemical engineer and so I hadto be that too and I had to get
my PhD.
It only made sense.
Anything short of that was afailure.
And so, and science, I actuallydid like it.
(08:01):
It wasn't like I was pushedinto it.
I really, really, reallyenjoyed it and so I did it.
It was easy.
I started off with just regularbiological sciences and quickly
made it on to molecular geneticsand that's what I studied in
undergrad.
And then the art history wasjust another thing that was so
interesting to me.
It was just history in thecontext of art and how society
(08:25):
moves around, and it was one ofthose things that I just I
really enjoyed the art historyclasses and I just in undergrad
you know you have to take allthese courses in all the various
areas of your electives, and Ikept picking the art history
classes as I was going through,just because I thought they were
interesting in each categorythe art history classes as I was
going through, just because Ithought they were interesting in
each category.
And two years in I realized,wow, I've like fulfilled most of
(08:46):
the requirements for getting abachelor's of art in art history
.
And so I just continued it,thinking like well, I'm already
here doing my bachelor's ofscience in genetic engineering,
let me just get it for arthistory as well.
It felt like a really goodbalance.
That was the most importantthing for me.
I really enjoyed the scienceand that challenged one part of
my brain and the art history wasjust helped and challenged the
other part of the brain.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
When you were in college, you didn't really talk
a lot about what you wanted todo.
You talk about things that youdo every day or things you had
to study, but you never reallytalked about like, here are the
things that I want to do.
And you had this path in yourhead about PhD, which I don't
recall you articulating thatthat much.
But then you went, yougraduated, you got your two
(09:29):
degrees and then you were atStanford and what were you
studying there?
Speaker 1 (09:34):
I was in the PhD program to get my PhD in
genetics.
It's a funny thing.
I never really planned to bewhere I am.
I just did what I liked and Ifocused hard on what I was doing
at the moment rather thanhaving this grand plan, because
every time I've had this verybig plan.
(09:54):
It doesn't really work that way.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
Explain that to me, give me an example.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
Explain that to me.
Give me an example From when Iwas a kid.
We were supposed to be in Iran.
Well, that plan didn't work.
We had to come here.
We were in Turlock.
We didn't have money Anytime.
You had this grand plan of 10,15 years.
It was just hard.
So I learned very early on itwas more goal-oriented than
having a specific plan.
So it was a goal, a goal of Ienjoy science, I want to have a
(10:23):
career in science.
Let me just do what I'm doingat the moment really well and
let it lead to the way it'sgoing to go.
And I let things just lead oneafter another, based on what
interested me at the moment,where things went.
Actually, when I was startedoff college I was going to be a
doctor and then quickly Irealized no, I'm not going to
(10:44):
work because I couldn't evenstand being in an emergency room
.
I was so grossed out byeverything.
And then I found geneticmolecular genetics was like wow,
the lab work is so cool, it'sso interesting, and I quickly
switched to that so that mademore sense.
So that's kind of like that'swhat I mean Like I started off
with a goal and having some formof science and then letting
(11:05):
kind of as my interests evolved,moving towards it.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
You let it breathe yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
And rather than sticking with a particular plan
whether or not it worked or not,but that was the plan I'm not
going to change from this plan.
That's where I found it didn'twork Like you got to, you got to
ad lib, I think, being goaloriented and, I guess, being
creative in that goal.
You always talk aboutcreativity being important, but
knowing that it's not a singularline, it weaves and being open
(11:32):
to experiences and beingcreative in those experiences
and how you respond to thoseexperiences, that's the key.
I mean, if you want to talkabout creativity and that and
being goal oriented rather thanplan oriented, I just kind of
went with the flow.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
Which is funny, because you don't appear like a
flow.
I'm not a flow person.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
I pivoted in ways that to me don't seem like
pivots.
But other people are like whatare you doing?
But to me it didn't feel likesuch a big pivot.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
Are you similar to your siblings in that way, or
are they planners?
Speaker 1 (12:03):
No, they are planners .
They are planners, they don'tdiverge from the plan and I
think because I was so young andwe were forced to kind of ad
lib, forced to leave Iran, cometo the US, so there's like a 10,
12 and 13 year gap between meand my other siblings, so they
were all out of the house by thetime.
I was like eight years old andI was just me and my other
siblings, so they were all outof the house by the time.
I was like eight years old andI was just me and my mom and I
(12:26):
just had to kind of ad lib to acertain extent and that was okay
and you kind of learn strengthin that.
So have a goal, but be open toedits and changes.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
So Stanford PhD you're approaching the PhD
program and you pivot and youget your master's and then you
decide, oh, I'm going to go tolaw school.
Where did that come from?
Speaker 1 (12:46):
Yeah, I was in my PhD program and kind of not jiving
here I was.
I really enjoyed it, but then Ididn't really see myself
becoming a professor.
That didn't do it for me andthen just doing the research.
While I enjoyed it, I couldn'tsee myself in a whole life of it
.
And then the genetics departmentat Stanford is right above the
medical school, and so there wasa medical school cafe right
(13:08):
underneath that.
We would always go to lunch andI went down there and there was
this poster that said what todo with your PhD, a panel
discussion.
So I'm like, well, I'll go tothat.
I went to it and there was abunch of different kind of
people post-science careers,like there was a person who
worked in the corporate world,there was a person who worked in
licensing and there was apatent attorney, and so they all
talked about alternative pathsfor people who are in science
(13:32):
and being.
You know me, I was like, oh,that sounds really cool, really
interesting.
I want to learn more aboutpatent law.
And so, while still continuinggrad school, I took a paralegal
course at Berkeley to get myparalegal certificate because I
wanted to see whether I liked itand it was like had nothing to
do with factual law patent lawbut I wanted to see what it was
(13:53):
and then I took a few courses atStanford Law School trying to
understand what it.
And that's what helped them themost, because I realized, wow,
this is really neat, it's a newapplication of science.
So I talked to my advisor andwas like I'm not going to
continue with my PhD.
She was great in helping me atleast get a master's degree from
Stanford and I applied for lawschool and ended up going to law
(14:18):
school at Syracuse because theygave me a pretty hefty
scholarship to go there.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
Yeah, that's great.
One of the things you've talkedto me about before is when you
went to law school, it changedyour brain and how you approach
things and how you think aboutthings.
So how did that change yourthought processes?
What was there?
Speaker 1 (14:37):
It gives you a level of critical thinking and
question asking that I justhadn't experienced before, and
looking at one, spotting issuesand then doing the critical
analysis from both angles.
That's what you learn in lawschool.
I mean, you can take a bunch ofclasses, but it really boils
down to those two things issuespotting and the critical
analysis from both sides.
(14:58):
And I think that was a newlevel of thinking for me,
because in science you have atheory, you have a question and
you do research trying to answerit.
Either you answer it in apositive or negative way.
It's a singular straight path.
Lawyering is a little different.
You have facts in front of you,you identify an issue and then
(15:18):
you try to figure it out.
So it's kind of like backwardsforwards, backwards, forwards
and understanding.
And I feel like that, inaddition to scientific thinking,
was combining those two wasreally fascinating for me, and
which is what I do today.
I mean, I'm a patent attorney.
I help inventors get patents ontheir inventions, mostly in
biotech, chemical and medicaldevice inventions.
(15:39):
They do the research, they havean invention, or they identify
something they've answered andthey come to me and they're like
well, this is great, we'veidentified this, and I work with
them trying to understand okay,how does this translate into a
invention and how does ittranslate into, like a
commercial embodiment, so what?
You've identified this linkbetween this protein and this
receptor.
What does that mean?
(16:01):
Oh well, it helps reduce cancercell growth.
So once somebody has identifieda link between those two things,
it can lead on to a wholeseries of inventions.
Like you can screen for acompound and see does that
compound block thatcommunication and therefore
blocking the cancer cell growth.
So that's a very simplified oneexample.
(16:24):
But like trying to find asituation like that where an
inventor has found something andI work with them trying to pull
out what the invention is,trying to find out how does this
help you start a company or alicensee, how they can take that
and commercialize it.
So it's that they've done thelinear thinking.
(16:45):
I come in after the fact.
Look at it, spot issues, try todevelop a story all the way
around that item.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
So do you think that the improvisation stuff that you
had to do as a kid helped yoube a scientist but also see
outside of the science?
Because scientists you knowpeople who are very focused in
their careers can get very inthe weeds and they can't look up
and see anything else.
Do you think that helped you?
In addition, Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
Yeah, that was.
That was exactly it.
I'm still in science.
I may not be doing the science,but I'm still heavily involved
in science.
I work with scientists everyday, researchers and just to go
back to that, a little bit likewhen I told my mother I wasn't
going to continue my PhD and Iwas going to become a lawyer,
she was just not too thrilledabout that.
She was just like, why wouldyou just change?
(17:34):
Again?
Going back to my siblings andmy mom you know they're very
singular path and have a planand don't deviate from that plan
.
And for me it was more like thegoal is to be in science, the
goal is to be with scientists.
Now, I don't want to do theresearch, but I do want to help
researchers.
If they've already done theresearch, I feel like I'm
(17:56):
working with them.
It's a different way of lookingat it, rather than just the
singular path and goal of likeI'm going to be in science and
that's it.
Even if I don't like it, I'mgoing to still do it because
that's the plan.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
Well, that's the path of like an immigrant mother,
isn't it?
You've gone through such anunstable period.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
You want stability, stability, stability for your
children Right, and you know, alot of my friends were like so
your mom doesn't want you to bea lawyer.
I, jen, I remember you werelike my dad would love it if I
would be.
It's true, yeah, it's weird,isn't it?
But it wasn't just that notbeing a lawyer, it's that like I
had a plan in place.
(18:31):
Why was I not sticking to thatplan?
I'm going to totally deraileverything.
I'm going to pick this new area.
I'm going to backtrack.
It's going to slow me down.
Why not stick with the plan Ialready have?
Well, but I am sticking to thegoal.
It's not the same plan.
The path might be different,but I'm going to enjoy it more,
(18:52):
and you know I do.
I really enjoy my work.
I really, really enjoy it.
I don't know if I could say thesame if I was doing like bench
research.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
Yeah, totally.
You know.
The moment I knew you became alawyer is when you came home and
we were in a parking garage andyou looked at the thing on the
wall where it says we're notresponsible for the stolen items
in your vehicle and you saidthat's not a negotiated contract
, so that's not valid.
And I said okay.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
Yeah, that's what every law student they get that
point.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
They get annoying.
So you came out of law school.
I mean, how do you go aboutfinding a job as a lawyer?
Speaker 1 (19:30):
My career.
There's a lot of people wantingwhat I know and at the time and
you know this was 22 years agothere were not many people who
had a law degree and a sciencebackground.
So patent attorneys were highlycoveted.
Getting a job was not thatdifficult.
The key was finding a placethat I liked, that felt like it
was a bunch of ex-scientiststhat are attorneys and that's
(19:54):
kind of how I always saw myself.
Not that I was an attorneyfirst, I was a scientist.
Not that I was an attorneyfirst, I was a scientist first.
That is now an attorney workingwith scientists.
And I wanted to find a placethat had that same kind of vibe,
not a big law firm that is onlyfocused on attorneys.
So that's why I'm at.
You know I've been at the sameboutique firm since 2001.
(20:14):
I'm a partner now.
I've been at the same boutiquefirm since 2001.
I'm a partner now.
It's great.
It's the same mentality, samevibe.
Everyone is the same type ofperspective on what they do and
what they are.
You went to a bigger firm for alittle bit.
I did and I quickly realized,yeah, this isn't for me.
I went to a very largemultinational firm with a lot of
(20:35):
offices and a lot of people andrealized, yeah, this isn't what
I want to be.
I want to be with otherscientists.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
When it comes to, I mean, you got the law job, you
went to the boutique firm, youwent to the bigger firm, you
went back.
How do you become a partner?
Speaker 1 (20:49):
If you had told me in like undergrad, oh, you're
going to be a partner at a lawfirm one day, I would have
laughed there's no way, that'snot me.
I'm not that type of person.
I had a very fixed image ofwhat that type of person would
be from movies.
I was not going to be thatperson and it's just kind of one
thing led to another.
I became successful.
I have very good clients, I'mgood at what I do.
(21:10):
My client base grewsignificantly and then I just
continued on with what I wasjust in front of me.
The option to become a partnercame up and I became a partner
and I became an equity partnerand co-owner of the firm and I
manage people.
I would have never thought I'dbe in this place at all.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
Yeah, didn't you go to the Hague at one point?
Speaker 1 (21:34):
I did so.
I work a lot with Europeanpatent attorneys, and so in
Europe there's a process calledopposition practice, so once a
patent issues, somebody can comeout and say, no, that shouldn't
have issued, it's invalid.
And so I've had several patentsfor my clients where I've had
to go to the Hague and argueagainst that, and in Europe in
Munich.
So the European Patent Officeis headquartered in Munich and
(21:55):
in the Hague, and so, dependingon what cases you get, go to
different organizations.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
So now you're successful.
Speaker 1 (22:13):
You have a wonderful husband, you have beautiful
homes, you're a successfulattorney.
So what do you do now?
I know there's no plan, butwhat are the things that you
really like that really feed you?
For the longest time we livedin San Francisco and we're very
focused on an urban life andduring COVID that kind of really
changed Working from home,being remote and really enjoying
not going into the officephysically but being at home and
so we ended up getting a placeup in wine country up here in
Sonoma County, and now it's likeI work.
(22:34):
But there's so much gardening todo, there's so much outdoors
work to do.
There's fun things that blow mymom's brain, like that.
I'm canning tomatoes and makingtomato paste and she just kind
of looks at me like we left Iranso you didn't have to do this.
Why are you doing this?
You can buy all the stuff inthe store.
Why are you in God's namemaking tomato paste?
(22:57):
But it's it's a whole newchallenge.
It's like this new thing for meto to kind of explore that I
feel like I've conquered what Ido with with my career, my
patent law not that I want tostop doing it.
I love it, I'm really enjoyingit.
But the new challenge for me iskind of this whole lifestyle of
(23:18):
being a homesteader, gardening,just being outdoors with nature
.
It's a whole different thingthan in the urban kind of city
10 years ago.
If you would have said you'regoing to move to the country, I
would again laugh in your face.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
If you could give anybody advice.
Let's just say there's a youngkid, there's a young any young
gay kid from the Middle East.
What advice would you give them?
Oh, boy.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
I, you know it's.
The world is so in one.
In some ways it's better, a lotbetter.
In some ways it's not thatgreat right now.
What's what's better is thatthe access to information and
access to find your people thatwe have now is great.
Go out, find people who arekind of similar, who have
(24:06):
experienced similar things, andreach out.
Stay goal oriented, not planoriented, and just this is
cheesy, but just know it alwaysgets better, it just does and
surround yourself with peoplewho love you and who accept you
in exactly the way you are.
That's what did it for me.
Going to college and meeting mycore group of friends freshman
(24:28):
year you included.
There was maybe like what 10 ofus, 10, 12 of us that are still
my close friends today.
If it wasn't for those people,I would.
I don't know what would happen.
I would not be where I am.
There's a level of comfort Iachieved by having those people
around me that allowed me to bewho I am, and without them I
(24:52):
couldn't have done it.
Well, I love you and thank youfor doing this with me today.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
I appreciate it.
Well, I love you and thank youfor doing this with me today.
I appreciate it.
Thank you, and I am JenCoronado.
(25:13):
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