August 24, 2023 • 60 mins
In this episode, our guests discuss the realities of startup life. Ever found yourself pondering about the unwritten rules that shape a company's culture? If yes, then tune in for an enlightening episode with Daniel Renner, Chair of the IEEE Photonic Society Industry Engagement Committee, and Madison Woodson and Stephen Estrella, from Freedom Photonics.
Beyond the nuances of company culture, our guests also share the unique opportunities and benefits that one can only find in a startup environment. Hear firsthand about the broad spectrum of skills and expertise that you can explore and nurture while working at younger company or one founded to develop unique products and services. But it's not all sunshine and rainbows, our guests unravel the challenges and risks that come along with such ventures.
Host:
Daniel Renner
Principal
Atacama Optics & Electronics
Guest Speakers:
Madison Woodson
Photonic Device Engineer
Freedom Photonics, LLC
Stephen Estrella
Director of Business Development
Freedom Photonics, LLC
Have a topic you're interested in hearing about? Let us know!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:36):
Hi, my name is Daniel Renner andI'm the chair of the IEEE
Photonic Society IndustryEngagement Committee, and we're
here today to talk about workingin a startup company.
How does it feel to work in astartup A unique environment and
(01:00):
to do that, I have with me twoyoung engineers that have been
working for several years in astartup and we're looking at
they, sharing their experienceon what has it meant to them to
working in this environment.
(01:21):
We have worked the three of usactually together for many years
, so we know each other fairlywell, and we hope that the
conversation will be of interestin the sense of providing tips,
advice, to other youngengineers that are considering
working in a startup.
The two other people that aregoing to participate in this
(01:46):
conversation are Maddie Woodsonand Stephen Estrella, so I'll
let them introduce themselves.
So, maddie, if you can start tointroduce yourself, that'd be
great.
Speaker 4 (02:00):
Thanks, daniel.
Hi, my name is Maddie Woodson.
I became interested inphotonics sort of towards the
end of my undergraduate studiesand decided that I wanted to
continue studying with a focusin photonics in graduate school.
So I did that at the Universityof Virginia, where I focused on
(02:21):
developing low noise avalanchephotodiads, and as I was
finishing up my degree I cameout to Santa Barbara, california
, to interview with Freedom andstarted just a couple months
later.
So I've now been here about sixyears and I am the technical
lead for a small team ofengineers developing various
(02:41):
photodiad technologies andproducts here at Freedom.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
Great.
Thank you, Maddie Stephen.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
Yeah, thanks, daniel.
My name is Stephen Estrella, alittle bit of a different path
from Maddie.
I actually started at Freedomback in 2009.
I was an intern engineer andgot to grow with the company as
I asked more and more questionsI think I got more and more to
(03:13):
do, which was great Got to learna lot and then, as I went
through my undergraduate degree,became fascinated with
photonics and then, many yearslater, decided to go back to
graduate school and finish thatup, and now I work more on the
(03:35):
business side.
So I'm the director of businessdevelopment and looking forward
to growing the company andstill am fascinated by photonics
.
Speaker 3 (03:48):
Thank you, stephen, that's great.
So where should we start?
Obviously, talking about astartup company involves many
different facets, and I think itwould be interesting to start,
perhaps, on company culture.
This is something that isobviously very important for
(04:14):
everyone involved in the companyand, in many ways, culture can
be quite different in a startupcompared to larger companies or
other organizations, such asuniversities and such.
So maybe the best place wouldbe to start by maybe each one of
(04:41):
you trying to describe what doyou think is company culture and
how is it shaped within anorganization?
Madi.
Speaker 4 (04:57):
Sure, well, I think company culture is this
unwritten, unspoken set ofstandards, I guess, for how the
people within the companyinteract with one another and
also externally, with customersas well.
But I think that culture tendsto be more of an insulator type
(05:18):
thing Generally.
I think that some of this comesfrom the top.
Some of this is what themanagement dictates is how
people will behave within thecompany and what are the
priorities, things like that.
But there's also some culture,I think, that's cultivated in
(05:41):
more of a grassroots way, somethe employees working at the
company, just in the way thatthey interact with each other,
and patterns that tend to arisetend to repeat themselves.
And I think that there's also adegree of we're hiring people
that we enjoy working with andso we're perpetuating the
(06:05):
culture through things like that.
What do you think, seaton?
Speaker 1 (06:11):
Yeah, no, that's great.
When I look at a business, Ithink about what is a business,
and I think it ultimately boilsdown to the people.
You don't have just someautonomous thing kind of running
not yet at least and so itreally requires people to
operate and to do what's neededto run a business.
(06:33):
So when I look at culture, it'svery much embedded with the
people, and I think the culture,ultimately, is one of the
foundations right upon which,hopefully, a successful business
is built upon.
And, depending on, obviously,what you're doing and what that
model is, there's many ways thatthis can work, but I think
(06:55):
successful businesses have agood culture.
And so what is a culture?
I think it's as you describe.
It's how people interacttogether and also with the
business.
I think if you have a good teamand people who work really well
together, chances are you'll bevery successful.
But I think the business itselfalso has to support the people
(07:18):
around that and therefore has tohave some type of guidance as
to how we're going to worktogether, how we're going to
accomplish great things right.
And so, therefore, I thinkculture is how we treat each
other, how we support each other, it's the leadership that's
involved, it's the ability togrow.
(07:39):
It's also ability to makemistakes right.
We have to be able to have thatand still have a supportive
work environment and, of course,to be able to have fun right.
I think good teams also knowhow to have a good time and
support one another just as anyother sports team.
Let's say, you know you've gotto celebrate your wins, you've
(08:02):
got to come together and supporteach other on losses.
So I think culture kind ofencompasses all those pieces
together and good culture isbasically, I think, a result in
very successful companies.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
Yeah, I couldn't agree more on that.
I think that a business canonly be successful in a
traditional way, say by making aprofit I mean, that's the most
traditional way of defining asuccessful business but it can
only be successful in thattraditional way by perhaps a
(08:35):
non-traditional or historicallynot necessarily so traditional
approach of really fostering aculture that is supportive of
the interests of everyoneinvolved and certainly of
everybody working in the company.
And, as you mentioned, in orderto do that, developing a social
(08:56):
network internally by sort ofpromoting activities or making
sure that the environment, theculture, is such that, as you
have mentioned, grass rootactivities are possible and
people feel like that issomething that can be done, is
(09:18):
very important.
So I think it would be reallyinteresting if I know that both
of you have developed some veryspecific grass root activities
that have shaped the culturewithin the company.
So if you can talk specificallyabout that, because I think
those are great ideas orexamples on how a culture can be
(09:39):
affected by individuals and candevelop.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
All right, yeah, I'll take a swimming, I guess.
So I think one activity thatwe've kind of implemented and I
think Maddie and I both havekind of done this is in the form
of sports teams.
We have a lot of say youngengineers and I think part of
(10:07):
having a successful business andhaving a good psychological
space is to be physically active.
I think there's a lot ofbenefit and it's also a good way
to bond even outside of work,and you end up talking about
things during work too, and soit just brings people closer
(10:28):
together.
So I think one of the firstkind of activities that we
embarked on, I guess, was havinga softball team.
I think we actually still havethat even today, but we've been
doing this for a few years andthe company has been gracious to
help sponsor that, and I thinkthat realizes some of the
benefits.
But it's great we get all theengineers together.
(10:50):
We're at various levels ofability, but it's great to kind
of come together and dosomething that's not exactly
photonics related but builds ateam right.
So I think there's definitelysome ancillary positive benefit
there.
So something as simple as thatas coming together, forming a
(11:12):
team and just having a good timetogether.
This is something that weorganically kind of decided that
we wanted to do and we've goneoff and done it and in some
cases we've been successful andhave won championships and
things like that.
Other seasons maybe not assuccessful, but still I think
it's a way to bring us togetherand have an activity that's sort
(11:35):
of outside of work andcontinues to foster that sort of
sense of community and cultureeven within the office, right On
and off the field.
What do you think, maddie?
Speaker 4 (11:51):
Yeah, absolutely.
We've had a softball team,we've had soccer teams, we have
people who go on lunchtime runstogether and yeah, like Steven
said, sometimes we're successfuland maybe what Daniel would
call a traditional fun and wewin a championship or some sort
of you know blue ribbon for theseason.
But a lot of the times I thinksome of the success is just
(12:16):
making people who are maybe newto the company feel welcome.
I actually, the year that Istarted at Freedom, I joined the
softball team that Steven wasrunning.
I'd never played softballbefore.
I'm still pretty terrible atsoftball, but it provided you
know a really nice way to get toknow a lot of my coworkers and
(12:37):
you know a low stress headingwhere people are really you know
acting, you know likethemselves.
There's less of like a, I guess, like a barrier to talking to
people when you're collaboratingon something like a softball
(12:59):
team and I think that translatesover really well to
collaborating with those samepeople on projects.
It just kind of lowers theintimidation of being new at a
company and not knowing how toreally start a conversation with
someone.
You immediately have somethingin common with your colleagues
that are on the same you knowsports team or something like
(13:21):
that.
And you know we recognize we'reengineers, we're not.
You know we're not all athletes, but I think that you know
being welcoming to everyone,regardless of what level they're
at, that that's a reallypositive part of our culture
here too.
Speaker 3 (13:40):
Yeah, I think that you both have been great
examples on how individuals inthe organization can shape the
culture through being sort ofthe leaders, of initiating this
sort of maybe, in a way say wecan call it extracurricular
activities, but, on the otherhand, they're not really
extracurricular, they'renecessary, and I think the
(14:02):
impact has been felt very well.
And, as you say, what youlearned about working as a team
in a soccer field, definitelytheir lessons learned there and
how to operate as a team in aproject as well, and so it's all
part and parcel of the samething.
One important aspect of theculture, obviously, is how
(14:25):
people relate to each other.
So and here any comment thatyou might want to venture if you
look at the relationships inyour experience of what it was
or what it is or what it shouldhave been or what it should be,
what are in connection torelationships 360 degrees around
(14:46):
you, the people that report toyou, your peers and the company
leadership and you can tacklethis in any way you want, either
one of you.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
Yeah.
So I think you know, when we'retalking and thinking about sort
of the culture and sort of theactivities that we do, I think
that's really important right,and it's important to have those
kind of interactions because Ithink it also builds a sense of
trust right.
Once you make a fool ofyourself in front of you know,
your fellow colleagues, by doingsome extracurricular activity,
(15:24):
it kind of lowers the barrierright, it makes it normalizes
everybody, it makes you realizeeveryone's human, which is
important, you know, because atthe end of the day we all have
to find a way to work togetherright.
And I think that applies sortof up, down and all around, I
guess, if you want to call itsort of the 360 view, so
(15:46):
obviously working directly withyour peers, sort of, let's say,
laterally.
I think that definitely helps.
But then when you're doing theseactivities, both maybe with you
know, people who work above andbelow you, I think it builds
those bonds, makes them strongerand again kind of reinforces
sort of this level of trust,which I think is really
(16:07):
important.
So I think there's just a lotof benefits to just, you know,
being able to have those kind ofactivities, those interactions,
whether they're sort of in theoffice, outside of the office,
because you need to be able toapproach people and they need to
be able to approach you too.
Right, it's a two way street,for sure.
So I think all of those thingsare really necessary and I'd
(16:29):
still kind of put those on theumbrella, kind of like culture,
right, it's still all sort ofnecessary, and I think that
bi-directional trust is reallyquintessential for having again
a successful business and havinggood culture.
Speaker 4 (16:51):
I would echo what Steven is saying and maybe just
another element to add to thatis that frequently when you are
interacting with people on thesports teams or outside of work
maybe at a company event orsomething like that as Steven
said, you are interacting withpeople both who work above you
(17:12):
and below you and as well aslateral to you.
But you frequently interact withpeople who your day-to-day work
doesn't necessarily push you towork with.
If I am working on a SotoDiadteam, I might not necessarily
interact with someone on ourlaser team on a day-to-day basis
, but in having thisconversation at a company
(17:35):
barbecue or something like that,it is really interesting to
hear what people are working onand sometimes you will find that
you are tackling very similarproblems as people on another
team, and having those sort oflike low pressure interactions
gives you an opportunity notonly to get to know people who
(17:59):
you are not necessarily going tointeract with, like I said, on
a day-to-day basis, but also totry to float solutions and ideas
across people who have thatdifferent perspective from you
and maybe a different background.
That ends up being, I think,something that is technically
(18:19):
really useful about just thesesocial linkage friends.
Speaker 3 (18:26):
Yeah, absolutely, and these sort of networking
opportunities, if you want, tomeeting people that are working
in other areas, obviously help.
Communication and trust thatyou mentioned too, are two key
elements in the operation of anyorganization and certainly in a
(18:49):
startup, without which, again,success is not possible.
So let's change gears a littlebit.
It's still, in a way, part ofculture, but you've mentioned
about, sort of very top level,your professional development in
(19:13):
the past few years within thecompany.
Let's expand that a little bitmore.
If you can talk about yourprofessional growth within a
startup company, what have youexperienced directly?
What has been good, what maybehas not been so good?
Stephen, do you want to starton that?
Speaker 1 (19:38):
Yeah, sure.
So I think anytime you envisionlike a startup, right, you
might think you know, okay, it'shappening in someone's basement
or garage, or you know whoknows in some small little
corner, and I think that's stillpretty much true.
You know, usually startups havekind of humble beginnings and I
(20:00):
would think and say, you know,I think freedom is an example of
that as well, and because youdon't maybe don't start out with
a whole lot in terms ofinfrastructure or resources, you
have to be very creative.
You know, necessity is themother of invention, right?
(20:21):
So you have very limited money,limited resources, limited time
to try to do something amazing.
And I think that's part of theallure of being with a startup
is that you know you really geta chance to get involved with
all kinds of different things.
(20:41):
I think I had no idea what I wasgetting myself into in a
positive way when I joinedFreedom.
I didn't expect that I would beexposed to so many various
aspects of the company.
You know, I think when you'rean engineer, you think, okay,
well, all I'm going to do is,you know, maybe some engineering
, and I think maybe in somecases that's true, but again,
(21:04):
because of the needs are greatand the workers are few, it
means that people are going towear, by necessity, kind of
various different hats and Ithink that's I consider that to
be like a benefit of workingwith a startup.
So, yes, like there's obviouslyyour traditional engineering
work that has to get done, youknow, design something,
(21:26):
fabricate something, testsomething.
But there's also variousaspects that are about a
comprise of business as well.
There's the financial aspects,there's the program management,
there's the sales, there's themarketing, you know all these
little things basically, and Ithink in my experience, if I
kind of just look from a highlevel, I guess, kind of looking
(21:48):
all the way back through mycareer, I think I had, you know,
good fortune, good benefit ofbeing interested in all these
things and being given theopportunity to engage in those
activities.
You know, willingly I wanted totry those out and I got that
kind of exposure.
So, as I mentioned kind of inthe beginning in the intro, like
(22:10):
I started out as an intern, Iwas doing PCV layout.
You know nothing photonicrelated, but you know turns out,
pcv layout is not toodissimilar from photonic
integrated circuit layout.
So I saw what the founders weredoing and I said you know, hey,
what is that?
Can I do that?
Yeah, absolutely.
(22:30):
So you design something.
It gets fabricated.
Okay, well, you know youdesigned it.
Now you get to test it right,let's see how that turned out.
So you know, you start gettinginto, you know, testing
measurement.
There's a lot of learning there.
Okay, well, now we need topackage this device and, okay,
(22:51):
how do we do that?
So there's learning, sort of onthe packaging aspect, and then
you know, after a few iterationsof that, okay, now you know,
think about how we would do thisdifferently.
Is there another application orproject that we can kind of go
after and apply this technology?
And kind of?
(23:12):
You know, it's a little bit ofa snowball effect.
Once you kind of gather theseskills up, you're able to kind
of do more and be given moreresponsibility, and I think
that's kind of been thetrajectory.
I guess that I've kind offollowed is, I've been with the
company for a long time but I'vedone, I think, quite a bit.
I've had the opportunity to dothat and also exploring various
(23:36):
aspects.
You know I was doing a lot ofengineering and now I'm more on
the business side of things too,and so I think that's just
evidence of being given thatopportunity to try to explore
things and obviously hopefullyexcel, of course.
But I think that's one of thebenefits of the small company is
(23:57):
that there is no shortage ofwork to be done in various areas
and you can basically pursuethose pieces and kind of go off
and explore, and I think there'sjust a lot of benefit, even
from just an engineeringperspective.
You know, engineeringencompasses so many different
things and I think the moreexposure you get to that gives
(24:18):
you a really good holisticperspective to then really focus
on what you want to do.
But if you have anunderstanding of why it needs to
be done in a particular wayfrom a business perspective or
from a financial perspective orfrom a marketing perspective, I
think that's really beneficialin the long run.
So those, all those experiencesand things, I think add up
(24:39):
pretty well.
But what do you think, natty?
Speaker 4 (24:45):
Yeah, absolutely.
I think one of the things thatreally drew me to freedom was, I
mean, I remember sitting in myinterview and our CEO telling me
well, you're going to wear alot of hats if you work here.
That's a phrase that we throwaround a lot here.
I mean, I would say that if youhave a Sierra's boredom, you
(25:05):
should join a start test.
I also felt like I was given alot of opportunities to really
explore what it was that I wasinterested in.
I would voice some interest inprogram management and within a
month or two that sort ofopportunity was given to me as
something I could try out.
I had an interest in businessdevelopment.
(25:26):
I was able to try a little bitof that out too.
Something that's been reallycool at Freedom is, I think we
have a lot of mentors in a lotof different areas where we have
people with strong technicalbackgrounds, strong business
backgrounds, strong programmanagement backgrounds.
That helps shape this cultureof really passionate, curious
(25:51):
people who are really eager tohelp.
This is sort of like thisthickly process of someone eager
to help and they're givensomething that they're able to
help out on.
The management reallyfacilitates that by supporting
the curiosity of the individualswho are working here.
Something that I think is kindof neat about startup is you
(26:17):
have this web of skills that'sshared across the company.
There's one person who doesthis one thing at the company.
No, there's three or fourpeople who all have some
experience with that.
I think that you have to becareful not to spread yourself
too thin.
You don't want that web ofskills to become a tangle of
(26:38):
unclear who's responsible forwhat.
I think it makes for a reallystrong company, both in terms of
culture and in expertise.
Speaker 3 (26:51):
Yeah, absolutely Steven.
You have a very uniqueprofessional growth path in the
sense that you did your PhDstudies while you were working.
I must say you were working150% as well as doing a PhD 150%
(27:13):
.
I think this is something thatmight be interesting to share
your experience of overcomingall of those hurdles and
succeeding and doing a PhD whileworking.
Speaker 1 (27:28):
Yeah, that was quite an interesting journey and I'm
glad I went through that.
I will say up front.
That said, yeah, it definitelywas a lot of work.
I guess I'll kind of go all theway back to the beginning and
kind of quickly come up to wherewe are.
But when I was interviewingwith the company they asked me
(27:51):
what do you want to do long term?
I said I want to do what you do.
I think one day I'd like tohave maybe a company or get my
PhD and do what you guys do,which is kind of go after these
really cool projects and do allthese kind of wonderful things.
I saw them kind of look at eachother and like, okay, yeah, lo
(28:14):
and behold I think that wasmaybe 10 years later or
something like that I did go offand kind of get that PhD.
I would say it felt kind ofnatural in a sense.
We're working with a lot ofsmart people and you're just
(28:34):
kind of immersed sort of in thisenvironment and it just kind of
reinforced my desire to do thatof like, okay, I am doing the
work, I am operating at thatlevel, so I should be able to do
this Right.
So that opportunity kind ofcame up.
As I mentioned, I graduatedfrom UCSB I think it was in 2010
(28:56):
, and then I continued workingfor about six years before going
back to graduate school in 2016.
So my comment there is ifyou're interested in going to
graduate school, fantastic, butprobably don't wait that long.
I think it was reallychallenging to be in industry
kind of.
So long you get comfortable,you know you have your way of
(29:19):
life, and then to kind of bethrown back into that setting
was challenging.
I think my first year Idefinitely struggled, just
trying to get back into thatsort of academic mindset, trying
to balance life, trying tobalance work.
And, you know, eventually I didgo off and talk to a counselor
(29:42):
or advisor at school and they'relike so what's going on in your
life?
And I said, well, I'm going toschool, I'm working full time,
I'm doing all these things.
And they said, wow, yeah, Ithink we need to.
Sounds like you're doing a lot.
We should try to figure out howto kind of divide and conquer,
and I think that was really goodadvice.
So having kind of thoseboundaries of you know, when I'm
(30:04):
at school I'm focused at school, when I'm at work I'm focused
at work, and to try as best as Ican to kind of keep those
separate, just so that I cankind of focus.
And then I'm happy to say, inthe second year and the years
after, I did amazingly wellafter that trying to implement
sort of that approach.
(30:24):
The other aspect I think thatkind of made this possible is,
you know, the work I was doing.
My thesis work was of interestboth to the university and to
the company.
So you know, I was working onSilicon Photonics for harsh
environments and so that projectbasically was kind of one in
(30:45):
the same.
What I was doing for my researchat UCSB was the same as my my
quote, unquote day job atFreedom, and so I, you know, I
kind of like to point to thissort of overlap, integral.
You know that it needs to bevery close to one or 100%.
You know, if they can be assimilar as possible, I think the
(31:08):
chances of success, you know,become that much more, you know,
tangible, because I think ifyou're pulled in kind of two
different directions, I don'tknow, I'm not that person, I
don't think I could have donethat, but maybe someone else can
.
But at least for me, you know,being able to focus kind of on
one thing and do it well waskind of the key to success.
(31:31):
So I'd say, if you do, you know, try to go off to work
simultaneously and to go tograduate school.
Really try to find somethingthat you know you can kind of
use for both purposes, dualpurpose, as it were, because
it's challenging enough justpursuing a PhD and it's
challenging enough to besuccessful in a job.
So my recommendation would beto try to try to make those as
(31:55):
similar as possible.
So yeah, it was, it was Ilearned a lot about myself going
through that and and hopefullyI mean I made my scientific
contributions there as well.
But I think in the end it wasreally a fantastic experience
and I think it was pretty,pretty unique in that sense, and
(32:15):
so if someone has theopportunity to do it, I
definitely recommend go for it,but just keep in mind the
journey ahead and kind of whatit takes to do that and to try
to find a balance between worklife, school.
You know all those are reallyimportant, you know.
And definitely to have fun too.
(32:36):
Right, you got to find ways toenjoy.
You know what you're doingbecause life is short.
So I think being able tocelebrate some of those wins,
being able to, you know,celebrate with your friends,
your family, your loved ones, Ithink that's all important.
They're all part of thatjourney too.
Your colleagues too, yourcoworkers I think I had a lot of
(32:57):
support from them too.
So all those pieces kind ofhave to come together or should,
to kind of make that journeypossible.
So I'm grateful that I've donethat.
Speaker 3 (33:07):
Yeah, it was quite extraordinary to follow what you
were doing at that time and youdid really extraordinarily well
.
I told you this in the past,but congratulations again.
It's been.
It was quite a challenge, Mati.
You followed perhaps what isthe most conventional, more
(33:27):
conventional path of doing a PhDbefore going to work sort of
sequential role and in parallel,Can you comment on the
transition from doing a PhD tocoming into freedom, photonics,
going to a startup?
What comes to your mind?
Do you feel that your PhDprepared you for the work ahead?
(33:52):
Is there anything that couldhave been done different or not?
And so what do you rememberabout the transition from one to
the other?
Speaker 4 (34:04):
Yeah, that's a great question, Daniel.
I, as you know, I think mostpeople know it's difficult
really to do any photonicresearch and or even really take
a class on photonics and mostundergraduate programs.
So I saw, you know, photonicsis something I was interested in
and that sort of necessitatedgoing to graduate school.
(34:25):
And, you know, at the time itactually lined up quite well for
me, because this was sort ofaround the time of the recession
and it was difficult to signjobs.
I thought, well, I'll just,I'll I enjoy learning, I'll
continue to go to school.
But, you know, something that Ireally admire about Steven's
(34:45):
path is that, steven, you reallycame in with, like, not only
this hands-on experience of likeyou've done some layout, you've
seen some devices, but you alsocame in with, like this really
great sense of context and Ithink that's something that I
see as like a very like adifference in our, you know,
graduate schooling.
I think, you know, like manyPhD students, I was, you know,
(35:10):
really hyper focused on thetechnology that I was working on
.
You know, when you're ingraduate school, I think it's
easy to fall into this state ofyou know, you're really trying
to push the boundaries of thestate of the art, but you're not
tasked with making any moneyoff of it.
So you're not necessarily, youknow, understanding the market.
We're trying to make amanufacturable product.
(35:33):
You know you're really tryingto get like one hero device.
But, you know, with the rightphase of the moon you can
measure the right, you knowparameters and get sort of
excellent performance.
And that was a.
You know, a major change incoming to freedom was oh well, I
mean, a lot of our work that wedo and have done here at
(35:56):
Freedom has been very researchy,you know, and I'm grateful for
the opportunity to continue towork on, you know, research and
development, which I think isquite fun, but at the same time
meaning to do these thingskeeping in mind, well, you know,
maybe this chip needs to gointo a package one day.
How are we going to handle that?
That was something.
(36:17):
You know that in graduate schoolI was much more focused on, you
know, the, the epitaxial stackand the fabrication of a device.
But working at Freedom reallykind of expanded, you know, the,
the context for which I'mthinking about these devices.
Now I'm thinking, okay, well,what's this going to look like
(36:39):
If it needs to go into a package, or what sort of system is this
going to go into?
What sort of markets does thisaddress?
And all of that kind of givesyou, you know, some extra tools
as a as an engineer, to thinkabout when you're, when you're
designing a product.
Speaker 3 (36:58):
Yeah, exactly Like every engineer finishing his or
her studies, broadly speaking,you had a choice of going to a
small company, a startup, orgoing to a large company, or
continuing at the university andfollow the academic path.
(37:22):
Obviously you chose going to astartup.
So we're all biased, I guess,in our opinions, but how do you
see sort of life at a startupcompared to life at a larger
company or in a university?
And again, I warned thelistener that we're all biased
(37:44):
here, but in an as unbiased wayas you can.
Speaker 4 (37:54):
Yeah, like I said earlier, I think that really
liked.
That promise that I would getto do a wide variety of things
was really a major draw for meto join a small company.
You know I was nervous aboutgetting siloed into doing just
one sort of thing and I think Ihad that sort of trepidation
(38:16):
about going to a larger company.
You know I didn't want to benecessarily someone who just
does one tap day in and day out,but I think I like the idea of
joining a company rather thanstaying at a university and
being a part of actually makingsomething that people would get
(38:38):
to use one day.
I mean, this is not to cast anyshade on universities.
We develop incredibletechnologies that are often, you
know, scooped up by a smallbusiness or a large business and
products are made from thosetechnologies.
But I guess I wanted to be partof that process.
(39:00):
I wanted to see you know how atechnology goes from an idea or
a paper to something that acustomer can buy off the shelf.
That was really the pull for meto join a small business.
Speaker 1 (39:19):
Yeah, I agree with what Maddie said and I think for
me, when I look at what you cando, or at least the promise of
what you can do at a startupversus a larger company, I think
there's, you know, potentiallymore there.
Right, you get a chance totackle a wide variety of things.
I think the other I'll take adifferent sort of vector as well
(39:44):
you know there's also thefinancial part of it too.
Right, it's an investment.
So the hope is, you know, ifyou join a startup, hopefully
the startup blossoms into youknow, the next unicorn, or
whatever the terminology is nowtoday, of being a very, very
successful business.
(40:04):
And when you are a part of that, the hope is obviously you get
to go along for that ride aswell.
But, as I have kind ofmentioned, usually when a young
startup is kind of getting going, there's just not there's not a
lot of money, obviously to kindof pay you.
So, yes, you get to do a lot,but maybe compensation might not
(40:28):
be as high.
And I think larger companies,by definition, tend to have more
revenue people.
They can have people be alittle bit more focused in what
they do and potentially theyalso get compensated a little
bit more.
So there's this kind of I don'tknow, at least for me, when I
was kind of looking at it.
It's like, well, what mattersto me, to me most, right, and I
(40:51):
think everyone is there aredifferent stages in their lives
and what matters more to them.
But for me, I think I chose togo with the startup because I
saw it as an investment, notonly sort of in professional
development, but hopefullyfinancial as well, right, and we
did eventually become acquiredby Lumenard Technologies, so
(41:14):
that there is success in that.
But that's not always the casefor every startup, right.
Not every startup succeeds.
So it's a risk, it's a riskreward, I think, kind of balance
.
And for those, I think, who aremore risk tolerant, yeah, I
think a startup kind of makessense and for those who are not
so tolerant, they may choose togo with a larger company.
Speaker 3 (41:38):
Yeah, exactly, there is some risk.
I mean the numbers, commonknowledge numbers are one in ten
startups succeed, and I don'tknow if that's exactly right.
Certainly the odds are againstyou.
But something that I've foundout is that in larger companies,
(41:59):
odds relating to the groupwhere you are at are not
necessarily much different.
You're always part of a smallergroup within a large company.
So the risk is there, and it'snot so much of a risk in the
sense that even though somecompanies might go under, the
(42:20):
industry like in this case thephotonics industry flourishes,
grows, has grown exponentially,and so, even though maybe some
companies have not succeeded,the industry world does, and
with that everybody involved.
So there's always anotheropportunity.
One important aspect in sort ofengineering life is engineers
(42:44):
love to tell the world aboutwhat they're doing and what
they've accomplished.
It's human nature, not onlyengineers as part of being part
of humanity.
Now this is an aspect whereuniversities and industry differ
quite a bit, in the sense thatit is the purpose and the task
(43:05):
of universities obviously toincrease human knowledge and
thus sort of spreading this overeverywhere.
The new knowledge is animportant part of the function
of university.
In industry, Spreadingknowledge is important too, but
in somewhat of a more restrictedsense.
(43:26):
Obviously, there are someaspects of what industries do
that cannot be discussed outsideof the company.
It would be interesting if youcould mention what your
experience has been in the senseof publishing as part of
industry, as part of a smallcompany.
What's been your experiencethere?
Speaker 1 (43:52):
Yeah, they are different environments and
therefore different motivations.
I think from an academicperspective, you publish results
out there also with the intentof having it be able to be
verified, replicated.
It's in your interest toexplain how everything is done
(44:16):
because hopefully someone elsehas the ability to replicate
that experiment or that result,which means intimate knowledge
is needed of everything thatwent in there.
It's also a way, obviously tocontribute overall to the
scientific body of knowledge.
I think when you look at froman industrial perspective why
(44:41):
one would publish, themotivation is a little bit
different.
It's to make people aware ofwhat the company has done or the
person involved in that.
Companies have an incentive tonot release all the details of
(45:02):
what was done.
There there's potentiallyintellectual property and trade
secrets that may have gone intothat result.
If that were just freelydispersed, well, then it means
someone else could replicatewhat you did.
Then that means that you'velost your competitive advantage.
That potentially could have anegative impact on the business.
(45:26):
I think the reason why anindustrial entity I decide to
publish is really more from themarketing perspective of saying,
hey, we've done this greatthing, we can do it again for
you.
We're making this great newproduct.
It has these amazing newperformance.
We can do that for you.
(45:48):
Hopefully that draws morecustomers and therefore more
revenue to the company, Becausethere is really I wouldn't say a
financial incentive for anacademic institution to do that.
It's really to contributeknowledge to the body of science
as a part.
What do you think, Maddie?
Speaker 4 (46:09):
Yeah, absolutely.
Maybe there's an argument to bemade that there is perhaps this
financial motivation even for auniversity.
They're looking to prove thatthey've got the know-how and
that they can deliver on acontract or a grant that they're
offered.
But it is quite different.
(46:30):
Something that I sort of use asa metaphor is that we have our
secret sauce recipe that couldbe at the textile structure,
that could be from fabricationtechniques that we have here.
While I think in some otherindustries you might protect
that with something like apatent, that's not necessarily
(46:55):
the best protection.
In the world of semiconductorsit's quite hard to prove that
your competitor is using thesame at the taxiel stack as you
or that they're using aparticular fabrication technique
that you've patented.
The onus of proving that isreally challenging.
When you're talking about thesedevices that are really
(47:19):
precisely manufactured in aclean room, for which it's not
necessarily easy to, I guess,analyze what a chip might be
composed of or things like that,it becomes a much more
complicated problem than itmight be in, say, another
(47:41):
industry.
What I've learned over theyears is that, rather than
filing a patent on something,people will just generally keep
trade secrets within the companyand they don't release that
information outside of thecompany.
Let's see, I just noticed thatwe lost our network connection.
(48:05):
I don't know if you can stillhear me through my phone.
Speaker 3 (48:08):
Okay, I can hear you, no problem.
Speaker 4 (48:11):
All right, well, yeah , I think that's sort of the end
of what I was going to saythere.
Speaker 3 (48:17):
Anyway, yeah, thank you.
Certainly there are differencesthere, but still it is possible
to publish an industry with aslightly different tone, as it
were.
And, as you highlighted, theobjectives are different in
industry as industry publishers,compared to university In
(48:40):
direction, a little bit in theconversation over the past few
years, people have workedremotely significantly, and
whether full-time, remotely orpart-time, I mean it's a hybrid
some time remote, some time onsite.
What's been your experience andwhat do you think?
What's the sort of rightbalance between working remotely
(49:03):
and working on site?
Speaker 1 (49:03):
Okay, so you know we're remote, right, we're doing
this although, you know, forthe listeners, maddie and I are
actually sitting across fromeach other.
But you know, I think what wefound from this unfortunate
event is, you know, again,necessity is kind of the mother
(49:24):
of invention.
Here we found ways to stillkind of be productive and so I
think, hopefully, that there isan agreement that working sort
of remote is definitely possibleand doable.
Now, is that right for everyparticular you know job?
Probably not.
(49:45):
I think there are instanceswhere you know people kind of
need to be where the work is atand because you know they're
more hands-on or they need tointeract with people a little
bit more intimately.
But I think, if we look at itfrom an experiment, let's say a
social experiment, I think theevidence is there that we can
(50:09):
still be productive.
Now, that said, I think you knowwe're all social animals and I
think there is that element ofand desire maybe for most people
to want to be kind of togetherright, to kind of be in the same
room.
Let's say, matt, you brought up, you know, the example of being
(50:30):
at a barbecue and talking topeople and it's like, well, that
happened because we're allbrought together right.
And so I think if you'reentirely remote it's not
impossible.
But I think it's a little morechallenging right to kind of
have those happenstanceexperiences, or just you walk by
(50:52):
somebody and something happensand, who knows, you know, maybe
you have another great idea.
But that may not have beenpossible if you weren't really
sort of in the same building or,you know, very close by.
So I think there are times whenyou know we're doing particular
work where it's like, well, youknow I can be off wherever I
need to do that and I don'tnecessarily need to, you know,
(51:15):
be on site or have physical sortof proximity.
But then there I think thereare times where it does make
sense and there may be that need.
So I think the hybrid model,hopefully, is kind of here to
stay.
I think that very much ispossible.
Now, where is that rightbalance?
I don't know.
I think we're still all kind offiguring that out.
(51:37):
But at least from a kind ofhumanistic perspective, I think
there is still a lot of goodbenefit for people to actually
be closer together.
I think that tends to helpthings.
Speaker 4 (51:51):
Yeah, absolutely.
I think that you know, one ofthe positive parts of, as you
said, a really terrible eventwas that I would say that remote
work kind of pushedconferencing technology.
It pushed our ability to workonline, but it is really hard to
synthesize that like watercooler talk that you're talking
(52:12):
about.
See, then it's like that sort oflike random happenstance, like
doesn't really really come topass on like a meeting, and
further I think that you knowwhen you, when you try to force
something like that, it doesn'tfeel organic to have, you know,
a group of 50 people on a Zoomcall trying to make it feel like
(52:35):
a normal conversation.
It's simply not the way I thinkthat humans interact.
And yeah, absolutely I'd saythat I'm also sort of a social
creature.
I'd prefer to be in the officeand I'd prefer to be working
with the other people directly.
But of course, I think, likemany other employees I mean I
(52:57):
appreciate the flexibility of ahybrid model.
It's nice to you know if I havesomething that I need to do in
the middle of the day and I feellike I can get something done
later on.
It's that sort of flexibility Ithink has been a positive change
generally.
But yeah, I'm figuring outwhere the where the fulcrum is.
(53:19):
I guess to balance how muchtime you should spend remote
versus working in person, it's atough question to answer and I
think it's further complicatedby the fact that there are parts
of our job that can'tnecessarily be done remotely.
I mean, there are techniciansand engineers here at Freedom
(53:43):
for whom very little, if any, oftheir job can be done remotely
because they need to be in thelab and they need to be doing
things that are hands on, and Ithink that there's a degree to a
solidarity of trying, even ifyou can do a task remotely, to
being around and available forpeople who might need your help
(54:05):
hands on in the lab or need someinput from you.
Speaker 3 (54:11):
Great, Thank you.
Changing topics again, thethree of us were attracted by
photonics, photonics technology,photonics industry right at the
beginning of our careers forsome magical reasons.
I personally don't alwaysunderstand why it happened, but
(54:32):
it did happen and it happenedvery strongly.
Basically, it's kept me in thisfor the whole of my career and
it's been wonderful.
But if now we address peoplethat are where we were then
thinking of what area shouldthey choose for their career?
What can you tell them aboutphotonics today?
(54:55):
How does it look going forward?
What can they expect in theircareer for somebody that is
looking at starting right now?
Speaker 1 (55:07):
So I don't remember the exact moment that I knew
that I was going to do photonicsfor practically the rest of my
life.
But I remember sort of whathappened.
I was actually working for arobotics company before coming
to Freedom and during myundergraduate studies I took a
(55:30):
class on fiber opticcommunication system.
It was the only class right atthe undergraduate level I could
take, and I don't know what itwas, professor, the material,
but I just during that class Ijust knew this is what I'm going
to do.
I couldn't explain it and Iknew that I had to find a way to
kind of become a part of thiskind of emerging field.
(55:53):
That's kind of how I came toFreedom.
But kind of looking forward, Iguess what's interesting is to
kind of see how much photonicsis actually permeating other
disciplines, and those lines arekind of becoming a little bit
more blurred, which is great.
(56:14):
I think it's fantastic becausethat means that doing things
with light is finding so manyapplications and other areas.
I mean for medicine, for health, for, obviously, communications
, yes, but for sensing, forastronomy, for I mean just like,
(56:38):
wherever you look, I meanpeople are actively trying to
see how light can be applied tokind of further advance that
particular domain.
So I guess if you're intriguedby light, if you look at a
rainbow and think like how doesthat work?
Or you look at through a pooland like OK, well, why is that
(57:00):
object over there?
These are kind of the thingsthat we kind of notice as a
child and you have that kind ofchild like wonder, and I think
it still applies today.
I think we know why obviouslythat happens.
But if you find yourself kind oflooking at those kinds of
problems and kind of askingyourself why, then maybe
Photonics is kind of right foryou and I guess, not to be
(57:23):
worried to think that maybe,well, if I go into Photonics,
all I'm going to do is work onfiber optic communication
systems Not that that's a badthing, but I think Photonics is
kind of really finding many,many more areas of applicability
and I think that's reallyexciting.
I think it's really exciting tobe a part of that and to see
(57:45):
that we might be surrounded byPhotonics more than we might
think currently.
Right now, maybe it'll be inour hands.
I guess it really is right.
We if you think of your iPhone,if you have an iPhone, there's
sensors that are already inthere that make use of these
principles, and so, whether yousee it or not, I guess we are
(58:08):
surrounded by things that aredriven by light and, and I think
, the future, if I can make ajoke, you know it's pretty
bright for, for, for Photonics,and so, for people who are
interested, I definitely go forit.
I think there's no shortage ofproblems to be solved, and I
think you'd be pretty pleasedwhere it can be applied and how
(58:30):
much benefit there is forsociety.
Speaker 4 (58:36):
Yes, yes, Steven, I think you touched on some good
applications, but you know,they're even like buzzier
applications.
You're right, Like you're wellaware of the quantum computing
and communications efforts thatare going on.
And then, of course, you knowwe work for an automotive LiDAR
company.
Those are, I would say, likeyou know, they're kind of like
(58:57):
applications that are that arein the news a lot right now.
I guess another comment that Ihave on you know what sort of
the, the beauty or the joy, ifyou want, of Photonics is.
I think, pretty clearly,there's a lot of physics
involved, but it's not justphysics, you know.
(59:18):
There's optics, there'smechanical engineering, there's
systems engineering.
There's really a pretty broadvariety of topics that you'll be
involved in if you, you know,join the Photonics community and
you know, as, like I saidbefore, if you're a curious
person, if you're afraid ofboredoms, this is, this is a
(59:38):
pretty nice field to be in.
There's a lot going on and,yeah, I'd echo the future is
bright for sure.
Speaker 3 (59:48):
Is there anything else that we haven't said that
you would like to say?
Speaker 1 (59:57):
Well, I just want to say I think this is great.
I think being able to talkabout our experiences and tap
into people's brains tounderstand what's it like being
in photonics, I think that's areally neat opportunity.
So I encourage this kind ofdialogue going forward.
(01:00:18):
So I think, for me, I'mgrateful to have this
opportunity and to share it withyou, daniel Maddie, and, as you
mentioned, we all work together, so it's just a great way to
talk about our common experience, and I think it's also been
neat to see where we differ andwhere we have commonalities.
So, again, evidence of justbeing together and being able to
(01:00:41):
discuss and communicate.
So, yeah, thanks for theopportunity.
Speaker 2 (01:00:46):
That was amazing yeah thank you very much.
Sorry, no like honestly likeyou guys just gave me, so I want
to like work twice as hardtoday now.
Speaker 3 (01:00:57):
That was amazing, well actually Steven said
something, I think you haveanother two minutes.
Maddie could say something, andthen we'll wrap it up.
Yeah, no problem.
I mean we're about one or twominutes away from the channel.
Speaker 1 (01:01:13):
Yeah, no problem, as long as I'm open so as long as
you guys want to continue on.
Speaker 4 (01:01:17):
I'm going to go back on mute Just two minutes.
Speaker 3 (01:01:20):
Yeah, I'm going to go back on mute, maddie, anything
else?
Speaker 4 (01:01:27):
Yeah, I would echo what Steven said.
Thank you very much for theopportunity.
Thank you, daniel, for leadingthe discussion, and I spent a
lot of fun.
I learned some things aboutSteven that I never knew.
I worked with him for six years, so this is a lot of fun and I
appreciate the opportunity.
Speaker 3 (01:01:44):
Yeah, yeah, thank you , maddie and Steven, and thank
you to the IEEE Photonic Society.
I would like to continuetalking for a long time and a
lot more to talk about, but Ithink we should let the
listeners continue what theywere doing before.
I hope whoever has listened tothis has learned something that
(01:02:11):
is useful in the sense of whatworking in a Photonic Startup is
about, and thank you very muchfor listening to us.
Speaker 4 (01:02:20):
There we're done.
Speaker 3 (01:02:21):
Thank you, therese so much.
Speaker 2 (01:02:23):
Like I said, I just think it's super inspiring.
You guys are really inspiringand motivating.
I'm like can I go intoPhotonics now?
Speaker 4 (01:02:36):
But there was a couple of moments that really
stood out to me from a marketingperspective.
Speaker 2 (01:02:41):
This is our fourth episode of recording and I
really haven't felt like I meanthey were very technical.
So I'm not technical, but thereis a couple of moments that I
can see us using for a lot ofour promotions for the podcast.
So, I'm so excited to see whatthe editor does with it, and I
did want to invite both of youto come back.
So if either Maddie or Steven,if you have a certain interest
(01:03:06):
in Photonics or in Photonics andapplications, or even soft
skills.
feel free to send them to me andthen, when we're planning our
expert speakers, we might inviteyou back as a moderator or as a
host on future episodes andjust as far as next steps, what
will happen now is I will sendthis to our editor, and they
(01:03:28):
usually turn it around in acouple of days, so I'm looking
at getting the episode to youthree to review by early next
week.
Speaker 4 (01:03:37):
And then it will be put on Spotify.
Speaker 2 (01:03:40):
And we also are assorted.
We've been planning like thishuge marketing campaign to
officially launch our podcast.
We are on Spotify but we're notpromoting it yet and we already
had like a bunch of downloadsover 100 downloads.
Speaker 4 (01:03:54):
So it's really going to get high visibility once we
officially launch.
Speaker 2 (01:03:58):
So very excited to have you three as an episode.
It was really really, reallyinsightful and interesting and I
really appreciate the time youall took.
We're listening to the 911conference.
Speaker 1 (01:04:09):
Yeah well, thank you, Kristen.
Really enjoyed it and happy tocome back, so I appreciate the
invitation.
Speaker 4 (01:04:14):
This is a home from Terrace.
Speaker 2 (01:04:18):
Do you three have any questions for me or Matt?
No?
Speaker 3 (01:04:23):
Out of my car.
All right, awesome.
Speaker 4 (01:04:26):
So I'll be in touch next week and just thank you
again and have a great weekend.
Speaker 3 (01:04:31):
All right, thank you everyone Awesome, thank you so
much Kristen Take care.
Speaker 1 (01:04:35):
Bye-bye, have a great weekend.
Speaker 4 (01:04:38):
Bye Thank you Bye.
Hi, my name is Daniel Renner andI'm the chair of the IEEE
Photonic Society IndustryEngagement Committee, and we're
here today to talk about workingin a startup company.
How does it feel to work in astartup A unique environment and
(01:00):
to do that, I have with me twoyoung engineers that have been
working for several years in astartup and we're looking at
they, sharing their experienceon what has it meant to them to
working in this environment.
(01:21):
We have worked the three of usactually together for many years
, so we know each other fairlywell, and we hope that the
conversation will be of interestin the sense of providing tips,
advice, to other youngengineers that are considering
working in a startup.
The two other people that aregoing to participate in this
(01:46):
conversation are Maddie Woodsonand Stephen Estrella, so I'll
let them introduce themselves.
So, maddie, if you can start tointroduce yourself, that'd be
great.
Speaker 4 (02:00):
Thanks, daniel.
Hi, my name is Maddie Woodson.
I became interested inphotonics sort of towards the
end of my undergraduate studiesand decided that I wanted to
continue studying with a focusin photonics in graduate school.
So I did that at the Universityof Virginia, where I focused on
(02:21):
developing low noise avalanchephotodiads, and as I was
finishing up my degree I cameout to Santa Barbara, california
, to interview with Freedom andstarted just a couple months
later.
So I've now been here about sixyears and I am the technical
lead for a small team ofengineers developing various
(02:41):
photodiad technologies andproducts here at Freedom.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
Great.
Thank you, Maddie Stephen.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
Yeah, thanks, daniel.
My name is Stephen Estrella, alittle bit of a different path
from Maddie.
I actually started at Freedomback in 2009.
I was an intern engineer andgot to grow with the company as
I asked more and more questionsI think I got more and more to
(03:13):
do, which was great Got to learna lot and then, as I went
through my undergraduate degree,became fascinated with
photonics and then, many yearslater, decided to go back to
graduate school and finish thatup, and now I work more on the
(03:35):
business side.
So I'm the director of businessdevelopment and looking forward
to growing the company andstill am fascinated by photonics
.
Speaker 3 (03:48):
Thank you, stephen, that's great.
So where should we start?
Obviously, talking about astartup company involves many
different facets, and I think itwould be interesting to start,
perhaps, on company culture.
This is something that isobviously very important for
(04:14):
everyone involved in the companyand, in many ways, culture can
be quite different in a startupcompared to larger companies or
other organizations, such asuniversities and such.
So maybe the best place wouldbe to start by maybe each one of
(04:41):
you trying to describe what doyou think is company culture and
how is it shaped within anorganization?
Madi.
Speaker 4 (04:57):
Sure, well, I think company culture is this
unwritten, unspoken set ofstandards, I guess, for how the
people within the companyinteract with one another and
also externally, with customersas well.
But I think that culture tendsto be more of an insulator type
(05:18):
thing Generally.
I think that some of this comesfrom the top.
Some of this is what themanagement dictates is how
people will behave within thecompany and what are the
priorities, things like that.
But there's also some culture,I think, that's cultivated in
(05:41):
more of a grassroots way, somethe employees working at the
company, just in the way thatthey interact with each other,
and patterns that tend to arisetend to repeat themselves.
And I think that there's also adegree of we're hiring people
that we enjoy working with andso we're perpetuating the
(06:05):
culture through things like that.
What do you think, seaton?
Speaker 1 (06:11):
Yeah, no, that's great.
When I look at a business, Ithink about what is a business,
and I think it ultimately boilsdown to the people.
You don't have just someautonomous thing kind of running
not yet at least and so itreally requires people to
operate and to do what's neededto run a business.
(06:33):
So when I look at culture, it'svery much embedded with the
people, and I think the culture,ultimately, is one of the
foundations right upon which,hopefully, a successful business
is built upon.
And, depending on, obviously,what you're doing and what that
model is, there's many ways thatthis can work, but I think
(06:55):
successful businesses have agood culture.
And so what is a culture?
I think it's as you describe.
It's how people interacttogether and also with the
business.
I think if you have a good teamand people who work really well
together, chances are you'll bevery successful.
But I think the business itselfalso has to support the people
(07:18):
around that and therefore has tohave some type of guidance as
to how we're going to worktogether, how we're going to
accomplish great things right.
And so, therefore, I thinkculture is how we treat each
other, how we support each other, it's the leadership that's
involved, it's the ability togrow.
(07:39):
It's also ability to makemistakes right.
We have to be able to have thatand still have a supportive
work environment and, of course,to be able to have fun right.
I think good teams also knowhow to have a good time and
support one another just as anyother sports team.
Let's say, you know you've gotto celebrate your wins, you've
(08:02):
got to come together and supporteach other on losses.
So I think culture kind ofencompasses all those pieces
together and good culture isbasically, I think, a result in
very successful companies.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
Yeah, I couldn't agree more on that.
I think that a business canonly be successful in a
traditional way, say by making aprofit I mean, that's the most
traditional way of defining asuccessful business but it can
only be successful in thattraditional way by perhaps a
(08:35):
non-traditional or historicallynot necessarily so traditional
approach of really fostering aculture that is supportive of
the interests of everyoneinvolved and certainly of
everybody working in the company.
And, as you mentioned, in orderto do that, developing a social
(08:56):
network internally by sort ofpromoting activities or making
sure that the environment, theculture, is such that, as you
have mentioned, grass rootactivities are possible and
people feel like that issomething that can be done, is
(09:18):
very important.
So I think it would be reallyinteresting if I know that both
of you have developed some veryspecific grass root activities
that have shaped the culturewithin the company.
So if you can talk specificallyabout that, because I think
those are great ideas orexamples on how a culture can be
(09:39):
affected by individuals and candevelop.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
All right, yeah, I'll take a swimming, I guess.
So I think one activity thatwe've kind of implemented and I
think Maddie and I both havekind of done this is in the form
of sports teams.
We have a lot of say youngengineers and I think part of
(10:07):
having a successful business andhaving a good psychological
space is to be physically active.
I think there's a lot ofbenefit and it's also a good way
to bond even outside of work,and you end up talking about
things during work too, and soit just brings people closer
(10:28):
together.
So I think one of the firstkind of activities that we
embarked on, I guess, was havinga softball team.
I think we actually still havethat even today, but we've been
doing this for a few years andthe company has been gracious to
help sponsor that, and I thinkthat realizes some of the
benefits.
But it's great we get all theengineers together.
(10:50):
We're at various levels ofability, but it's great to kind
of come together and dosomething that's not exactly
photonics related but builds ateam right.
So I think there's definitelysome ancillary positive benefit
there.
So something as simple as thatas coming together, forming a
(11:12):
team and just having a good timetogether.
This is something that weorganically kind of decided that
we wanted to do and we've goneoff and done it and in some
cases we've been successful andhave won championships and
things like that.
Other seasons maybe not assuccessful, but still I think
it's a way to bring us togetherand have an activity that's sort
(11:35):
of outside of work andcontinues to foster that sort of
sense of community and cultureeven within the office, right On
and off the field.
What do you think, maddie?
Speaker 4 (11:51):
Yeah, absolutely.
We've had a softball team,we've had soccer teams, we have
people who go on lunchtime runstogether and yeah, like Steven
said, sometimes we're successfuland maybe what Daniel would
call a traditional fun and wewin a championship or some sort
of you know blue ribbon for theseason.
But a lot of the times I thinksome of the success is just
(12:16):
making people who are maybe newto the company feel welcome.
I actually, the year that Istarted at Freedom, I joined the
softball team that Steven wasrunning.
I'd never played softballbefore.
I'm still pretty terrible atsoftball, but it provided you
know a really nice way to get toknow a lot of my coworkers and
(12:37):
you know a low stress headingwhere people are really you know
acting, you know likethemselves.
There's less of like a, I guess, like a barrier to talking to
people when you're collaboratingon something like a softball
(12:59):
team and I think that translatesover really well to
collaborating with those samepeople on projects.
It just kind of lowers theintimidation of being new at a
company and not knowing how toreally start a conversation with
someone.
You immediately have somethingin common with your colleagues
that are on the same you knowsports team or something like
(13:21):
that.
And you know we recognize we'reengineers, we're not.
You know we're not all athletes, but I think that you know
being welcoming to everyone,regardless of what level they're
at, that that's a reallypositive part of our culture
here too.
Speaker 3 (13:40):
Yeah, I think that you both have been great
examples on how individuals inthe organization can shape the
culture through being sort ofthe leaders, of initiating this
sort of maybe, in a way say wecan call it extracurricular
activities, but, on the otherhand, they're not really
extracurricular, they'renecessary, and I think the
(14:02):
impact has been felt very well.
And, as you say, what youlearned about working as a team
in a soccer field, definitelytheir lessons learned there and
how to operate as a team in aproject as well, and so it's all
part and parcel of the samething.
One important aspect of theculture, obviously, is how
(14:25):
people relate to each other.
So and here any comment thatyou might want to venture if you
look at the relationships inyour experience of what it was
or what it is or what it shouldhave been or what it should be,
what are in connection torelationships 360 degrees around
(14:46):
you, the people that report toyou, your peers and the company
leadership and you can tacklethis in any way you want, either
one of you.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
Yeah.
So I think you know, when we'retalking and thinking about sort
of the culture and sort of theactivities that we do, I think
that's really important right,and it's important to have those
kind of interactions because Ithink it also builds a sense of
trust right.
Once you make a fool ofyourself in front of you know,
your fellow colleagues, by doingsome extracurricular activity,
(15:24):
it kind of lowers the barrierright, it makes it normalizes
everybody, it makes you realizeeveryone's human, which is
important, you know, because atthe end of the day we all have
to find a way to work togetherright.
And I think that applies sortof up, down and all around, I
guess, if you want to call itsort of the 360 view, so
(15:46):
obviously working directly withyour peers, sort of, let's say,
laterally.
I think that definitely helps.
But then when you're doing theseactivities, both maybe with you
know, people who work above andbelow you, I think it builds
those bonds, makes them strongerand again kind of reinforces
sort of this level of trust,which I think is really
(16:07):
important.
So I think there's just a lotof benefits to just, you know,
being able to have those kind ofactivities, those interactions,
whether they're sort of in theoffice, outside of the office,
because you need to be able toapproach people and they need to
be able to approach you too.
Right, it's a two way street,for sure.
So I think all of those thingsare really necessary and I'd
(16:29):
still kind of put those on theumbrella, kind of like culture,
right, it's still all sort ofnecessary, and I think that
bi-directional trust is reallyquintessential for having again
a successful business and havinggood culture.
Speaker 4 (16:51):
I would echo what Steven is saying and maybe just
another element to add to thatis that frequently when you are
interacting with people on thesports teams or outside of work
maybe at a company event orsomething like that as Steven
said, you are interacting withpeople both who work above you
(17:12):
and below you and as well aslateral to you.
But you frequently interact withpeople who your day-to-day work
doesn't necessarily push you towork with.
If I am working on a SotoDiadteam, I might not necessarily
interact with someone on ourlaser team on a day-to-day basis
, but in having thisconversation at a company
(17:35):
barbecue or something like that,it is really interesting to
hear what people are working onand sometimes you will find that
you are tackling very similarproblems as people on another
team, and having those sort oflike low pressure interactions
gives you an opportunity notonly to get to know people who
(17:59):
you are not necessarily going tointeract with, like I said, on
a day-to-day basis, but also totry to float solutions and ideas
across people who have thatdifferent perspective from you
and maybe a different background.
That ends up being, I think,something that is technically
(18:19):
really useful about just thesesocial linkage friends.
Speaker 3 (18:26):
Yeah, absolutely, and these sort of networking
opportunities, if you want, tomeeting people that are working
in other areas, obviously help.
Communication and trust thatyou mentioned too, are two key
elements in the operation of anyorganization and certainly in a
(18:49):
startup, without which, again,success is not possible.
So let's change gears a littlebit.
It's still, in a way, part ofculture, but you've mentioned
about, sort of very top level,your professional development in
(19:13):
the past few years within thecompany.
Let's expand that a little bitmore.
If you can talk about yourprofessional growth within a
startup company, what have youexperienced directly?
What has been good, what maybehas not been so good?
Stephen, do you want to starton that?
Speaker 1 (19:38):
Yeah, sure.
So I think anytime you envisionlike a startup, right, you
might think you know, okay, it'shappening in someone's basement
or garage, or you know whoknows in some small little
corner, and I think that's stillpretty much true.
You know, usually startups havekind of humble beginnings and I
(20:00):
would think and say, you know,I think freedom is an example of
that as well, and because youdon't maybe don't start out with
a whole lot in terms ofinfrastructure or resources, you
have to be very creative.
You know, necessity is themother of invention, right?
(20:21):
So you have very limited money,limited resources, limited time
to try to do something amazing.
And I think that's part of theallure of being with a startup
is that you know you really geta chance to get involved with
all kinds of different things.
(20:41):
I think I had no idea what I wasgetting myself into in a
positive way when I joinedFreedom.
I didn't expect that I would beexposed to so many various
aspects of the company.
You know, I think when you'rean engineer, you think, okay,
well, all I'm going to do is,you know, maybe some engineering
, and I think maybe in somecases that's true, but again,
(21:04):
because of the needs are greatand the workers are few, it
means that people are going towear, by necessity, kind of
various different hats and Ithink that's I consider that to
be like a benefit of workingwith a startup.
So, yes, like there's obviouslyyour traditional engineering
work that has to get done, youknow, design something,
(21:26):
fabricate something, testsomething.
But there's also variousaspects that are about a
comprise of business as well.
There's the financial aspects,there's the program management,
there's the sales, there's themarketing, you know all these
little things basically, and Ithink in my experience, if I
kind of just look from a highlevel, I guess, kind of looking
(21:48):
all the way back through mycareer, I think I had, you know,
good fortune, good benefit ofbeing interested in all these
things and being given theopportunity to engage in those
activities.
You know, willingly I wanted totry those out and I got that
kind of exposure.
So, as I mentioned kind of inthe beginning in the intro, like
(22:10):
I started out as an intern, Iwas doing PCV layout.
You know nothing photonicrelated, but you know turns out,
pcv layout is not toodissimilar from photonic
integrated circuit layout.
So I saw what the founders weredoing and I said you know, hey,
what is that?
Can I do that?
Yeah, absolutely.
(22:30):
So you design something.
It gets fabricated.
Okay, well, you know youdesigned it.
Now you get to test it right,let's see how that turned out.
So you know, you start gettinginto, you know, testing
measurement.
There's a lot of learning there.
Okay, well, now we need topackage this device and, okay,
(22:51):
how do we do that?
So there's learning, sort of onthe packaging aspect, and then
you know, after a few iterationsof that, okay, now you know,
think about how we would do thisdifferently.
Is there another application orproject that we can kind of go
after and apply this technology?
And kind of?
(23:12):
You know, it's a little bit ofa snowball effect.
Once you kind of gather theseskills up, you're able to kind
of do more and be given moreresponsibility, and I think
that's kind of been thetrajectory.
I guess that I've kind offollowed is, I've been with the
company for a long time but I'vedone, I think, quite a bit.
I've had the opportunity to dothat and also exploring various
(23:36):
aspects.
You know I was doing a lot ofengineering and now I'm more on
the business side of things too,and so I think that's just
evidence of being given thatopportunity to try to explore
things and obviously hopefullyexcel, of course.
But I think that's one of thebenefits of the small company is
(23:57):
that there is no shortage ofwork to be done in various areas
and you can basically pursuethose pieces and kind of go off
and explore, and I think there'sjust a lot of benefit, even
from just an engineeringperspective.
You know, engineeringencompasses so many different
things and I think the moreexposure you get to that gives
(24:18):
you a really good holisticperspective to then really focus
on what you want to do.
But if you have anunderstanding of why it needs to
be done in a particular wayfrom a business perspective or
from a financial perspective orfrom a marketing perspective, I
think that's really beneficialin the long run.
So those, all those experiencesand things, I think add up
(24:39):
pretty well.
But what do you think, natty?
Speaker 4 (24:45):
Yeah, absolutely.
I think one of the things thatreally drew me to freedom was, I
mean, I remember sitting in myinterview and our CEO telling me
well, you're going to wear alot of hats if you work here.
That's a phrase that we throwaround a lot here.
I mean, I would say that if youhave a Sierra's boredom, you
(25:05):
should join a start test.
I also felt like I was given alot of opportunities to really
explore what it was that I wasinterested in.
I would voice some interest inprogram management and within a
month or two that sort ofopportunity was given to me as
something I could try out.
I had an interest in businessdevelopment.
(25:26):
I was able to try a little bitof that out too.
Something that's been reallycool at Freedom is, I think we
have a lot of mentors in a lotof different areas where we have
people with strong technicalbackgrounds, strong business
backgrounds, strong programmanagement backgrounds.
That helps shape this cultureof really passionate, curious
(25:51):
people who are really eager tohelp.
This is sort of like thisthickly process of someone eager
to help and they're givensomething that they're able to
help out on.
The management reallyfacilitates that by supporting
the curiosity of the individualswho are working here.
Something that I think is kindof neat about startup is you
(26:17):
have this web of skills that'sshared across the company.
There's one person who doesthis one thing at the company.
No, there's three or fourpeople who all have some
experience with that.
I think that you have to becareful not to spread yourself
too thin.
You don't want that web ofskills to become a tangle of
(26:38):
unclear who's responsible forwhat.
I think it makes for a reallystrong company, both in terms of
culture and in expertise.
Speaker 3 (26:51):
Yeah, absolutely Steven.
You have a very uniqueprofessional growth path in the
sense that you did your PhDstudies while you were working.
I must say you were working150% as well as doing a PhD 150%
(27:13):
.
I think this is something thatmight be interesting to share
your experience of overcomingall of those hurdles and
succeeding and doing a PhD whileworking.
Speaker 1 (27:28):
Yeah, that was quite an interesting journey and I'm
glad I went through that.
I will say up front.
That said, yeah, it definitelywas a lot of work.
I guess I'll kind of go all theway back to the beginning and
kind of quickly come up to wherewe are.
But when I was interviewingwith the company they asked me
(27:51):
what do you want to do long term?
I said I want to do what you do.
I think one day I'd like tohave maybe a company or get my
PhD and do what you guys do,which is kind of go after these
really cool projects and do allthese kind of wonderful things.
I saw them kind of look at eachother and like, okay, yeah, lo
(28:14):
and behold I think that wasmaybe 10 years later or
something like that I did go offand kind of get that PhD.
I would say it felt kind ofnatural in a sense.
We're working with a lot ofsmart people and you're just
(28:34):
kind of immersed sort of in thisenvironment and it just kind of
reinforced my desire to do thatof like, okay, I am doing the
work, I am operating at thatlevel, so I should be able to do
this Right.
So that opportunity kind ofcame up.
As I mentioned, I graduatedfrom UCSB I think it was in 2010
(28:56):
, and then I continued workingfor about six years before going
back to graduate school in 2016.
So my comment there is ifyou're interested in going to
graduate school, fantastic, butprobably don't wait that long.
I think it was reallychallenging to be in industry
kind of.
So long you get comfortable,you know you have your way of
(29:19):
life, and then to kind of bethrown back into that setting
was challenging.
I think my first year Idefinitely struggled, just
trying to get back into thatsort of academic mindset, trying
to balance life, trying tobalance work.
And, you know, eventually I didgo off and talk to a counselor
(29:42):
or advisor at school and they'relike so what's going on in your
life?
And I said, well, I'm going toschool, I'm working full time,
I'm doing all these things.
And they said, wow, yeah, Ithink we need to.
Sounds like you're doing a lot.
We should try to figure out howto kind of divide and conquer,
and I think that was really goodadvice.
So having kind of thoseboundaries of you know, when I'm
(30:04):
at school I'm focused at school, when I'm at work I'm focused
at work, and to try as best as Ican to kind of keep those
separate, just so that I cankind of focus.
And then I'm happy to say, inthe second year and the years
after, I did amazingly wellafter that trying to implement
sort of that approach.
(30:24):
The other aspect I think thatkind of made this possible is,
you know, the work I was doing.
My thesis work was of interestboth to the university and to
the company.
So you know, I was working onSilicon Photonics for harsh
environments and so that projectbasically was kind of one in
(30:45):
the same.
What I was doing for my researchat UCSB was the same as my my
quote, unquote day job atFreedom, and so I, you know, I
kind of like to point to thissort of overlap, integral.
You know that it needs to bevery close to one or 100%.
You know, if they can be assimilar as possible, I think the
(31:08):
chances of success, you know,become that much more, you know,
tangible, because I think ifyou're pulled in kind of two
different directions, I don'tknow, I'm not that person, I
don't think I could have donethat, but maybe someone else can
.
But at least for me, you know,being able to focus kind of on
one thing and do it well waskind of the key to success.
(31:31):
So I'd say, if you do, you know, try to go off to work
simultaneously and to go tograduate school.
Really try to find somethingthat you know you can kind of
use for both purposes, dualpurpose, as it were, because
it's challenging enough justpursuing a PhD and it's
challenging enough to besuccessful in a job.
So my recommendation would beto try to try to make those as
(31:55):
similar as possible.
So yeah, it was, it was Ilearned a lot about myself going
through that and and hopefullyI mean I made my scientific
contributions there as well.
But I think in the end it wasreally a fantastic experience
and I think it was pretty,pretty unique in that sense, and
(32:15):
so if someone has theopportunity to do it, I
definitely recommend go for it,but just keep in mind the
journey ahead and kind of whatit takes to do that and to try
to find a balance between worklife, school.
You know all those are reallyimportant, you know.
And definitely to have fun too.
(32:36):
Right, you got to find ways toenjoy.
You know what you're doingbecause life is short.
So I think being able tocelebrate some of those wins,
being able to, you know,celebrate with your friends,
your family, your loved ones, Ithink that's all important.
They're all part of thatjourney too.
Your colleagues too, yourcoworkers I think I had a lot of
(32:57):
support from them too.
So all those pieces kind ofhave to come together or should,
to kind of make that journeypossible.
So I'm grateful that I've donethat.
Speaker 3 (33:07):
Yeah, it was quite extraordinary to follow what you
were doing at that time and youdid really extraordinarily well
.
I told you this in the past,but congratulations again.
It's been.
It was quite a challenge, Mati.
You followed perhaps what isthe most conventional, more
(33:27):
conventional path of doing a PhDbefore going to work sort of
sequential role and in parallel,Can you comment on the
transition from doing a PhD tocoming into freedom, photonics,
going to a startup?
What comes to your mind?
Do you feel that your PhDprepared you for the work ahead?
(33:52):
Is there anything that couldhave been done different or not?
And so what do you rememberabout the transition from one to
the other?
Speaker 4 (34:04):
Yeah, that's a great question, Daniel.
I, as you know, I think mostpeople know it's difficult
really to do any photonicresearch and or even really take
a class on photonics and mostundergraduate programs.
So I saw, you know, photonicsis something I was interested in
and that sort of necessitatedgoing to graduate school.
(34:25):
And, you know, at the time itactually lined up quite well for
me, because this was sort ofaround the time of the recession
and it was difficult to signjobs.
I thought, well, I'll just,I'll I enjoy learning, I'll
continue to go to school.
But, you know, something that Ireally admire about Steven's
(34:45):
path is that, steven, you reallycame in with, like, not only
this hands-on experience of likeyou've done some layout, you've
seen some devices, but you alsocame in with, like this really
great sense of context and Ithink that's something that I
see as like a very like adifference in our, you know,
graduate schooling.
I think, you know, like manyPhD students, I was, you know,
(35:10):
really hyper focused on thetechnology that I was working on
.
You know, when you're ingraduate school, I think it's
easy to fall into this state ofyou know, you're really trying
to push the boundaries of thestate of the art, but you're not
tasked with making any moneyoff of it.
So you're not necessarily, youknow, understanding the market.
We're trying to make amanufacturable product.
(35:33):
You know you're really tryingto get like one hero device.
But, you know, with the rightphase of the moon you can
measure the right, you knowparameters and get sort of
excellent performance.
And that was a.
You know, a major change incoming to freedom was oh well, I
mean, a lot of our work that wedo and have done here at
(35:56):
Freedom has been very researchy,you know, and I'm grateful for
the opportunity to continue towork on, you know, research and
development, which I think isquite fun, but at the same time
meaning to do these thingskeeping in mind, well, you know,
maybe this chip needs to gointo a package one day.
How are we going to handle that?
That was something.
(36:17):
You know that in graduate schoolI was much more focused on, you
know, the, the epitaxial stackand the fabrication of a device.
But working at Freedom reallykind of expanded, you know, the,
the context for which I'mthinking about these devices.
Now I'm thinking, okay, well,what's this going to look like
(36:39):
If it needs to go into a package, or what sort of system is this
going to go into?
What sort of markets does thisaddress?
And all of that kind of givesyou, you know, some extra tools
as a as an engineer, to thinkabout when you're, when you're
designing a product.
Speaker 3 (36:58):
Yeah, exactly Like every engineer finishing his or
her studies, broadly speaking,you had a choice of going to a
small company, a startup, orgoing to a large company, or
continuing at the university andfollow the academic path.
(37:22):
Obviously you chose going to astartup.
So we're all biased, I guess,in our opinions, but how do you
see sort of life at a startupcompared to life at a larger
company or in a university?
And again, I warned thelistener that we're all biased
(37:44):
here, but in an as unbiased wayas you can.
Speaker 4 (37:54):
Yeah, like I said earlier, I think that really
liked.
That promise that I would getto do a wide variety of things
was really a major draw for meto join a small company.
You know I was nervous aboutgetting siloed into doing just
one sort of thing and I think Ihad that sort of trepidation
(38:16):
about going to a larger company.
You know I didn't want to benecessarily someone who just
does one tap day in and day out,but I think I like the idea of
joining a company rather thanstaying at a university and
being a part of actually makingsomething that people would get
(38:38):
to use one day.
I mean, this is not to cast anyshade on universities.
We develop incredibletechnologies that are often, you
know, scooped up by a smallbusiness or a large business and
products are made from thosetechnologies.
But I guess I wanted to be partof that process.
(39:00):
I wanted to see you know how atechnology goes from an idea or
a paper to something that acustomer can buy off the shelf.
That was really the pull for meto join a small business.
Speaker 1 (39:19):
Yeah, I agree with what Maddie said and I think for
me, when I look at what you cando, or at least the promise of
what you can do at a startupversus a larger company, I think
there's, you know, potentiallymore there.
Right, you get a chance totackle a wide variety of things.
I think the other I'll take adifferent sort of vector as well
(39:44):
you know there's also thefinancial part of it too.
Right, it's an investment.
So the hope is, you know, ifyou join a startup, hopefully
the startup blossoms into youknow, the next unicorn, or
whatever the terminology is nowtoday, of being a very, very
successful business.
(40:04):
And when you are a part of that, the hope is obviously you get
to go along for that ride aswell.
But, as I have kind ofmentioned, usually when a young
startup is kind of getting going, there's just not there's not a
lot of money, obviously to kindof pay you.
So, yes, you get to do a lot,but maybe compensation might not
(40:28):
be as high.
And I think larger companies,by definition, tend to have more
revenue people.
They can have people be alittle bit more focused in what
they do and potentially theyalso get compensated a little
bit more.
So there's this kind of I don'tknow, at least for me, when I
was kind of looking at it.
It's like, well, what mattersto me, to me most, right, and I
(40:51):
think everyone is there aredifferent stages in their lives
and what matters more to them.
But for me, I think I chose togo with the startup because I
saw it as an investment, notonly sort of in professional
development, but hopefullyfinancial as well, right, and we
did eventually become acquiredby Lumenard Technologies, so
(41:14):
that there is success in that.
But that's not always the casefor every startup, right.
Not every startup succeeds.
So it's a risk, it's a riskreward, I think, kind of balance
.
And for those, I think, who aremore risk tolerant, yeah, I
think a startup kind of makessense and for those who are not
so tolerant, they may choose togo with a larger company.
Speaker 3 (41:38):
Yeah, exactly, there is some risk.
I mean the numbers, commonknowledge numbers are one in ten
startups succeed, and I don'tknow if that's exactly right.
Certainly the odds are againstyou.
But something that I've foundout is that in larger companies,
(41:59):
odds relating to the groupwhere you are at are not
necessarily much different.
You're always part of a smallergroup within a large company.
So the risk is there, and it'snot so much of a risk in the
sense that even though somecompanies might go under, the
(42:20):
industry like in this case thephotonics industry flourishes,
grows, has grown exponentially,and so, even though maybe some
companies have not succeeded,the industry world does, and
with that everybody involved.
So there's always anotheropportunity.
One important aspect in sort ofengineering life is engineers
(42:44):
love to tell the world aboutwhat they're doing and what
they've accomplished.
It's human nature, not onlyengineers as part of being part
of humanity.
Now this is an aspect whereuniversities and industry differ
quite a bit, in the sense thatit is the purpose and the task
(43:05):
of universities obviously toincrease human knowledge and
thus sort of spreading this overeverywhere.
The new knowledge is animportant part of the function
of university.
In industry, Spreadingknowledge is important too, but
in somewhat of a more restrictedsense.
(43:26):
Obviously, there are someaspects of what industries do
that cannot be discussed outsideof the company.
It would be interesting if youcould mention what your
experience has been in the senseof publishing as part of
industry, as part of a smallcompany.
What's been your experiencethere?
Speaker 1 (43:52):
Yeah, they are different environments and
therefore different motivations.
I think from an academicperspective, you publish results
out there also with the intentof having it be able to be
verified, replicated.
It's in your interest toexplain how everything is done
(44:16):
because hopefully someone elsehas the ability to replicate
that experiment or that result,which means intimate knowledge
is needed of everything thatwent in there.
It's also a way, obviously tocontribute overall to the
scientific body of knowledge.
I think when you look at froman industrial perspective why
(44:41):
one would publish, themotivation is a little bit
different.
It's to make people aware ofwhat the company has done or the
person involved in that.
Companies have an incentive tonot release all the details of
(45:02):
what was done.
There there's potentiallyintellectual property and trade
secrets that may have gone intothat result.
If that were just freelydispersed, well, then it means
someone else could replicatewhat you did.
Then that means that you'velost your competitive advantage.
That potentially could have anegative impact on the business.
(45:26):
I think the reason why anindustrial entity I decide to
publish is really more from themarketing perspective of saying,
hey, we've done this greatthing, we can do it again for
you.
We're making this great newproduct.
It has these amazing newperformance.
We can do that for you.
(45:48):
Hopefully that draws morecustomers and therefore more
revenue to the company, Becausethere is really I wouldn't say a
financial incentive for anacademic institution to do that.
It's really to contributeknowledge to the body of science
as a part.
What do you think, Maddie?
Speaker 4 (46:09):
Yeah, absolutely.
Maybe there's an argument to bemade that there is perhaps this
financial motivation even for auniversity.
They're looking to prove thatthey've got the know-how and
that they can deliver on acontract or a grant that they're
offered.
But it is quite different.
(46:30):
Something that I sort of use asa metaphor is that we have our
secret sauce recipe that couldbe at the textile structure,
that could be from fabricationtechniques that we have here.
While I think in some otherindustries you might protect
that with something like apatent, that's not necessarily
(46:55):
the best protection.
In the world of semiconductorsit's quite hard to prove that
your competitor is using thesame at the taxiel stack as you
or that they're using aparticular fabrication technique
that you've patented.
The onus of proving that isreally challenging.
When you're talking about thesedevices that are really
(47:19):
precisely manufactured in aclean room, for which it's not
necessarily easy to, I guess,analyze what a chip might be
composed of or things like that,it becomes a much more
complicated problem than itmight be in, say, another
(47:41):
industry.
What I've learned over theyears is that, rather than
filing a patent on something,people will just generally keep
trade secrets within the companyand they don't release that
information outside of thecompany.
Let's see, I just noticed thatwe lost our network connection.
(48:05):
I don't know if you can stillhear me through my phone.
Speaker 3 (48:08):
Okay, I can hear you, no problem.
Speaker 4 (48:11):
All right, well, yeah , I think that's sort of the end
of what I was going to saythere.
Speaker 3 (48:17):
Anyway, yeah, thank you.
Certainly there are differencesthere, but still it is possible
to publish an industry with aslightly different tone, as it
were.
And, as you highlighted, theobjectives are different in
industry as industry publishers,compared to university In
(48:40):
direction, a little bit in theconversation over the past few
years, people have workedremotely significantly, and
whether full-time, remotely orpart-time, I mean it's a hybrid
some time remote, some time onsite.
What's been your experience andwhat do you think?
What's the sort of rightbalance between working remotely
(49:03):
and working on site?
Speaker 1 (49:03):
Okay, so you know we're remote, right, we're doing
this although, you know, forthe listeners, maddie and I are
actually sitting across fromeach other.
But you know, I think what wefound from this unfortunate
event is, you know, again,necessity is kind of the mother
(49:24):
of invention.
Here we found ways to stillkind of be productive and so I
think, hopefully, that there isan agreement that working sort
of remote is definitely possibleand doable.
Now, is that right for everyparticular you know job?
Probably not.
(49:45):
I think there are instanceswhere you know people kind of
need to be where the work is atand because you know they're
more hands-on or they need tointeract with people a little
bit more intimately.
But I think, if we look at itfrom an experiment, let's say a
social experiment, I think theevidence is there that we can
(50:09):
still be productive.
Now, that said, I think you knowwe're all social animals and I
think there is that element ofand desire maybe for most people
to want to be kind of togetherright, to kind of be in the same
room.
Let's say, matt, you brought up, you know, the example of being
(50:30):
at a barbecue and talking topeople and it's like, well, that
happened because we're allbrought together right.
And so I think if you'reentirely remote it's not
impossible.
But I think it's a little morechallenging right to kind of
have those happenstanceexperiences, or just you walk by
(50:52):
somebody and something happensand, who knows, you know, maybe
you have another great idea.
But that may not have beenpossible if you weren't really
sort of in the same building or,you know, very close by.
So I think there are times whenyou know we're doing particular
work where it's like, well, youknow I can be off wherever I
need to do that and I don'tnecessarily need to, you know,
(51:15):
be on site or have physical sortof proximity.
But then there I think thereare times where it does make
sense and there may be that need.
So I think the hybrid model,hopefully, is kind of here to
stay.
I think that very much ispossible.
Now, where is that rightbalance?
I don't know.
I think we're still all kind offiguring that out.
(51:37):
But at least from a kind ofhumanistic perspective, I think
there is still a lot of goodbenefit for people to actually
be closer together.
I think that tends to helpthings.
Speaker 4 (51:51):
Yeah, absolutely.
I think that you know, one ofthe positive parts of, as you
said, a really terrible eventwas that I would say that remote
work kind of pushedconferencing technology.
It pushed our ability to workonline, but it is really hard to
synthesize that like watercooler talk that you're talking
(52:12):
about.
See, then it's like that sort oflike random happenstance, like
doesn't really really come topass on like a meeting, and
further I think that you knowwhen you, when you try to force
something like that, it doesn'tfeel organic to have, you know,
a group of 50 people on a Zoomcall trying to make it feel like
(52:35):
a normal conversation.
It's simply not the way I thinkthat humans interact.
And yeah, absolutely I'd saythat I'm also sort of a social
creature.
I'd prefer to be in the officeand I'd prefer to be working
with the other people directly.
But of course, I think, likemany other employees I mean I
(52:57):
appreciate the flexibility of ahybrid model.
It's nice to you know if I havesomething that I need to do in
the middle of the day and I feellike I can get something done
later on.
It's that sort of flexibility Ithink has been a positive change
generally.
But yeah, I'm figuring outwhere the where the fulcrum is.
(53:19):
I guess to balance how muchtime you should spend remote
versus working in person, it's atough question to answer and I
think it's further complicatedby the fact that there are parts
of our job that can'tnecessarily be done remotely.
I mean, there are techniciansand engineers here at Freedom
(53:43):
for whom very little, if any, oftheir job can be done remotely
because they need to be in thelab and they need to be doing
things that are hands on, and Ithink that there's a degree to a
solidarity of trying, even ifyou can do a task remotely, to
being around and available forpeople who might need your help
(54:05):
hands on in the lab or need someinput from you.
Speaker 3 (54:11):
Great, Thank you.
Changing topics again, thethree of us were attracted by
photonics, photonics technology,photonics industry right at the
beginning of our careers forsome magical reasons.
I personally don't alwaysunderstand why it happened, but
(54:32):
it did happen and it happenedvery strongly.
Basically, it's kept me in thisfor the whole of my career and
it's been wonderful.
But if now we address peoplethat are where we were then
thinking of what area shouldthey choose for their career?
What can you tell them aboutphotonics today?
(54:55):
How does it look going forward?
What can they expect in theircareer for somebody that is
looking at starting right now?
Speaker 1 (55:07):
So I don't remember the exact moment that I knew
that I was going to do photonicsfor practically the rest of my
life.
But I remember sort of whathappened.
I was actually working for arobotics company before coming
to Freedom and during myundergraduate studies I took a
(55:30):
class on fiber opticcommunication system.
It was the only class right atthe undergraduate level I could
take, and I don't know what itwas, professor, the material,
but I just during that class Ijust knew this is what I'm going
to do.
I couldn't explain it and Iknew that I had to find a way to
kind of become a part of thiskind of emerging field.
(55:53):
That's kind of how I came toFreedom.
But kind of looking forward, Iguess what's interesting is to
kind of see how much photonicsis actually permeating other
disciplines, and those lines arekind of becoming a little bit
more blurred, which is great.
(56:14):
I think it's fantastic becausethat means that doing things
with light is finding so manyapplications and other areas.
I mean for medicine, for health, for, obviously, communications
, yes, but for sensing, forastronomy, for I mean just like,
(56:38):
wherever you look, I meanpeople are actively trying to
see how light can be applied tokind of further advance that
particular domain.
So I guess if you're intriguedby light, if you look at a
rainbow and think like how doesthat work?
Or you look at through a pooland like OK, well, why is that
(57:00):
object over there?
These are kind of the thingsthat we kind of notice as a
child and you have that kind ofchild like wonder, and I think
it still applies today.
I think we know why obviouslythat happens.
But if you find yourself kind oflooking at those kinds of
problems and kind of askingyourself why, then maybe
Photonics is kind of right foryou and I guess, not to be
(57:23):
worried to think that maybe,well, if I go into Photonics,
all I'm going to do is work onfiber optic communication
systems Not that that's a badthing, but I think Photonics is
kind of really finding many,many more areas of applicability
and I think that's reallyexciting.
I think it's really exciting tobe a part of that and to see
(57:45):
that we might be surrounded byPhotonics more than we might
think currently.
Right now, maybe it'll be inour hands.
I guess it really is right.
We if you think of your iPhone,if you have an iPhone, there's
sensors that are already inthere that make use of these
principles, and so, whether yousee it or not, I guess we are
(58:08):
surrounded by things that aredriven by light and, and I think
, the future, if I can make ajoke, you know it's pretty
bright for, for, for Photonics,and so, for people who are
interested, I definitely go forit.
I think there's no shortage ofproblems to be solved, and I
think you'd be pretty pleasedwhere it can be applied and how
(58:30):
much benefit there is forsociety.
Speaker 4 (58:36):
Yes, yes, Steven, I think you touched on some good
applications, but you know,they're even like buzzier
applications.
You're right, Like you're wellaware of the quantum computing
and communications efforts thatare going on.
And then, of course, you knowwe work for an automotive LiDAR
company.
Those are, I would say, likeyou know, they're kind of like
(58:57):
applications that are that arein the news a lot right now.
I guess another comment that Ihave on you know what sort of
the, the beauty or the joy, ifyou want, of Photonics is.
I think, pretty clearly,there's a lot of physics
involved, but it's not justphysics, you know.
(59:18):
There's optics, there'smechanical engineering, there's
systems engineering.
There's really a pretty broadvariety of topics that you'll be
involved in if you, you know,join the Photonics community and
you know, as, like I saidbefore, if you're a curious
person, if you're afraid ofboredoms, this is, this is a
(59:38):
pretty nice field to be in.
There's a lot going on and,yeah, I'd echo the future is
bright for sure.
Speaker 3 (59:48):
Is there anything else that we haven't said that
you would like to say?
Speaker 1 (59:57):
Well, I just want to say I think this is great.
I think being able to talkabout our experiences and tap
into people's brains tounderstand what's it like being
in photonics, I think that's areally neat opportunity.
So I encourage this kind ofdialogue going forward.
(01:00:18):
So I think, for me, I'mgrateful to have this
opportunity and to share it withyou, daniel Maddie, and, as you
mentioned, we all work together, so it's just a great way to
talk about our common experience, and I think it's also been
neat to see where we differ andwhere we have commonalities.
So, again, evidence of justbeing together and being able to
(01:00:41):
discuss and communicate.
So, yeah, thanks for theopportunity.
Speaker 2 (01:00:46):
That was amazing yeah thank you very much.
Sorry, no like honestly likeyou guys just gave me, so I want
to like work twice as hardtoday now.
Speaker 3 (01:00:57):
That was amazing, well actually Steven said
something, I think you haveanother two minutes.
Maddie could say something, andthen we'll wrap it up.
Yeah, no problem.
I mean we're about one or twominutes away from the channel.
Speaker 1 (01:01:13):
Yeah, no problem, as long as I'm open so as long as
you guys want to continue on.
Speaker 4 (01:01:17):
I'm going to go back on mute Just two minutes.
Speaker 3 (01:01:20):
Yeah, I'm going to go back on mute, maddie, anything
else?
Speaker 4 (01:01:27):
Yeah, I would echo what Steven said.
Thank you very much for theopportunity.
Thank you, daniel, for leadingthe discussion, and I spent a
lot of fun.
I learned some things aboutSteven that I never knew.
I worked with him for six years, so this is a lot of fun and I
appreciate the opportunity.
Speaker 3 (01:01:44):
Yeah, yeah, thank you , maddie and Steven, and thank
you to the IEEE Photonic Society.
I would like to continuetalking for a long time and a
lot more to talk about, but Ithink we should let the
listeners continue what theywere doing before.
I hope whoever has listened tothis has learned something that
(01:02:11):
is useful in the sense of whatworking in a Photonic Startup is
about, and thank you very muchfor listening to us.
Speaker 4 (01:02:20):
There we're done.
Speaker 3 (01:02:21):
Thank you, therese so much.
Speaker 2 (01:02:23):
Like I said, I just think it's super inspiring.
You guys are really inspiringand motivating.
I'm like can I go intoPhotonics now?
Speaker 4 (01:02:36):
But there was a couple of moments that really
stood out to me from a marketingperspective.
Speaker 2 (01:02:41):
This is our fourth episode of recording and I
really haven't felt like I meanthey were very technical.
So I'm not technical, but thereis a couple of moments that I
can see us using for a lot ofour promotions for the podcast.
So, I'm so excited to see whatthe editor does with it, and I
did want to invite both of youto come back.
So if either Maddie or Steven,if you have a certain interest
(01:03:06):
in Photonics or in Photonics andapplications, or even soft
skills.
feel free to send them to me andthen, when we're planning our
expert speakers, we might inviteyou back as a moderator or as a
host on future episodes andjust as far as next steps, what
will happen now is I will sendthis to our editor, and they
(01:03:28):
usually turn it around in acouple of days, so I'm looking
at getting the episode to youthree to review by early next
week.
Speaker 4 (01:03:37):
And then it will be put on Spotify.
Speaker 2 (01:03:40):
And we also are assorted.
We've been planning like thishuge marketing campaign to
officially launch our podcast.
We are on Spotify but we're notpromoting it yet and we already
had like a bunch of downloadsover 100 downloads.
Speaker 4 (01:03:54):
So it's really going to get high visibility once we
officially launch.
Speaker 2 (01:03:58):
So very excited to have you three as an episode.
It was really really, reallyinsightful and interesting and I
really appreciate the time youall took.
We're listening to the 911conference.
Speaker 1 (01:04:09):
Yeah well, thank you, Kristen.
Really enjoyed it and happy tocome back, so I appreciate the
invitation.
Speaker 4 (01:04:14):
This is a home from Terrace.
Speaker 2 (01:04:18):
Do you three have any questions for me or Matt?
No?
Speaker 3 (01:04:23):
Out of my car.
All right, awesome.
Speaker 4 (01:04:26):
So I'll be in touch next week and just thank you
again and have a great weekend.
Speaker 3 (01:04:31):
All right, thank you everyone Awesome, thank you so
much Kristen Take care.
Speaker 1 (01:04:35):
Bye-bye, have a great weekend.
Speaker 4 (01:04:38):
Bye Thank you Bye.
Popular Podcasts
Are You A Charlotte?
In 1997, actress Kristin Davis’ life was forever changed when she took on the role of Charlotte York in Sex and the City. As we watched Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte navigate relationships in NYC, the show helped push once unacceptable conversation topics out of the shadows and altered the narrative around women and sex. We all saw ourselves in them as they searched for fulfillment in life, sex and friendships. Now, Kristin Davis wants to connect with you, the fans, and share untold stories and all the behind the scenes. Together, with Kristin and special guests, what will begin with Sex and the City will evolve into talks about themes that are still so relevant today. "Are you a Charlotte?" is much more than just rewatching this beloved show, it brings the past and the present together as we talk with heart, humor and of course some optimism.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com