Keith & Kenneth Tsang, BS 2010 – Staying Curious Always

(Transcripts may contain a few typographical errors due to audio quality during the podcast recording.)

[00:00:09] Sean Li: Welcome to the OneHaas Alumni Podcast. I’m your host, Sean Li. And today, we’re joined by Keith and Kenneth Tsang. Keith and Kenneth are twins — identical twins — right?

[00:00:22] Kenneth Tsang: Yeah.

[00:00:22] Keith Tsang: Yeah, for sure. But I mean, like, it’s one of those things that, biology, nurture has gone its course more than nature once we, kind of, got born so you see much more differences now than when we were kids.

[00:00:32] Sean Li: Oh, I love it. Well, before we dig into that, I do want to mention, Keith and Kenneth are triple majors at Berkeley — in psychology, political science, and obviously, at our wonderful Haas Business School. I love to start these conversations hearing about your origin story. I would love to hear how you guys grew up, where you grew up, and even sometimes, I love to hear what your parents did because it’s always so curious to me. Who wants to start?

[00:01:02] Kenneth Tsang: Maybe, I’ll give a stab at it, and then Keith can jump in. So, we were both born in the Bay Area. But literally right after, we moved back to Hong Kong where our parents are from. And so, we lived there, grew up, and went to kindergarten. And then when we’re five, we came back to California, in the Bay Area. We grew up in Fremont. So, we went to kindergarten, and then all through college, because Berkeley is also here, all those years were spent in the Bay Area. So, those were those formative years.

Our parents were both born in Hong Kong. On our mom’s side, interestingly, her parents were from the Shanghai area. They moved to Hong Kong after the Second World War.

[00:01:42] Sean Li: Right.

[00:01:43] Kenneth Tsang: And I think, why we were born in the U.S., I think my dad just really wanted us to have that education. And he was just really planning far ahead. He’s a surveyor. And he’s half retired now. But I always see that, sort of, engineering mindset in him, right? Sort of, just having that plan and executing on it. And I know we’ll probably get to it, but I think, like as an engineer, that is an intrinsic quality of people who take that mental approach.

[00:02:08] Sean Li: Yeah.

[00:02:09] Kenneth Tsang: And so, we were here. I think, when we asked him, you know, why the U.S., he said that, at the time, he was working for a U.S. company and was able to travel here. And he’s like, “If I was working for a British company,” which, plenty of in Hong Kong, then we might’ve been born in the UK. But that’s, sort of, how things panned out.

[00:02:27] Sean Li: Keith, do you remember it any differently?

[00:02:30] Keith Tsang: No, no, no. That’s basically the highlight of it. I think the additional thing I could add is that, right when we were born, we went back to Hong Kong, and I think that was a decision our parents really made to give us a cultural foundation, just learn the language, just be in the environment, and have that. And I think that is something very important for both Kenneth and I, just to have that formative experience there early on. And I think I might not have brought this up, but I actually just got a child, a wonderful daughter. So, I really appreciate, right now, those kinds of experiences and the decisions you make as a parent when it comes to that, especially as you talk about origin story right now. These formative experiences are quite important. And this is just a reflection of that.

[00:03:12] Sean Li: So, I presume you guys learned Cantonese, of course.

[00:03:14] Kenneth Tsang: Yeah, that’s actually our first language, Cantonese. And I mean, we’ve learned the ABCs, literally just the ABCs, before we left Hong Kong and came to the U.S. But I mean, between Kenneth and I, actually, our common language is English. We speak English to each other. It’s just the most comfortable and most fluent, given our history with the language.

But with our parents, it was Cantonese. And, luckily enough, given that it is technically the first language we learned, we can still fool people in Hong Kong without having too much of an American accent.

[00:03:42] Sean Li: I am curious. Like, I have to ask, why do you not speak Cantonese with each other?

[00:03:49] Kenneth Tsang: I think that’s a very classic immigrant story. And to me, I actually learned this at Berkeley. And maybe I’m a bit more sensitive to this. One of my electives was Asian American literature. It was Asian American or Chinese American literature. It probably was Chinese American. It was very specific.

And just the patterns of development for, like, first-generation immigrants and second-generation immigrants and, sort of, how language takes root in families, for us, I think, also another nuance was we had that mix of a first- and second-generation immigrant experience because we were born here. So, in the textbook definition, we could be considered second generation.

But we did move back right after and then move back again. That early childhood move, that’s common for first-generation immigrants, right? Adapting to a new culture, switching languages. I think it was probably easier for us because we were young. I do remember that in kindergarten, early parts of that were struggles. But I also distinctly remember, in second grade, one day, all of a sudden, I became conscious that, instead of thinking in Chinese, I was thinking in English. And it was just a complete cliff. After that day, I was just, internally, on my own, the voice in my head was in English.

And I’m not quite sure how Keith would describe it. I think, growing up, learning English and using that in school, and that, sort of, became our primary dominant language, as opposed to, like, a mother tongue, right, the first one you speak as, like, an infant. But that’s, sort of, how we express ourselves, how we think internally, and then how we express those ideas externally.

[00:05:20] Sean Li: Keith, anything to add? I’m curious to hear your…

[00:05:23] Keith Tsang: No, I unfortunately didn’t really have the same cliff. I can’t really recall exactly when I figured out, “Oh, I’m thinking in English.” But I think that is probably the primary factor, the fact that the internal language in my mind is English and it’s easy to do that externally as well.

[00:05:36] Sean Li: That’s so fascinating. I’ve never heard anyone say that before. So, listeners may already know this, but you guys don’t. I was born in China. I moved here when I was seven. And I grew up in Michigan. And so, I was very rooted in Chinese, like, English was my second language. It’s just that a lot of people make fun of me. They’re like, “You don’t have an accent.” Well, I grew up in Michigan, so, of course, I don’t have an accent.

But I actually don’t remember when I made that switch that you were describing, but it did happen. Because I grew up thinking in Chinese, and then one day, like, or maybe one period in my life, like, I don’t think in Chinese at all, you know.

But I will say this. Because I learned mathematics in Chinese, like, I still do math in Chinese.

[00:06:25] Sean Li: Do you guys do that? Like, I do my multiplication table in Chinese.

[00:06:28] Kenneth Tsang: Yeah.

[00:06:29] Keith Tsang: I count in Chinese mostly because it’s, like, a single-syllable word rather than, say, seven, which is two. It’s just easier, so it’s faster and you don’t get confused. So, I do a lot of counting and math in Chinese as well.

It’s just funny, I just realized it the other day because I was doing it in front of my wife who isn’t Chinese. And we’re having these discussions about, kind of, what languages we expose our child to. So, this is very, kind of, top of mind for us, and we were just talking about that. But yeah, mathematics, definitely, in Chinese.

[00:06:59] Sean Li: So, I have to follow up. That’s four years at Berkeley, three degrees. Why? And how? And mind you, for listeners, you both got the exact same degrees. It’s not, like, you know, one went engineering, one went, like, liberal arts, you know. You guys got psychology, poli-sci, and Haas, you know. How did that happen?

[00:07:23] Keith Tsang: So, I think, when we applied to Berkeley, actually, from high school, we applied as political science majors. So, yes, we already copied each other then, but at least only, like, one major, right? And entering Berkeley, having the intent to study political science, and that’s, kind of, more from a high school experience, is thinking that’d be interesting and so forth. But when we first got to Berkeley, I think this was the formative decision from our dad. He was like, “Take a business class. Like, it’s going to be really useful for you in life. Just try it and check it out; and hopefully, you can learn something.” I don’t think he even knew Berkeley had a major or a business school. It was more of a general advice as a parent, as a father. “If this school has a business class, take it, learn something; and hopefully, it’ll carry you through.”

So, we signed up for UGBA 10, which is the initial business class at the time. I’m not sure if it still is. But we went there. And it was actually even the very first semester we signed up, luckily enough. And I think that’s where the ball started rolling, is, we just liked it, we just saw what it was, and then we discovered. It was funny, I remember the very first day when you show up to business class and people are like, “Oh, are you going to apply to Haas?” I didn’t even know you applied to Haas. Like, that was not my intent. Like, I had no idea about the procedure and stuff. I was just here to just go to class. And you start learning about that. And then from there, you know, you have, like, two years to go apply and figure out whether you’re going to Haas. And that’s what happened.

So, that’s my memory of how we got to that second major, business. I’ll continue with the third, psychology. So, we graduated in 2010, but in, you know, four years implies we entered in 2006, but that brackets, kind of, the financial crisis in 2008. And as a student, when you’re there and you’re thinking through your next steps, which is obviously getting a job of… well, actually, Kenneth took a different path right after school and he went off to do his master’s. But from, I think, a lot of students, at least in the U.S., the obvious choice after graduating from university is the job market. And taking a look at that, it was scary, like, “Wow, what’s going to happen?”

And honestly, when that happened, we were looking, kind of, at what we were doing. We entered Berkeley with a lot of AP credits. So, you get pushed along a little bit there. And we did the math, really. If given that course, that we were just to do political science and Haas, we would technically get kicked out of school within three years because we would have crossed over the credit threshold and they would just get you to graduate.

So, honestly, one of the reasons why we did a third major was so we can stay next year and, kind of, hide away from the job market for a little while. At least, that was my plan. Because once you declare that third major, you’re locked in. They’re like, “Okay. Well, you can’t graduate until you do this.” Great, I don’t want to graduate yet, so let me go and finish my third major before you kick me out.

So, to be honest, that’s actually the impetus for that third major. We had too many AP credits. We might get kicked out of school too early, so let’s find a way to stay in school for a little while longer.

But why psychology? Again, a very tactical move, honestly. There’s a lot of classes that cross over from business, like, organizational psychology. This makes sense. You can’t really do three majors, to be honest, if you’re doing it all, like, individually. You have to find the piece that fits together so you can actually optimize some of that, because you can’t take that many credits in one semester and survive. It just doesn’t work, trust me.

So, psychology was a tactical move in, kind of, how it worked on paper. From a personal interest, it’s one different from political science and business enough that you’re learning something fascinating and incredibly useful. So, that’s, kind of, how that happened, three majors.

[00:11:02] Sean Li: I think it’s brilliant. I think it’s brilliant because you’re absolutely right. I was, you know, a business major undergrad as well, but I wanted to actually get a psychology degree because, to your point, you realize, you know, econ is a social science right? It’s not a hard science. It has a lot to do with psychology, actually. Same with sales, anything marketing, sales and marketing. That’s all psychology and understanding how people think. So, I think it’s actually brilliant, what you guys did. That’s pretty funny.

[00:11:32] Kenneth Tsang: I think it’s fascinating because I definitely have a slightly different recollection of how we came about with those three majors.

[00:11:37] Sean Li: I love this.

[00:11:38] Kenneth Tsang: So, this is going to be a fun conversation. I thought of the three as we started with political science, and I think I had a strong bias towards that because I was thinking a lot about either going into law, and I knew, you know, there’s no undergraduate law in the U.S. And I was very interested in international relations. And one of the things I was actually thinking about was the foreign service.

So, I thought about it as I picked political science, and my brother copied me. And then, as Keith said, the first day of class, freshman year, and I think we’re just blown away from the beginning, like, “Wow, all this business stuff, completely different from, you know, your history class and your chemistry classes in high school.” It felt practical and relevant. And I think we were hooked pretty early on.

And I think, to be honest, I think Keith and I are a bit competitive. And then I think, with Haas, some people might know the undergraduate is competitive. And we figured, “We can do this, too. So, let’s get on this game and succeed here.” I think Haas does, kind of, take a little bit of that competitive spirit.

So, we added that. So, I think Keith, maybe, had that idea, and then I copied him. So, he copied me, then I copied him. And then I went to work and said, “Okay, we have to…” actually, I think, sort of, a prerequisite for having more than one major, you do have to present a plan to your advisors. And so, I started putting this on a spreadsheet. An upperclassman gave me a template. And I went back and spent an even just playing Excel Tetris. And then the calculation came through and I was like, “Well, we have these units that, you know, we could either graduate fast or we could do more.”

And as freshman, you were just like, “Wow, you know, the wide open world of the university, like, all this stuff you can learn. You know, maybe it’s like a buffet.” And so, my personal… there’s two, sort of, influences, sort of, like, an intrinsic one, and then I think one, actually, from our business professor, just for myself, I was really curious about how the mind worked.

And it was in psychology not because I wanted to go and be a psychiatrist and help people with their questions and issues, but it was more about myself and just, sort of, introspection of, how do I learn? And I was looking at this spreadsheet, like, well, I have all these classes, so I got to be efficient at learning these things. So, you know, one thing I actually learned? I need to learn how to learn — cognitive science. And that’s psychology.

So, that’s one. But the second one was actually, UGBA 10, back, I think, in the mid-2000s, was taught by David Robinson. And he became a great friend, a mentor of ours. But he was actually, before becoming a lecturer in marketing, he was actually a clinical psychologist. So, I went to his office hours and just talked about these ideas of just being interested in cognition and I’ve got the schedule that I’m trying to fill. And then he shared about a little… I got a sense of his background, and I was like, “Psychology sounds interesting.”

So, I picked that and then shared it with Keith. So, he copied me for his poli-sci. I copied him for business. And he copied me back again for psychology. And so, this ping-pong back and forth in these three majors, and that’s how we stacked them up.

[00:14:37] Sean Li: It’s called synergy, I think. That’s so funny. I love to hear how, from that, right, from that experience at Berkeley, how you guys both came to be engineers, right? Because none of that touches on engineering. And Kenneth, I noticed that you got a master’s in international relations. And then it seemed like you immediately went to work in software engineering. Like, what is going on? What is the transition there?

[00:15:10] Keith Tsang: This one is a very interesting story. So, yeah, Kenneth went straight into graduate school after Berkeley. For me, actually, I went into the job market. So, the first job I got was actually at a venture capital firm called Kleiner Perkins.

[00:15:24] Sean Li: Small firm.

[00:15:27] Keith Tsang: So, working with a lot of tech companies there as part of the portfolio companies. I was in their operating team so you’re pretty hands on—you’re meeting the companies and you’re working with them. And that, kind of, where my appetite for tech, kind of grew, to seeing the wonderful things they were doing, the really cool, exciting things. And I just wanted to get into that game. So, from KP, I actually jumped into one of their portfolio companies at the time, Nest. But that’s now, perhaps, a household name. People know it for their household products.

[00:16:00] Sean Li: Pre-Google Nest, right?

[00:16:01] Keith Tsang: Pre-Google Nest, yeah. So, at that time, it was funny because I was still wrapping up my engagements with KP. And I remember talking to the HR person there, and he was like, “We would love to have you on board earlier than later. But, you know, it is what it is, especially given this from KP, their investor. So the timeline is what it is. And I was like, “Yeah, that’s wonderful. But, actually, I have a twin brother, you know. He’s basically me.”

[00:16:29] Kenneth Tsang: “I have a clone.”

[00:16:30] Keith Tsang: “He’s literally flying back next week and he’s not sure what to do. Do you want him?” And he was like, “Yeah, let me have a chat with him, and we’ll see how that worked out.” And so, funny enough, this might be putting it very simply. I basically just tossed Kenneth a job and it’s like, “Hey, look, you show up here on Monday,” kind of thing.

[00:16:47] Sean Li: With an international relations degree at Nest. I love it.

[00:16:52] Kenneth Tsang: Yeah, I think having gone through undergraduate at Haas, you know, a lot of our peers, the aspiration was to work back then, even, despite the financial crisis, was investment banking at that time, or management consulting. And I was recruiting for that throughout grad school. But I also had to come home because my year in the dorm was up. So, I needed to go home. And Keith was like, “Well, you know, while you’re still applying for these banks and these firms, do you want to help out at a startup?” That was, sort of, how he sold it to me. And so, I went into Nest doing operations. And because we had a business background, that makes sense.

But I think for both of us, sort of, seeing that tech environment, as a startup, I think people, sort of, know the story from Nest. Tony Faddell founded it and brought a lot of the talent from Apple. And there’s also, like, a marketing team. And I think we just, sort of, understood that this was where a lot of things were moving fast and wanting to, sort of, understand that better.

And I think, more concretely, in my role in operations, there was a lot of work every day that I had to do in the morning to, sort of, get to the rest of the work. It was just, basically, a spreadsheet that I had to go through. And to me, it seemed like computers are just better at doing this kind of stuff. And I had a wonderful manager back then who was just very supportive and just said, “Why don’t you just build an app?” And I think that was, sort of, a catchphrase back in the early 2010s, you know, “Build an app.” And I took him literally and said, “Fine, yeah, I will.” So, I went and looked at some tutorials. And also, thanks to Haas, I don’t think they don’t have it now, but as a prerequisite, we actually had to take, like, an intro to programming class as a prerequisite for undergraduate Haas.

[00:18:25] Sean Li: Oh, wow.

[00:18:26] Kenneth Tsang: So, that gave us a little bit of foundation and I just, sort of, followed the tutorials and built an automated dashboard for my work. And I really enjoyed it. That led me to the subsequent jobs that I had, more and more into engineering. And then eventually I, sort of, went back, went to product management, sort of, back in the business side. So, there’s a bit of a circularity there. But that was, sort of, how my journey into software engineering, kind of, get kickstarted. And I think Keith had a different route as well, because he did some data science and other stuff.

[00:18:54] Keith Tsang: But I think it’s actually quite similar. It’s really at Nest as well, where you learn that there’s a lot of things that are repetitive, the tasks like updating spreadsheets and presentation, that you could automate. And that drive to be lazy, honestly, just you don’t want to do these mundane, tedious tasks and you try to figure out a better way to doing it produces a better result.

So, similar enough, I actually remembered… and this is where I think one of the mantras in Silicon Valley, where you pay it forward really comes true. I remember hassling some of my coworkers. There was a particular software engineer, his name was David Keith, funny name. I remember hassling him. It’s like, “Hey, look, I want to build this,” say, similar to Kenneth, like, “I want to build this thing to just automate updating these inventory dashboards and stuff.” And he was very gracious to help me with some of that code, just toss me things to copy and paste, and then when I needed to actually do some complicated changes, he would help me out.

And that’s, kind of, where I learned. It’s literally on the job, like, you learn coding. And same thing with Kenneth. I’ve really enjoyed that. I saw a lot of value in doing that and proceeded to advance my career down that path. So, yeah.

[00:20:01] Kenneth Tsang: Yeah. And this is just to plug in the Haas values, just being a student always, I think. The learning never stops. And I think that curiosity, sort of, kept us going. And in hindsight, I think, like, a lot of these things are hard to plan. They’re, kind of, serendipitous, but I think, if you’re open to learning and then having that curiosity, is what, sort of, led us down these paths that we’ve taken.

[00:20:24] Sean Li: I find that absolutely true. And I’m actually curious, and this is actually very interesting because there’s two of you, to see if at least one of you could remember. I’m curious about your curiosity, in that I do believe curiosity is, you know, a natural human trait, obviously. But at the same time, in the nature versus nurture, kind of, debate, I also believe that a lot of it is nurtured. If you think back to your childhood, do you get that from somewhere?

[00:20:52] Kenneth Tsang: Yeah.

[00:20:52] Sean Li: And if so, where?

[00:20:54] Keith Tsang: I think I can try to provide some of that insight here now as a parent, right? Very much true. I agree with what you said, curiosity is a natural human instinct. And I see that every day with my own child. And I think a lot of it comes down to the opportunities or conversely how you restrict them. For instance, with a baby, you try to keep them safe and you prevent them from touching things that might be dangerous or putting themselves into situations where they might hurt themselves, right?

But what drives that? That’s the curiosity, the crawling around, trying to touch things, experiment. And so, when I think in terms of nurturing curiosity, I see that in our own history with our parents. As a kid, they definitely provided us different opportunities to explore our interests. Playing different sports, soccer, baseball, being in the Boy Scouts, which I think was actually one of the best experiences. I can see Kenneth shaking his head, agreeing. It was, kind of, where we were able to just experience all kinds of things, like archery, horseback riding, stuff like that. Just try different things.

And I think that really is important for setting that foundation to be curious always, is that you’re comfortable being in new situations. And after the first time, you realize that’s enjoyable, you do it a second time. It’s still enjoyable and you just keep it up. But I think if you were in a situation or environment where that is limited, you’re always being constantly told “no,” I can very much see how that could be hampered.

And again, as a parent right now, I see my actions where you’re restricting the child from constantly touching things. And I see her learning. It’s like, “Okay, well, maybe she shouldn’t touch this one thing that’s sharp,” but of course her own innate nature to just crawl around and just look at different things is still there. So, I think, it’s all about how you provide the opportunities, allow that expansion, but also, perhaps, limit the restrictions to be minimal.

[00:22:44] Kenneth Tsang: Yeah, I think that, for me, when I think back on where a lot of our habits for learning come from, I think it does come from that early childhood experience of being an immigrant. And I think, again, the language part comes up again, because, when we were growing up in the Bay Area, you know, our mom took care of us, but her English skills were more limited. And so, you know, while she could help us with say, like, math homework and multiplication tables, there are other things where we were just on our own for a lot of these things. To understand, what is this form about, or what is this deadline, you know, are these bills that we can help our mom understand and read? So, sort of, there’s a little bit of adversity, right? We have to, sort of, react and either, we adapt and learn how these things work and then be able to solve those problems for ourselves, for our family, because, you know, our mom’s two sons had to go and take the lead on that.

And I think that ingrained in us a sort of habit of just, “Okay, well, what is this about? What’s the situation here? What are the constraints? What is it that, you know, this office or this color is looking for? What are trying to deal with here? We’re trying to help our mom make this doctor’s appointment, or we got to help take this car in for repair. What’s up with that?” And then, sort of, just going down the branches and the details and just absorbing and learning that. I think being put in those situations, sort of, made it natural for us to question then to seek the answers. And that naturally opens up more questions and more answer-seeking. But I think having that natural instinct to go, “Okay, what’s going on here,” and, sort of, get the lay of the land kickstarts a lot of that curiosity.

[00:24:22] Sean Li: Right. Curiosity is, for myself and also my kids, it’s actually a foundational trait. That, along with compassion, that’s, like, the curiosity and compassion are, like, top two in terms of what I want to, you know, impart upon my kids. But the flip side of curiosity, if there was just one, there’s probably a lot, but one of them is, you know, potentially, what appears to be an inability to focus, right? And not to pass judgment on that good or bad.

But I’m really curious, when you guys look back at your career trajectory, both of you, you guys moved around quite a bit, right? And that is the trend of this generation, you know, of the world today. You know, it took me a while personally. You know, I bounced around businesses a bunch and ideas and it took me probably about 15 years into my entrepreneurship journey to realize, “Hey, like, all this is actually accumulating towards something.” It looks really random, but it’s building up to something, right? I’m curious what your experiences were like having moved around so much and then, now, you know, both of you starting your own companies.

[00:25:35] Kenneth Tsang: Yeah. Maybe I can start. I think one of the things that, right at the start of my career, you know, I think we generally call it, like, imposter syndrome now. And I definitely had a bit of that, because I think, when I was trying to become a software engineer coming from business background, that sort of feeling, like, “Oh, I never studied computer science and I don’t really have that sort of academic foundation that a lot of the other people in this industry have.” And then, just, you know, skipping ahead. When I was actually a software engineer, I saw these other roles on the business side and I wanted to be a product manager. And then there are other paths to become a product manager that I saw a lot of people go. And I was like, “Well, imposter syndrome, you know, here’s an engineer trying to be this product manager.” Well, it turns out a lot of product managers come from technical foundations.

But continuously, this idea of, “I’m trying to do something different,” and I think that balance of going between depth and breadth, I think a lot of people struggle with that in their careers, especially early on. I think that actually helps in the startup environment. I think people understand that, in a small team, no one is actually looking for someone who can be a single purpose utility, because there’s so many roles to play, hats to wear, as people say.

And I think that’s, sort of, what led us into more startup environments. I think that inclination towards breadth brought us towards, sort of, more entrepreneurial environments, even as we were employees at different startups and learning different things and trying to go to a different role constantly. This is more of a philosophical value judgment. I think it’s actually more imperative now. I know Keith also works with AI, and I’m, sort of, getting a bit of that work as well. You know, if we think about today’s LLMs, these large language models, the whole basis is attention, right? The landmark paper is, “Attention is All You Need.” And so, maybe the human advantage over these things is sometimes our lack of attention and being able to jump off office and find these different things.

So, I definitely feel there is advantage and disadvantage. It is a double-edged sword. Sometimes, you do need to focus or, more bluntly, just grind through a particular goal or problem.

But looking back, I think there is sort of a disadvantage to being distracted. But as you said, if I look back on my career, in the role that I have now, so at FreshX, we’re building an online marketplace that is combined with analytics. And there’s a machine learning component. And I looked back at my past two jobs, the one before that was an online marketplace, and then the one right before was machine learning.

And I think if I was at Haas looking forward, it’d be hard to see how these things play out. But in hindsight, these two things, I could not do what I was doing today if I had not done those two things together. And then now marrying them in this one role. And maybe, this is just, sort of, hindsight always, I think it gets a bit of clarity. But, maybe Keith has something to add there.

[00:28:35] Keith Tsang: For me, it’s just always actually been that other flip side of it. It’s like, how do I manage that? Because I definitely recognize the negatives of that: it’s a lack of focus.

And so, it very much is true. And I think what Kenneth just set us now is a great… it goes through a lot of the different situations in which it’s good and bad. I think, in general, though, just to add on top of that, it’s just, figure out, what is your level of curiosity, for people who are super curious? And just, if you want to put it simply, perhaps, lose focus too easily, put yourself in a situation where that becomes a strength. And I think Kenneth and I have found that in entrepreneurship where that is actually a good value to have and can be leveraged more easily than, perhaps, in a more corporate environment where the focus is more important.

And I know plenty of peers who are great friends and have great careers who’ve just stayed at one company for many, many years and have successful careers. And they leveraged their strength. They always focus and they specialize in one thing. And they were very successful at it. I can’t say that I would be able to do the same. And that’s just my own personality. But then, I find myself in different situations where I make that actually useful.

So, I think what Kenneth just said just now, everything, I agree with that. And it’s a reflection of my own experiences as well, where you try to draw the strings together from your past experiences and turn them into something useful for your next one.

[00:29:56] Kenneth Tsang: And more importantly, I would also add, like, whether we could find ourselves in those roles, and just as important, whether we would be happy to find ourselves in those roles, that’s pretty important. And I think that insight comes with a bit of maturity as well. 

[00:30:09] Sean Li: Yeah. I’m so happy you guys shared what you did because that was, kind of, what I was hoping for, you know, especially for any listeners that are recent grads, especially from the undergrad program, or even current students. I feel like that’s really important to hear, your experiences in that way, that reflection, that uncertainty, right, that imposter syndrome. Honestly, when I interview… sometimes, I interview, you know, 60, 70-year-old alums, they still have imposter syndrome. So, in many ways, that never goes away. That is the opposite side of the coin of “student always,” right? Like, if you didn’t feel that imposter syndrome, like, there wouldn’t be something to learn, you know.

So, to both your points, I think, especially Keith, what you just said, is to reframe that in a positive way and to see and lean into that as a strength versus seeing it as, you know, just someone else perceiving it as a weakness, because it is potentially a weakness for somebody else, but for you, it’s a strength, right? So, I really love that framing that you gave, which, you know, we do have to ask. So, we heard about Kenneth’s startup a little bit. What about you, Keith?

[00:31:13] Keith Tsang: So, currently, I’m working at a company called Gyodi. We’re using AI in fashion. So, given the recent trends in AI, there’s a lot of things you can do in terms of generative imaging. So, the idea here is using that to help designers speed up their design processes. So, rather than having to do things in the traditional way where you’re drawing either in a very old school fashion pen and paper, more advanced might be 3D modeling, but then at the end of the day, you’re going to have to send it off to a factory and get a sample produced. And that takes time. Oftentimes, those factories are overseas. It’s just a hassle. So, we’re trying to use generative imaging to give better clarity for designers, to see how the creations will actually look like.

And part of it is just not just the designing components, but also the communication aspect, how they can share their vision with others in their team, and perhaps, even from the marketing to the customers to share what their brand design is. So, really trying to use these tools to speed up these processes and make it more efficient.

[00:32:08] Sean Li: So, I have to ask both of you, how did you guys come upon these pain points? Like, how did you come to start these companies?

[00:32:17] Keith Tsang: I can share a little bit about that, like, just from my experience. I’ve worked in all kinds of businesses and industries, obviously, venture capital. Then you have Nest with thermostats. I’ve also worked at LinkedIn and Meta, big companies, but also small companies doing, like, housekeeping double-sided marketplace and robot delivery pizza.

So, it’s a little bit of everything. But part of that is just being open to what’s interesting. Like, do you see value here? Like, are you able to have an impact? So, that’s, like, the first checkbox you’re looking at, is, like, can you actually do something that is influencing change?

And the second part of it is just being able to open with your network and just seeing who, like, you’re talking to people and you’re learning about these things. And when something catches your interest, you just learn a little bit more and see whether you have a role to play in that.

So, I think, at a high level, that’s what it really is, being open to these opportunities. And this goes back to curiosity. You’re just talking to people and you’re learning things and then see what catches your mind. Certainly, like, just looking at my own resume, yeah, it’s that curiosity is a double-edged sword. Like, it’s you’re moving around, but I think a lot of that is you’re learning things that, perhaps, other people might not be able to learn. You’re getting experience in small companies, you’re getting experience in big companies across industries, and then you get to bring them back together for whatever you’re doing right now, which is the case working at Gyodi, you get best practice on how you do engineering from a big company. You’re learning about scale. But at the same time, you’re also learning on how to work with a smaller team and being able to, as I think Kenneth is doing, like, you’re doing a little bit of everything because it’s a smaller team. So, I think all of those experiences come into play and you’re just trying to find something where you can, again, turn that into a strength.

[00:33:54] Sean Li: Keith, for you, personally, in terms of Gyodi, like, how did you get started? Like, I guess, why fashion?

[00:34:00] Keith Tsang: Well, actually, one of my co-founders had a fashion experience and we’re just brainstorming ideas. So, her experience, like, “Hey, this is something I experienced, running a fashion brand.” Okay, let’s see what we can do about that. And then we’re looking at AI and then that’s, kind of, how we landed upon it. So, again, this is just leveraging the experience of other people and you’re constantly learning.

[00:34:19] Sean Li: I love it. What about you, Kenneth?

[00:34:21] Kenneth Tsang: A couple of musings here. I think if I think about the idea that I’m working on, the marketplace is related to fresh produce, and that’s something that I’ve… not as familiar, but I think it’s something that we can all intrinsically, as consumers of food, have some sort of intuition for. So, that was sort of my only connection to this industry beforehand.

But for me, I always knew I wanted to do a startup. I think Keith also did as well, because just, sort of the trajectory. And I think, just as an aside, I think, at every stage in my career, I thought, like, “Okay, well, my next job, like, once I’m done with this, I’m going to do my own startup. I’m going to be my own boss.”

And that happened repeatedly for multiple roles. And again, in hindsight, you say, “Oh, wow, like, I learned something that I definitely am glad I learned until I did anything on my own.” So, for me, as I was thinking about the next job from my previous role, I knew I had a strong interest in either healthcare or sustainability. That was just something that was meaningful for me. Health because of my own experiences with healthcare. And sustainability, because I was just thinking long term. I think, it’s just an important piece for myself that I’m interested in and just for society generally, as we, you know, again, plugging more Haas values — beyond yourself.

And so, Keith mentioned network. And for me, this is more mechanical, but I was on the forums at Y Combinator and I met Adrish through the Y Combinator. It’s a startup accelerator, they have a sort of, a bit of a social network/dating app for founders. And he had industry experience in this area. And on my side, having done product management and software engineering, being able to execute on building a product marketplace and having familiarity with machine learning, it makes sense to go and try this. So, that’s, sort of, how I landed at FreshX.

[00:36:08] Sean Li: It’s amazing. It’s always interesting to hear how people get started, how people take that leap, right? As some people call it, take that leap of faith to go do your own startup.

[00:36:19] Keith Tsang: Yeah, and I think, a lot of times, it’s actually just the silliest stories. It’s, like, the littlest things and you never know whether it becomes big. So, it doesn’t have to be, like, a grand story. I think it’s whatever comes at you.

[00:36:31] Kenneth Tsang: And I’ll just share a quote, because I think, like, when I asked the CEO at the previous startup I was working at, I’m like, “Why are you doing a startup?” And he, pithily said, it is just, sort of, a series of foolish decisions, but here we are. And I think a lot of startups, sort of, end up with a curiosity, maybe somewhat foolish curiosity, and you, sort of, pursue it and then you end up, like, “Wow, I’m doing a business around this.”

[00:36:55] Sean Li: I totally agree. I think that the entrepreneurial path is just continually looking for problems to solve, right? And something I always tell people is, like, you know, the beauty of entrepreneurship is that, when you solve a problem, it creates a new problem. Like, you’ll never run out of problems. And so, it’s just a fun journey.

I think that’s what you guys helped me realize in today’s conversation, is that, what some people may feel like or see today as disparate experiences, right across their work history, really, it’s this journey that they’re on. And their journey just happens to evolve different places and different people. It’s like traveling to different countries and seeing different people, you know, instead of just traveling one country and, you know, or one state, you know, and seeing all the people in that state. It just gives you a wider breadth of what’s out there, and challenges in different ways because you’re constantly dealing with new people. And that’s something I never really thought of, the benefits of that, because it’s always framed these days as, you know… because again, we come from this historical narrative of our parents, right? Their generations being lifers at a company. And that is, like, the standard, like, of excellence and this whole, like, hopping around is so terrible. But it has its own merits. And I think we really heard that today. So, that’s pretty amazing. Thank you both for sharing that.

[00:38:22] Kenneth Tsang: Yeah, I think for us having grown up in Hong Kong when we’re very little, growing up in the U.S. and having studied abroad, I think that perspective is, again, building habits of, you know, dealing with unexpected situations and different kinds of people that you meet along the way is just the same as the entrepreneurial journey.

And I think a lot of people do this, like, during their study years with exchange programs. But I think it’s super important. This is a bit of a stance on my side, but I think, since I went to grad school in the UK at Cambridge, and this was, sort of, the late 2010s when, you know, the prime minister would say something like, global citizens are, kind of, citizens of nowhere. And I think we have an inbuilt impulse to reject that statement.

One, I think, like, a lot of these things, and again also because I’m a student of international relations, I have particular views about, like, sovereignty and those sort of things. But I think there are so much more that, like, I think anyone who travels can say that there are so much more that we have in common and separates us. And I think lots of people will throw that out there. But I think, in the lived experience of us working and living in different places, really enriched our lives. And I think that’s how, in a start environment in our work, we’re just taking the same approach.

[00:39:42] Keith Tsang: I can actually expand on that a little bit now that you bring that up, about the whole geographic expansion, being around different places internationally, as being based in Denmark now, having moved there a couple years ago. It’s very interesting for me as an experience, because growing up in America, I always thought of myself as American. And I mean, but you have the U.S. passport, you’re American. But at the same time, being Asian, you realize you have that immigrant story.

But I think, going to Denmark and truly being an expat and being in a very different environment, especially as an adult and not as a child, you really realize how that transition, switching from one country to another, is actually quite big. You got to learn different cultural norms, just the way they work there, like, how bills are paid, how rent works. And when you have an experience from your previous life, essentially, and you compare it to what you have now or what’s new and you’d notice differences, oftentimes, it could be, “Wow, this is so much better.”

But on the flip side, you can be like, “I can’t believe they do this. Why? It’s so old school. It doesn’t make sense.” And I think that’s, kind of, why you see a lot of successful immigrants, because they actually get that experience. They’ve seen how things could be. They’ve seen other ways of doing it. And they can make a qualitative judgment on whether one way is better or not. And then they go and apply it.

So, I think that that whole global shift, being able to move around countries and seeing how things work differently, it’s both good from an immigration perspective, just being able to transplant yourself and provide newer insights, but even just if you’re a tourist, just learning things is also good for you personally. And hopefully, you can learn a little bit to bring back home. So, definitely, that whole global shift, being able to move around, the mobility, is, I think, very key for the future in terms of curiosity, as well.

[00:41:34] Sean Li: You know, one thing I did want to mention, one thing I think was extremely ingenious about staying the extra year is something that I don’t think a lot of students realize enough in the real value of going to a university, going to college, is the networking, right? Just staying that extra year to network is vital, because I mean, I realize this in hindsight. And again, I realized luckily before going back to the MBA that there’s only so short periods of time when you’re surrounded by so many people that you have so much in common with, right? In terms of, like, stage of life, right? Your age, like, your interests. Like, because once you graduate, you’re, kind of, scattered. You’re thrown in a city where there’s, like, yeah, there are people similarly with your background, age and whatnot, but you have to go find them, right? Like, whereas, in college, they’re all just concentrated, like, 30, 40,000 people in one place.

And it’s such a rarity in life to have that kind of exposure. But the fact that you guys stayed the extra year to really take advantage of that, I think, is amazing and just, again, a reminder for everybody, you know. It’s just, like, you’re not going to school to learn. You can learn stuff online, you know. But it’s for that networking opportunity.

[00:42:55] Keith Tsang: I very much agree with that. I think, from my own experience, the final year of college was actually one of my most enjoyable. I think part of this is because it’s the final year. You’re not as worried about different things. So, obviously, yeah. I mean, there’s the stress of, like, what you can do afterwards.

But one of the things that I personally did was I just doubled down on fencing, which was my own passion. And I’m very much glad I did, because once you graduate, having, one, the youth, to be honest, speaking now as an older person, you’re not going to get that back. Like, second, just having the RSF there where you could walk there five minutes and just, you know, spend two hours there and walk back at night later afterwards, you don’t get that flexibility after you start working. Like, it’s really hard to find that. And one, having the same friends who show up every day to do sports with you, it’s not going to happen, to be honest.

So, I really enjoy that and I’m glad I just put more emphasis on that. That was one of the highlights of my final year.

On that front, though, like what you mentioned about the network, I think that’s where my greatest friends came from doing that, just being able to hang around them socially, build those bonds and build those relationships. So, very important there, both at the collegiate level and making sure you capitalize on that experience and just hang out with your friends.

It seems weird for, you know, somebody who did three majors and spent a lot of time in classes to be saying this, but that’s not all there is to it. It’s true. Go hang out with your friends.

[00:44:15] Sean Li: I love that. Well, it was a pleasure having you both, Keith and Kenneth, on the podcast today. It was really fun, I have to say.

[00:44:25] Keith Tsang: Likewise.

[00:44:25] Kenneth Tsang: Likewise.

[00:44:26] Sean Li: So, to end things off, we have to say go bears, and I get to hear it twice from you guys.

[00:44:32] Kenneth Tsang: Yeah, I guess I would just add that, like, I really enjoyed the conversation, because not only did I get to hear from you, Sean, but, like, it’s fun when you actually learn something about your brother and how he recalled certain aspects of the time at Berkeley and you learn something new, too. So, go Bears!

[00:44:47] Keith Tsang: Go Bears.

[00:44:48] Sean Li: Go Bears! Thank you, both!

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