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Celebrating the Woodruff 40 Under 40: Communicating Impact and Leading Change
44 Plays1 month ago
In a very special season finale, Dr. Jill Fennell sits down with episode co-host Dr. Mihir Pathak to speak with five Georgia Tech Woodruff School Alumni who were selected to be part of the 2025 class of 40 under 40 honorees. Join Kevin Cone, Dr. Joe Harms, Dr. Robert Herbert, Dr. Akanksha Menon, and Shay Natarajan as they share their insights, career successes, challenges, and advice for current students and new engineers.
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Show Notes and Timestamps:
- 01:00 Introduction to Episode and Co-Host
- 03:01 Introducing 40 Under 40 Honorees
- 05:42 Why honorees think they were selected for the award
- 10:26 Honorees who went into academia and why they chose academia
- 13:35 Connection between studying engineering and pursuing sports
- 15:32 Balancing engineering and full time sports
- 17:45 Insight into investment in companies
- 25:07 Major obstacles honorees faced and how they overcame them
- 35:06 Advice for current students and early career engineers
- 42:42 Final advice, support and resources, and thanks
Resources for Georgia Tech Students in Need:
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For more information about this episode's guests, please see links and details below:
Mihir Pathak
Current title and organization: cofounder at antitech
Shay Natarajan
Current title and organization: Partner, Alliance
Kevin Cone
Current title and organization: Assistant AD | Student-Athlete Development, Georgia Tech Athletics Association
Akanksha Menon
Current title and organization: Assistant Professor, Georgia Tech
Robert Herbert
Current title/org: Assistant Professor, Louisiana State University
Joseph Harms
Current title/org: Assistant Professor, Washington University School of Medicine
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A transcript of this episode is available here.
Episode edited by Lee Hibbard.
Recommended
Transcript
Season Introduction
00:00:08
Speaker
Welcome to season four of Communication Mechanics, a podcast for engineers. In this season, we're focusing on a reality many engineers experience early, but aren't always taught to name. And that is that communication is not just about clarity, it's about judgment.
00:00:24
Speaker
Engineers constantly make decisions about audience, purpose, power, and consequence, often before they feel fully prepared to do so. Across these episodes, we'll explore how engineers communicate as they enter professional spaces, work across hierarchies, solicit opportunities, and take on greater responsibility.
00:00:42
Speaker
Whether you're a student, a new engineer, or someone mentoring others, this season is about understanding how communication shapes not just what engineers say, but who they become as professionals.
Celebrating 40 Under 40 Honorees
00:01:01
Speaker
Welcome back to Communication Mechanics. We have an extra special episode today. we are celebrating Woodruff's 40 under 40 for this year. These alumni represent some of the brightest and most impactful young leaders in engineering today.
00:01:15
Speaker
We'll talk about their achievements, challenges, and advice, and we'll explore how communication has been key to their success. I'm extra excited today because I have a co-host, Dr. Mihir Patek. Welcome.
00:01:28
Speaker
Hi. Dr. Patek is a seasoned innovator, entrepreneur, and a triple jacket from Georgia Tech with a bachelor's, master's, and PhD in mechanical engineering. He served in pivotal roles at NASA, the White House, McKinsey, Stack Overflow, Mavern, and many other tech startups. Today, Dr. Patak is the founder and CEO of Patak Ventures, a startup strategy advising firm where he has advised over 50 startups. He is also the co-founder of Antitech, where he helps take VC and startup studio ideas to market, building zero to one businesses.
Meet Dr. Mihir Patek
00:02:06
Speaker
Dr. Patek is a member of the Forbes Business Council and holds several leadership roles at Georgia Tech, including the Woodruff Young Alumni Council, the Woodruff Advisory Board, and the Georgia Tech Alumni Association Board of Trustees.
00:02:21
Speaker
In 2023, he was inducted into the Georgia Tech College of Engineering Council of Outstanding Young Engineering Alumni and named to Georgia Tech's 40 Under 40. You also gave last night's address, correct? Yes, yes, yeah. Thank you, Jill. Thanks for that very nice introduction. Last night, I got to hang out with the 40 Under 40 honorees, and they are awesome.
00:02:43
Speaker
They have such inspirational stories and have made tremendous impact. I think the audience is going to really enjoy this episode. I hope it shows today's students and young engineers what's possible and how effective communication can both amplify your work and your impact.
00:02:57
Speaker
So I'm excited. Let's get started. Yeah, welcome.
Introducing the Honorees
00:03:00
Speaker
Maybe we could start off by having each of the honorees here introduce themselves. Tell us about your current role, what you sort of work on, and you know something that excites you about your work.
00:03:11
Speaker
Alright, hi everyone. I'm Akanksha Menon. I'm an assistant professor in the Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering. I got my master's and PhD degrees here and was fortunate enough to come back as a faculty member and see things on the other side. So I run the Water Energy Research Lab and we work on developing technologies for clean water and clean energy.
00:03:36
Speaker
Awesome. Joe? Yeah, my name is Joe Harms. I'm an assistant professor and medical physicist at Washington University in St. Louis. And so as a medical physicist, I'm kind of like the technical expert behind delivery of radiation therapy.
00:03:49
Speaker
And so something I'm excited about is treating patients with cancer and curing their cancer. Thanks for being here. Awesome. I'm Kevin Cohn. I am the Assistant Athletic Director for Georgia Tech Athletics and Student Athlete Development. So I get to work with all of our sports teams and help them in life.
00:04:07
Speaker
So it's a fun, exciting job, and I love it. I also get to work with our letter winners, so former student athletes, how I keep them back engaged in Georgia Tech, how we continue to support them.
00:04:18
Speaker
We'll be on their playing days. think what excites me right now is just Our sports teams are doing really well. A lot of buzz around campus. But it's it's it's just an incredible space to be to work with young people and just work with amazing people.
00:04:34
Speaker
I'm Robert Herbert. I'm an assistant professor at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. And there I teach and run a research lab focused on developing implantable sensors and some modeling technologies basically to improve vascular health.
00:04:51
Speaker
Awesome. And my name is Shayna Tarajan. i got my bachelor's and master's in mechanical engineering from Georgia Tech. I am a partner at a private equity firm called Mobility Impact Partners, MIP for short.
00:05:06
Speaker
My day job involves investing in cutting edge technology, specifically in the areas of mobility, energy, industrial, and other applied AI domains.
00:05:17
Speaker
What I love about my work is, it's actually two things. Number one, I'm never bored because I'm always trying to understand some new technology or the other. And number two is i get to play a part in commercializing and scaling some really impactful technologies and solutions, which is really cool.
00:05:37
Speaker
Awesome. Awesome. Thank you guys for being here. Thank you for having us Well, this award recognizes alumni who are making significant impact. Why do you think you were selected?
Why Were You Selected?
00:05:49
Speaker
I think, well, as an assistant professor, you wear a couple of different hats. And so I think the nomination was more so for being able to come back to Georgia Tech and being able to give back to Georgia Tech. I mean, this place in many ways made me who I am and gave me the opportunities that that I have.
00:06:09
Speaker
And so I think it's it's recognizing some of the research accomplishments that I've had, being able to like train and mentor students and just get them excited about going into the real world and continuing the good fight.
00:06:22
Speaker
teaching students and then also just, you know, service to the Woodruff School, Georgia Tech, the Institute, and just the the profession of engineering. Kind of in the same boat as an assistant professor, you know, we wear a lot of different hats and I'm in the medical field where i spend most of my time working with patients delivering care day to day.
00:06:42
Speaker
And so there's just a lot of different ways to get into improving patient outcomes. driven by technology and that's really what what I do in the cancer space. And so have a lot of different research projects that kind of tie into clinical work that just day to day our goal is to improve patient care and reduce side effects and that's what I think has driven a lot of my motivation in this field and I think this award is some of the recognition of the strides we've made in that area.
00:07:13
Speaker
So I've been thinking about this a lot of why I got selected. I'm still wrapping my mind around it. I think I look at our cohort and it's just so incredible the the work that's getting done.
00:07:25
Speaker
I've been in sports my whole career. I think maybe it's my own lens, but when I look at sports and i compare it to just other fields that you don't want to compare, but I do. I think the reason I got chosen is I think sports is ah just the ultimate connector and bridge.
00:07:43
Speaker
And I think in my role now, developing young college athletes, college students, and and how we're trying to make an impact in the community, I think is one of the things that helped me earn this recognition.
00:07:56
Speaker
But still wrapping my mind around it, how I made this club. So I'm just thankful to be here. So I'm not too far off of that, still figuring out what exactly led me to be here.
00:08:10
Speaker
Certainly, as it's been mentioned before, I think it's a mix of research accomplishments, such as I said, within the realm of vascular health. ah There's a huge impact to be had by developing sort of monitoring solutions for that field.
00:08:24
Speaker
So I like to think it's some of the strides we're making in that area. But also, know, it's a reminder that, you know, I chose this career path with the intent of the opportunity to mentor students.
00:08:36
Speaker
So i like to think there's some aspects of that that go towards this award as well. Yeah, I don't know. have such humble awardees this year. I know why she got selected. Well, you should take this question instead of it because I can only guess. I don't know. um My guess would be it's because I have a very non-traditional career and I've made an impact in a lot of different areas.
00:09:05
Speaker
So after school, i actually was in the co-op program when I was in school and i was a manufacturing engineering co-op and then my first job was actually as a product design engineer.
00:09:17
Speaker
But then i went to Apple and i was in their operations strategy team and I was a big part of the operations for iPhone display for iPhone 9 that was released in 2015-2016.
00:09:32
Speaker
And so that was, I think, quite important and quite impactful. Then I went to McKinsey and I advised some of the CEOs of the world's top companies.
00:09:45
Speaker
Then I went to Caterpillar and i was part of the CEO's team there. figuring out how we can grow caterpillars, top line and bottom line for the next 10 years.
00:09:57
Speaker
And then I made the switch over to private equity and in my current firm I've closed our first fund. We've invested in two companies and we are, well we actually incubated two companies and we are in the process of investing in several more.
00:10:13
Speaker
We are also fundraising for a bunch of different funds. So I don't know exactly why but I think of been fortunate enough to have some really good opportunities to make impact in my career.
00:10:26
Speaker
Can say Joe and Robert, you guys have all decided to pursue academia. Did you just love the professors at Tech that you had? How did you guys end up there? I mean, it's like 60% of the new honoree class are professors.
00:10:41
Speaker
For me, so I did have some great professors when I was at Tech, and I did my PhD in Anna Erickson's lab and really just enjoyed working on big research problems.
00:10:54
Speaker
And, you know, In academia, I think it's a little bit hard to compare to people in the business world, right? Because we don't have products that we develop as much, as often, right? Well, the students are out-products. Exactly, right.
00:11:09
Speaker
And so, i don't know, i just I just kind of got that bug of, i want to be working on like fundamental problems to solve big issues. you know And you know mentoring students is is it just a very enriching experience, and I experienced that on you know both ends, and it's something I wanted to to do moving forward as well.
00:11:29
Speaker
if you If you didn't get some of those opportunities, like if if there are students that are not sure if they're interested in pursuit pursuing academia, like what could they do today to see if they have an interest in that?
Academia vs. Industry
00:11:43
Speaker
I so I would say that i knew I loved research. I wasn't sure if I wanted to do research in academia or at a national lab or like a company, right? Because you can do different flavors of research. So for me, the way to figure that out was like going and getting a different experience and then seeing was that for me or did I really want academia. So i went to a national lab where you get to work on these grand challenges, which was super exciting rather than being in a little academic lab. And it's a much larger teams um and very collaborative environment. But to me, like doing that experience during that experience, I felt I really missed the dynamic environment that a university campus is.
00:12:32
Speaker
And even really, you know, interacting with students through teaching. So for me, that was one way of kind of figuring out, yes, I love research, but I think I also love research in a university, and I want to be interacting with the students and working directly with them, which led me to the job in academia.
00:12:51
Speaker
Got it, got it, yeah. And Robert, do you think like if you're at that fundamental point where you want to discover if you really love research or not, maybe undergrads should pursue some research projects or or opportunities like that? What do you think? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, so I got my start in undergrad research as well.
00:13:10
Speaker
And like at LSU, i I advise most of my students, if you're even thinking about academia or research, just walk into someone's lab and see what they're doing. Because most professors, they're willing to just have undergrads come in, assist grad students, maybe start their own little side project.
00:13:28
Speaker
And you might as well take advantage of of your time as an undergrad to do that. Yeah, yeah, that sounds awesome. Kevin, sports your whole life, you said, but you had a mechanical engineering degree.
00:13:40
Speaker
So tell us about that. How did you get interested in engineering, yet sports was your through line the whole way? Right, I wasn't as smart as my peers here. So I had to to transfer in because I didn't get in initially out of the gate.
00:13:56
Speaker
So i I went to Shorter, which is in Rome, Georgia. and I played football, ran track. I always wanted to be an engineer. Both my parents went here. i wanted to be, in my mind, I wanted to be a Lego designer.
00:14:09
Speaker
not the Mechanical isn't the best path for that, which I found out my senior year. I digress. But in my mind, that was my road to do that. So i was at Shorter, I transferred in, and I was perfectly okay to never play sports again. i wanted to be an engineer.
00:14:29
Speaker
I was able to walk on the football team, I was able to play, and i was able to transition and play in the NFL, and then I just kind of stuck in sports. I think, you know, I i came into Georgia Tech wanting to be an engineer, and then when I was able to get the football team, it just expanded, and I wanted to do both. I wanted to be an engineer and I wanted to play in the NFL. and I was surprisingly able to do it. I i played the NFL when I retired. My first job was at Westinghouse.
00:14:59
Speaker
And I was a mechanical engineer doing HVAC for data centers. I did it for a quick bit, but I got back into it. I got back into sports. But, yeah, um I think that nontraditional path, I think, is what hopefully these young students can get inspired about is, one, we're constantly figuring out what we're doing. We're constantly evolving. And then there is no one path. You you can do everything.
00:15:28
Speaker
in So true. Yeah. A lot of students in mechanical engineering find it hard enough to balance their time just with the course workload. How did you do that
Balancing Sports and Studies
00:15:39
Speaker
playing full-time sports and being a mechanical engineering student?
00:15:43
Speaker
I think at the heart of it, my friends here can resonate, it's just sacrifice, right? It's knowing you're going to have to sacrifice something.
00:15:54
Speaker
to get to the finish line. A lot of it is time, a lot of it is sometimes sleep, sometimes energy, but there is a sacrifice built into this. I think understanding that, accepting it, and then just moving forward with it, you you can do it, but like I would have to play football games and then immediately go to the library and work with my group because we had to get the work done. they were the you know Thankfully they worked with me, but it's a sacrifice. and Understanding that if you do want both, if you want a lot, it does come with the cost.
00:16:26
Speaker
You just got to do it. Do you think that that experience helped you be a be better with time management later in your career? Without a doubt. I think doing mechanical engineering and playing football, I mean, now I'm, I think,
00:16:40
Speaker
I've stretched my capacity where like that's kind of like my norm. So like I need to be pretty stretched to capacity. right like i Right now I'm doing this work stuff. I'm back in school getting my doctorate in business administration. So I'm a husband, I'm a father. like I need to be stretched. It's kind of like my comfort zone.
00:17:01
Speaker
But I couldn't have had that bandwidth without being a mechanical engineer at George's Tech. So students listening, if you feel stressed, it's for your own good. Yes, exactly. Well, I'll say this. I mean, it's it's okay to feel stressed, right? It's okay to be wrong when it's, you know, it's a time. and like But that is okay. And I think understanding that you're not alone in it.
00:17:28
Speaker
Your friends, your peers, we're all going through this together. But you as an individual are growing, right? I think sometimes growth hurts and it's tough, yeah but at the end of the day, it is growth.
00:17:42
Speaker
And maybe it hurts a little bit less if you can recognize it as growth. Right. Shay, investing. What's that like? Give the students a little insight into how your day-to-day is like when you're investing in all these companies.
00:17:57
Speaker
So it's actually, let's talk about it month to month or quarter to quarter, maybe that's better, because every few months we focus on a different topic. So for example, the last three months we've been talking about AI data centers.
00:18:11
Speaker
And my job the last three months was to figure out what is happening in AI data centers. so Like, where is energy demand actually going to go? Is it really going to increase by how much people are saying it's going to increase by?
00:18:25
Speaker
Are there good solutions to that energy demand? And if there aren't, are there investable companies out there that would provide those solutions now or in the future?
00:18:36
Speaker
And so my colleagues and I just spent three months diving deep into this topic. We spoke to 20 plus utilities, independent power producers, tech companies, data center developers, investment firms who'd invested in data centers to really try to get to the bottom of what's actually happening.
00:18:58
Speaker
The thing that I love investing is, number one, this is just what my last three months was like. Every three months, it's a completely different topic. So before this, we did kind of customer experience in the automotive space. Before that, we did fleet software technologies. Before that, we did kind of battery life cycle management for
Investing and Research
00:19:19
Speaker
EV batteries.
00:19:19
Speaker
So that's just, you know, so I never get bored. But the other thing is... um It's okay to be wrong. i The reason we spend three months on one topic is we want to just test out all of our hypotheses because the worst thing is you invest the money and you're wrong after.
00:19:41
Speaker
You find out that you're wrong after you've invested the money. It's so much easier to find out you're wrong before you invest the money. And so we try to really prove ourselves wrong by every possible method.
00:19:54
Speaker
so that we have very high conviction by the time that we're done with our work that this is indeed a good kind of investment thesis and strategy. And I just love that process.
00:20:07
Speaker
I don't think all VC firms do this and I don't think all PE firms do this either. this you know, what are the different investment strategies and how do they differ in the financial industry is a whole other podcast topic that maybe perhaps we can talk about sometime.
00:20:23
Speaker
But in the little tiny corner of PE that I work, which is growth equity, this is, you know, something I just really love doing. And actually, fun fact, my favorite time about my time at Georgia Tech was actually research.
00:20:39
Speaker
So I was an undergraduate research assistant and then I was a graduate research assistant. And my master's thesis was 300 pages long. And I just loved... professor loved you. My dissertation was not that long. Well, I found out later that people were like, are you sure this is a master's thesis? I kind of went overboard. I totally went overboard on it. But the point is, I discovered that I love to research. I love...
00:21:09
Speaker
like ambiguous problems and trying to figure out what's actually going on. Like even problems that don't have solutions, just understanding a problem better I think is like just so cool. So that's what I love about investing. I think It's really intellectually fulfilling to me.
00:21:26
Speaker
And I love the fact that I have to find ways to challenge my own ideas and prove myself wrong. um So yeah, i just I just absolutely love it. Yeah, that that's really interesting because before you started talking, we called that a non-traditional path.
00:21:43
Speaker
And now that you explained it a little bit, it's almost like you're following the scientific method exactly and you're doing research and you're testing hypotheses. And eventually you have to convince your team that this is an investable area or investable company. How do you articulate your vision?
00:22:00
Speaker
for This is a communications podcast. How do you articulate your vision to your team? How much time do have? I think the answer differs. So there's there's actually two parts to the answer, which is...
00:22:15
Speaker
how do I get the facts and data to prove that I'm correct? And the second is, how do I convince a lot of people that I'm correct? Let's talk about facts and data.
00:22:27
Speaker
um I think a large part of communication is understanding what's being said. So in this case, understanding what exactly is the problem, understanding what are the different perspectives that someone's going to look at this problem through? For example, when when we are evaluating a company, here are the perspectives we look at. We look at the company's financial performance.
00:22:48
Speaker
We look at how the company is positioned relative to other companies in its space. We look at the company's competitors. We look at what their unit economics looks looks like.
00:23:02
Speaker
We look at macroeconomic headwinds and tailwinds, and we also look at technology headwinds and tradewinds. So those are seven different perspectives of looking at the same problem. And so the first thing we have to do is make sure that we have collected the facts and data for all those seven perspectives.
00:23:21
Speaker
But then the second thing is, have we really communicated it in a way that it can be understood? Have we communicated the nuances of it in a way that can be understood?
00:23:32
Speaker
And have we talked about it enough? Have we debated it enough? And I will tell you that our, at least my firm, a lot of the decisions are made once we've really debated each other about something. So I think debate is a really big part of that.
00:23:47
Speaker
By the way, one of the things that I've, my own learning from this process is I tend to overcomplicate things. So my big communication lesson has been, how do I simplify my messages?
00:24:00
Speaker
Because I'm dealing with so much data and I have to communicate all this information. really deep information to so many people, how do I communicate that succinctly in a way that they understand without losing the richness?
00:24:18
Speaker
So i think I think if you can do that successfully, you can communicate your investment thesis successfully. I've been in my role here at the Woodrow School, i'm going on my third year now, and As a communications expert, something I've really come to appreciate about engineers is their ability to synthesize.
Synthesis in Communication
00:24:36
Speaker
that You just talked about seven different types of information and how, as an engineer, like you kind of learn to synthesize those in a way to think about constraints and problems and needs and come up with a perspective to offer someone else.
00:24:55
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. Synthesis is a huge part of it. And I think that's actually the short answer to your question. How do you communicate as an investor? I think it's effective synthesis. Cool.
00:25:07
Speaker
You are all very humble when introducing yourself, but you've been very successful and success always comes
Challenges Enhance Growth
00:25:16
Speaker
with challenges. So what has been a major obstacle that you faced and how did you overcome it You know, playing football comes with a lot of challenges. The first one that comes to your mind is just the physical challenge, right? It's some of the best athletes in the entire world competing at the highest level. There's a physical challenge to that.
00:25:38
Speaker
The other challenge is just navigating the space, but then the transition out. When you're transitioning from an athlete to non-athlete, balancing that, right? The identity, the loss of a team,
00:25:52
Speaker
the loss of all that stuff is it is a challenge. I don't think there's one right answer to navigate that. Everyone has their own unique transition through, but that that was a challenge. And then just a personal, thought I love to share because I think it's necessarily career related, but I think it helped round me as a person. So my wife and I, we battled infertility.
00:26:15
Speaker
It's the hardest challenge that I've ever navigated through. And I think being in that sports world, you know, you have this mentality of like, oh, next play, know, you drop a pass, lets keep it going.
00:26:28
Speaker
When you're navigating infertility and you have a loss, that that just doesn't, it doesn't resonate, right? I think sports, just kind of like embracing those feelings and just feeling the feels was a challenge.
00:26:45
Speaker
Just for me, that helped around me as a better communicator, as a better supporter and I think that helped me in life, it helped me in my career, it helped me just be a better professional, better person.
00:26:56
Speaker
So that's just a few challenges for couldn't agree more. Research shows that most people make decisions based on emotion and then they rationalize them later. And so as a communicator and as a person it's really important to know and to appreciate where different people are coming from emotionally so that you can really connect with them.
00:27:17
Speaker
Couldn't agree more. I think learning how to communicate and and in support through that type of stuff, you you learn about a lot about yourself, but also how someone else needs support. And sometimes the way you give support or how you want it necessarily isn't how they best receive what they need in that moment.
00:27:38
Speaker
And understanding where you can't fill a gap. It's a good learning lesson. Especially under a very stressful time and with a spouse and, you know, different communication styles and methods.
00:27:51
Speaker
When it came to your time playing football as a student, you know,
00:28:00
Speaker
Well, I guess i the other assistant professor should chime in, but I can like speak from from our perspective. like Nothing prepares you for a faculty position. we're We're prepared to do good research. That's what our PhD trains us to do and be independent thinkers.
00:28:17
Speaker
But nobody teaches us how to really, you know, manage your own group, how to bring in the funding. Like those are all things that you kind of get thrown into the deep end and you have to figure out. lot of on-the-job training or on-the-job figuring it out, not even training. Yeah.
00:28:36
Speaker
Orientation was like a day. And then was like, you know, you have to do all of these things. But... I think, yeah, I think for me navigating that was a little bit challenging and just figuring out you don't know what you don't know, right? That's the hardest part. And so you cannot ask for help when you don't know what you don't know.
00:28:56
Speaker
But I think that attitude of just being willing to to talk to people and just saying, hey, I'm new to this. Can you help me figure this out?
00:29:07
Speaker
And you just realize that everybody wants to help. They just don't know what you need. So unless you go up to them, and I think this ties into communication as well, right? Sometimes it's really just about going to different people and asking silly questions, and that's fine because there's a lot of learning in that process.
00:29:28
Speaker
I guess it's not surprising that we have such humble honorees when humility is vital to success.
Learning Through Failure
00:29:37
Speaker
I think it is. yeah Yeah, I mean you have to be willing to ask questions to let people know that you don't know something and that you need help if you're going to succeed in the long run.
00:29:47
Speaker
Yeah, I mean I think I could piggyback off of that. I mean like when I first started as an assistant professor, i feel like the biggest problem was I don't know who to tell what I don't know. Like exactly what you were saying. It's like A, I don't know what I don't know.
00:30:03
Speaker
B, I don't know who to talk to about it. And C, like I don't know if I'm comfortable coming out and telling everyone, hey, I don't know this thing that yeah you kind of feel like you should have known, right? And so I think like tying that back to communication and just being willing to seek out help, even if you don't know what you're looking for, is important. And I think that's probably true in in any field, not just within the academic world.
00:30:28
Speaker
Yeah, it's especially true going from almost, you know, a mindless grad student or postdoc, and then suddenly the next day you're responsible for paying someone's salary and running a team, teaching students.
00:30:43
Speaker
There's nothing really that can prepare for that, like you said. So it's certainly terrifying, you know, first year, i would say But I think, you know, even alluding to what Kevin said as well, I think Obstacles, I mean, i guess in my mind, sometimes it's just the transition period.
00:31:01
Speaker
Whether you're starting that new job, starting a new phase of life or a completely new career, that phase is you know, extremely uncomfortable. So as people have mentioned, being able to reach out to friends, family, family, family, family talk to people both you know in your circle and leagues ahead of you.
00:31:22
Speaker
think it's very important. I think that's a great insight too, especially for our Georgia Tech students. they might They might be a little bit used to being perfect, to getting everything right. And when you find yourself in the real world, in new positions, give yourself some grace there to realize that you don't know everything.
00:31:45
Speaker
I think for me a challenge has been getting over fear of failure. like all Georgia Tech students and alumni, I like to do everything I do very well and perfectly. And you know, like everything has to be amazing. But the truth is in the real world, it's very hard to be amazing.
00:32:04
Speaker
Especially if you're constantly doing things that you weren't initially trained to do. So I was trained as an engineer. But I started doing operations management, and then I did consulting, and then I did corporate strategy, and now I'm doing investing.
00:32:20
Speaker
I didn't take a class on any of those subjects, right? And so i I very quickly figured out that if I want to work in these fields and do all these cool things, I have to learn how to do them.
00:32:33
Speaker
But it's actually really hard. So a really good example is like how to read financial statements. I was not taught that. It's not part of our engineering economics course because it's not something that usually engineers learn.
00:32:47
Speaker
So had teach myself how to do that. And I was really bad at it. I made so many mistakes, which by the way is like not a thing to brag about an investor.
00:32:59
Speaker
But i had to tell myself, okay, so if I'm doing something wrong, what does good look like and what is the delta?
00:33:10
Speaker
So like, where am I wrong? Let's get into, okay, what statement, what line, what definition, like how, so I approached it very clinically trying to understand like,
00:33:25
Speaker
exactly what does good look like. Yeah, you have to figure out what the genre was. Exactly. If no one has ever taught you how to do this genre of thinking or of writing, what do you do? You look at examples. You figure out what good is, you figure out what bad is, exactly you figure out what you can do. Exactly. And I had to do like many, many reps of that in like many, many different areas um to get good at it. And so so number one is fear of failure.
00:33:54
Speaker
But I think there's something that's very important that Kevin said, which is sacrifice. To get really good at something, you gotta practice it. So um I learned that even if it's really, really hard in the beginning, the more I do something, the better I'm gonna get at it.
00:34:10
Speaker
And if I keep doing it, I can eventually do it better than others. So I am constantly telling myself that. And it took a lot to get over the fear of failing the first few times.
Overcoming Fear of Failure
00:34:22
Speaker
But, you know, it's kind of cool to be able to do something well. so So, yeah I would just say you know, I had to learn to be persistent and I had to learn to learn and, you know, kind of acknowledge that, you know, I might be really bad at something when I'm starting out, but I can learn to get better.
00:34:40
Speaker
You said two really important things there about failure. I think you only learn if you fail. yeah If you succeed, you kind of don't really learn anything. But if you fail, you really learn a lot of stuff.
00:34:51
Speaker
And the second thing you said is once you get over that fear of failure, how you communicate to yourself to keep yourself engaged and practicing and and confident to keep approaching that problem. So I thought that was really cool.
00:35:05
Speaker
Guys, we're coming up on time. Many of our listeners are current Georgia Tech students or early career
Advice for Students
00:35:12
Speaker
engineers. What advice do you have for them? So think it's very important, you especially early on, just to get a variety of experiences.
00:35:20
Speaker
Whether that's the classes you take, or the clubs you join, in or the internships, co-ops, undergrad research. I think it's very important because it helps you figure out what you want to do later on.
00:35:32
Speaker
Because I think it's very easy to just stay in this one track of this is what you want. You're not going to sort of test waters elsewhere. And maybe that's true for some people. But I think it helps and it really helps your own personal and career development if you can touch different subjects, different areas and figure out what it is you like to do and what it is you could see doing, you know, as a career long term.
00:35:55
Speaker
I'm piggyback on that and it's going be two pieces of advice with just a piece of motivation. So it is take action. I think we hesitate.
00:36:06
Speaker
we We think we have time. I'm just a freshman. I have three more years left. Let's take action. The second thing is you can do more. And with the advice of I believe in you. I think We are very busy as students, as people, as student athletes.
00:36:25
Speaker
We have the capacity to do more. Our minds will tell us we can't, but we can't. And I think what's encouraging is we have the support around us. We have every department, every staff member, every professor is here to support you if you fall.
00:36:44
Speaker
And I think just believe in that and to take action. I think what I have to say is very tied to what Kevin said and also alluded to earlier, but i would encourage our young engineers and students to really like challenge themselves, right? Like the stress, the the growing pains as we call it, that's good for you.
00:37:09
Speaker
It helps you discover aspects of your personality and your ability that you did not know existed. So I think there is Right now, a lot like culturally just, oh, we don't want to stress ourselves too much.
00:37:24
Speaker
And there's different types of stress, right? But I'm saying like the stress associated with learning something new, putting yourself in a new environment and comfortable professional situations is can be good. And there can be a lot of learning that comes from it. So I think our students should should try and push themselves. Tech is a place that pushes you, right? But you also want to generate some internal stress to try and learn and get better.
00:37:51
Speaker
Yeah, I would say, you know do something that you wouldn't expect yourself to do. like Join a club for something that maybe you're just tangentially interested in, or take that class that you're like, I don't know if I really care about this.
00:38:04
Speaker
do like Your time at Tech is so valuable because you're exposed to so many different things, and they're all right here. And that's something you won't have when you're out in the world, right just the access to all the different people, all the different resources.
00:38:18
Speaker
all the varied experiences you can have. So that would be my biggest advice is just do something outside of your comfort zone, whether that's a club or a class or whatever. Yeah, and you can build that muscle because students can do that here, and then when they're out of tech, they could do that, you know, in the world. Yeah.
00:38:37
Speaker
My advice would be be persistent. So figure out where you want to be five years, ten years, twenty years from now. It doesn't really matter when. But then do it.
00:38:48
Speaker
everything you can get to that point all of your energy all of the experiences you accumulate everything you focus on make it count towards your goal and believe in your don't let anyone tell you the world is full of people are going to tell you you're not going to achieve that goal don't believe them believe in yourself get support from people who believe in you like kevin said just be persistent towards your goal nothing else matters just your goal you got to figure out what your goal is and you need to work very, very hard to achieve that, and it's possible to achieve that goal if you're persistent.
00:39:20
Speaker
Yeah, well said. I think a lot of Georgia Tech alumni end up doing amazing things, just like the five of you have in this room. um So I would just want to add to everything you guys said.
00:39:32
Speaker
by saying, meet other Georgia Tech students while you're here and start building your network now. So when you get out there and everybody's doing these amazing things, you know them. Not to say you can't connect with them later, but the earlier your start may be better for you in your in your life. I like to think about it from sports. You know, Georgia Tech was...
Final Thoughts on Growth
00:39:52
Speaker
really good before I got there, and they'll be much better without when I'm not there. You know, while you're in this thing, push this thing forward. And I think just believe in yourself that you know that you can. I think for me personally, just being in this 40 under 40, it's so humbling, but the imposter syndrome is so high when you're just seeing all these incredible people doing amazing things.
00:40:15
Speaker
But just take a second, know that you belong in this this space and then just like push. I think the School Mechanical Engineering is the best school on bias, right? No, it's objectively true. We all agree with it. We can do anything. We can do any engineering. We can do business. We don't study it, but we can do it. We can do anything.
00:40:39
Speaker
I... deeply believe in these this school and these kids and keep going the imposter syndrome thing is so real because first of all it's in your head and it happens when you have a cool job or you get some kind of promotion or something in life happens you get some award so like if if mentally you already think you're an imposter Maybe you lean in and just pretend like you're actually meant to be there. And then it turns into reality. I'll say this. I think it's funny.
00:41:11
Speaker
I've had an imposter syndrome a lot of times when I was in the NFL, when I was at Georgia Tech, when I'm in this group and you take a step back and you realize where you are. And it is in incredible spaces.
00:41:23
Speaker
Right. And the fact that you're there shows that. But there's something special going on. So I think look for areas where you can feel like you don't belong because you're probably in a good spot.
00:41:35
Speaker
Yeah. To round us out, and think our conversation, especially as a conversation to the Georgia Tech students currently, has really been around the fact that you deserve to be here.
00:41:47
Speaker
Enjoy the time when you're here. Build that confidence because it is through that confidence that you can feel more comfortable in moments that of transition, in moments that need humility, and feel more comfortable communicating that and getting what you need so that they can be on this podcast in 10 years, whenever they're the next 40 under 40.
00:42:09
Speaker
You know, if you're a student in need of any type of support, your professors, your academic advisors, your the student center, stamps, there are a lot of resources to take advantage of, but just take that step. And even if you're a little uncertain, the first step is always the hardest, but just take it.
00:42:30
Speaker
A lot of support. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for saying that. And we'll make sure to link those resources to different support centers on campus in the write-up of the episode show notes.
00:42:42
Speaker
Thank you guys so much for this conversation. i really think that this is going to be a great conversation for our students to listen to as they start thinking about what their own professional identity is going to be and how their own communication style is going to be a part of that professional identity.
00:43:00
Speaker
Thank you me here for being my co-host. It was great having you here. Yeah, I had a blast. Go Jackets. Go Jackets.