- Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome
to today's View from the Top event.
My name is Tsu-Jae King Liu, I'm the Dean
of the College of Engineering
here, and it's my pleasure
to host this seminar speaker series,
which brings leaders from
business, and technology,
and the arts to Berkeley, so
that our community can hear
and learn from them.
Today, we have our special guest,
Craig Federighi, from Apple.
He's the Senior Vice President
for Software Engineering.
But before proceeding
further, to talk about Craig,
I wanted to acknowledge
today's student organization,
which is co-hosting the event,
the Society for Women Engineers.
So thank you, very much.
(people applauding)
I'd also like to welcome
members of the Dean Society,
who have taken time out
of their busy schedules,
to join us here today, welcome.
All right, so let me turn back
to Craig Federighi, our speaker.
We are proud to note, oh,
it's not on the slide here,
that he received his Bachelor's Degree
in Electrical Engineering
and Computer Sciences here.
And, afterwards, pursued and received
his Master of Science
Degree in Computer Science.
So he's a proud,
a Berkeley Engineer!
We're really proud to
have him join us here,
to share his personal journey with us.
After Craig graduated,
he became a, you know,
he was already an accomplished
software engineer.
He took on a lot of positions at companies
in the Silicon Valley, including Oracle,
and NeXT computer, and
Apple, he's been at Apple,
he's taken multiple tours at Apple,
and, you know, moving up the ranks.
Today he's, he leads all
of the software engineering
for the operating
systems for your iPhones,
for your iPads, and for the Mac computers.
So it's a really, the significant role,
he reports directly to the CEO, Tim Cook.
I first met Craig
this spring, and just
to reconnect with him,
to tell him about the great
things we're doing here
at Berkeley Engineering.
And we talked about
his experience as a
student here, and also,
his experience as a
leader in the industry.
And he really had a lot
of thoughtful comments
and perspectives about
engineering education.
And so, this is why I was
really delighted that he agreed
to come and share his
wisdom with us today.
I think he calls it questionable advice,
but I think you'll join me
in, you know, welcoming him
to wholeheartedly share his
personal journey with us,
so that we can learn from his
experience, and his advice.
So, please, join me in
welcoming Craig to the stage.
(people applauding)
(person mumbling)
- Hi.
I'm Craig, I'll introduce myself, I guess,
a little bit, then I'll...
- Oh, again?
- I'll start by saying hello.
(people laughing)
So, who am I?
My name is Craig Federighi, in fact.
My name sort of looks
like an encryption code
you get handed out of
your, when you're trying
to decrypt your disk, or something.
It's pronounced roughly
like this, Feh Der REE GEE.
If you forget it, you can say fettuccine.
When I was kind of a persecuted
freshman in high school,
some people would call
me fettuccine, I guess.
I was okay with that.
So why am I here?
This is a great mystery for me.
I think if you, I mean, Berkeley...
(people laughing)
Well, in an existential
sense it's a huge mystery.
If you look around Berkeley,
there are just incredible people.
In fact, if you look to your left,
and you look to your
right, and probably look at
your own hand, there are
people more interesting
and deserving to being
on the stage than me.
But, here I am.
Why am I here?
Here we are, what are
we gonna do about this?
(people laughing)
So I've gotten a question
that it think has given me
a reason to understand why at
least I was asked to be here.
Recently, in the cafeteria
at work, a new college grad
who just joined the company
came up to me and he asked
"How can I become you?"
(people laughing)
Now, needless to say, that's
a pretty disturbing question.
(people laughing)
I thought my wife might
have some issues with it.
I wasn't exactly sure what it
would mean to me personally
when that occurred.
But I think what he really meant was,
how can I get your job?
(people laughing)
And I'd be happy working
for this young fellow,
he seemed pretty nice.
So he's really looking for career advice,
he's looking for insights.
I guess he was looking for wisdom.
In truth, despite my years of
going through this journey,
I have none of these
things to offer you today.
I can offer my story, and let you derive
whatever wisdom from it you
can, so we'll get started.
Now, unfortunately, my
recollection of my past
is quite hazy.
But I did do a little bit of research.
You're not, like, live blogging,
or something there, are you?
(people laughing)
I did do some research,
and uncovered a little bit
of historical evidence.
And so, let's start at the start.
How did I get here?
Well, as best I can tell, it started
about 13.8 billion years ago.
(people laughing)
There was an event, it
was called the Big Bang.
Apparently, stars formed,
decayed, exploded, and eventually,
on this planet, about 50,000 years ago,
our species ventured forth out of Africa
and into Western Europe.
From there,
about 121 years ago, my
genetic material migrated
and coalesced on this point.
I began then a 40-year lifetime migration.
This is actually my life's migratory path.
(people laughing)
I know what you're
saying, wild, wild stuff!
(people laughing)
This guy's been an adventurer.
(people laughing)
That's right.
And, in fact, how did I get here?
In truth, it wasn't a 90
minute drive this morning.
Like an aged salmon heading upstream,
I rode
up through the river
of my life up to here.
Presumably, this afternoon
I will come here,
I'm here to pass on to the
next generation, and then,
I guess, that presumably I'll
find my way back further east
and it'll all end for me there.
A few more details that might add
a little color to my story.
Let's start at the start,
this is allegedly me.
(people laughing)
I was born in San Leandro many, you know,
it's pretty close, just
across, just down 580.
When I was 10 years old, I
got a cool shirt, for one.
My interest back then, I
was really into skiing.
I also was into basketball.
In fact, I was pretty
sure I was gonna be Dr. J.
He was my idol, and I
was gonna join the NBA.
Now, it did not work out.
What did happen, is there
was an afterschool program,
and my mom said, "Hey, son,
maybe the NBA is not gonna be
"your thing, you should
do this computer class.
"There are these things called computers,
"and they're bringing some
Apple IIs around after school,
"you should do that."
And I said, "Mom, only
posers are into computers."
Just people who want to seem cool,
they go and they do the computer thing.
But, I went, and,
it was
a mind-blowing event.
In fact,
there were several hours of
like trying to draw pictures by,
you know, plotting lines,
and I thought, this is dumb.
But, then, there was a
moment at the very end where
they had us write this program.
How old are you?
Input A.
Print "In 10 years you will be"; A+10.
And my mind exploded!
(people laughing)
I mean, it was, that
was it, I was like this,
I know exactly the future now.
And I am gonna be part of
it, it's all about computers.
I kid you not.
I started, I'd had a little
nugget of life savings.
It wasn't enough to buy a computer,
so I started doing
housework, and doing weeding,
and I was doing all these chores,
because I was gonna buy a computer.
And, eventually, I did, I
bought a TRS-80 Color Computer.
Look it up, 6809 processor, decent thing.
I couldn't afford an Apple at the time.
But, I worked, I got
jobs, did little odd jobs
doing programming after I
taught myself some things.
Eventually, I was able to afford an Apple.
And then, finally, in
1984, the Mac came out,
and I was able to
experience the Mac.
And it was at that moment,
bringing together, really,
the humanities and computer
science in this way
that previously I couldn't fully imagine
that it all really connected for me.
And I decided at that time that someday
I would work for Apple.
I think I was in junior high at the time.
After this,
I went to Berkeley.
So that was awesome, I
brought another Mac with me.
Eventually, there were more Macs.
And then,
in 1988, I think it was,
Steve Jobs had since left
Apple, and he had introduced
the NeXT machine in San Francisco.
And he came to Berkeley,
to kind of give a reperformance
of the launch of the Mac.
There was no YouTube then,
I wasn't gonna be able
to see that launch online.
But he came to the PSL,
and he kind of redid
the whole launch of the product,
and showed off the NeXTcube.
For me, this was just
an absolute revelation,
I thought it was just incredible.
And so, I decided, no, I'm
not gonna work for Apple,
I'm gonna work for NeXT.
So that was my future.
In the meantime, coming to Berkeley,
of course, I had to fit in.
So I got an electric guitar,
that was totally key.
That's really the only
explanation for this!
(people laughing)
Because, now, why?
So the bandanna was actually
necessary for studying,
to keep my hair out of my eyes.
If we pan down, you'd see, actually,
the circuit board, where
in CS150 we were building
a digital answering machine,
with all these wires
connecting it, and that's
what I was working on,
apparently, with my sunglasses on.
Totally unclear.
Just for posterity, here's my senior year
Berkeley dining card.
(people laughing)
So that was good stuff.
I was a very, generally, a pretty shy,
socially awkward person, so
this whole look was pretty key,
because, I could walk down the street
and people would just
clear to the other side.
Which says something to Berkeley, right,
that people were like, I
don't want to be anywhere near
whatever craziness is going on there.
So I was at Berkeley, it was
a fantastic educational experience for me.
After being so into
computers, and programming
from really age 10 on,
when I got to Berkeley,
it was like, this is
everything I want to know.
Every class I was like, I
want to learn more about that,
I want to learn more about
that, so incredibly exciting.
And not just the computer science classes.
I mean, taking philosophy classes,
and political science
classes, and business classes,
I mean, all of this was just
incredibly eye-opening for me.
When I wrapped up, you know, most students
their senior year were thinking,
what are they gonna do with themselves?
I had completely neglected
to keep track of the fact
that I was about to
graduate and needed a job.
And, fortunately, there
was a company there was
an incredibly aggressive recruiter.
And since I'd done nothing
to try to seek a job,
I accepted their offer,
and headed down to Oracle.
But, the key for me was,
throughout my late high school
and college years, I
thought the next thing
I'm gonna do after I graduate,
is a gotta spend a winter skiing.
I headed out west to
Colorado and spent the winter
doing this kind of stuff.
But, the key was, I brought
my NeXT computer with me
and actually worked remotely
from a little cabin.
It was like a little ski monk thing,
you'd ski in the morning,
and then come back
and code in the afternoon.
But, interestingly, I
did some of the most,
I guess, kind of inventive work
at the time, in my time,
in this weird, this weird environment.
So sometimes inspiration
comes in strange places.
I headed back, and ended up
coming up back to Berkeley
for graduate school, in '92, to
seek a Master's.
I brought my NeXT computer with me.
I did all my classes there, and just,
through a modem uploaded all
my stuff to the school systems.
Grad school was great.
But after that, I was actually
able to fulfill my goal,
and got to join NeXT.
And then a strange thing
happened, because, you know,
I was young, I thought I'd be at Apple,
but then I decided I wanted to be at NeXT.
And then I show up at NeXT,
and then we get acquired by Apple.
(people laughing)
Back at Apple again.
But this was a fantastic period for me.
There were so many different
problems to work on
and, you know, a lot of things
I didn't anticipate working
on, I got to learn about.
And some of that led to
something called
WebObjects, it was like a,
really, a declarative user interface
kind of environment for
building web services.
I did that for awhile.
But, then, the whole B2B, eCommerce,
you all know about the dotcom crash.
Before that happened, there
was the dotcom bubble,
and I got to participate in that.
I worked for a company called Ariba.
By then, I was a management
type, I guess, or partly.
Did a lot of coding, but, my job was CTO.
Now, this is a good
gig, if you can get it.
It was...
I did platform architecture,
kind of UI and App design,
product strategy, I was
sort of the demo guy.
So this, this was good times.
But, most importantly, in
this period of my life,
I defied all expectations
and met a woman.
My wife!
(people laughing)
Who agreed to marry me.
So this was fantastic!
Strangely,
after that, this thing
started to happen where
these kids started to show up.
We never quite figured out
why this was happening.
But, eventually, it did stop
(people laughing)
after we made four of
them, so, there's that.
And it became a little
bit overwhelming, and so,
after having done a little bit of the CTO
kind of semi-executive
thing, I actually decided
to take a couple years and return to being
a individual contributor engineer,
and did a bunch of open source stuff.
If you go to AribaWeb.org,
you can probably still see
the website I left
there over a decade ago.
But that, that engineering
writing code is still,
you know, kind of my favorite
thing to do in my spare time,
and it felt great to return to doing that.
But after that period, I returned to,
or, yeah, finally came back to Apple.
It was really kind of home for me,
and, apparently, I'm gonna die there.
(people laughing)
I started with, started with MacOS,
and then went on to, to do iOS, as well.
And it's been an incredible opportunity
and journey for me there.
So what can we learn from all of this?
A few possible lessons.
One that's very clear is don't move!
Wherever you're born, stay
there and wait for the industry
that you need to erupt right around you.
(people laughing)
And then just seek employment there.
The second lesson, heavy metal!
I mean, it's very clear that that is
a key element of growth.
And neglect looking for a job.
If any of you were planning
on looking for a job,
set that aside.
Ski, very important.
And also, pick one haircut in the 80s
and just stick with it.
That was just, it was absolutely,
I haven't changed my instructions
to the barber ever since.
So, seriously, there are
a few things I'd observe.
I don't know if these are
important, or essential,
but they are some things that I think
seem to be important to me.
How can I get your job?
Well, in truth, the key part is, first,
we'll go with seven easy steps,
first step is don't want my job.
(people laughing)
I didn't want my job.
You know, maybe you shouldn't either.
I think the most important thing to do,
is to focus on doing what you love.
If you're worried about
where you're going,
where this all will take
you, if you're too focused on
the destination, I think
you'll miss the journey.
When you do what you love,
it turns out that the things
you do in your spare time,
like on my time, if I have
a moment on the weekend,
I'm gonna be reading
things about programming,
I'm gonna be reading
things about software,
or artificial intelligence,
because that's what I love!
So it's like, if you
do something you love,
it's like cheating, because, all of your,
your recreational time
actually turns into time
that helps you develop in your career.
That part is super-important.
Second, work with people
whose work you admire.
I think the thing about me
being drawn to NeXT, was I saw
this product back in
'88, that I said this is,
it just spoke to me, this is
an incredible piece of work.
I need to be, I need to see
what it's like to be among
the people who can do that kind of thing.
And so, I just, I felt magnetically drawn
to be among the people
who did this kind of work
that I really appreciated,
and to learn from them.
And that gets me to number
three, which is pay attention.
It's amazing, in life,
one of my kids, actually,
said to me the other day, they said,
"You know, I figured out a secret.
"Like, in class,
"pay attention."
I thought, wow!
Because, they're like, "All the other kids
"are not paying any attention.
"And we have to sit there anyway.
"Imagine how much you could
learn, if you paid attention."
(people laughing)
During life, I mean, you are,
through your working life,
through your school
life, you're surrounded
with all of these opportunities to learn.
And not just in your field,
not just in the thing
that you think you're
studying, but all those things
peripheral to the field you're studying.
There's so many fascinating
things to learn.
And, for me, I carried around
a notebook paper and a pencil,
and was just taking notes all the time.
People thought I was like
a wandering reporter,
or spy, or something, because I was just
constantly jotting things down.
Because there's just so
many interesting things.
And if you're making use of the time
to suck 'em all in, if you're curious,
it really helps.
Number four, and this is kind of related,
never stop acting like
the new one on the team.
When you first join a team...
For those of you have done
internships, you know,
you get to have that moment
when you first get a job,
you show up and no one
expects you to know anything.
And so, you get to ask
the stupid questions.
You get to say, oh, I don't
know anything about that.
Can you tell me about
that, why did we do that?
I've never stopped being that person.
That's such a valuable moment to say,
it's okay if I don't know everything.
I can have questions.
And, if you do, it turns
out, some of those questions
are questions that team probably should
have been asking themselves, and wasn't.
And so, if you're asking,
you might get some answers
that everybody needs to hear.
But, also, it's that
permission to just be learning,
and learning, and learning.
Because, it's not just about
being narrow and being,
wanting to be secure in one little area,
every adjacency is an area to explore.
And the way you're gonna
broaden yourself and learn,
is to just feel the permission
to ask the questions all along the way.
Another thing is, I say it, you know, team
are more important than self.
When I've joined projects,
I've decided that whatever
the team's mission is,
whatever we're trying to accomplish,
I want to be part of making that happen.
And I want to do
everything that can be done
to make that happen.
If it's, we're gonna go work,
you know, there's a point,
I joined a team, and
all, they were in a part
of the release where it
was all about bug fixing.
All I was gonna do for year was fix bugs,
so it didn't sound like
the coolest thing to do.
It turned out to be an
incredible learning opportunity.
There was a part we had
to work on performance.
Well, I got to learn about
performance, because we had
to fix the performance of
the thing I was working on.
If you become part of, adopt
the mission of the team,
adopt that project, you find that there's
so many different ways you can help.
And, along the way, so many
different ways you can learn.
Where, if you're focused more about
what does this mean for me,
what am I interested in,
I think you miss out on
all of those opportunities.
And I think related to this is this notion
of committing for a period of time.
I guess, I always looked at
my career as I'm gonna spend
four or five years I'm gonna do this,
I'm not gonna wake up
each morning and say,
am I doing the right thing?
Should I take a turn here, is this my path
to where I want to be?
Instead, I said, this what I'm gonna do,
and my focus is just immersing
myself in that thing.
Because, it'd be like if you got married,
and every day you woke up and you said,
am I married to the right person?
Like that would not be a
good relationship, right?
To have that thought in your
head the whole time, super-bad.
I do not have that thought in my head.
(people laughing)
The same thing would happen
at work, you see these people
so worried about, angsty
about am I in the right job,
am I heading in the right direction?
Assess the situation, make a choice,
all these choices are imperfect,
and then commit for awhile.
Give yourself the opportunity
to really experience it,
and then set yourself a
deadline, and say, in a year or
four years from now, I'm gonna
step up having,
step back from having done all this,
and then assess what I want to do next.
That certainly has been important
to me, both in my sanity,
and in my ability to
really commit in a way
that I think allowed to me
to learn, and do good work.
Number seven, follow your heart.
Cheezy, but, it's been
super-important for me.
There have been numerous, and sort of
the most important
decisions I've had to make,
I feel like I made the decision
that if you were analytical
about it, if you made...
I had an important decision
to make, and I asked my dad,
"I'm having trouble, do
I take this job here,
"or do I go to grad school?
"Do I take this position
here, or do I go over here?"
When I went to NeXT, I took a big pay cut
to join a failing company.
It didn't seem like too smart a move.
But, I felt, he said, my
dad said, "Make a list.
"Write down all the good
and bad of this decision,
"this decision, add it
all up, there you go."
I made the list.
I, obviously, shouldn't go work for NeXT.
But, when I thought of making the decision
on that side of the thing, I
just got a feeling in my gut,
like, no, I want to be there.
And it turned out there
was probably something,
something wise or intuitive
about what was drawing me
to the right decision.
The ability to listen to
yourself in those moments,
and make those decisions,
I think, over and over
on the most important decisions,
that's been super-important.
And then when you're there,
you feel good about it.
And, of course, I say all of this,
this is one story, one data point.
I mean, let's be honest,
be very, very lucky.
(people laughing)
However you figure that out,
I haven't cracked the code,
but it seemed to happen for me.
That's a little advice.
Thank you, very much, and
I think we're gonna do
some questions, and I'll sit down,
and we'll see how it goes.
(people applauding)
- That's good, thank you.
(people applauding)
All right, so I'll just start
out with just a few questions,
and I'll hand it over
for the students soon,
in a little while.
All right, so that's a wonderful story.
Thank you, for taking us
through your whole life journey.
It spanned many years and
some miles.
- Very, very little geography.
- That's wonderful, but,
you know, it's clearly
some common themes were
Apple, that's amazing,
you know, starting when you were 10.
And then Berkeley, right,
the connection there,
you know, Steve Wozniak is
whom you saw, heard?
- Yes.
- And, you know, co-founder
of Apple, but also,
one of our alums, so it's fantastic.
I thought the advice was pretty good.
What did you all think? (laughs)
It's not questionable.
- Yes.
That's great.
- Questions.
(people applauding)
- Yeah.
(people applauding)
I was just wondering, though,
from your experience, what kind of,
what are the important
skills that you think are,
you know, critical for success?
First of all, let's say as an engineer?
Because, our audience is primarily made
of engineering students today.
- Yeah, sure.
You know, it's an interesting
blend today, because I think
on the one hand you want
to be deep in a domain,
have real expertise, and that takes
a lot of hard work solving real problems,
spending the time doing that.
But, I think, increasingly,
and certainly in
the environment where I work now,
software engineering is
completely a team sport.
Building things at scale
is about building things
with lots of people.
And not just other software
engineers building things with
designers, working with project managers,
working with hardware
teams, working, you know,
all these other disciplines.
And so, in addition to
being an awesome engineer,
communication is incredibly important.
I mean, written communication,
verbal communication.
Being able to collaborate
is super-important.
Being able to
empathize with users, if you're
building product software
like I do.
Can you put yourself in the
mindset of your customer,
and think about how they're
gonna see what you're doing,
or what they want, what they value,
and translate that?
And then having the ability to,
as part of collaboration, to respect all
these other disciplines.
I'll say, when I was
an undergrad, just super-focused
primarily on computer science,
there can be a tendency
to see the world one way,
through the eyes of
someone who is, you know,
very analytical, and so forth,
and to think that these other softer
skills are, you know,
not strong.
In fact, what you come
to appreciate, is that
you have a, you have many blind spots,
that that's a narrow point of view.
And so, being able to
respect all of these different kinds
of roles and points of view,
and collaborate effectively
with those people,
is what it takes to actually
do a great product as a team,
and that's so much of what
it's about these days.
That's my primary advice.
- Okay, that's fantastic, so, soft skills.
- Yeah.
- And that's
something which you demonstrate
very well here, I think.
You're as very comfortable
on the stage speaking,
communicating effectively
with presentations, and just,
you know, extemporaneously.
Were you like that when you were
10 years old?
- Ah, yeah.
- Or, even when you were
a college student?
- I don't know, it's,
so, yes--
- How did you develop
that skill?
- Certainly, it's been,
this has been the strangest
part of my journey, is that,
if any of you had ever
heard of me before now,
it's probably because, you
know, being on stage presenting
something in front of
a big room of people.
You know, I grew up a very, I mean,
I was like a pretty shy,
socially-awkward guy.
Certainly, didn't get
into computer science
for the fame element of,
of it, it's not kinda where you think
it's your path to the
stage, traditionally.
And so, the fact things
kinda went that way was
quite surprising.
I did, in high school,
I actually was a DJ.
We had a radio station at my high school.
We used to call it a radio
station, we had an 8 watt,
we had a 10 watt transmitter,
which had an eight mile range.
(people laughing)
But, it was this opportunity for years
to just talk, you know, talk
on the, talk on the air.
So I gotta think that actually
played a role later on
with being comfortable
communicating with people.
But that's, that's why I
say those things that you do
that don't seem like the
central thing in your career.
You know, you have your
deep area of expertise,
but some of these other
things, they turn out
to maybe play a role that you couldn't
have possibly anticipated.
And certainly that worked out for me.
And then, I also just found that
presenting, I think a lot
of people get caught up in,
I gotta write out a script,
I gotta memorize exactly
what I'm gonna say.
And then, that's too hard, I
could never succeed at that,
my memory wouldn't allow it.
So rather than do something really hard,
I just figure if there's
something I'm excited about,
that I want to share,
I just try to get up there and be myself,
and tell the story.
And so, if you can get to a frame of mind
where you know what
you want to get across,
and you're willing to just
put yourself out there,
I think audiences appreciate
people who are just willing
to be their authentic selves up there.
- Right, authentic, right.
I found it really
interesting that you felt
that these soft skills
are really important
for just an engineer, versus a leader.
I think, clearly, as a
manager and a executive
you do need those kinds
of communication skills,
and empathy with, you
know, your customers.
It's great that you
mentioned the ability to
respect and see people,
see different perspectives.
Just, in general, I know when you
and I spoke earlier this spring,
we talked about efforts
here at Berkeley to foster
a culture of inclusion in engineering,
and to just ensure that
everybody has a chance
to thrive here, rather
than just to survive.
- Yeah.
- How do you think this diversity
plays a role in tech, in the
tech industry, specifically?
- Well, I mean, it's hugely important.
And I know it's an area
that, of course, when we,
when we look at some
statistics, it's an area where
the industry could do
better, where we'd like,
where we'd like to do much better.
That's an important
problem to solve, because,
when you think about
building the best products,
I think the best products come from,
come from diverse teams, fundamentally,
they come from
understanding your customer.
And your customer has, comes
from all kinds of backgrounds,
and experiences, and
desires, and aptitudes.
If the people in the room have
a narrow perspective on what
the customer wants, what the
customer will understand,
you're gonna build something
that's very narrow.
I found over and over
these areas where having
the right set of people in
the room, it's eye-opening.
You go, of course,
everyone would want this.
And someone says, "Actually, no."
Or, "Actually, this is, I
really value, value this."
And you're like, "Really?"
And you realize how
narrow, sometimes, you
can be viewing things
if you just have a single
viewpoint in the room.
And, I mean, this has to
do with both, you know,
the culture, and what national customs,
age,
you know, what's currently
fashionable or popular with
different demographics.
I mean, you need this diversity
along every dimension,
will inform you to
build the right product.
And it's not just
understanding the customer.
It's also that the diversity
of domain backgrounds,
of ways of looking at the problem,
are where you make those leaps, you know.
We can spend our time kind
of optimizing in our lane.
But, where the really
interesting stuff happens,
is when you cross the lanes.
And that only happens by having
this diverse set of disciplines
together at the table.
It's super-important, and
we need to do all we can.
I know Berkeley's doing so
much, to try to solve this.
It's super-important to doing good work.
- That's great to hear.
So I know, it's wonderful
that you shared your story
about your family.
And I know one of your
daughters is here today.
Lisa, welcome.
- She's a little bigger now.
- Yes.
(people laughing)
I'm wondering, have you
found it to be helpful
to your career to be a parent?
Well, first of all, a
husband and a parent,
maybe in that order? (laughs)
- I guess I have to say yes.
(people laughing)
Well, certainly, I bring
a certain perspective.
You know, there's
certain kinds of features
that suddenly seem much
more important to me
than they would if I was a single person,
when it comes to thinking
about both what do kids want,
what do families want.
There's also a element of just
the period of life, and
being able to focus on work.
You know, work-life
balance is a challenge.
Well, it's always, it's
always a challenge,
and it may be especially a challenge
when you start taking on family.
And I have no good advice
to offer you on that.
I don't do that very well.
(person laughing)
But, it's...
I've certainly found that
in today, often, and you
know, certainly, devices
we all carry in our pockets
are part of this where
it's easy to never be away from work.
And you have to be, you
have to be away from work.
Not only for the sake of
being with your family.
But, also, that separation from that time
where you can be intensely focused
on that environment to that
time that you let yourself
be unplugged from that.
And so, if there's a piece
of advice I can give you is,
number one, sleep, give
yourself time to sleep.
I know I see all these
T-shirts, there's one,
walking across the campus,
someone had, eat, sleep, code,
and then sleep was crossed out.
Like, that...
(people laughing)
I just saw that like an hour ago.
(people laughing)
I'll say, I mean, it's sort of the legend
here at Berkeley, I think that, you know,
you can have sort of a
sleep, or a social life,
or grades, or something, you
know, pick two, pick any two.
(people laughing)
- Yes, actually, I think
some EECS students,
a number of years ago,
determined, like, a relationship
is worth like three units.
(people laughing)
- Is that right?
Is that what it costs?
- Yeah, you can either take
a course for three units,
or have a relationship.
- I was able to optimize
that part away completely.
(people laughing)
But, I did, I did focus on the sleep part,
and the school part.
So it's a huge part of deciding, I mean,
at different points in
your life where are you,
what are you gonna focus on,
and what are you gonna give up?
And it is certainly true,
as you get into family,
family becomes super-important.
For me, work was also really important,
and, you know, a lot of other things you,
you focus out to a secondary place.
- So do you encourage,
like, your team members,
the people who work for you to have,
to achieve some kind of work-life balance?
I mean, is that?
- Yeah, and it's tricky, right?
Because, sometimes, I might be
working on a weekend, or something.
And so, I uncover a
question, and I'm thinking
I'm gonna send an email just because it's
Monday morning they can,
you know, go do this.
But then you say, you'd
send your question,
and then do they feel obliged to,
oh, I just got this message,
maybe I should be working right now.
I could probably do
better to make clear that
it's really when you're
at work, you're at work,
and when you're not at work,
you probably shouldn't be at work.
That's my advice.
- Yes.
Actually, I learned from my students that
there's a feature, at least for Gmail,
that you can actually defer--
- Don't let any of the...
- Yeah, so that people don't feel like
they have to respond to
you like after midnight,
or over the weekend.
- Did it seem weird
that you just said that?
- And our students are great.
- And then you realize later, you didn't,
can you go back in the
outbox, or remove it?
If you're like, no!
- It's too late.
- It doesn't make any sense.
- Yeah, but now you have
the option to just delay the sending.
- Okay.
- This is great, so I'd
like to open up the floor
to questions from students.
- Yeah, let me just--
- Preferably students.
- Just one thing.
- Anybody.
- Like I'm,
I work, I work for Apple, but I'm here as,
I'm just here as myself.
I really, the questions
I don't want to answer
are things of the form.
- Sure.
- What's the new iPhone?
- iPhone 12.
(people laughing)
Yes.
- Or why did Apple make this decision?
Or, blah-blah-blah, right?
My max, my goal here,
despite the live blogging
that seems to happening,
is to not make any news.
(people laughing)
If you have a question that
seems it might make news,
please, don't ask.
I cannot answer it.
- All right.
When you, we'll have a microphone.
And then, please, introduce yourself,
your major, your year, and your question.
- [Female In Audience] Hi, I'm Zoe.
I'm a third-year
undergraduate EEC student.
I was just curious, like, if
you had to go back to Berkeley
and do it all again, is there anything
that you would change, you
know, because we're trying
to figure out our lives,
too, and (chuckles)
would love to know what
steps you felt like
were like valuable, and not.
- Gosh, it's super,
super-hard to say, because
at some level, like,
I appreciate the journey my life went on.
And you never know if
you change one variable,
what would happen.
No joke, I was like a,
a coding monk, or something
like a, I mean, I mean,
the narrowness socially of
my life cannot be overstated.
And so, in that sense, I feel like,
well, people talk about their
college experience in this,
this way of making many more
connections on other levels.
And I was, I was focused.
And so,
would I have been better
off had I broadened that?
I mean, some of that
was just my personality.
Probably, probably that
would have been better.
But, you might not have
that problem that I had.
But that would be, that
would be something,
because, I was so focused on academics,
and coding, and playing guitar that
that was all I had room for.
And so, there are parts
of the college experience,
I guess I could go back and do it again,
and just do the social part,
and forget the academics part,
and then I'd even it all out.
(people laughing)
- Great, a question here?
- [Male in Audience] Hi, my name is Mark.
I'm a fourth-year student
studying Mechanical Engineering
and Business.
You touched on this idea
of inflection points
and making decisions,
following your heart,
things like that.
- Yeah.
- [Male in Audience] Could
you give some examples
of when you listened to yourself,
and you're really happy that you did?
- Yeah, well, one, I mean,
there are two of them that are,
I think, stand out as a couple of
the biggest inflection points.
One of them was
when I,
I had been at Oracle, and like I say,
I largely landed at
Oracle because they would
let me, they'd take me on when
I said I'm only gonna work
for you for six months, and
then I'm gonna leave and ski.
They met that bar.
And yet, I found myself there,
and because of the way things developed,
there were these opportunities where,
there was a time when
video-on-demand started to be,
and now, we all use it
all the time, right,
but video-on-demand
started to be a big thing.
And it was interesting,
it was new, and I'd done
a little grad work in that area, too.
And there was a, an idea
that I could be part of
the project that was gonna
be the big thing at Oracle
that was taking off, it
was super well funded, etc.
Or I could go fulfill my
dream of working for NeXT.
You know, I interviewed at NeXT.
They said...
Oracle had been very good to me.
And so, at NeXT, they said,
"Well, you're really overpaid."
And, I said, "Oh, that's a bummer."
(people laughing)
And so, there was this
point where it's like,
and NeXT was largely a
failed/failing company, right?
They'd gotten out of
the hardware business,
kinda no one was buying the software.
And yet, Oracle was
gonna go big in a space
that seemed so promising, and emerging.
And yet, having talked to the two teams,
met the people, saw what
they were working about.
There was one that I just felt like
I want to be part of that,
I want to be with them.
I feel like I could learn so much.
And, for me, that, I mean,
that's been the best,
one of the best decisions,
certainly, in my entire career,
to be among those people.
I mean, little did we
realize then, that what
we were creating at NeXT in this, to run
in this square foot box
was the foundation of what
a billion people were gonna
have in their pockets.
But, that's where it all went.
And I think, maybe
there was an element of,
of just what you sense about
the people and the work
that you can, you can't
articulate it to yourself,
but you can feel it, and
that's part of the attraction.
And that was, that was there for me.
And the other one was the decision
to come back to grad school.
I'd had it in my mind
that I wanted to do it.
I'd had that I wanted
to learn something more.
I had been in the
industry a little bit and,
you know, course of saying stay, stay.
You know, here's a great opportunity
for you to do more here.
And I said, you know, I
mean, this one's horrible,
by the way, they said, "What
would it take for you to stay?"
And I made the most outland, the thing,
like you make the most
outlandish set of demands, right?
I won't even state them,
because they're so ridiculous.
I'm like, well, I could do this, and this,
and give me a cut of the profits,
and let me work here, and whatever.
And I'm like, then we're gonna do this.
And then they came back and said, "Okay."
(people laughing)
- Wow!
- And so, (chuckles) so
I said, "But, I wanted
"to go to grad school."
(people laughing)
And the horrible part is,
so, I said, "God, well,
"okay!"
So I said yes.
And then Monday, school had started,
grad school had started,
and I didn't show up,
because I had said okay to this job.
I'm sitting there back in my cubical.
And I'm like, I do not want to be here.
I want to go to grad school.
And I called up the thing,
I said, "Can I still come?
"I've missed a few days of classes."
And they said, "Sure, come
on up, just start taking
"your classes again."
And I went to grad school.
It was just this feeling
of where I wanted to be.
And I think, again, I feel like it was,
it was the path intellectually and
that I wanted to take, and I was willing
to listen to that and follow it, and,
you know, no complaints.
- Wonderful.
There, in the back.
(person mumbles)
- [Male in Audience]
Hello, my name is Tosh.
I'm a third-year CS student.
- Hi.
- [Male in Audience] I
just wanted to thank you,
for taking your time and
coming out here today.
- Thank you.
- [Male in Audience] One question,
I actually have two questions.
One question is, what's
your favorite aspect
of software engineering, you
know, software engineering is
comprised of multiple different
like facets, like, you know,
you have AI, machine
learning, operating systems,
compilers, like what drove
you to kind of work in,
at operating systems at Apple?
And then, like, you know, I
guess, what was your favorite?
And the second question
I have, is that like,
how do you combat like feeling burnt out?
I know you kind of
mentioned that, you know,
you always were really
focused on like coding,
and that sort of stuff.
But, especially, as a
student here at Berkeley,
I kind of spend a lot of
days just kind of working,
and then, that Saturday
comes and I'm just like,
oh, I feel really burnt out.
- Uh-huh.
- [Male in Audience]
How do you combat that,
and continue to being
motivated to work, and stuff?
- Yeah, okay, a bunch there.
In terms of sort of what's
my, what's my favorite thing,
you know, I got started when,
really, the way, well,
the way we programmed,
the languages, the frameworks,
the sort of idioms we used
have been really evolving
over the years.
Early on, I always felt
like I love programming.
And yet, I felt like so
much of what we were doing
when programming
was so tedious, you know.
I think many of us are
inherently lazy people,
we're always looking for
how can I make this easier?
And then you do way more work
trying to make it easier,
than if you just went and did it, right?
So I've always been drawn to,
to languages, frameworks, tools,
things that change the way
software is developed,
to try to get to the root
of how do I make something
maximally expressive and dynamic?
And so, I love doing this kind of,
this kind development framework work.
At the same time, I've really come
to love interaction design.
When you can think about
how you are gonna connect
a piece of work to a customer experience,
I'm not a good, I'm not a
good graphic designer, at all.
I mean, horrendous.
But I can, I enjoy working with them.
And I enjoy thinking about
that connection between
a customer experience
we want to create and
what that experience can be, and then,
what's the underlying architecture
that could make all of that happen?
There's something just
fantastic about that.
But, I'll say, generally,
also with programming,
there's something really Zen about it.
I mean, you can lose yourself for hours in
just thinking deeply about a problem.
And then, when it all comes together,
there's just this unbelievable feeling of,
of I did it, it works, it
just undeniably works, right?
There are lots of things
where you could have opinions,
or write an essay, and
like did you nail it?
I don't know, but...
(people laughing)
But you wrote a program
and it did the thing,
like, there's no denying that it worked!
And so, I get, I just get
awesome satisfaction out of that.
And I still do, and that's
why I took a couple years
where I wanted to return back from,
from being in a little
bit more nebulous world
of high-level leadership, and into a role
where I'm just sitting down for a day and,
at the end of the day,
I've solved a problem
in the most concrete way possible.
And I just, it felt so good.
In terms of burnout,
I think it helps to have a
diversity of things that you're,
that you're working on.
If there are parts of your day where,
or parts of your week where
I'm gonna focus on this,
and I'm gonna go deep,
and sometimes there's,
there's a certain
activation energy to emerge,
to immersing yourself
sufficiently to get in
that productive zone, and
really crank some stuff out.
And so, you gotta, you
gotta be willing to go deep
and spend that time.
But, then, to be able to spend some time
doing some other activities,
it can still be related
to your project, to programming,
or something else in
your life that exercises
a different part of your
brain, and provides you
with different inspiration, or involves,
now I'm working with
people in a different way.
Mixing it up is great.
And I'll say, you know, for me, in my job,
it's awesome, because,
I love almost every element of,
of computer science,
of the computing
in hardware, and silica, and all this.
And so, getting to work at
a scale where you're working
with the best people in
all of these disciplines,
and being able to touch
them all, and having
that constant diversity
of problems you're solving
does kind of keep renewing you, you know.
You're always, you're always
learning something new.
I think that's always
been part of how I've,
what's drawn me into programming,
is I'd learn something.
I'd think of some, how do I
apply this thing I've learned?
I'd come up with a
project I want to build.
And then, you're building
the project and you realize
there's something else
that you need to learn
to do it right.
And there's nothing like
having a problem to solve,
and having that, seeking a solution,
to then give you the hunger
to learn, and the appreciation
for the solution when you're doing it.
And that, that cycle
is just so motivating.
And with computers it's so great, because,
you can try that stuff out.
And it's not like you're
gonna build a bridge
and kill people.
Right, you can go experiment,
and play, and yet, constantly be learning.
I guess that keeps me renewed.
- Excellent.
We have time for one more question.
- [Male in Audience] Hi.
I'm Tamas, I'm a third-year EEC student.
And I'm curious, what made you different
from all the other coding
monks that are still like stuck
in their cubicles, you
know, 40 years later?
(people laughing)
How did you get to the top of like one
of the best companies?
- I have no idea.
(people laughing)
I mean, I...
Luck.
I mean, I think the, you know,
the things I talked about,
I guess, the way it, the way
it felt to me along the way
was
I...
(person mumbling in background)
I guess I had the good
fortune of being drawn to
some interesting projects,
some interesting parts
of the industry that, maybe,
at times didn't look like
they were necessarily the hot thing,
but they were something that
turned out to be meaningful.
I think I was always focused on,
at any given time, trying to
solve the right problem for the team.
And when you're working on a project,
and you're devoted to the
success of the project
and solving all the
problems of the project,
that's where people,
that's like the point that they,
that someone said, "Hey, you
should manage this team."
You know, when I was an
individual contributor,
and they said, "You
should manage this team."
I had no aspirations of
management at that time.
It was super-early, it seemed weird.
But, it was because my
focus had been not just
my narrow thing, but like
what can I do for the team,
what are all the different
problems I can solve?
They said, "Oh, you
should probably manage it.
"You seem to have this broader
concern for the project."
When I was then managing my team,
but I was kinda concerned
about how my project fit in
with other projects, and
solving that broader problem,
and trying to help out here and there,
they said, "Oh, you should
lead this collection."
They kept pulling, they
kept pulling me up.
And at some point I'm
like, what are you doing?
(people laughing)
You're making a big mistake.
It is, I think, if you're not too worried
about getting there, but you're
just trying to do the job,
at times, it turns out
that people see in you,
maybe, being the solution to
a problem they have to solve,
which is get something led.
So maybe that's it, or maybe it's just,
you know, being a high school radio DJ.
I know, hard to say, hard to say.
- Wonderful, well, thank
you, so much, Craig,
for spending time with us, and giving us
very wise advice.
- Yeah, my pleasure.
- And being exemplar
of a Berkeley engineer.
- Oh, (chuckles) thank you, so much.
- Thank you.
- Thank you, everybody.
(people applauding)
- We have a gift for you.
- A gift, oh!
(people applauding)
- We have a gift for you,
Berkeley Engineering--
- Oh, awesome!
(people laughing)
- Shirt.
- All right!
- Modeled by our Berkeley
Engineering students.
(people laughing)
Is somebody taking a photo?
Please.
(people applauding)
- Hey, thank you.
- All right.
Thank you, all, for coming.
Go Bears!
- Go Bears!
- And we hope to see you
at more events later this year.
All right, bye-bye.
