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ROBOCOPPROBOCOPPROBOCOPPROBOCOPP

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY FOR UGIS W157

The Reality of the Unsexy EntrepreneurA Narrative Analysis of My Summer Internship at ROBOCOPP

by Chanakya Varma

CONTEXT ROBOCOPP is an Oakland based startup concerned with leveraging technology to create personal safety products that are effective, affordable and intuitive. To find out more about the company and their product, log on to robocopp.com. The exclusive right to the logo used on the front lies only with ROBOCOPP and prior seekers of permission. The following paper is a reflective narrative required as a part of my final project for the course Experiential Learning: Context, Self-Reflection and Professional (UGIS W157) offered by the University of California, Berkeley, during the Summer 2016 session.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I would like take this moment to thank Sam Mansen, Dr Shubhankar Basu and everyone else at ROBOCOPP for giving me the opportunity to intern with them this summer. It has been a fantastic learning opportunity, and I will treasure my experiences for the rest of my life.

Varma 1

Chanakya Varma

Professor Joel F. Clark

UGIS W157

11 August 2016

The Reality of the Unsexy Entrepreneur

I was born on the internet. My parents married and conceived me during the eve of the dot-com

bubble, and the global nature of my father’s career growth ensured that I spent a fair amount of my

childhood in different countries, at the heart of their developing software economies. I learned to use a

computer before I could run, and I could draw better on MS Paint than I could in real life. I was raised as

a minimal viable product and rather than being put to bed to tales of dragon-slaying heroes, I listened to

those of garage start-ups. When I said the alphabet, ‘A for Apple’ referred to a certain group of rebels in

Palo Alto, not the innocuous fruit. My family wasn’t religious, but I grew to worship the makers and hustlers

of the magical era that was the Internet Age. I wasn’t just born on the internet; I was born for the internet.

Having surrounded myself with these tales of wonder and miracle, there began to grow a

subconscious feeling of complacency within me; guarantee, even. The peril of living inside flashy stories

and glistening tech parks, as I would later find out, would fail to prepare me for a reality that was far harsher

and more arduous than I could even begin to imagine. But until the day the ball actually dropped, I grew

up fairly optimistic and opportunities, constantly trying to iterate and innovate my daily interactions with

the world, just like my heroes did. My acceptance to UC Berkeley almost certainly guaranteed a hands-on

experience right in the Mecca of entrepreneurship, and by the time I had secured an internship at a tech

startup in Oakland, I was convinced that the wheels were in motion, and a face on TIME’s Person of the

Year was mine to lose.

Today, five days after I have finished the first chapter of my professional life, I look back and laugh

at my naivety. Nothing in the world could have prepared me for the storm that these two months were, and

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perhaps, it was this sense of misguided optimism that actually kept me sane. This paper is a reflective

analysis of how my expectations of my professional self, a daily job, startup culture and adult life were torn

apart, thrown around, and finally remolded to something I’m truly proud of. This paper is segmented into

five main parts, which, excluding this introduction, deal with the themes of my personal growth,

institutional truths, professional conduct, roles of leadership, and is concluded by an afterthought.

A. REDEFINING MYSELF AS A PROFESSIONAL

The Dunning-Kruger effect is a popularly quoted psychological phenomenon, and it essentially states

that the unskilled and incompetent suffer from a complex of illusionary superiority, and mistakenly assess

their ability to be much higher than it really was (Kruger and Justin, 1999). What makes this more interesting

than perhaps obvious is that the Dunning-Kruger effect is anosognosiac in nature, or as film director Errol

Morris succinctly summarizes, “If you're incompetent, you can’t know you’re incompetent.…the skills you

need to produce a right answer are exactly the skills you need to recognize what a right answer is.” (Morris,

2010). Underneath the humor and the irony of this effect, lies a fairly accurate description of my personal

growth during the past two months.

Coming into this internship, I identified myself as a fairly competent and well-rounded individual,

who prided himself on being above average at a lot of things, but not quite a master of any. I didn’t

necessarily see this as a concern at the moment; I had hustled my way through school by juggling my talents

and I felt that my apparent “diversity in proficiency” would offer a distinct edge to what I could offer as an

employee. I walked in with a beginner’s mindset, but made the mistake of throwing around high-level

concepts without knowing what they fully entailed, and more importantly, how they were implemented at

the grassroots level. As a consequence, my deliverables and goals entailed results that were based on a

complicated series of hypotheticals and potential learning. I had unwittingly set myself on a steep learning

curve that involved almost overnight mastery of video production and data analytics! Perhaps I was fortunate

enough that an unexpected sales order offered me a week long cushion, but my first lesson in the workplace

was that competence was essential, and versatility was only an add-on at best.

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My second set of takeaways was a result of my role and responsibilities at ROBOCOPP. I was, by

designation, a Business Development Intern, but three bullet points on a LinkedIn job listing could have

in no way prepared me for the multitude of activities I would immerse myself in. As I came to learn, a non-

engineering role at an early stage tech startup entails almost everything else. From drip down marketing

campaigns to customer segmentation, from data mining to creative direction, and from package designing

to actually “shipping” the packages the post office, I contributed to everything flashy, and unflashy at

ROBOCOPP. This was, although unexpected, a completely desirable outcome - I’m yet to declare to my

major, and it is not a list of untaken prerequisite classes that is stopping me. Owing to the way I have been

brought up and exposed to the world, I see an instant appeal in a variety of professional responsibilities,

often in completely unrelated departments. However, as I have now come to realize, my expectations of

these roles were grounded in magazine articles and TED talks. Data science, for example, was a professional

discipline that had began to garner my interest, and staying up to date with the latest relevant articles on

Entreprenuer.com gave me a certain thrill that I wanted to be a part of. However, when I actually did spend

hours perusing through numbers and data entries, trying to find the proverbial ‘signal in the noise’1, did I

realize that data-science wasn’t as sexy as the Harvard Business Review made it to be (Davenport and Patil,

2012). And I say this while fully understanding the caveat: a test drive in Google Analytics on a limited

sample size from a year-old startup is nowhere close to the cutting edge predictive machine learning that

folks at Facebook and LinkedIn are researching, but - and this for me is an important but - this eliminates

a certain approach to data science for me. As I spent more time researching data-science, I have come to

note that while research teams are comprised of statisticians, data miners, engineers, they also consist of

social scientists, anthropologists and psychologists. This tells me that if a number heavy path doesn’t excite

me, I could explore a humanities-based approach to it, and perhaps, concentrate my education on how the

1 Reference to Nate Silver’s breakthrough book, ‘The Signal and the Noise’. Silver’s brilliant work brilliantly ties together years of seemingly inconsequential data with real world events, shows how even acts of horror like terrorism can be as attractive as a game of cards. I highly recommend this book for any curious mind.

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digital age is affecting social interaction. Generalizing this example, my biggest personal takeaway from this

internship was understanding that: (a) there were many ways to get to a certain space of research and work,

and (b) I didn’t have to take the most obvious and direct path.

B. FINDING SUBSTANCE IN A PARTY ENVIRONMENT

Coming into the Bay as an excited 17-year-old, I had heard (and briefly even witnessed) the magical

chaos of the fabled start-up culture. From bottomless RedBull cans to foosball tables sprawled across color-

coded floors, to a reckless amount of pizza expenditure, it felt like a place I could call home. I was enthralled

by this complete rejection of anything in a suit and tie and was impatiently wanting to be a part of this “I’m

CEO, Bitch.” debauchery2. There was a part of me that knew that Hollywood’s portrayal was more on the

dramatic side, but at the same time, I knew that there was a different kind of buzz startups had that our

friends on Wall Street weren’t known to harbor, and I wanted to feel it first hand.

I’m glad that we studied the four frames of leadership - especially the structural and symbolic

frames - during the beginning of the course because it allowed me to objectively classify the various elements

of my job into neat little elements (Bolman and Deal, 1997). While I did run the risk of over-analyzing and

dissecting the culture at ROBOCOPP, I feel that I struck the right balance of going with the flow and

critically questioning my workday.

My first takeaway was something I was glad to have validated as true: a startup’s commitment to

inclusion over a commitment to hierarchy. Underneath all the “open doors” policies and unlimited paid

vacations that Yelp and Twitter boast lies an overarching respect for ideas and opinions, regardless of the

source. After spending just a few days in the bootstrapped office space at ROBOCOPP, I learned the value

of this philosophy, and more importantly, how it’s not something that can be retrofitted once a startup

scaled up. As the co-founder of ROBOCOPP (and my boss), Sam Mansen took it upon himself to ensure

inclusivity in almost every internal process in ROBOCOPP - physical or digital. Whether it be encouraging

2 While well documented in media and popular culture, Mark Zuckerberg's business card circa 2009 still sends adrenaline pumping through anyone who reads about it - for the better or for the worse. https://techcrunch.com/2011/06/25/im-ceo-bitch/

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cross company messaging boards instead of isolated departmental communication, or calling upon members

from all “departments” for all sales and design meetings, there was a deliberate attempt at ensuring that all

employees didn’t just respect their colleagues, but also celebrated their achievements and collaborated to

overcome each other’s obstacles. And while this setup didn’t allow for any award-winning ideas to take

shape (yet!), it did allow for a more holistic decision making process, one that not only enriched

ROBOCOPP and its products, but also our learnings as interns.

While this was comforting and left a warm fuzzy feeling in me, my second takeaway was a lot more

brutal and took my quite some time to digest and appreciate. As I had mentioned in the introduction, one

of my biggest fascinations with startups was their valuation, and so I necessarily equated the funding they

received as an indicator of success. When I started working, ROBOCOPP didn’t have the most flattering

of valuations, and (in retrospect, this may have been above my pay grade) I persistently bombarded Sam

with questions on funding, equity and raising money. Interning at a startup while they were undergoing

Series A funding would have been a dream come true for this eighteen-year-old, and so, my initial work

and effort was largely anticipative of an unexpected visit down to the mahogany-laden offices of venture

capitalists down in the Valley. I spent hours looking at Kickstarter campaigns trying to incorporate

minimalist design elements in my reports and sketches, and worked hard to describe my weekly reports in

startup jargon, (not realizing that those words didn’t really mean anything tangible3). When I finally refused

to take an incomplete answer as to why Sam didn’t have raising money on the top of ROBOCOPP’s priority

list, he replied with what I think would be a very important lesson for my professional future: “There’s no

better source of funding than revenue.” That hit me hard - finding customers and packing boxes was not

sexy. There was nothing flashy about worrying about “menial” tasks like customer feedback and retention.

And no movie would ever spend their production budget on a dramatic sequence showing two guys scrolling

3 Josh Horowitz discusses a beautiful startup tragedy in his article, talking about how startups fall prey to buzzwords that fail to explain what the real purpose or process involved entails. A fascinating read, for both cynics and fans alike. http://qz.com/697558/internet-startups-cant-explain-what-they-do-because-theyre-addicted-to-meaningless-jargon/

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through an Excel sheet, graphing weekly sales trends. But all of this behind-the-scenes work was as, if not

more, important. The industry “disrupting” idea that made the front page of newspapers was supported by

hours of boring, tedious and frustrating grunt work. As the adage goes, it takes ten years to become an

overnight success, and as my entrepreneur fantasies crumbled in the most beautiful of ways - like a house

of cards falling apart - I understood, for the first time, the reality of the unsexy entrepreneur.

C. DRESS CODES FOR ACCOMPLISHMENT

At this point of time, I began to understand the complexity of the character of the entrepreneur

and why they resorted to the craziness they did. Perhaps as a result of the rollercoaster lives they lead, the

usual definition of professionalism’ goes out the window, and in walks in its skimpy, hoodie-wearing cousin

named delivery. As I learned very quickly, diplomacy was not a trait necessarily valued in the startup

boardroom, especially if it got in the way of execution. For every “rule” a startup broke, its commitment to

delivery and completion of tasks only grew stronger. I saw tempers flare, voices be raised and ideas be shot

down, all in the name of net productivity. I’d like to draw attention to two main observations of this

workplace’s culture, and what sets startup professionalism different from the type practiced in conventional

9to5 jobs: the first being dedication to completion, and the second being the personal detachment from

the workplace. These two tend to work in synergy, so I’d like to talk about the second trend first for context.

Some call it the Valley’s thick skin, whereas others just shake their head condemning “these

millennials”, it’s no secret that what you bring to the table in a startup is not reflective of you as a person,

or your personal stances on anything. The simplest example of this would be that if someone’s idea were to

be shot down at a brainstorming session, it would be purely because that idea lacked substance and shouldn’t

be interpreted as a personal attack on that person, their designation, or anything else they stood for. This

‘nothing personal, just business’ approach is an interesting paradigm shift, especially since I come from India,

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where the professional culture is still recovering from years of colonial hierarchism, and ardently reeks of a

culture of absolute superiority in the workplace4.

Given this ‘opinion is absolute’ philosophy that runs deep in startups, it is easy to see how this

commitment to be treated and heard as an equal can be misused. To this effect, startup culture runs the

ultimate - and the simplest - system of checks and balance: completion of task. Everything an employee

requests, whether it be help, an extension, a leave or a reason for company expenditure, is seen as

contributive to productivity as long as the task is completed within the deadline, and exceeds satisfactory

requirements. While one may argue that this is blanket statement, essentially encapsulating the basic

responsibility of any employee, the leash at startups is far longer. While I didn’t receive the glittering perks

Facebook or Google offered at ROBOCOPP, I still enjoyed a far greater share of freedom and autonomy

than I had ever received in any previous internships. Trust, and the assurance of completion was valued

above all, and while this might initially seem a bit overwhelming, it is empowering over time, and does

bring out the best out of team members. This is not to say that I was the perfect employee all the time.

With great power does indeed come great responsibility, and when I did slip up, I did have to face the

music. This sense of a liability, however, I think, has been formative. While I did commit mistakes aplenty,

I believe I have walked out a calmer, more sensible and more consistent person. If anything, being at the

absolute helm of my responsibility for two months has completed my metamorphosis from a fascinated

schoolboy to a more pragmatic lad, and hopefully prepared me to dive deeper into professional waters.

D. PERPETUATING LEADERSHIP

As I was nearing the business end of my internship, I was not only in a position to understand how

and why startups worked the way it did, but also had some objective reasoning as to how leaders and team

members could help build working environments conducive to innovation, creativity and productivity. In

4 In most parts of India, the liberality of the startup culture is yet take flight. Superiors in work often enjoy, and exploit, and overarching dominance over their subordinates, and as a result, opinion repression runs high.

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the past two months, I have seen instances of leadership in a variety of different situations - from my bosses,

my colleagues and my fellow interns in other departments. I have come to learn, understand and truly

appreciate the fact that being a leader isn’t restricted to any designation. Everyone has circumstances that

call upon them to lead in the workplace, and it is only by being cognizant of these opportunities can we

truly work succeed as a team.

Before I talk about the style of leadership I would like to propagate, I’d like to spend some time

discussing what, in my opinion, comprises the make of a leader. It’s important to start by defining what the

role of the leader is, and in the workplace of a young startup, it is to set shared expectations for a team and

drive them together to that goal. A leader must understand people, and empathize with their emotions,

fears, and dreams. They must not only possess the tactical aptitude and professional experience to approach

a problem from various perspectives, but also have the humility and gusto to create an environment

welcoming to new ideas, especially from young members of a team. They are inspirational, charming, and

most importantly, pragmatic. A leader, as I have come to believe, will not allow emotions to cloud their

judgment, and would never make decisions without considering both qualitative and quantitative aspects

of the evidence at hand.

But perhaps the most important trait a leader can possess is accurately defined by the adage, ‘a leader

is someone who creates leaders’. What separates a leader from a boss, or even an adept manager, is the ability

to scout and hone talent of the people he works with. They don’t sugarcoat the flaws of their coworkers,

but at the same time, they treat development with respect, not with condescension. Their work ethic isn’t

selfish, since they invest in the progress of their members with the vision of a collaborative synergy, and not

the possibility of them being replaced or their authority compromised.

I reflect upon these specific traits not because some how-to leadership manual says so, but because

I have seen these in play, and the positive effect they can catalyze. I firmly believe that my mentors at

ROBOCOPP, Sam Mansen and Dr. Shubhankar Basu, have indeed been a creative force in my adolescent

life. This internship has seen me develop from a curious and enthusiastic freshman in a new country, to a

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slightly older, calmer and resourceful young professional who has learned to utilize his cross-cultural

upbringing and harness it to the best of his ways. I’ve learned that the success of a business can perhaps be

measured by its bottom line, but the effectiveness of a leader is perhaps judged better by how many interns

and employees they have changed for the better. I strongly believe that my progress - professionally and

socially - is not unique at ROBOCOPP, for every intern grew in their own way. All of us interns connected

with the energy at ROBOCOPP to form a holistic ecosystem around us that nurtured a certain symbiotic

growth. In my eyes, that’s the truest metric of real leadership: a personal connection. And thus, that’s

perhaps the approach to leadership I want to adopt - a relationship that is stripped away from any and all

conventional management jargon, unnecessary diagrams and step-by-step guides but rather focuses on what

leadership is truly about: creating other leaders.

E. MOVING FORWARD BY LOOKING BEHIND

Today, as I enroll in my classes for the Fall, I can’t help but think how each decision I make isn’t

bound in a vacuum. There are long lasting consequences to every adult commitment I make, but this isn’t

necessarily a bad thing. Everything I’ve done at ROBOCOPP this summer, from my breakthrough ideas

to some of those poorly completed reports, has taught me something about the world I am stepping into.

Working at a startup excited me, distressed me, disappointed me, destroyed me almost, and finally, rebuilt

me. I’m not as excited as a ‘kid in a candy store’ about startups as I was a few years ago, but fairy tales aren’t

meant to carry into adulthood.

I’ve learned a lot about myself and an industry that I never knew existed. I never did accept the

truth at face value: I questioned and probed everything I was offered, and took it upon myself to take an

unsatisfactory answer home as my mental homework and study it. There are numerous times when I have

been thought in silence on the 51B bus home from Oakland, putting myself in Sam’s shoes and questioning

why he chose to accept a proposal of mine that I wasn’t satisfied with, or on the contrary, reject a suggestion

of mine that I was extremely proud of! I haven’t found all the answers I seek, but I’ve come to realize that

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this enterprising world isn’t black or white, and there does lie a fuzzy space of intuition, feeling and

rationale in between.

My second lesson has been a more literal interpretation of these ‘shades of gray’ I talk about.

Inspired by Sam and a series of similarly hipster CEOs, I have adopted my own personal uniform: a long-

sleeved charcoal gray t-shirt. Despite the initial laughter and looks of disappointment that my close friends

and family have wore, I have lasted almost a month in this regalia and don’t show signs of going back to

color. I’m yet to conclude if this has positively (or negatively) affected my net productivity, but I do feel

some comfort in having a sense of constancy in - what I learned to be - is an otherwise changing world.

My last and final learning has been one of humility. It is easy to be carried away by these newspaper

headlines and throw around “disruption” and “billions” as though those words mean nothing. I understand

that every startup doesn’t become a Facebook or a Google, but that doesn't mean that a lack of a million-

dollar valuation dismisses the effort, passion, and commitment that has gone into building it. I’ve learned

that for every flashy Kickstarter campaign that goes viral, there are 99 more startups that are quietly working,

trying to change the lives of their customers, one at a time. Working in the personal safety industry taught

me that there are real world problems that need to be solved - problems that are messy, complicated, and

often, not even completely known. There is a struggle, but when these startups succeed there is a certain

feeling of hope and optimism that washes over you.

Just the other day, when I casually glanced at ROBOCOPP’s profile on Crunchbase, it revealed a

private equity funding that placed ROBOCOPP at 12.5-million-dollar valuation. In the past, I would have

casually dismissed this number and frowned upon at a half-hearted effort at seeking funding. But today,

having worked and contributed a small part to what ROBOCOPP is and can be, I realize the true

significance of the number. ROBOCOPP’s valuation isn’t for the eventual IPO, or a part of an exit strategy.

ROBOCOPP’S 12.5-million-dollar valuation signifies 12.5 million more dollars toward a safer America.

None of the money raised will be spent on chrome pandas, but instead, on real people and their problems,

and that gives me a sense of satisfaction and tranquility that my boisterous self would have never appreciate

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a year ago. A lot has changed about me in the past few months, I have grown quieter, thoughtful, a lot less

colorful, but perhaps the biggest of changes is reflected by the fact that I no longer enamored by unicorns

anymore, but by real animals instead5.

5 Once again, startup journalism has produced a cultural reference that we can first laugh at, and then silently applaud its brilliance (https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Unicorn_(finance)).

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Citations and Works Referenced

Bolman, Lee G., and Terrence E. Deal (2008).. “Reframing Organizations: Artistry, Choice, and

Leadership. 4th ed. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2008.

Davenport, Patil: Thomas, D.J. (2012). "Data Scientist: The Sexiest Job Of The 21St Century".

Harvard Business Review. N. p., 2012. Web. 11 Aug. 2016. Kruger, Justin; Dunning, David (1999). "Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in

Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments". Journal of Personality and Social

Psychology. 77 (6): 1121–34.

Morris, Errol. (2010) "The Anosognosic's Dilemma: Something's Wrong But You'll Never Know

What It Is (Part 1)". Opinionator. N. p., 1277. Web. 10 Aug. 2016. Silver, Nate (2015). “The Signal and the Noise: Why so Many Predictions Fail--but Some Don't.”

Penguin Books, 2015.