Forever a Golden Bear The Big C Society

This episode’s guest of Forever a Golden Bear is Michael Sharf, formerly of Cal men’s water polo, and now the co-founder and CEO of Bridge Athletic, a strength and conditioning software company utilized by teams across every professional sports league in America and power 5 NCAA conference. In this discussion, Michael describes his journey as a software entrepreneur, detailing the relevance of MBA’s to aspiring founders, the tranches of fundraising, and the contrasts of the CEO role between an emerging startup and established organization. Michael shares how using his intuition to guide his career choices, aligning his interests with his aspirations, and the skills he honed as an athlete in leadership, grit, and mindfulness have helped him build a market-leading platform.

This episode’s guest of Forever a Golden Bear is Dr. Ian Tong, formerly of Cal rugby and now the chief medical officer of Doctor on Demand, now a part of Included Health, the nation’s leading virtual care medical practice. In this discussion, Ian shares with us his journey through the healthcare industry, describing the process of medical school and residency, and the responsibilities and day-to-day experience of a physician, medical director, and chief medical officer. Ian shares how his lifelong commitment to learning, an interpersonal focus, and the skills he has developed through seeking out uncomfortable situations, learning from them, and using those insights to improve each day have helped him to play a key role in transforming healthcare delivery.
Visit bigcsociety.org/spotlighting, or Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and others to listen to the episode.

In this episode of Forever a Golden Bear, Stu Gordon, formerly of Cal baseball, shares with us his remarkable journey from a career-changing baseball injury, to becoming Student Body President of the UC Berkeley School of Law, to becoming partner and co-founder of Gordon & Rees -- the 24th largest law firm in the United States, comprising more than 1,000 lawyers in 70 offices located throughout every state of America. In this discussion, Stu shares key insights including how pairing competitiveness with respect and courtesy, developing earned confidence in one’s knowledge and abilities, and an indefatigable work ethic have served him both in his career and those of the thousands of lawyers he has witnessed and mentored. 

In this episode of Forever a Golden Bear, Natalie Coughlin Hall, Cal women’s swimming’s most decorated alumni, shares with us her remarkable journey from becoming one of the most victorious female olympians of all time, to her introspective transition into her post-sports career as a vintner and co-founder of Gaderian Wines. In this discussion, Natalie shares high-performance insights on treating obstacles as an opportunity to learn; how staying mentally present in challenging moments both increases effectiveness and makes arduous tasks seem to elapse quicker; and how the sensibilities of earned confidence and a growth mindset have served her in her career as an author and a co-founder of a Napa Valley winery.

This episode’s guest of Forever a Golden Bear is Sebastian Sam, formerly of Cal track & field and now an enterprise account director at LinkedIn. In this discussion, Sebastian shares with us the contrasts of sales roles he’s experienced, starting with medical device sales at Karl Storz Endoscopy, to software sales with LinkedIn. In following his career arc, Sebastian describes valuable sales and networking skills, such as navigating relationships to reach a decision-maker, systematizing one’s schedule and prospecting to break a daunting goal into practical steps, and how to utilize LinkedIn to find the opportunities and mentors that advance one’s career aspirations.

Courtney (Hooker) Heldreth, of Cal women’s soccer, with a Ph.D. in Social Psychology, is one of Google’s top artificial intelligence User Experience Researchers (UXR), on its Artificial Intelligence User Experience (AIUX) Team. Courtney’s work attempts to understand the risks and opportunities in AI for underserved, historically marginalized users. Courtney investigates alternative, more inclusive ways to classify skin tone, which is currently inadequate and biased against people of color. She also co-leads research to understand racial disparities in automated speech recognition (ASR), the technology that powers voice assistants, enables digital dictation platforms, and allows for hand-free computing. In our conversation, Courtney discusses her own experiences with racial bias, her interest in the intersection between psychology and biology, her pathway to big tech, and how her experience as a Cal student-athlete prepared her for leadership as an AI ethicist and user experience researcher.
To learn more about Courtney’s research, see the following articles:
Racial equity: https://design.google/library/racial-equity-everyday-products/Farming + AI: https://medium.com/people-ai-research/q-a-ground-truth-supporting-farmers-with-machine-learning-b95796d5196bSkin tone: https://www.reuters.com/business/sustainable-business/exclusive-google-searches-new-measure-skin-tones-curb-bias-products-2021-06-18/
Visit bigcsociety.org/spotlighting, or Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and others to listen to the episode.