Commencement week

plus, SkyDeck Batch 16 kicks off, and a hint of summer

Friends - last week was commencement week on the UC-Berkeley campus. Campuswide commencement (with Steve Wozniak) was May 13; Haas undergraduate commencement was May 16; and MBA commencement May 19.

(Also last week: I published spring semester grades, with the help of three very able graduate student instructors, Samaksh Kapoor, Bob Ni, and Fiodor Otero, all three of whom proudly commenced on May 19.)

I attended both undergraduate business commencement and MBA commencement. They are my favorite two days of the academic calendar, because you get to meet families and loved ones. Below, Dean Harrison greets the undergraduate business class on a hot sunny day in the Greek Theater.

Elena Gomez, Haas undergrad alum and CFO of Toast, spoke to undergraduate class; Frank Cooper, Haas undergrad alum and CMO of Visa, spoke to the MBAs.

In between commencement ceremonies, I got my first interactions with Berkeley SkyDeck Batch 16.

Last Thursday, I arrived at SkyDeck….to find people, including SkyDeck staff, leaving the building due to a fire alarm. Not to be deterred, once the fire department had given their blessing, mentor sessions happened, on schedule, albeit sans elevators, which meant a 13-floor walk-up to meet six startups. The show did go on!

It was a substantive batch. I was particularly intrigued by MZR Neurotech, which has developed an in-ear EEG sensor for sleep monitoring.

**

Summer looms. With Memorial Day around the corner, I finally upgraded my barbecue, which didn’t survive the 10 atmospheric rivers that greatly alleviated California drought conditions. Below, an inaugural run of the new kit. Those would be lamb burgers.

Next issue - a look back at April events, including the RSA Conference.

Onward and upward,

Jon