Darren Cooke (University of California Berkeley) on Going From Campus to Career with an Entrepreneurial Mindset

On today’s episode of the Illumination by Modern Campus podcast, podcast host Shauna Cox was joined by Darren Cooke to discuss how entrepreneurship programs drive measurable ROI and why every student benefits from adopting an entrepreneurial mindset.

Transcript

Shauna Cox (00:02):

Darren, welcome to the Illumination Podcast. Hey,

Darren Cooke (00:06):

Shauna. Thank you for having me.

Shauna Cox (00:07):

Absolutely. So we're here to talk about ROI and higher ed, which we know has been kind of questioned a lot lately and how entrepreneurship programs might be the key to it. So to kick off our conversation, I'm first going to ask you how can universities kind of prove that ROI of the tuition dollars by showing that entrepreneurship programs directly translate into venture creation jobs and that long-term career success that students are ultimately looking for?

Darren Cooke (00:38):

Yeah, yeah. And thank you for this question because just like I mentioned to you just a moment ago, this is not a topic I normally think much about. Partly I think because historically the ROI for uc, Berkeley, and we're unusually lucky in this position, has been so high taking entrepreneurship off the table. I am looking at a Georgetown University study saying that the ROI for additional lifetime earnings for uc, Berkeley grads is over $3 million. So this is subtracting out tuition and other costs. So it's sort of indisputable. So we're very lucky. Berkeley gets 125,000 applicants, 11% acceptance rate. This is one of those things that I don't think we normally are in a position where we're trying to prove ROI. However, entrepreneurship is a huge factor in those great results. So just in terms of, you could go back and look at the number of companies formed jobs created. I was just looking, we have a campus startup incubator for biotech companies. It's been in operation just for three years,

Speaker 3 (01:55):

Has

Darren Cooke (01:56):

Created 300 jobs. So this is one of those things where just any efforts with respect to entrepreneurship and company formation pays off in terms of companies and jobs like you almost couldn't predict.

Shauna Cox (02:13):

Absolutely. And I know that this is certainly a topic of interest for you. You recently published a book about being this entrepreneur powerhouse. So I want to ask, in this era of rising tuition, the ROI driven students, what role does an entrepreneurship ecosystem kind of play in differentiating the universities from the others in this competitive market space?

Darren Cooke (02:41):

Yeah, I think the programs that I think are most important are actually, at least in the entrepreneurship space and specifically at uc, Berkeley are perhaps not the ones you're thinking of as being the entrepreneurship program. So what draws a lot of students to Berkeley is, I'll give one example. Berkeley Changemaker, it's a course series, it sounds like entrepreneurship, right?

Speaker 3 (03:08):

Berkeley

Darren Cooke (03:08):

Changemaker, a course series of some 40 or 50 courses all across the campus, different departments, 10,000 students have taken at least one of them. I teach one of them, Berkeley Changemaker Human Health in the Business School. And I think it addresses the question, if I ask you how many students, undergrads do you think should start a company, what percentage of the undergraduate population are the right fit for being a startup founder? It's not all of 'em. It's probably a small percentage, right? Because that's a very specific demographic. But what percentage of undergraduate students at any university would benefit from thinking like an entrepreneur? They all would. They all would. So the Changemaker series is all across the campus, different subjects, common themes of collaboration, critical thinking and communication, which are what startup founders think about. So collaboration, communication, and critical thinking. So these are typically group projects where students are looking at unusual and new to them topics and then thinking critically about them and communicating with the class that is effectively a startup mindset, but for not startup founders. Anyway, credit to Laura Hasser, my colleague who started this back in 2020, which has now grown to a huge program on campus.

Shauna Cox (04:45):

Amazing. And starting a program in 2020, we know that was not the best timing and all that stuff with everything going on, but nobody could have predicted it. So to see the success in that, I think that's really amazing. And dovetailing off of the entrepreneur mindset and things like that, what are some of the strategies that institutions should adopt to ensure that these entrepreneurship programs aren't just the incubators of idea, but kind of dovetailing off of your point there, but of engines of measurable economic impact?

Darren Cooke (05:20):

Yeah, so now I think you're talking beyond mindset

Speaker 3 (05:25):

And

Darren Cooke (05:25):

Actually startup formation, and that's where you get the economic impact. You get the dollars raised and the companies formed and the jobs created. And I mean, it just keeps spinning up. And Berkeley is proud to report with. I mean, this didn't happen overnight, but years of effort went into this where PitchBook, the definitive database for venture backed to anything

(05:50):

Access number one in the world for venture backed startups founded by university alumni and also venture backed startups founded by female founders by a lot. But this was a long time coming. And so now we are talking about, so venture backed means that it's actually been invested by a VC firm, and this is over the course of, I think we're looking at a 10 year period. So anyway, the results like that is actually the inspiration. You just mentioned the book. A lot of people are surprised when they hear that stat. They say, uc, Berkeley. Well, that's a surprise. It's a major public university. We like to say the number one public university in the world, but that's a big public university. How is that the powerhouse for startups? And that's why we just wrote this book just to explain some of how did that come to be, because it wasn't always the case. Absolutely. Quick story. I was a grad student at Berkeley in 1994. I wasn't aware of any programs on campus that supported entrepreneurship for startup formation. It existed, but maybe there was a program at the business school. Now I run, so I'm the chief Interim Chief Innovation and Entrepreneurship Officer for the campus. I run an innovation and entrepreneurship council, representatives of all the organizations on campus that touch innovation and entrepreneurship in some way. And we've got 65 members on 65 organizations, a hundred plus members on the council, which just speaks to how big it's become.

Shauna Cox (07:38):

Absolutely. And I'm going to say that I'm assuming this book that you have written is kind of showcasing the evolution of that.

Darren Cooke (07:46):

It is, yeah. And big credit. Mike Cohen is the principal author, Laura Haner, who I just mentioned before with respect to Changemakers. She was a major contributor. And also, let me point out, there's a real sort of from the top aspect of uc, Berkeley's innovation and entrepreneurship, because the third person who launched the book, this is even before my time was Rich Lyons, our first chief innovation and entrepreneurship officer who became the university's chancellor last summer. So from the top, this innovation and entrepreneurship mindset is being recognized to the point that our innovation and entrepreneurship officer, he was also former dean of the business school, became the university president. Chancellor is Berkeley's name for president.

Shauna Cox (08:39):

Absolutely. Well, and I think that's so amazing because you love seeing it from the top down and clearly how embedded he was in the innovation. I think that speaks largely to the school. So I think this is a prime example to answer the next question of how can universities reframe entrepreneurship initiatives from being this kind of nice to have add-on type of thing into a core element of the value proposition that is going to attract and retain these students.

Darren Cooke (09:09):

Yeah, I think we're at a point where you have to, I'll tell you, I have ideas for how to do it. The motivation to do it I think is indisputable at this point, just in terms of the economic output. So taking a step back, economic output is huge. Uc, Berkeley has a mission. Everyone has a mission, and it sounds almost a little bit trite to say it, but we live it actually. And the mission, even though there's a lot of words in this mission statement can be summed up really in five words, and it's providing long-term societal benefit. That's the mission. And so when you look at the mission, how we execute on it, teaching research and public service. Public service includes startup formation, translation of inventions to the benefit of the public through different means

(10:10):

Anyway, so we may be unusual and unique in this, but every university would benefit from embracing innovation, startup mindset, entrepreneurship mindset, just in terms of economic impact. But then it goes beyond that if there's a huge social impact too. So quick story, I was just yesterday at, what is it called? The New Graduate Student Orientation, new graduate Student orientation program where I was running a session for, Hey, what are the innovation and entrepreneurship resources we have on campus with Laura Hasser? She and I were doing this, first of all, we knew from last year this session was going to be super popular, so we had to book two separate sessions because the room was going to overflow. And so we had two sessions this year, and both times the room was overflowing. So now we have two sessions. What's happening is that I think Berkeley's reputation in this space has become such that it's attracting these students now. We're not just getting the best, we're getting the best of the best. And they're coming here and it's evidenced by how many showed up for this session or these two sessions that this is a big reason why they're coming.

Shauna Cox (11:32):

Absolutely. I just want to deep dive into that session a little bit more. What are you sharing? I know you mentioned some resources, but what are you sharing with them and what are the students looking for that is clearly making them come to this session and maybe ask a bunch of questions?

Darren Cooke (11:48):

So the session is just like it sounds, it's resources you may be interested in. So like I just said, I run an entrepreneurship council with 65 organizations represented in an hour long talk. There's no way I can go through 65 organizations that it would be really boring, but I hit some highlights, the high points and especially what grad students may be interested in knowing about and participating in. And then it's open to questions. I give a couple examples. I think it is helpful to see a couple different student entrepreneurs who have started companies and what they took advantage of at what point, and there's no one way to do it, but what did they do and what did they do along the way and what did they get out of it? And look at where they are now. So I give a couple examples. So Code Blue and Hoppo Therapeutics are the two examples I give because they're actually quite different in different spaces.

Shauna Cox (12:49):

That's amazing. And I think it really helps, of course, 64, it's like 10 seconds per thing that you could be giving and still not have enough time. But giving those examples, I think really not only just illustrates it for people who might be much more visual learners, but I think it really drives some motivation for them to see it is possible. You are literally putting the things that they need in front of them, giving them examples and tips, tricks, and answering any of their questions. So it's really, really amazing to see. Now, in terms of this conversation is around the ROI of higher ed, which we know is always questioned and things like that. With ROI, oftentimes you have to literally show people the value of it. So when we're talking about metrics, what are some of the metrics that matter most when demonstrating the return on investment of an entrepreneurial education to say the students, their families who are helping them make their decisions, and even just the institutional leaders across the campus?

Darren Cooke (13:56):

Yeah, so I think it comes back down to money companies founded, money raised jobs created. And then at least from a student perspective, what I've found to be especially interesting for them, and this is again, maybe not a job in terms of something that they'll be employed in, but changes their mindset about what it means to do something with their lives, is Berkeley Skydeck, our startup accelerator, downtown Berkeley, we place 800 Berkeley students as interns, 800 with our startups every year. And so you can imagine the students, the Berkeley, uc, Berkeley students who are going through that program, if they embed with a startup for three to six months, they come out of it with a completely different idea of what it means to work in a tiny company. So these companies, startup has a pretty broad definition. It could be one person and it could be 50 people, but most of the companies at Berkeley Skydeck, and we have 200 companies join us every year. They're two people. They're three people.

Shauna Cox (15:09):

Yeah. Amazing. Well, Darren, those are all the questions that I have for you, but is there anything that you would like to share about the ROI, higher ed entrepreneurial programs or the mindset? Any advice you'd like to share? Anything that I may have missed?

Darren Cooke (15:28):

Yeah, I mean, I think there's also the ROI from the financial aspect, meaning the ROI to the university. And so what we are at uc, Berkeley really looking carefully at is how do we actually benefit? So we've been traditionally spinning out companies where outside venture capital firms had benefited.

(15:54):

We're happy that they're investing in our startups, but of course, they're the ones getting the profits. And so we just launched our own VC fund. So for years, we've had affiliated funds, meaning that VC funds that are formally affiliated with the university, they're pledging a portion. Usually it's typically half of their profits back to the university. I think it's actually, in every case it's half. And that's worked well for us for the last 10 years. But what we are realizing is that we want to invest too at a campus level. So we just launched the Chancellor's VC fund, a hundred percent philanthropically funded. So it's not coming from dollars off of the balance sheet. That's super important.

(16:44):

The value proposition to the philanthropists, meaning the donors to the university is, and typically these are going to be startup founders or VCs themselves. And so they understand the space is, Hey, if you're going to give us this money, how about we put that donation your donation into the Chancellor's VC fund and see what we can do with it? And what we can do with it is triplet or five exit or whatever it is. And so suddenly this has become a super hot space. So that's a different ROI, but an important one nonetheless, hopefully a significant return on investment.

Shauna Cox (17:23):

Amazing. I love that. Well, I love to see where that is going in the future. We will certainly stay in touch and keep on the pulse of what you guys are doing. Darren, before I let you go, I have one last question. Very important on a higher ed podcast, you of course are at the University of California Berkeley, meaning you are in Berkeley. So if someone is coming to Berkeley and they're looking for somewhere to eat, where do they need to go?

Darren Cooke (17:47):

So you got to go to the Cheeseboard Pizza Collective, and that's it. It's a funny place. It's one pizza a day. You don't get to choose anything. It's just they're serving what they're serving. It's always vegetarian, which for carnivores out there may seem a bit disappointing. I'm not vegetarian, however, the pizzas are outstanding. And so whatever you get, you're going to enjoy it even though you don't have a choice. So anyway, it's on Chaddock, it's over in the GoBank Ghetto, across from Chez Panis. Cheeseboard is where you want to go.

Shauna Cox (18:23):

Amazing. I love it. It kind of stresses me out that there's no choice, but clearly there's enough of a bold statement there to say you only get one choice. So it must be good.

Darren Cooke (18:35):

It's always good. I mean, it's amazing because many times you look at and like, oh no, it's going to have asparagus on it. That doesn't sound good. And then it turns out to be good.

Shauna Cox (18:45):

They know what they're doing. Amazing. I love it. Again, Darren, thank you so much for the conversation. I really do appreciate it.

Darren Cooke (18:51):

Alright, thank you so much, Shauna.