How to Build the Future (UGBA 198) is a 2-unit DeCal that hosts founders, investors, and innovators for intimate, no-bullshit conversations that inspire students to build companies.
Format
Startups are mired in uncertainty. Building one is an experience of feeling your way through the dark—relying on rules of thumb, advice, and instincts to do the right thing at the right time. In Build the Future, students learn how to navigate this uncertainty by hearing from those who’ve done it before.
We give guests the flexibility to share their stories and advice in whatever format they choose, so each session is unique. But generally, there’s a 15 minute fireside chat for the guest to share their journey followed by a freeform conversation with the class.
Classes aren’t recorded, which we’ve found encourages guests to be more candid and students to be more engaged.
In The Press
The San Francisco Examiner
‘Dream, build and start up’: Exploring UC Berkeley’s culture of entrepreneurship
The Daily Californian
Berkeley Engineering
In undergrad startup class, students learn to build the future
Berkeley News
Berkeley EECS News
Past Guests
| Name | Company | Semester |
|---|---|---|
| Qasar Younis | Applied Intuition | Spring 2023 |
| Jonathan Hsu | Tribe Capital | Spring 2023 |
| Deepika Bodapati | Athelas | Spring 2023 |
| Amjad Masad | Replit | Spring 2023 |
| Jaleh Rezaei | Mutiny | Spring 2023 |
| Nashilu Mouen | The Browser Company of New York | Spring 2023 |
| Vinay Hiremath | Loom | Spring 2023 |
| Reed McGinley | Stytch | Spring 2023 |
| Mark Gainey | Strava | Fall 2022 |
| Delian Asparouhov | Varda | Fall 2022 |
| Ev Williams | Twitter, Medium | Fall 2022 |
| Eric Tarczynski | Contrary | Fall 2022 |
| Ivonna Dumanyan | Hippo Harvest | Fall 2022 |
| Immad Akhund | Mercury | Fall 2022 |
| Ilya Abyzov | Forward | Fall 2022 |
| Pejman Nozad | Pear | Fall 2022 |
| Ted Chai | Sonnet | Fall 2022 |
| Lucy Yang | Staax | Fall 2022 |
| Luana Lopes Lara | Kalshi | Fall 2022 |
| Alex Lieberman | Morning Brew | Spring 2022 |
| Andrew Chau | Boba Guys | Spring 2022 |
| Sean Brecker | Headspace | Spring 2022 |
| Jesse Pujji | Gateway X, Ampush | Spring 2022 |
| Gagan Biyani | Udemy, Maven | Spring 2022 |
| Milana Lewis | Stem | Spring 2022 |
| Maya Frai | Greylock | Spring 2022 |
| Steph Smith | The Hustle, a16z | Spring 2022 |
| Aaron Rasmussem | MasterClass, Outlier | Spring 2022 |
| Jack Conte | Patreon | Fall 2021 |
| Justine Moore | ShopCanal, Accelerated | Fall 2021 |
| Kevin Tan | Snackpass | Fall 2021 |
| Jason Lopatecki | Arize AI | Fall 2021 |
| Aparna Dhinakaran | Arize AI | Fall 2021 |
| Josh Fabian | Metafy | Fall 2021 |
| Beez | USC | Fall 2021 |
| Ric Burton | Balance | Fall 2021 |
| Joanna Shan | Monet | Fall 2021 |
| Trisha Bantigue | Queenly | Fall 2021 |
| Vrinda Gupta | Sequin | Fall 2021 |
| Jesse Draper | Halogen Ventures | Fall 2020 |
| Alicia Lau | Kleiner Perkins | Fall 2020 |
| Nick Molnar | Afterpay | Fall 2020 |
| Sidra Qasim | Atoms | Fall 2020 |
| Kim Malek | Salt & Straw | Fall 2020 |
| Michelle Zatlyn | Cloudflare | Fall 2020 |
| Sabena Suri | Boxfox | Fall 2020 |
| Cameron Sadler | New Craft | Fall 2020 |
| Dylan Field | Figma | Fall 2020 |
| Michael Seibel | YC | Fall 2020 |
| Francesco Wiedemann | Kyte | Fall 2019 |
| Amit Kumar | Accel | Fall 2019 |
| Eli Luberoff | Desmos | Fall 2019 |
| Alex MacCaw | Clearbit | Fall 2019 |
| Malika Chawla | Eat Makhana | Fall 2019 |
| Tracy Sun | Poshmark | Fall 2019 |
| Nicole Quinn | Lightspeed | Fall 2019 |
| Tina Sharkey | Brandless | Fall 2019 |
| Cameron Baradar | The House | Spring 2019 |
| Pamela Webber | 99designs | Spring 2019 |
| Ben Herman | Jumpstart | Spring 2019 |
| Liz Klinger | Lioness Health | Spring 2019 |
| Angie Carillo | Higia Technologies | Spring 2019 |
| Karen Taylor | Onederful | Spring 2019 |
| Lynn Perkins | UrbanSitter | Spring 2019 |
| Joel Flory | VSCO | Spring 2019 |
| David Cramer | Sentry | Spring 2019 |
| Preston Silverman | RaiseMe | Spring 2019 |
| George Mathew | Kespry | Spring 2019 |
| Paul Coletta | Urban Remedy | Spring 2019 |
| Pejman Nozad | Pear VC | Spring 2019 |
| Elizabeth Iorns | Science Exchange, YC | Fall 2018 |
| Matthew Prince | CloudFlare | Fall 2018 |
| Nagraj Kashyap | Microsoft Ventures | Fall 2018 |
| Andrew Kortina | Venmo | Fall 2018 |
| Patrick Lee | Hobo Labs, Rotten Tomatoes | Fall 2018 |
| Ben Herman | Jumpstart | Fall 2018 |
| Evan Spiegel | Snap Inc. | Fall 2018 |
| Chad Rigetti | Rigetti Quantum Computing | Fall 2018 |
| Jeremy Blalock | Proton App | Spring 2018 |
| Richard Henrikson | Ongo Science | Spring 2018 |
| Abboud Chaballout | Diagnoss | Spring 2018 |
| James Crawford | Orbital Insight | Spring 2018 |
| Linden Tibbets | IFTTT | Spring 2018 |
| Jini Kim | Nuna Health | Spring 2018 |
| Marshawn Lynch | NFL, Beast Mode | Spring 2018 |
| Erin Wade | Homeroom | Spring 2018 |
| Patrick Collison | Stripe | Spring 2018 |
| Sarah Guo | Greylock VC | Spring 2018 |
| Michael Seibel | Y Combinator | Spring 2018 |
| Jeremy Fiance | The House | Fall 2017 |
| Hriday Kemburu | Wildfire | Fall 2017 |
| Sonia Sharma | Orb | Fall 2017 |
| Rick Ling | Blitz Sports | Fall 2017 |
| Vincent Sun | SEEDJAM | Fall 2017 |
| Kevin Hartz | Eventbrite | Fall 2017 |
| Mar Hershenson | Pear VC | Fall 2017 |
| Charlie Cheever | Quora | Fall 2017 |
| Prakash Janakiraman | Nextdoor | Fall 2017 |
| Eric Feng | Packagd | Fall 2017 |
| Kenneth Lin | Credit Karma | Fall 2017 |
| Jini Kim | Nuna Health | Fall 2017 |
| Phil Libin | Evernote | Fall 2017 |
| Jason Wang | Caviar | Spring 2017 |
| Holly Liu | Kabam | Spring 2017 |
| Amy Herr | Herrlab | Spring 2017 |
| Kelly Gardner | Zephyrus Biosciences | Spring 2017 |
| Justin Kan | Twitch, Atrium | Spring 2017 |
| Jack McCauley | Oculus | Spring 2017 |
| Peter Boyce | General Catalyst Partners | Spring 2017 |
| Ryan Petersen | Flexport | Spring 2017 |
| Marc Tarpenning | Tesla | Spring 2017 |
| Jessica Mah | inDinero | Spring 2017 |
| Josh Elman | Greylock | Spring 2017 |
| Vinod Khosla | Khosla Ventures | Spring 2017 |
| Joseph Gonzales | Turi | Spring 2017 |
| Maran Nelson | Clara Labs | Spring 2017 |