I asked Alex about:

1. His experience landing the job as the first data scientist at UBER’s self-driving car division;
2. Challenges and opportunities for machine learning in the self-driving car industry;
3. How he switched from a data scientist to a product manager role, how his data science background and skills helped him land the job at c3.ai;
4. His experiences in mentoring others and advice to anyone who wants to get into the data science and machine learning space and eventually landing a job;
5. In the end, we talked about a crazy business idea in AI.

In this episode, I talked to Sam Yang, who is an entrepreneur, investor, and a Stanford MBA, 

After getting his bachelor’s degree from Brown University,  Sam started his career as an investment banker at Credit Suisse, after 2 years he left credit Suisse and joined a venture capital firm to become an investor.

In the last few years, he has been advising a few startups, and gradually shifted to an entrepreneur.

He is currently working on a startup idea, which will how companies will hire better AI or machine learning talents.

In this interview, I asked him about:

1. His best advice for anyone who wants to land a job on wall street and work at an investment bank.

2. His newest startup idea, which potentially can help solve the problems in the AI and machine learning hiring space, and the problems the hiring companies are facing today.

3. Why Leetcode is not a good option for companies to use for machine learning/data scientists roles, and his advice for anyone who wants to land a job in AI or machine learning.

4. Tips and tricks in finding a good mentor and how it has benefited him.

5. In the end, we talked about a crazy business idea in AI/ machine learning.

Two takeaways from Sam that most resonated with me:

1. Don't overthink. Go out there and start building;

2. Asking people for their advice and keep doing it.

If you are interested in talking to Sam and learning from him directly, you can find him on instamentor and book a 1:1 conversation. (link in comment)

If you like this interview and are interested in learning more from industry experts like Sam in the future, please subscribe to this podcast. 

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