Berkeley Talks: Siri creator Adam Cheyer shares secrets of entrepreneurship
Read the transcript.
Follow Berkeley Talks,a Berkeley Newspodcast that features lectures and conversations at UC Berkeley. See all Berkeley Talks.
In episode 175 of Berkeley Talks, Siri creator Adam Cheyer talks about the long road to launching the virtual assistant, how to take an entrepreneurial idea from conception to impact and why he doesnt see anything as a failure.
An entrepreneur and a magician are exactly the same, began Adam Cheyer, who also founded the startups Change.org, Viv Labs, Sentient and Bixby, at a UC Berkeley event in 2021. An entrepreneur needs to imagine an impossible future. Think about Siri: 20 years ago, if I told you that you could pull a device out of your pocket, it would know who you are and where you are, and you could just talk to it using your words and it would not only talk back to you, but do things for you, book that reservation, buy a movie ticket, you wouldve thought that were magic.
An entrepreneur has to imagine an impossible future thats desirable, that doesnt exist. So, you have to reach far as an entrepreneur, dream big, dream magical. But you have to be very clear (and answer), Why would we want such a thing?'
During the Q&A portion of the event, Berkeley student Peter Flo Grinde-Hollevik asked Cheyer to describe one of his biggest failures and what he learned from it.
First of all, Im an eternal optimist, so I keep trying, and I never go back and second-guess a major decision in my life, responded Cheyer. I make the decision, move on, and I never see it as a failure. I see it as a learning moment. But I dont define it, my decisions, my path, as a failure. Sometimes Ill try something, and it doesnt work and my response is, Huh, thats interesting. I wonder why it didnt work. And I think about that, and I learn from it, but I never consider it a failure. So, thats part of my answer I am constantly striving for the goal, and if I havent succeeded yet, I dont fail unless I give up. So, for me, failure is giving up and I havent given up yet.
This Feb. 9, 2021, talk was part of UC Berkeleys Sutardja Center for Entrepreneurship and Technologys 2021 Newton Lecture Series. Read more about Cheyers talk on the centers website.
Listen to the full lecture in Berkeley Talksepisode 175: Siri creator Adam Cheyer shares secrets of entrepreneurship.
Watch a video of the lecture below.
In February 2021, Adam Cheyer, creator of Siri, Change.org, Viv Labs, Sentient and Bixby, gave a lecture at Berkeley about the long road to launching Siri, how to take an entrepreneurial idea from conception to impact and why he doesnt see anything as a failure.