YouSaid · the spoken record

Jana Messerschmidt

lines on the record: 111
first: 2019-11-20
most recent: 2019-11-20
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“So interesting, kind of like tangent is while I was in university, I had a few different job offers for co op. One was actually with Intel to go and design ships, and one was with a consulting company. And it was to be on a variety of different projects doing everything from coding to working on pursuit teams, which basically is like trying to win new business to working on developing strategies for startups. So I ended up actually selecting consulting because I wanted the variety of experience. Right.”
2019-11-20 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Jana Messerschmidt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, this is the funny thing. Like cell phones, I really didn't have much of an idea of what that career path would look like. I knew that there were a handful of prominent chip companies like Intel and Sun Microsystems and AMD at the time. And I kind of thought I'd go and work for one of those. Right. Making chips. Making chips. Signing chips.”
2019-11-20 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Jana Messerschmidt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So it was a little bit of a rude awakening, but it was a phenomenal experience. University of Illinois. So hardware, Well, actually, computer engineering is more of a focus on hardware than software. So CS is focused on software. Computer engineering is hardware. Right, right. I'd say two things. One, really wanting to understand that the most basic component chip level, how bits and bytes worked. And then number two is this computer engineering was supposedly harder than CS. And I always like challenged. Okay.”
2019-11-20 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Jana Messerschmidt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You know, I always excelled at math and science, and my mom was actually my preschool teacher. She had the one preschool in our small town. And they always noticed that I liked math and science. So they're like, you should explore this. Right. So decided to go to University of Illinois, major in computer engineering, which is focused on hardware, strictly to really serve like wanting to know how hardware and computers worked. Right. And I got there, I'll admit, I was a little bit blindsided by what. You know, I think growing up in a small town, you know, we didn't have a lot of prep to kind of go off to university and measure in tough subjects. And when I started at university, pretty much everyone came in with all of these AP credits. They were coming in as sophomores or juniors. They'd already taken advanced calculus or advanced courses. I didn't have any of that. Right. So I went from being the smartest kid in my class to like, oh, shit, I've got a lot of catch up to do. Right.”
2019-11-20 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Jana Messerschmidt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Dad encouraged it, which is critical. There's always anybody, especially women that have interests in technology. It's always a parent that really push them towards it, or at least encouraged that feeling. Didn't discourage it.”
2019-11-20 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Jana Messerschmidt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think it's just a natural interest. And my dad, I would say, could be described as a gadget guy. He was always into it. And so basically like when I decided that I was going to go off to college, I was like, I want to know how computers work. I want to know how gadgets work.”
2019-11-20 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Jana Messerschmidt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I come from there. I always had an interest in technology. And I always in particular had an interest in gadgets. So my dad and I used to go to like Circuit City when it existed and Best Buy on the weekends. And we would play around with any of the new hardware that came out.”
2019-11-20 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Jana Messerschmidt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I do. I hear you guys are going to Eric and I have bonded over this many times because my hometown festival is also called the popcorn festival. So I'm glad that she's taking you there. Okay, good. You will most likely get fried snicker bars and I will not.”
2019-11-20 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Jana Messerschmidt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, so actually, I grew up in a small town called Manitou, Illinois, a population about 1600 people in the central part of Illinois. Do you know where Pearia, Illinois is? Not really. Okay,”
2019-11-20 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Jana Messerschmidt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I often joke. I started off my career as an engineer and I recently found myself working in finance. Yeah, okay. How did that happen?”
2019-11-20 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Jana Messerschmidt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, I want to talk about a lot of things because not that there's very few women venture capitals, because there's sort of more than before. But I want to talk, I don't want to just focus on women things with you. I want to talk about also startups and how you think about investing and everything else. But let's get a little bit into your background because you've had a really interesting path to venture capital.”
2019-11-20 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Jana Messerschmidt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source