Why I turned down UC Berkeley to start Nautilus Labs & attempt to change the shipping industry.

I turned down an education at an esteemed university and I’m hiring.

While I’m extremely proud of my undergraduate Alma Mater, Syracuse University (GO ORANGE), it’s not known as a big hub for engineering talent or startup moguls. I was told by several VC’s and angels that I need to have a big name attached to me, “it will make everything easier”, which I knew was true.

Stanford, MIT, Berkeley. The big three.

Some of the greatest companies of our time have come directly out of, or from graduates of these institutions. So by no means am I discounting the weight these “Labels” carry. It is an extreme accomplishment.

Statistically, returns come from these places, especially when it comes to highly technical companies. So it’s no wonder investors look for this easy filter, a check off their list.

I was lost.

I was told my ambitions were too large for my age, which I had yet to begin proving out & combined with my current level of experience — I was “uninvestable”.

So, being lost, I applied last minute to MIT & Berkeley (No. 1 & 3 ranked) for a graduate degree in mechanical engineering with concentrations in Robotics, Advanced Sensor Control Systems, and Autonomous systems. Essentially, it was all about building the hardware and writing the control systems for…