>>Narrator: How do I know which path is best for me?

Is it possible to take on these challenges and obstacles?

Where do I even start?

What should I do with my life?

Sometimes, the only way to find out is to go see what's possible Since 2001, we've been sharing the stories of people who ventured out and explored different career paths and different possibilities for their futures.

This is one of those stories.

This is Roadtrip Nation.

[MUSIC] >> Alyssa: Definitely, living in an RV is interesting.

It has its pros and cons for sure.

I definitely miss my bed, but it's been a cool experience.

>> Marcus: Here we go, everybody's locked in?

>> Alyssa: Nice and slow.

>> [MUSIC] >> Marcus: I feel like every day I wake up and see Tara and Alyssa right then I'm like okay, I'm really out here, still, it's not a dream, pinching myself.

>> Alyssa: So we're about halfway through the trip right now.

We started in Austin, Texas, and now we're in San Diego.

>> Tara: And the three interviews we've had, we've been able to get very different perspectives.

I think it's much more inspiring to see somebody in person who is doing the work, it becomes more tangible.

>> Alyssa: Just being on the road, I think it's really good for you as a person.

I think, as humans, it's really easy to get stuck in the everyday nine to five grind.

And it's hard to grow if you're not talking to new people and experiencing new things.

>> Marcus: I'm opening up a lot more, kinda stepping into another form of myself.

>> Alyssa: I'm still really trying to figure out what kind of work I wanna do and what area of computer science I wanna get into.

So it's been nice to get to see kind of the side I haven't seen, the semiconductor side of it.

>> [MUSIC] >> Laura: Semiconductors are involved in everything.

And what ASML does is, we make the machines that make the semiconductors.

So we're not designing chips here.

We're designing, at least in San Diego, a plasma light source that can help make the feature size on those chips even smaller.

I just got a new car last year, and they told me that it had something like 140 computer chips in it.

So cars are using those chips to do sensing, to do automatic braking.

Obviously, we wear devices, everybody's cell phones have a number of chips in them.

Medical robots these days are really improving our ability to care for people.

We're even looking at semiconductors as medical implants because they're small enough and they're light enough.

And we can make them out of materials that work with the human body.

So you can restore somebody's sight that's lost it by implanting a chip and a camera into their head.

And we've got, of course, the whole realm of everything for diabetes.

And insulin pumps that are now wearable because we've improved the way semiconductors work.

>> [MUSIC] >> Alyssa: We got to tour ASML's clean room and it was a really cool experience.

>> [MUSIC] >> Tara: Putting on the bunny suits was super fun.

>> Chelsea: That's a good look for you, Marcus.

>> Marcus: [LAUGH] >> Tara: Why we put on bunny suits is so we aren't tracking any more particles, or dirt, or chemicals into the clean room that could have affect the equipment.

>> Alyssa: The bunny suit was pretty massive, I'm a short person, so it was like dragging.

Tara and Marcus were both tripping over their toes.

>> Tara: Nobody saw that.

>> Alyssa: [LAUGH] Actually, when we went up the stairs, I kind of tripped and was like, let me not fall onto the machine.

Watch your steps, guys.

That would be embarrassing.

>> Tara: I mean, truly, it felt like an honor to be on that tour.

I was kind of like, yeah, we're gonna see the new technology.

[LAUGH] >> Speaker 5: What this is is probably the most important part of what everything we do here.

This is actually where tin comes in and fires out through here.

So once the tin fires out through here, this is the tin that's actually being hit by a CO2 laser.

That's what actually creates EUV energy or plasma >> Alyssa: So I wanted to ask, how you got into engineering?

If you kind of always knew you wanted to do that as a kid, or if you had family members that were engineers, or kind of encouraged you to do that?

>> Laura: I did not come from a family of engineers at all.

>> Alyssa: Me too [LAUGH] >> Laura: My mom is an acupuncturist, my dad does songwriting, my brother went to recording engineering school, so my family was all over the place.

And so I didn't have like, this is what the career progression is, this is what our family does.

And so it was kind of wide open to me, and I always loved math and science.

Those were the things that came really naturally to me.

I actually really liked that the higher up I got, there weren't very many other women.

I felt like this is silly, there should be.

So I'm gonna stick it out, even if it's awkward for me.

>> Alyssa: I can relate to Laura, since she didn't have any kind of real close role models in an engineering field.

She kind of just paved her own path.

>> Laura: Don't be afraid of being unique.

What makes you authentically you will also help you reach your highest potential.

>> [MUSIC] >> Alyssa: So, I struggle with impostor syndrome a lot.

Right now I live in Denver, and as a full-time software engineer entering the industry, that hasn't gone away, even though I did get my degree.

Getting hired there, it was a weird feeling.

I'm always doubting myself, am I just the diversity hire?

Do I belong here?

I would compare myself and be like, I'm just not meant for this field.

Why would they not hire somebody else compared to me?

Looking at somebody else that's successful, it's hard to see, did they ever doubt themselves?

The tech field is predominantly white men, so it is really cool for us to interview people that don't fit the mold of a typical software dev or electrical engineer.

>> Naeiri: Syntiant is bringing a novel AI edge idea into reality, which uses near zero power consumption.

Always on voice application, and alongside other things, like vision and sensor applications using neural decision processors.

This is our first generation chip, it's kind of the size of a pepper flake.

There it is.

>> Alyssa: Yeah, I didn't consider it's like this one.

>> Naeiri: Yeah, and we have shipped over 20 million of these devices already.

We're just touching the surface on what is possible with AI.

As an example, vocal algorithms and biomarkers combined with an AI chip, you can diagnose Alzheimer's, anxiety, depression.

So my work here is putting this chip through rigorous testing to perform and do exactly what it promised to do.

This is where it all started, the system and bench testing.

So we have our vision neural decision processor here, which also uses a camera and a temperature sensor to kinda detect the person.

If you combine the image with the heat, then you will not miss.

Cuz you have all these security cameras that are detecting motion, and they just keep going off.

But this only will signal if there's an actual person there, all right.

>> [MUSIC] >> Naeiri: I am originally from Iran, I actually grew up there, and moved here about 20 years ago with my family, immigrated here.

So that was very tough.

But you can imagine a high school graduate that left all the friends and everything I knew, and walking into an unknown territory.

And I was always drawn into math, science.

I grew up not knowing any women engineers around me.

So, I was like, okay, I think that's something important I can do.

I can become one, and do something important with my life, and make a difference.

>> Alyssa: I kind of wanted to ask you about, how do you know that you wanna either stay in this field, or have you ever wanted to explore other fields?

Cuz I have my bachelor's in computer science, but I still have impostor syndrome and feel like why did I get hired for this job.

>> Naeiri: Yes, I mean initially when I joined, first of all, I found myself in a minority group being in a male dominated industry.

As a new hire, I felt like I was not being heard.

I was sitting in these meetings, I didn't see any women on the table.

It was really hard but looking back, I was like, I will not let this set barriers for me.

So yes, there has been road blocks and I'm sad to say that there still are.

But even though all of these setbacks, I challenge myself even further, I took another path where I traveled around the world.

And I went to the semiconductor foundries to see what they're doing and be involved in their quality aspect.

>> Alyssa: That's cool.

>> Naeiri: It is very cool.

It was very hard and demanding but it just immediately boosted my confidence.

I was like I think I am in the right place and you are in the right place and you belong.

You have to challenge yourself to do things out of your comfort zone.

That's where there's the potential to find the better version of you.

It's not supposed to be easy.

These technological advancements in the field that you might be walking in are changing our lives.

So don't let those setbacks create boundaries for you.

>> Alyssa: She was really vulnerable with us.

She suffers from impostor syndrome, as well.

I think everybody does, especially in the field of like engineering where it's so competitive.

>> Marcus: Struggles are always gonna come and go, but as long as you keep pushing forward, you get wherever you wanna be.

>> [MUSIC] >> Marcus: So we've made it to Morro Bay.

>> Tara: Look at the seals, they're laying there!

[SEAL SOUNDS] >> Marcus: I haven't done anything like that before.

That's probably the second time I rode a boat, it was calming just looking in the water, just being out in the world.

>> Tara: [SOUND] My cheeks started to hurt cuz I was smiling so much.

[GASP] It was one of those once in a lifetime experiences.

>> Alyssa: Tara and Marcus, they're super, super chill.

Yeah, I think I got really lucky being with two awesome people.

I really love to travel so it's been nice to go to all these cities I've never been to before.

I think seeing the world is the best way to grow as a person.

>> Marcus: Driving through Big Sur is probably top two experience of my entire life at this point.

The ocean hitting the rocks, the cliffs.

>> [MUSIC] >> Tara: I have a lot of uncertainty about the future.

Frankly, I'm still uncertain about exactly what I wanna do.

My interests always been in STEM as well as environmentalism and justice.

I know that I wanna work at the intersection of that, right, the direct connection of microelectronics or semiconductors with climate change mitigation.

At the end of the day, I would like my life to contribute towards helping people.

But not anything specific and I think doubt, personal skepticism, that type of stuff exists.

I'm still not at that sort of final point where I'm ready to jump into the waters.

And so I believe that this trip is going to serve all three of us that way and to help us really get to that point.

>> [MUSIC] >> Marcus: So next we're interviewing Ron Duncan and he's a senior manager corporate applications engineer at Synopsys.

>> Ron: If you can name any semiconductor or electronics company in the world, they are the types of people that my team consults with and works with.

At Synopsys, we make software that will trick the light, reflect and refract, and features you can't resolve because the features are too small, says, these are the shapes I wanna design.

So mutate them so that when the light bounces, it'll actually give me the right thing.

It's sort of like reverse engineering.

That kind of software is just one example of the magic the industry has had for years to make things smarter, smaller, less power, and faster.

And it's kind of exciting to know that you're part of the evolution and revolution of the industry that's changed things so much.

>> Alyssa: I think I'll start it off, I just wanted to know how you got your introduction into engineering if you knew that you always wanted to do that?

>> Ron: I took this electrical engineering course.

They said there's this transistor with a gain of beta.

And I said, what's beta?

And they're like, you take the next course, you'll find out.

So I take the next course.

And they say there's a device structures and this is how they're made.

And I said, well how do they optimize it, well, you take the next course.

Pretty soon I'm taking physics courses.

On the other side of things, I took this AI course, a software course.

And we talked about creativity and I said it's so elegant, and I was like, which one should I do?

Which one should I do?

So that's what I do now.

It's kind of a combination.

That's unusual.

I don't know many people that said, loosely speaking, I'm doing what I thought of when I was 20.

I don't think it's important though.

I think that you can change.

You can do different things.

Something I've learned over the years is that, there isn't one I'm summiting, I'm coming to a summit and now I've got a new change in life and everything's gonna go smooth from there.

It's always that, you know, but I like the big picture, if it's information technology, software security, the environment.

There are big picture problems to solve in these areas and I think that's what you should get excited about, and apply your statistics, your math, your hands on ability to do things to solve these problems.

And yeah, that's engineering.

But don't think of yourself as just engineering.

Think of yourself as solving problems that the world needs solved.

I'm just hopeful that we use all of this fantastic opportunity that we have in technology to solve the problems that we should actually solve.

>> Alyssa: I agree.

>> Ron: That's- >> Alyssa: Instead of- >> Ron: Right.

>> Alyssa: Instead of just like social media.

>> Ron: Yeah.

>> Alyssa: Or some other [LAUGH] stuff.

>> Ron: Yeah, please solve global warming [LAUGH].

>> Tara: Ron was a super cool [LAUGH] man.

He mentioned what people get a degree in or what people go to school for is generally not what they end up doing in life.

Life takes you on different journeys.

It was cool though to see that what he did go to school for and what he did dream about, he did do.

That fire, that determination, it was really motivating for myself.

Because even though I kind of don't know what I want to do, still, there's people who do know and they did do it.

>> [MUSIC] >> Alyssa: I really love San Francisco.

I think it's a really cool city.

>> Marcus: I feel like I'd definitely move to the Bay Area.

I can see myself living there.

>> Tara: It looks so much bigger all of a sudden [LAUGH].

>> Marcus: Right now I'm just looking for jobs cuz most companies that you wanna work for, they want you to have a college degree and I haven't finished mine.

So I did a three month program.

Basically it was a IT bootcamp where they taught you all the entry level basics that you needed to get started in IT.

I don't really have a dream job.

I kinda just wanna find something that I like doing and stick with it.

That's probably what I'm looking forward to when I get back.

Trying to weigh my options and things like that, should I go back to school?

>> Alyssa: So from San Francisco we had to really rush to for our final interview.

>> Marcus: Traveling from the Bay Area to Portland, seeing all the trees, I feel like that's what life is supposed to be about is seeing nature and stuff like that too.

>> [MUSIC] >> Alyssa: We are going to be interviewing Billy Rios, he's the co-founder of QED Secure Solutions.

>> Marcus: I know cybersecurity makes a lot of money, so I've kind of focused on getting my certifications in that.

>> Alyssa: To be able to speak to him is crazy so I'm really excited.

>> Billy: Ready?

>> [SOUND] >> Billy: [LAUGH] The one piece I think that shaped me the most, this is public, so I can talk about this.

President Obama, for I think 30 minutes, had no control of our national nuclear arsenal.

For 30 minutes, he couldn't control this.

And so at some point he asked his staff whether or not it could have been a cyber attack.

And his staff was like, we have no idea, right?

[LAUGH] So they assembled a team of people who knew cybersecurity.

I was actually on that team.

It was months long engagement directed by the President.

So it was kind of nice to go into places and say, hey, we need to look at that thing and someone goes, I don't know about that.

And be like, no problem, we'll tell Barack- >> Tara: [LAUGH] >> Billy: We'll just tell POTUS that you have a problem with it.

So had a lot of access to things, did a lot of crazy things, crawled into missile silos, got up and close to these big giant missiles.

Our results are going to the president, right?

And so when I sit back and kinda think about all the things I did, I think that engagement there shaped a lot of who I am and kinda what I do.

And I've been doing cybersecurity basically all my life.

But if you were a betting person, you would not bet on Billy Rios.

My mom came over from Korea, barely spoke English.

My dad never finished high school.

Didn't have a lot of money as a kid.

I definitely was in a situation where the future was not very clear, but it did end up working out.

>> Marcus: When did you first feel like you were interested in IT?

What was your first introduction with a piece of technology where you were like, wow, maybe this is something I really wanna get into?

>> Billy: [LAUGH] That's a good question.

I think the first real memories I have of doing cybersecurity and IT are actually breaking into video games.

I would take these video games and just alter the software to where my character couldn't die or my character had equipment that it's not supposed to have and things like that.

And that's the curiosity piece of it, right?

So no one ever kind of sat me down and said, hey, this is cybersecurity.

That was kind of the foundational pieces and a lot of those foundational pieces I still kind of do today, right, so just at a higher stake, but it's still fun, yeah.

But if you were to look at me as a kid, teenager, in my 20s, you would probably not say this person has a foundation to build a multimillion dollar company, get bought, build another one and do cybersecurity, just the things that he loves to do, right?

When I started there was actually very small cybersecurity industry.

You couldn't get a degree in cybersecurity.

And so we just kind of did cybersecurity, basically just tinkering with things.

Maybe playing around in some networks that we probably shouldn't have been in, ended up working for the government for a while, catching hackers.

Then I worked for some large high tech firms on cybersecurity roles.

The company that I run now is just kind of the culmination of a lot of different experiences that I've had.

We work on what we call systems.

So medical devices, airplanes, jet fighters, military weapons, things like that's kind of our focus.

>> Marcus: I kinda wanted to circle back to your education cuz right now I'm kinda in the middle.

I've finished a couple of college courses trying to get into IT, but I feel like in college they kinda throw a lot of fluff at you first.

Right now, I'm getting my A+ certification, I'm kinda trying to figure out what's next.

So how did you kinda navigate figuring out the unknown?

>> Billy: As a young person, it's okay to look forward and be like, I'm not sure what the future holds.

I definitely felt that way, and my path was not the straight path to success that I think a lot of people think that it is, right?

So I would say if you're kind of in the middle of that and you're in the middle of a grind or if you're not sure, that's okay.

I think the pieces that enabled me to kinda continue going forward to do the things that I did was because at some point I just decided, I'm gonna do things that I'm passionate about and that I love.

And so when it comes to the grinding, when it comes to the long path, when it comes to it being hard, it's a little bit easier to accept that, cuz you really love what you're doing.

The advice that I'd give is just to stay curious.

So I've got a bachelor's degree that's information security related.

I have three master's degrees.

My co-founder has a PhD in computer science.

That all helps, but one of our principal security engineers and researchers, he doesn't have a degree, and he's really good.

And so I think the curiosity piece is probably the most important part of it.

When I started, I was a web browser researcher basically.

And I just became an expert at web browser and that's what I loved to do.

And that caught the attention of places like Microsoft and it caught the attention of places like Google, right?

And so when they asked me, hey, do you wanna do this for a living?

Yeah, of course, I would, right?

I would probably do this for free, right?

That's a bad business model, I won't say do that, but that just shows you how much I love- >> Marcus: How passionate you are, yeah.

>> Billy: Those pieces of it, right?

And so it's easy for me to stay on top of the latest cuz just love it.

And if you can bring that to the problem set, there's gonna be a place that's gonna hire you.

Pick those places that you love and you're most curious about and just go for it, right?

And so just focus on those areas and just go as deep as you can, just keep doing it and stay curious.

>> [MUSIC] >> Tara: This road trip in its entirety broadened my perspective of the semiconductor industry.

I've had some experience, but hearing from a variety of people and what they get out of their positions has shown to me that there's definitely opportunity for me to also be like that within the industry.

>> Alyssa: I think I got a lot out of this trip.

I'm just feeling inspired, trying to figure out what I wanna do still.

But I've gotten a lot of good advice where I just need to keep exploring and keep learning.

Jobs will always be there.

School is always gonna be there, but sometimes you just have to throw yourself out there to opportunities that you might not get again, and I think this was one of them.

>> [MUSIC] >> Marcus: Before the trip, I was feeling uncomfortable, unsure, but now I feel like I have more like a guided way.

I feel kind of relieved that I don't really have to have my life and everything planned out in a certain way.

I can kinda go with the flow and kinda teeter-totter around things that I really think I like and stuff like that.

I don't really have to have a college degree, I just have to show that I'm a continuous learner.

I'm willing to jump into stuff that I don't really know about.

>> Alyssa: I'm gonna go home with a new inspiration to just kind of figure out what path I wanna go down and what sub-field of computer science I wanna be in and research some PhD programs.

So it definitely gave me a lot of inspiration to keep learning and keep being curious.

>> Tara: Hearing what the leaders have to share with us, now it's my job to act on it.

>> Ron: I imagine you have felt or are going to feel times when you're like the only one.

You're the only woman in your work group.

You're the only Black person in your organization, whatever it is, right?

The good thing about engineering and science and technology is if you can solve the problem, doesn't really matter what you look like.

>> Marcus: Right, all right guys.

>> [MUSIC] Wondering what to do with your life?

Well we've been there and we're here to help Our website has some awesome tools to help you find your path And you can check out all our documentaries, interviews and more Start exploring at roadtripnation.com