Eva Lau  0:00  
Hardware needs to change, software will change and the end result, applications will change, human behavior will change and I found this is the most exciting time I've ever seen in my career in the technology realm.

Chris Yip  0:20  
Welcome to Tell Me More: Coffee with Chris Yip, the official podcast of the Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering at the University of Toronto. Each month, I sit down with someone from our vibrant global community to talk about what places them at the heart of designing bold solutions for a better world. You'll meet alumni, students and professors who are making a difference across a range of fields, including some where you may not expect to find it.

My guest today is U of T Engineering alumna Eva Lau, co-founder of Two Small Fish Ventures, an early stage venture capital firm focused on the next evolution of computing and its applications. Today, she leverages her experience to help early stage transformative tech companies achieve internet scale. Previously, Eva was a founding team member of Wattpad. As head of community and content for the storytelling platform, she helped the company scale from hundreds to tens of millions of users. I think we should get people to call in if they are a current user of Wattpad. It's always fun to find those in our audience. Eva is no stranger to U of T Engineering. She earned her Bachelor of Applied Science in industrial engineering with us, and I was delighted for sure when I ran to Eva and Alan, her husband and fellow U of T Engineering alumnus and Two Small Fish co-founder on campus, which actually turns out to be quite frequently when you're on campus and we're going to hint at that. So Eva, welcome to the podcast.

Eva Lau  1:41  
Well thank you so much for this coffee. It tastes yummy, Chris [laughs]. What brand are you having?

Chris Yip  1:48  
I tell you, we're gonna go for product placement at some point. We'll work that in [laughs].

I have to ask this question and you can answer it in I guess a bunch of different ways. What lessons from U of T Engineering? Whether it was industrial, whether it was, what was it about the school itself? Faculty members, whatever, like that, I think still resonate with you today. Like what is it? Was it that first year drafting class? Probably not? [Laughs.]

Eva Lau  2:27  
No, no, certainly not. I have many, many, many fond memories with the school and you know, after all, I met my husband, then boyfriend, you know, in U of T Engineering. Spent so much time in the cafeteria and in the SF library, you know, pretending to be studying, but certainly was more chit chatting than anything else. But but, you know, if you were to really ask me, what were some of the lasting memory that I still carry with me professionally these days, there are two things that really sticks out. So first of all, I knew nothing about human factors before I start, before I started at UT engineering. I had no concept of what that was. So I still remember back in the days, it was Professor Foley, who taught the class of human factor and it was so fascinating to basically open up my mind of human machine interface, human system interface, even simple things of, you know, I think it was Professor Jardine, who taught the class about, you know, that, I think it was Professor Templeton, actually, to talk about the layout of a factory. You know, how you kind of like, minimize the time of the workstation is over here and you turn your body within, you know, fraction of seconds, you know, to optimize the workflow, and so on and so forth. That whole workflow human interaction with the system, it's so pivotal in my career. The other thing I certainly want to talk more about, it's entrepreneurship, it's an eye opening for me of what it means to chart your own path, you know, create something big and create something new. So let's just park these two pillar, you know, as a discussion, because I'm very, very passionate about these two topics. So when I graduated from U of T Engineering, the economy was very bad. And so, you know, finding job was was was not an easy thing. And I was very open to whatever, you know, engineering type of job that I was offered, you know, software programming, and so on and so forth. But, you know, with a twist of fate, I end up being a QA test engineer in a software startup. That was the era when when software is still being tested, of course, by automated, you know, tools, but a lot of them are actually being done also by human. And part of it was usability studies. Basically, you know, having people to use the product, sometimes record them sometime, not necessarily record them, but just kind of collect feedback like, what do you like? What do you don't like. And so being a, eventually, I've been promoted to be the QA manager, I was very, very meticulous when it comes to usability and human machine interface, you know, the placement of a feature of how many steps you know, takes a person to complete the task. Those type of things, you may say, it's not a software bug, but it actually hinder us to interact with the system to get things done. So to me, I always credit that, that kind of learning, that kind of training, when it comes to system design, when it comes to by human factors, you know, it, that's all it comes down to. Tools are always just tools, and it always has to make sure that the user can make use of it. And that kind of training, I found it extremely unique when it comes to industrial engineering. So now pivot quickly to entrepreneurship, I, you know, we're going to talk even more about this. You know, my thesis supervisor, Professor Paradi was extremely, I would say, inspirational for me motivated, you know, me to kind of like, really understand that, that side of things. I still remember when I saw the the course selection, I couldn't even pronounce that word. I'm like, What is this E N? Like, what is that? Right, but then I read the description, I found it fascinating, and certainly had impact me, my my journey to do what I had been doing throughout my career,

You know, first off, the field, right? You ended up in industrial, and then and to see the impact of understanding that human computer [illegible], which is everything we do today, right? It's every it's all about that, right? Which is why again, I think it's a fascinating field, that I never thought of, that so human engagement with, with devices or with technology, which is now so integral to just like, everything. But yeah, let's let's, let's dig more into this entrepreneurship space. So, you know, we introduced you earlier, you're part, you've launched this new Two Small Fish, VC and you've mentored tons of people and across all ranges, and we'll talk about that a little bit more later. But you've seen tons of things, tons of opportunities, good and bad and I was at the dinner at your house and you started, "this is what I don't want to see in a pitch deck," but when it comes to startups these days and there's lots of ideas out there, right? What...I don't want to leave this to a whole bunch of people like now sending you ideas about "this is cool, because Eva said it was cool," but what are some of the sort of broad concepts that really get you excited these days?

I grew up when my dad was a mainframe computer operator, back then, I still remember he brought home punch cards, and then sometimes tapes, I don't know what those are, and, you know, we play with it. And then the first dot matrix printer, you know, came into the market, he brought home, lots of prints out of, of cartoons that are printed with the dark magic tricks. So all those kinds of fun things. And so in some ways, I have witnessed the evolution of computing, since I was a little girl. Think about back when I was you know, very, very small, compute power are only in the hands of big corporations. Only big, big, big companies have access to mainframes. And then when we were in university, I remember I still have to go back to the to the EA labs and use the Turing machine, you know, and I would say the terminals, writing Turing programming, I should say.

Chris Yip  8:50  
Good memories [laughs].

Eva Lau  8:52  
Oh, yeah! That's me and Alan spend a lot of time you know, kind of like doing our chatting using those terminals back then. And so, so what I'm trying to say is fast track to where we are right now. Well, I saw the evolution from, you know, big, big, big, big, big computers to right now wearing a watch that can actually measure my, my heart rate and all those kinds of stuff that measure my movement. So we can see the computing has been practically democratized in the hands of big, big, big corporations now in the hands of people. And I think we right now in the whole gen AI era, it actually means that we are entering into an even more interesting phase when it comes to human machine interface. Back in the days, we always tell the computer what to do. We put punch cards, we put programming language to instruct what the computer is going to do for us. But now with the era of large language models, we are now collaborating with these big models to make things happen. So we are seeing a convergence right now of software being very, very, very capable to do things that, you know, people couldn't have done it before, analyzing massive data, being able to predict some things, and being able to allow you to collaborate, you know, with with a system so that's something never been done before. And at the same time, we can see that the compute evolution, it's going into multi fronts. Compute needs, just the power of it, the horsepower of like, compute faster, being able to kind of like do large computation, much faster and larger models, that is like going skyrocketed. So what I'm trying to say is that, that end of evolution is actually pushing the boundaries right now into photo democratizing things. So imagine maybe one day we'll have a chip on your, on your wrist that actually runs launch language model, you don't necessarily need a lot of compute power in the cloud. So all these kinds of things are happening right now. So I think, finally, we are at the stage that hardware needs to change, software will change, and the end result, applications will change, human behavior will change and I found this is the most exciting time I've ever seen in my career in a technology realm.

Chris Yip  11:26  
Amazing. It really is fascinating to see how, like you said, like democratizing access, right? And making it available to everybody regardless of sort of a almost any barrier now, right? We've seen how, you know, cellphone technology coming out has a lot to do in microfinance in places where they didn't have, you know, copper phone lines to do stuff. And you've seen that happen. We've seen, you know, access to the internet, giving people access to information, that would have been really hard to get in the past, right? And there's obviously lots of challenges with that sort of stuff as well but I think it really has made it so much easier now to, to, for people to participate, right? I think, let's take it back a little bit earlier. You talked about Joe Paradi, Andrew Jardine, Professor Foley, Professor Templeton, these are all sort of faculty members who are kind of mentors to you and at various levels, right? Either, you know, thy teach you stuff in class, but they also act as kind of a sounding boards for you, as you're going forward. I know you have a really strong relationship with with Joe. Why is it important for I think all of us, right? Whether you know, myself as a faculty member, as a dean, you know, to seek out advice of mentors, of individuals who can help you?

Eva Lau  12:46  
I think, you know, sometimes seeking advice, you know, I'm in a position right now that people see me as a mentor and they'll come and say, "Eva, I want to hear your advice", and I try to position it as I don't give advice, but I can give you suggestions. And I will also give you, you know, lessons learned. Because I feel that everyone has their own journey, and they chart their own path. But yes, I was one of those who actually will go and ask for advice, without knowing the difference between suggestions and advice but I think, nonetheless, what the importance of that act of just reaching out, there are a couple of things. First of all, I think is working out of your comfort zone. I think a lot of people, especially, you know, in the Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science, we had quite a lot of pride, you know, feel that, that we we have to know it all, we have to figure it out, we have to be able to solve the problem. Yeah, that's, that's what we were being taught in school. It's a problem set, solve the problem, get it right, you got 100%. Right, that's, that's, that's the nature. So being able to go out your comfort zone and admit that there are things that you actually don't know well, and what and go ask someone else, that's a major step. And I think, you know, to me, seeking advice, it's, it's the first step of knowing that I need I need some more input in my processing. You know, if you think of any your brain as a processor, you need more input, so that you can make it have quality output. So to me doing that, it's one important step. And I think on the other hand, is to see a diverse type of response when you seek out advice. I always, you know, feel that I know everything. I would tell my children or whatever, or my mentees everything I know. Same thing. You know, when I was seeking advice, I asked my father, my father would tell me you know what you should be doing da da da da da...But that's a single dimension and it's a very narrow view of the world, because it's only the experience that particular person have gone through. And all of a sudden, you can perhaps, you know, put yourself in a tunnel vision. And that's not good because you may not necessarily, you don't know what you don't know. And that, to me, that's what seeking mentorship is actually, the act of getting out of your comfort zone getting out of, there's a Chinese way of putting it, you know, don't be a frog under a well, because you always see the sky, it's just kind of like, you know, that opening. So you go and talk to other people to see that other dimension, then all of a sudden, you can drive, you can draw life lessons, you know, draw examples that are applicable in your particular unique situation, and come up with your very own approach of solving that roadblock that you're seeing. And I think that to me, is it's, it's the most important skill that people should learn for their life, because life is all about drawing lessons from other iterate on it, and make a better self than the person that you were yesterday.

Chris Yip  16:16  
I hadn't heard that Chinese proverb, but that's a good one. It's a really relevant one, right? The, I like it a lot because it was, it resonated me with, with me around the idea of sort of seeking a mentor means not necessarily seeking out someone who's going to confirm what you want to do, right? You want people who are who are able to kind of say, well, no, I think this direction, right? Or have you ever thought about this? And it's getting that alternative perspective, which gives you a more holistic view of what's going on? Yeah, no, I think and I think that's, that's such a nice nuance around how to how to help people out, right? Is to say, well, this is what I've seen. Draw from it, what you want, of what my scenario was, right? How I reacted to the situation and so I think that's, it's really cool and I think that's really the key to how you be a successful mentor and be a successful partner for opportunities, right? It's all about being part of a conversation, not do it this way, right? It needs to be needs to be less, more collaborative, co-created versus directional or something. Yeah, it's, it's an important life lesson, I think, especially for anyone who's in sort of a leadership role, too, is to just not be dictating what you need to do, right?

Eva Lau  17:39  
It's hard, it's hard.

Chris Yip  17:40  
So yeah...no, it's definitely hard but it's something that we are always, it's so valuable to have good mentors, right? Along the journey and actually, I would argue, I would even say that, my, when I talk to students, I actually see them as mentoring me about what I should be doing, right? It's not always the older coming down, but it's actually learning more from from the people coming up and say, well, like "this is not working". It's like, Oh, you're right. I should learn, I should be listening, I need to listen to you, right? Of course, and make changes, right? So it's cool. Speaking of which, though, so campus is alive in so many ways. We're recording this right now during exam season. So there's a lot of students around but there's a lot of anxiety around the middle of writing exams. But but it's also exciting, especially for our graduating students, because this is like the end of their, maybe the end of their academic journey, beginning of a much more important journey for them. But it's always great to see you on campus. Whether it's attending events and and so many times we were talking about the last time we saw each other you are helping at the Desjardin pitch competition, being a fireside chat although there was no fire there [laughs].

I think our conversation was on fire, though, right [laughs]?

Your conversation was definitely on fire that day. It was actually a fascinating conversation but that was the end of entrepreneurship week, right? And it was a terrific way to wrap up that event. But but you're always on campus, you're always around and it's terrific. What really is the favorite part about working with our students? I'm gonna say our students, not just engineering students, I'm gonna say broadly, right? The U of T students in general or students in general.

Eva Lau  19:30  
It's, um, I found that, you know, you put it very nicely, Chris, you said, we feel that you're mentored by the students, and I totally, totally agree with you. I think, my interaction with the students, some people will feel that I'm giving back. In some ways I am but at the same time, I'm taking, because, you know, surrounding myself with students who are really trying to chart their own path, trying to, you know, figure things out, and allow me to engage with them in that conversations and, and, you know, give my little two cents, you know, in that, you know, discussion, I actually learned a ton from them. And for me being in my position right now, as an investor, it allows me to tap into what the world is thinking, it allows me to see where and what makes people uncomfortable, what makes people very comfortable and understand, at the end of the day, like what are the drives that makes people move forward in, in many dimensions. And, you know, you know, as I said, any innovations right now, the human system interface is the key. So if we don't understand people, if we don't understand users, you will, we will always innovate in a vacuum and only we will use the product, only we will kind of see that how we, how it's valuable, but it may not necessarily relate to people. So that's why I think I enjoy working with students and it's part of the whole journey is to understand people, is to, is to be there for the crowd, is to is you know, while I say be there for the crowd, but it's at the same time that the crowd educate me what some of my blind spots are.

Chris Yip  21:48  
So So, this has been a super exciting year for engineering. We just sort of wrapped it up actually, a couple of weeks ago, this was our 150th anniversary of Skule™. Yay, it was awesome. And I remember that that night at the at the Fairmont Royal York, right? Where it was just, it was like a magical evening, right? Unbelievable, right? We had robots we had dancing robots, we had fireworks, we close down the Royal York, had Chris Hadfield speaking and Defy Gravity and so on, and, and just so much going on. We have an alumni reunion coming up the end of May. We talked earlier about sort of what you liked about U of T engineering and so on but what is your favorite part about being an alumnus, I guess and being part of the broad network?

Eva Lau  22:39  
Wow. You know, I think right now, one of the writings on one of the building outside of U of T, what does it say? The number one engineering school?

Chris Yip  22:57  
People can't see this but I'm like poking, pointing at like the wall behind me right now. But yes, the number one engineering school in Canada. Yep.

Eva Lau  23:04  
That's the reason why, you know, the alumni network is so important. We have so many amazing alum that have walked the path, that have achieved great things, and being able to claim this alumni network as family, it's a privilege and honor. And for us being able to give back, being able to share our journey and be there for the young alum is basically you know, you know, taking the baton from the people ahead of us, and carrying it while we can and make sure that we have more and more successful, you know, innovators a talent in our country to carry this baton forward for generations to come. Innovation doesn't happen overnight. We build upon other people's innovation to continue on. Right? Like you know, think about simple things like how do we get aluminum and make make cars? Someone must have innovates long ago of how to extract aluminum from the earth and then some people innovate on how do you kind of make it you know, produce a boat, to make it into different shape then someone innovate on the car and now someone innovate on self driving car, and some people innovate even more on that so every innovation is it's built upon other people's foundation. So it's extremely important that I think that we look up to those people who already build foundation that we are leveraging on right now and continue to build this new foundation that for generations to come and then they will build a new foundations for even more generations to come. So that's, that's important and fascinating at the same time.

Chris Yip  24:58  
Yeah, I think it's a it's a It's a wonderful perspective because I think, you know, engineering is all about sort of translation, right, of, of basic things into some, like a practical application, use the analogy of sort of aluminum into cars or other structures and building it out. Also, this engineer is also about continuous improvement, right? (Eva: Of course.) We're all, yeah, we're always taught to think about optimization but is anything ever optimizes like actually, no, there's always room.

Eva Lau  25:28  
So that's why I would say that optimization is one aspect of engineering, but I think something more exciting is transformation. (Chris: Yeah.) Right? And transformation, it's what's gonna change, you know, how people live and work.

Chris Yip  25:45  
And I think so, which is great. I started thinking of the Berlin Wall and people stripping away the Berlin Wall because there was, there was a confluence of things which made that wall come down, right? And before it was there, and people felt like we got to try these different ways. And it was like, Okay, there's, we suddenly have a bunch of factors which have come into play, which allowed that wall to change and come down. And we saw the effects of doing that. I think, another another strength or opportunity there and this is something I like telling our students to think about, is that, that what's going to chip away at that wall may not come from the same spot that you're looking at it, right? Yeah, it's gonna be from different different domains, different sectors, different perspectives. And I think this is what you said earlier about this sort of frog looking up through the well, is that is to be open to all these inputs, to be broad, I don't know, broadly minded, to be well read, in a sense, I guess, is to pay attention to all the stuff that's going around you.

Eva Lau  26:46  
I think, the open mindedness, (Chris: Yes.) also the curiosity. (Chris: Yes.) That that makes a person interesting.

Chris Yip  26:55  
Yeah, and if solutions can come in from all sorts of different perspectives and it's looking at things from different angles and sometimes you're providing that perspective for others, and sometimes they're providing it for you. (Eva: Oh yes.) So it's, it's wonderful. Eva, this was awesome. Just been such a pleasure to chat about your journey and all the things which along the way you've taken input in and how you're providing so much mentorship, and to so many, not just inside engineering but around the world.

Eva Lau  27:22  
Well it's my pleasure to be here and it's always fun chatting with you, Chris, you know, whether it's a podcast or a coffee, or, you know, a fireside chat, it's always fun, because I think, you know, you and I have a good understanding of what innovation is and at the same time, understand, you know, how much need to put in to make that happen. Ideas are cheap, execution is what makes us different, and to execute on innovation, certainly needs lot of support and I'm so proud that U of T have provided so many resources to support the students in their journey, whether it's mentorship, whether it's acceleration, and in some in some programs, grants, to help them pursue what they want to do. I want to at the same time, give you the congratulations and all the well wishes because I think is essential. What the schools are doing is essential to not only nurture our next generations of innovators, but allowed us to continue to build upon other people's foundation to make a world a better place. So thank you.

Chris Yip  28:21  
Thanks, Eva. Thanks for being part of the journey with us. It's really awesome. 

Thanks again for listening to Coffee with Chris Yip. If you want to catch up on past episodes, or make sure that you don't miss the next one, please subscribe. We're on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and more. Just look for Coffee with Chris Yip. You can also check out @UofTengineering on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn for more stories about how our community is building a better world. And finally, if you'd be inspired to join us, we'd love to welcome you. Whether you're thinking of taking a degree or working with us on our research project, you can find us online and engineering.utoronto.ca. Or you can visit our beautiful campus in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. I hope I can join you for coffee soon.