Mehrdad Nayebi Tumblr Blog

With experience in telecommunications and consumer electronics spanning three decades, Mehrdad Nayebi guides the Niham Technology Group as its CEO and chairman. Mehrdad Nayebi engages with venture capital partners in investing in and incubating diverse firms developing wireless and semiconductor technologies. In addition to providing strategic marketing support, Mr. Nayebi facilitates tie-ins with major corporations that offer know-how and resources for sustained growth. Among the startups he guides in board capacities are Evena Medical and Ultrawave. Mr. Nayebi began his career as a researcher with National Semiconductor in the early 1980s. He was successful in proposing and developing macros for high-speed and high-resolution data acquisition. He subsequently directed engineering at California Micro Devices, a startup subsidiary firm that he cofounded. As the general manager and vice president of the wireless division at Broadcom in the late 1990s, Mehrdad Nayebi grew a full business unit from a team of engineers and drove expansion in a number of profitable wireless markets. Extensively published in his field, he has registered more than three dozen patents for integrated-circuit designs.

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Focusing on Organizational Soft Skills to Hire the Right People

With over 27 years of diverse business experience, Dr. Mehrdad Nayebi has served as an executive for leading high-tech companies, including In2Wave, Xilinx, Intel, and Sony Semiconductor. To succeed in each of these roles, Dr. Mehrdad Nayebi started out by learning about each company’s needs and then building a team top-down to meet the requirements. Hiring is one of the most important roles of a business leader. New employees bring new ideas and a fresh perspective in the workplace. Done correctly, hiring can rejuvenate the company’s growth. Done wrongly, it can stifle creativity. When screening potential new hires, focus on soft skills rather than the specific skills for the role, especially if the specific skills can be acquired through training. Soft skills include interpersonal skills, communication skills, networking skills, and emotional strength. These skills will help foster a healthy co-existence in the work environment which increases productivity. A background check will uncover some of the soft skills that may not be noticeable at first look. Today, this includes checking potential candidates’ social media profiles to discover more about their character, personalities, and interests. This will also give you a glimpse of their maturity. The job interview is the other avenue of uncovering soft skills. Here, ask revealing questions. This will enable you learn more about your candidates, especially with regard to their strengths, weaknesses, ambition, and linearity with the company’s future goals.

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The N Type Semiconductor

Mehrdad Nayebi is the president of Niham Technology, a technology incubator, consulting, and investment firm located in California. Also holding a PhD in electrical engineering from Stanford University, where he completed an audit of the entire business MBA program, Mehrdad Nayebi has experience in a broad range of high tech industry specialties, including the N type semiconductor. Generally used in electronics, a semiconductor is a piece of material that partly conducts current. Often produced as crystals from silicone, semiconductors differ from conductors which fully conduct electricity. N type semiconductors are produced when an element is added that has five electrons in the outermost atom layer, the valence layer. This process of adding an element (often phosphorus in an N type semiconductor) is called doping and the element is called the dopant. The introduced element, or dopant, bonds with the crystal arrangement of the semiconductor but has an extra electron that is left free, causing it to act like a full conductor electron in a material like copper.

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Uniting Yoga and Meditation for Healthier Lives

Mehrdad Nayebi, the CEO and Chairman of Niham Technology Group, is a fan of yoga for relaxation. To combat what is often a hectic schedule, Mehrdad Nayebi practices yoga and meditation to stay healthy and in top form. Meditation helps individuals develop stability, strength, and clarity of mind, no matter the surroundings, while yoga exercises the body to alleviate aches and pains and allow the mind to focus. The two exercises perfectly complement each other. When a person is anxious, the body reflects that with stomach pains and sweaty palms, and when the body hurts, the mind mirrors that with distraction. Recent research shows that combining yoga with meditation decreases a variety of stress types that are common to employees who sit at desks for more than eight hours a day. Reducing the mental fatigue of a long workday and the physical fatigue of extended sitting allows people to feel, behave, and work better. Together, yoga and meditation create strong, fluid minds and bodies. Some people even use the two exercises to build stronger aversion or attachment habits. At the very least, the two practices promote better understanding and appreciation of the mind and body.

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Supporting Lymphedema Research - What Is Lymphedema?

As the CEO and chairman of Niham Technology Group, Dr. Mehrdad Nayebi supports lymphedema research programs. Dr. Mehrdad Nayebi’s support is meant to help scientists develop better treatments for the health condition. Serving as filters for the fluid in the body, lymph nodes remove viruses, bacteria, and other harmful cells. Lymphocytes, which are special white blood cells, then destroy the harmful substances. Without proper lymph node function, the body develops lymphedema. Lymphedema presents when fluid collects and swells the legs and arms. This typically occurs when lymph nodes are surgically removed for cancer treatments. Lymphedema also occurs as a side effect of radiation therapy or the medicine tamoxifen. If the lymph nodes are injured, a patient can develop secondary lymphedema. There are rare cases of primary lymphedema, which happens at birth, during adulthood, or during puberty; the cause has not yet been discovered. Symptoms include clothes and jewelry becoming tight, recurring or ongoing infections, discomfort or heaviness in a limb, and flexibility diminishing in the wrist, hand, or ankle. Current treatments include improved nutrition and skin care, fluid drainage, and compression sleeves or stockings. As of today, there is not a primary cure for the condition.

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Secret to career success while maintaining a balanced and fulfilling life

I have lived in Bay Area for 33 years now and a ton has changed in this area since. What hasn’t change is the passion for creativity and being the technology engine of US if not the entire world due to unique setting of great universities, phenomenon Venture Capitals, along with amazing high-tech companies that regularly make generous donations to the universities here.  This triad of education, industry, and capital has created a Mecca that everyone in the world is trying to replicate from Taiwan Technology Center, to Shenzhen and Shanghai Technology Parks, to North Carolina research triangle.  Yet there is only ONE “Silicon Valley” soon to be renamed “Social-Media Valley” (I sure hope not!!).  Many companies have been born, raised, reached to top performing maturity, and gone to waysides alone the way.  What started as Fairchild Semiconductor, and gave birth to HP, to National Semi, to Motorola, etc. have given ways to Google, Facebook, Uber, Yahoo, etc.  As a result, some of the smartest intellects on the planet are attracted and moved to Bay Area. In all these changes one thing has remained constant.  This constant stem from positive attribute of innovation and creativity, and deep competitiveness for wanting to be the first but unfortunately has morphed into a hostile environment of “rat race”.

What used to be an internal passion for success and creativity has turned upside down into necessity and lingo of talking and acting tough and showing that you are deeply committed to the “cause”.  That shift of internal drive to an external imposition (and to “keep face”) is the root cause of so many lives wasted, so many broken marriages, so many unhappy imbalanced (but occasionally rich) entrepreneurs.  To create more soldiers (i.e. newly converted entrepreneurs) to “die” for this “cause”, VCs MUST intoxicate new souls right out of college as if this is THE ONLY way to reach ultimate success and freedom.  The truth is far, far from it. For every one google, there are carcasses of hundreds if not thousands of shattered dreams, wasted talents, wasted time, energy, and resources.  No one talks about them and what happened to the lives of those who spent countless hours writing those codes, designing those amazing ICs on shoe-string budgets.  Like magicians, VCs artfully want entrepreneurs to keep their gaze only at that one shining star.

The numbers just don’t add up.  At best only one of out of 20 startups will survive (not succeed to the likes of Google) and many put the statistic at one out of 100.  Of those that survive one of 25 to 30 makes it successful that pays off handsomely to its founders and key original and early employees.  For the sake of simplicity, let’s be generous and say the odd by most modest assumption is 1 out of 20 and each startup takes 3-7 years (depending if it is just an App company, semiconductor, or Bio Tech, etc.) to reach to fruition.  That means on the average a typical entrepreneur must try his luck 20 times and spend 4 years on each devoting himself completely.  That is 80 years of giving up normal salary and bonus for possibility of hitting it big.  It is just like Casinos vs. gamblers odds.  The reason VCs can do this successfully is that they do these bets in parallel, whereas the entrepreneur can only devote himself/herself to only ONE bet at a time serially.

There is no one size fit all formula to success.  Recognize those who made it big wasn’t because they were smarter than you, or braver (took more risks) than you, or more hardworking than you.  They were ALL of that WHEN the opportunity showed up but for MOST part they were just luckier than you.  Luck may be a pretty luring lady and I always say “I much rather be lucky than right!” but it isn’t the one you want to build a life with.  Of course when it does land on your shoulder, you want to be prepared to take it to full throttle and enjoy the ride to the fullest. In the mean while here are some tips to consistently build wealth while doing what you enjoy.

Focus on what you enjoy not the end outcome of how much you'll get paid.  My dad told me this and I am glad I did.  I really think if you going to be spending 40-80 hrs of your life every week, you gotta at least like it.  Don't follow someone else's dream.  That's where the fire starts i.e. from within you must have that internal combustion. Avoid joining seed round of any startup. The odds on them is far worse than 1 out of 20. If you really have an itch to join a small company, join them at series D or F when they are already into $5-10M in revenue.  You have much better shot of going IPO or being acquired than the seeds. If you are at the beginning of your career, join a large billion-dollar company FIRST to learn the ropes.  This way you avoid costly “obvious” mistakes when joining a startup.  Another way to say this, you let the billion-dollar company pay for your mistakes or hopefully its senior management is smart enough to stop you from doing so. Start saving from early part of your career and NO I don’t mean 401k and IRA. Those are obvious things to do specially if these large companies are matching your funds.  I mean put away money and BUY real state in this area AS SOON AS you can get a loan for it.  All my life I have played stock and I have been a day-trader for many-many years.  While there was a lot of thrill playing market, where I made my fortune was NOT playing stock or my IRA or 401k, it was that as soon as I had enough down-payment money, I bought properties and I have never SOLD any of them and turn them into rentals.  Remember “a sound investment is usually boring; very boring.  If it’s not, it is NOT investment; it’s gambling.”.  As stupid and as simplistic as that may sound, it IS the best advice that someone else gave me and to this day it has been the golden ticket for me.  When in 2008 the market in Sacramento melted, I bought as many properties as I could get my hands on and turned them to rental properties with steady flow of income.  With that came my independence. You may think I got lucky and there is perhaps an element of that.  However, I have done so before and after 2008 both in Bay Area and in Sacramento. I have been consistently buying the dips since my first house in Palo Alto in late eighties. It is so easy to throw away your hard earned money on restaurants and shopping stupid stuff.  I am a sucker for infomercials.  So believe me I know how one can get carried away watching them or walking into stores and just let emotions/desires, wants NOT needs & necessities to lead your decisions.  As soon as you get your paycheck make it automatic to transfer at least 25-50% of your net income into an account that you just simply can’t take out money that easily being CD, annuity, 401K, IRA.  If it pays dividens even better, the purpose here is to accumulate your next down payment for a house.  Make sure you just can’t access that money so easily.  Then learn to LIVE with LESS.  You will find your date will be lot more impressed because you are a great cook.  That was my number one dating gig.  Heck that’s how I got married to my wife.  You’d be surprised just how much you can save by just being a bit disciplined.  Now, I am not suggesting to be cheap or even frugal.  I only suggest to be disciplined with your money.  I don’t believe in TOTAL delayed gratification. I Believe in MOSTLY delayed gratification. That means DO reward yourself from time to time and even budget some “piss away” money to do absolutely craziest things you can imagine.  That is just as important because it gives rise to your spirit of freedom and creativity that is the engine for your growth.  If you are too deprived, then you feel you are just laboring for your later years.  And that’s no fun. It is all about balance. HELP OTHERS in need WITHOUT expecting to be reciprocate or even recognized (better yet DO make sure it goes completely unnoticed).  It really makes a positive difference in your own purification of your soul that is a source for healing, healthy, ethical, and spiritual living.  Being of SERVICE is the greatest gift that we can do for ourselves.

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Mehrdad Nayebi professional background and bio