Caroline Winnett, Executive Director of Berkeley Skydeck, discusses the evolution of the accelerator's admissions criteria since 2015.
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“When I joined, Skydeck was open to students or faculty or alums of Berkeley, UCSF, The Lawrence Berkeley Lab, it was fairly limited, and over time we expanded it to now the accelerator is open to anybody. You can be a graduate of anything.”
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More from Caroline Winnett
AssertionSupported
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Japan lacks the startup ecosystem to commercialize its top research talent
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Caroline WinnettJan 13, 2026▶ 21:16How Berkeley Skydeck is Shaping the Next Generations of Innovators
Insight
Translating customer feedback into founder jargon kills early startups
“The degree of truly making sure you're not translating any of that language with your, you know, going in here and coming out the other end with your language and your wants and your, that's going to kill you as a young company.”
Caroline WinnettJan 13, 2026▶ 32:35How Berkeley Skydeck is Shaping the Next Generations of Innovators
AssertionNot publicly verifiable
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“When we first started the accelerator batches, and this was before the fund got going. So this was, you know, batch one back in 2000 and 15. We had 55 applications, and we thought that was pretty good. Applications for batch 21, 3800.”
Caroline WinnettJan 13, 2026▶ 2:49How Berkeley Skydeck is Shaping the Next Generations of Innovators
AssertionNot checkable as stated
Berkeley Skydeck Fund uses no UC Berkeley endowment or donation money
“None of the money in the fund so far is Berkeley endowment money or donations by alums. It's all investments by professional investors who want their money back, right?”
Caroline WinnettJan 13, 2026▶ 4:23How Berkeley Skydeck is Shaping the Next Generations of Innovators
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