Tom Chi was on campus Friday, May 26, to speak to 130 international Fulbright students who participated in a four-day seminar on innovation, entrepreneurship and commercialization. Technology & Venture Commercialization hosted the students.

Chi worked for Yahoo!, Microsoft and was a co-founder of Google X, which he has referred to as the company’s “Department of Science Fiction.” While at Google, Chi created the first prototype of Google Glass and worked on self-driving cars and Project Loon — an initiative to spread internet access to rural and remote areas around the world. Today, Chi is dedicated to creating a socially and environmentally sustainable future using breakthroughs in access and capability of new technologies. One effort: Planting a half a trillion trees to offset the carbon load.

Chi is an expert in prototype-based decision-making, which was the focus of Friday’s talk. A few of the messages he shared: Find the quickest path to experience. Doing is the best kind of thinking. To maximize the rate of learning, dramatically minimize the time to try things. Don’t guess, learn. Don’t fail, learn.

After his presentation and a Q&A session with the students, Chi sat down with communications specialist Brooke Adams for an interview. Watch here.