Work and Religion in Silicon Valley

Carolyn Chen is a sociologist and Professor of Ethnic Studies at UC Berkeley, Co-Director of the Berkeley Center for the Study of Religion, and Executive Director of the Asian Pacific American Religions Research Initiative. Her research focuses on religion, spirituality, and work in contemporary America, as well as Asian American religion. Carolyn has published three books: Work Pray Code: When Work Becomes Religion in Silicon Valley (Princeton 2022), Getting Saved in America: Taiwanese Immigration and Religious Experience (Princeton 2008) and Sustaining Faith Traditions: Religion, Race and Ethnicity among the Latino and Asian American Second Generation (NYU 2012). Her writing has appeared in outlets such as the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, CNN, and The Atlantic.

Trae Stephens is a partner at Founders Fund, where he invests across sectors and stages. He is also a Co-founder and Executive Chairman of Anduril Industries, a defense technology company focused on autonomous systems, and Co-founder of Sol, a next generation wearable e-reader.

Previously, Trae was an early employee at Palantir Technologies, where he led teams focused on growth in the intelligence/defense space as well as international expansion, helping large organizations solve their hardest data analysis problems. While at Palantir, Trae also served as an adjunct faculty member at Georgetown University.

Prior to Palantir, Trae worked as a computational linguist building enterprise solutions within the United States Intelligence community. He began his career working in the office of then Congressman Rob Portman and in the Political Affairs Office at the Embassy of Afghanistan in Washington, DC. Trae graduated from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University.