My name is Jacob Hogge (pronounced like “rogue” with an “H”) and I’m excited to chat with you!

I currently manage a team of 6 engineers (and a fluctuating number of interns) at SpaceX. Together, we’re responsible for the quality of thousands of components on the Falcon and Dragon spacecraft. Helping my team solve difficult technical challenges, and pushing them to grow personally and professionally is what makes me excited to go to work every day.

Outside of my career I enjoy backpacking, skiing, triathlon, and beach volleyball. I’m also passionate about Australian Shepherds, hot lattes, and key-lime pie; I try my best to indulge in these at every opportunity.

I’m a strong believer in continuous improvement, and I learned from an early age that mentorship is an excellent catalyst for growth. A great mentor can help you build the confidence and skills to reach your goals, while allowing you to learn from their mistakes and missteps. With that said, there’s no right way to live life; I don’t claim to have all the answers. Sometimes just having somebody to bounce ideas off of is all you need to move forward. I look forward to learning and growing together!

I came from a small city in Brazil where people tend to stay forever (high school, college, first job, second, third, build a family, grow old), and I decided to challenge that - got out of my parents house when I was 16 and haven't come back since. I went to study engineering, joined an NGO, went abroad a couple of times, volunteered, got to McKinsey and now to HBS.

Since then, I've been trying to share a bit more of my accomplishments to see if I could help inspire others to also get out of their comfort zones - and I believe I've been successful so far, as people keep reaching out to me for career advice and mentoring in general.

I've mentored professionals since I was a full-time employee at Cisco. I've always enjoyed teaching other, and I come from an underprivileged upbringing, so I feel like I have a lot to give. Twenty excites me because it is an opportunity to help up and coming professionals. I feel like my experience is very expansive, and I've made a ton of mistakes, so people can learn from what I've done wrong.

I grew up in Turkey, attended high school in Istanbul, then moved to California for Stanford. After studying computer science and architecture, I specialized in product design over the last decade at tech startups like Asana, Twitter, and Autodesk. My professional superpower is bringing clarity and mindfulness to teamwork. Attending silent retreats and practicing meditation allows me to be my best self. I know we’re inter-connected to each other and with the Earth. I bring these mindfulness practices to the teams and individuals I work with. In the wild, you can find me exploring new instruments and singing with friends!

My family left Vietnam when I was 4 and I didn’t return to my birthplace for 22 years. So there’s a lot of “straddling the line between being Vietnamese and American, trying to please my parents but also wishing they’d adopt more American values, finding the pride of being Asian-American in a society dominated by White people” stuff that I’ve grappled with throughout my twenties.

Work and career success was really tangled into my identity for a loooong time as well. Like, my self worth was tied to what I could achieve during my time on planet earth. I eventually found the unsubscribe button within the cult of productivity app, and realized my life, work, partner, friends, city, and bank account balance was all enough—stellar actually. Not to say I’ve figured it out; far from it. But I’m working on it every day.

I didn’t navigate and learn everything you’ve read on this page without people giving me a lot of their time and perspectives. So I’m here to listen, learn, ask questions, and hopefully pay it forward to you.

‍

Hello Twenty-something my name is Dartis Willis II, I’m a Senior Product Manager (and former UX researcher) who just became a new mentor at Twenty. I would love to give you some helpful advice, but first here’s a little bit of information on my background.

​

Applicable highlights:

​

• I am currently based out of Miami, but I was born in Detroit
• I graduated from Stanford in 2016 with a degree in Product Design from the D.school [I pivoted twice from Aeronautical Engineering & Mechanical Engineering (Go Card!)]
• For the past 7 years I’ve worked as a UX Researcher, Senior Product Manager & Design Thinking strategist for NetSuite (Oracle)
• I’ll intermittently work remotely & travel around the world setting up shop wherever I can find a stable internet connection
• I moonlight giving friends/founders product feedback as well as mentoring/career advising
• I'm joining Twenty as a mentor because I deeply value the opportunity to give back & to pass along some of the advice I wish I'd received earlier. Despite having a vast network of successful individuals, I didn't get all of the advice I needed in my early twenties because I didn’t see the value in establishing a formal mentorship (needless to say my perspective has changed!) I've been a track coach, a senior leader on various track teams, I've mentored multiple junior employees & I already have a few informal mentees. It's safe to say that I have significant experience with helping people & I would love to provide any help that I can!

​

Other Highlights

​

• I graduated from Detroit Country Day Highschool in 2011 (Go Yellow Jackets!)
• Steve Ballmer, Robin Williams, Chris Webber, Shane Battier & Courtney Vance (From Law & Order) are some notable alumni
• I was an All American High Jumper on the Track Team
• I used to play a mean jazz saxophone  ‍

​

​

I'm a serial entrepreneur who is building my 4th startup. I dropped out of my undergrad to build my last company. I'm excited to be a mentor on Twenty because I love helping others and I'm super passionate about this space - my first startup was a mentorship platform :)

My career path has been challenging, unexpected, and rewarding. I’ve served as a founder, a consultant, an advisor, and a Board of Directors member. I’ve founded both an unsuccessful business venture and a successful non-profit, worked in massive multi-national corporations and early- and growth-stage VC-backed startups. I've been laid off, low-balled, and have had to navigate toxic workplace politics. I chose an untraditional path for post-graduate education, learned what fuels me professionally, and have both slogged away doing menial admin tasks and been in the room with some of the most powerful people in my industry. And I’m still figuring out what I want to do when I "grow up".

​

A bit about my background, I graduated with a degree in marketing and global management, thinking I would go into the hospitality industry as a brand manager. It turns out I didn't actually like marketing in practice. So, with no educational background in healthcare or technology, I was thrown into the deep end of health tech when I became an implementations consultant working on the front lines in hospitals right next to doctors and nurses. I took everything that came my way as a learning experience and was promoted quickly until I got to an executive level IT strategy consulting role at a large corporation. The career plateau that came next was one of the largest struggles I had to face in my young career, and I think that a lot of people in their early- to mid-twenties may be experiencing this. I decided to pursue my education and, while still working full-time, got a masters degree from Penn School of Medicine in Healthcare Innovation. During this degree program, I moved to a venture-backed startup which doubled in size in my first year there. Dealing with the realities of what this meant not just for the business but for the job I was doing was another massive challenge, and I ended up leaving to start my next adventure. I am currently in the very early stages of building a business, while taking a much-needed break from the working world. 

​

I get a tremendous amount of satisfaction mentoring young people through my university’s post-grad programs, as well as my own family members and other young professionals. I think a big reason for this is that a lot of the “influencers” giving advice are impractical for a professional environment (corporate and startup), and interviews with successful people such as Fortune 500 CEOs rarely give insight into actionable steps for young people to take in their careers. My approach is to be transparent and honest, and lean on my own experience to give examples of how you might want to (or not want to) approach certain topics. I hope to be able to create a space for college students and early career professionals to feel comfortable in uncertainty and in exploring their interests.

​

I also have a great network who are looking for bright folks to help bring new perspectives, and I’m always happy to make the connection.

​