New Enterprises in a Nutshell

One of my favorite classes during the Spring term was New Enterprises. The class was essentially an intro to creating a start-up. It was a real eye-opener to the life of an entrepreneur. I just read three essays by Paul Graham that covered 80% of what I learned in that class. And they are excellent reads:

• How to Start a Startup
• Hiring is Obsolete
• A Unified Theory of VC Suckage
  

Paul is the author of Hackers and Painters, which is on my summer reading list. I've heard nothing but good things about it.

The Hello World Collection

This collection of Hello World programs from 206 different programming languages is quite interesting. The Assembler examples bring back fond memories of my Comp Sci Assembly Languages class and breaking my computer. I actually liked programming in 8086 assembly, but I don't think I would have wanted to make a career out of it.

Top 10 Reasons to Live in the Triangle (NC)

The other day I was debating with Mr. and Mrs. Slagle about the merits of moving from gloomy Cincinnati, OH to the Research Triangle Park, NC area. Just to add fuel to the fire, I came up with list of reasons why you might want to make such a move:

10. UNC Basketball. Yes, you have to put up with a lot of Duke chatter, but UNC is the reigning national champ ;-)
9. The weather. We have all four seasons and none of them are too extreme…well besides the days with a 100 degree heat index and the minor drought we've seen this summer and the occasional hurricane and the sporadic ice shower.
8. 2 hrs from the beach (Wrightsville), 4 hrs from the mountains (Asheville)
7. Average only 2 inches of snow a year. Better yet, there are several city shutdowns due to the potential for snow which never comes.
6. Even our recent Interviewing/Networking speaker made a joke about living in Ohio.
5. Real estate. It doesn't appreciate as much as a lot of areas, but it is still affordable and always steady.
4. Great towns like Chapel Hill, Pinehurst, and High Point are a short drive away.
3. Great place to raise a family. A recent Newsweek article cited several NC high schools in its list of the top 100 high schools in the US.
2. For aero geeks, this is the "first in flight" state (despite Ohio trying shamelessly to take credit). Kitty Hawk is just a few hours drive.
1. Cincinnati, come on…nuf said.

Summer business trip is over

I'm on a plane back to Raleigh. It was good seeing everyone again. The SDM experience would be significantly better if everyone was on campus together throughout the program. Many of the people in my cohort that I like the best are distance students. That said, I probably wouldn't have been able to join the program if they didn't offer the distance option (as is the case with many SDM students).

We had four events this week worth mentioning:

1. The keynote on Wednesday was given by Don Vandenberg from ITT Systems. ITT makes remote sensing systems that go into satellites to take high resolution space and earth photos. Not really my cup of tea, but it may have been of interest to some of the defense/aero students in attendance. I agree with Yoav on the ITT business model and its likelihood for failure (eventually). I wonder if ITT realizes it?

2. On Thursday, some folks from Right Management gave a presentation titled "Career Growth - Opportunities, Challenges & Resources". Eh, it was ok. They covered most of the basic stuff around career management that you can find in any book or website on the topic. I took some notes, but nothing worth posting.

3. We were supposed to have an outdoor barbeque on Wednesday, but guess what? Yes, this is Boston ladies in gentlemen and no outdoor activity is safe from the weather even during summer. After a beautiful day on Tuesday, it rained on Wednesday as if we should start preparing the ark. That means the barbeque was cancelled. Then it was moved to Thursday at the Summer Shack. Ilana and I took the T to the Alewife stop and the Summer Shack was a short walk away. (It was fun seeing Ilana again!) The food was good and the drinks were ok (I had wine). I met Kevin B's wife and two adorable kids. I also met Vineet's wife and darling little girl (maybe you can tell but I love kids). I met Sonny's (a fellow SDM'er) brother who just finished his JD from Harvard. Turns out he is going to be a patent attorney. We had a nice chat since I came this close to applying to law school before applying to SDM.

4. On Friday, Dan King spoke to us about Networking and Interviewing. Now one could argue that this material was very similar to what we had on Thursday, but I don't think you'll find anyone complaining because Dan was one of the best speakers we've had during our business trips. He was lively, entertaining, informative, and didn't mind dishing it out and having it dished back to him. I didn't take many notes during this session because he handed out a little notebook containing details of the preso. It is worth noting that Dan had an affinity for picking on Jeff. Those of us that know Jeff were eating this up because it is usually Jeff making the wisecracks.

Earlier in the week I got the chance to finally meet Matti's often blogged mate S. My camera phone is pretty crappy, but you can see a fuzzy picture of Matti, S, and Paul B from Ford here:


Earlier in the week I met up with my good friend Jason and his lovely wife Elana. Here is a picture of them and previously mentioned Jeff on the same subway ride:

4th of July

I made it in to Boston early enough last night to just catch the fireworks. July 4th is a big deal in Boston marked by a full day of concerts and capped with a huge fireworks display on the Charles River. I saw the fireworks show in NYC a few years ago and this was comparable (maybe even better -- I can't really remember). I watched the show from Kumar's apartment on Beacon St. which has a beautiful view of the Charles. It was good to see Kumar and Matti again and finally meet Matti's companion S.

Here is a decent picture of the fireworks taken with my crappy camera phone:

In this picture you can see the smiley face fireworks (upside down in the picture) which was a big hit with the crowd:

Business Trip Week (July)

This week is "business trip" week for the SDM program, which is a once-per-semester event where all current SDM students both remote and local are suppose to attend classes on campus. In addition, there are various activities and speakers planned. I was under the impression the business trip also included visits to local companies to explore various facets of how they operate, but that hasn't happened yet. It is a good chance to see everyone again and catch up. It has only been 2 months since I was last at MIT, but it seems like a lot longer. As always, I enjoy being on the MIT campus to soak up the environment.