The End of a Very Long Road Trip

When I drove my California-plated car onto the ferry to Martha's Vineyard for a short vacation before re-entering the workforce, the attendant looked at it and said, "This must be the end of a very long road trip." I paused for a second because it hadn't been a long day of driving, but then replied, "Sure is." In fact, the trip started in San Francisco during the summer of 2008 and two years later, it's finally ending. Those two years were more than I expected or probably even yet fully realize. So, I thought I'd sign off on my Johnson School blog with a round-up of my top five aspects of the Program:

• The Park Fellowship: I've mentioned the Park Fellowship before in this blog, and I'm highlighting it again because it was the heart and soul of my MBA experience. Blended with all the other exceptional aspects of the Johnson School program, the Park puts the Cornell MBA in a league of its own.
• Big Red Ventures (a.k.a. my job): Coursework, TA responsibilities, entrepreneurial endeavors and social time aside, BRV kept me profoundly busy and provided what was the deepest real-world experience that any MBA program could boast. We made two investments this year!
• The Private Equity Practicum: the PE Practicum was something new this year that was spearheaded by Steve Gal and Ahmad Ali from the Investment Office, and facilitated by yours truly and Ryan Cole as our Park project. For the first time ever, leaders in private equity from the likes of KKR, Hellman & Friedman and General Atlantic (among others) traveled to Ithaca to meet with Johnson School students in an intimate setting.
• Professor BenDaniel and Steve Gal: one of the best and most cherished aspects of the relatively small class is the meaningful relationships that students develop with professors. Such relationships have become rare in university settings as programs have expanded and professors' time has been stretched thin. If you happen to read this, thank you Prof BenDaniel and Steve for your teaching and support, and I look forward to staying in touch as my career unfolds.
• Psych class: This is the oddball on the list because it wasn't part of the Johnson School. My psych seminar on automaticity was a digression from the business school and more importantly from the (sometimes) narrow mindset of the MBA. Psychology is so fundamental to business and yet the science of it rarely impacts the MBA. Sure, we had a consumer behavior course and we touched on organizational psychology in the core, but MBAs aren't so much concerned with psychology itself as much as the anecdotal learnings they can borrow from it to use in corporate life. Stepping out of the business school to take a class in the psych department was a revelation and a respite. There's more to life than making a profit.

So those are my top five, and there are many many more, including this very blog. My goal in writing this throughout my two years was threefold: to promote the Johnson School through one, passionate point of view, to help prospective students learn about unique aspects of the School that don't translate into formal marketing collateral, and to fulfill my own intellectual curiosity and desire to write. I know I've at least accomplished the last of those.

I'm moving back to California to join a small, entrepreneurial company and my plan is to start a new blog that picks up where this one is leaving off. Check it out at corporateexistentialism.com.

Thanks for reading!

A Thought from Far Above Cayuga's Waters

Having experienced five graduation ceremonies in person (my brother's undergrad and grad, my cousin's undergrad and my undergrad and now grad), I feel as though I'm something of an expert on graduation speeches...or at least an adequate critic. In the end, they all fundamentally say three things: thank your family for the support that enabled this moment (thanks Mom, Dad, and Billy!), follow your dreams, and don't forget to stop and smell the roses from time to time. These things are all, of course, true, but the notion of following my dreams has always nagged at me.

I wouldn't be doing my semester long psych class justice if I didn't first try to understand the meaning of a dream. In the end, a dream probably breaks down into a collection of conscious and nonconscious goals that are far less concrete than we'd care to admit (creativity, prestige, affirmation, social acceptance, etc.). But what the dreams are is perhaps not as important as what it means to pursue them, and in the context of graduation speeches, this matter of process is always lost in the limelight. The speaker is invariably someone who has achieved great success either through true capability or some random twist of fate, and that success overshadows the gritty (or lucky) moments of how it was achieved.

Ultimately, we (MBAs) are not leaving this place far above Cayuga's waters to follow our dreams, but rather to roll up our sleeves. In the words of Bob Dylan "You do what you must do, and ya do it well." Hopefully, in the process, we will make our dreams. Then, we'll all look back and say to the bright-eyed, aspiring young grads of the day: "see how I followed my dreams--you should too."

I Heart Ketchup

If you've read my previous blogs, you already know that I grew up in Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh is many things for many different blogs, but for this particular blog, it's the home of Heinz ketchup. Heinz is one of those companies that helps define a city. Pittsburgh's (relatively) new football stadium is called Heinz Field, and the drive out of the city on Route 28 gives every commuter a glimpse of the Heinz plant, an unchanging, even reassuring aspect of the landscape. But perhaps more to the point, you won't find a restaurant in Pittsburgh that serves Hunts or any other brand aside from Heinz. Of course, that's true for most other places too.

Malcolm Gladwell has already done the unique stature and market leadership of Heinz ketchup justice in his New Yorker article "The Ketchup Conundrum," so there's no need to rehash it again here. But I will mention a couple of things that Heinz (and its impenetrable ketchup empire) has taught me as an MBA and an aspirating entrepreneur. First, most businesses cannot rely on intellectual property to protect their market positions, particularly in today's global economy, but Heinz has still managed to build a fortress around its product because no one can replicate it. Brand aside, the ketchup itself is difficult to copy because it requires incredibly precise controls on the key input: tomatoes. Gladwell points out: "tomatoes vary, in acidity and sweetness and the ratio of solids to liquid, according to the seed variety used, the time of year they are harvested, the soil in which they are grown, and the weather during the growing season." Couple that with protecting the recipe by trade secret, and the result is defensibility more insurmountable than any patent. Secondly, Gladwell points to a unique quality of ketchup. Ketchup is unique in its universality, unlike mustard and pasta sauce, which have many different types that appeal to many different people. In a world where mass customization is king--where you can design your own personal boots on Timberland.com, or create your iGoogle home page to suit your personality and tastes--the idea of one, universal product that is the optimal product for everyone is a powerful one.

Ketchup may be an extreme case, but surely there are other examples of products that transcend market segments and standalone without begging for line extensions. Make one and you'll be the envy of entrepreneurs and major corporations alike!

Peeps

Here I am--polishing off the last of the Easter basket my mom sent me in the mail and I can't help feeling nostalgic. Holidays are, of course, bastions of nostalgia, but there is one, small company that gets it better than others: Peeps--those all-American, bright yellow, sugary chicks. When I was a kid, I loved Peeps. They were cute and composed almost entirely of sugar. What's not to like? They were right up there with Pixy Sticks and those little wax bottles filled with syrup.

Actually, I don't really like Peeps anymore. My taste buds have evolved towards more sophisticated foods. And yet I can't imagine Easter without them, and I hope my mom never stops putting them in my basket. Someday, I hope to put them in my kids' baskets. What a great business! Consumers don't even have to like eating Peeps to love Peeps. To be sure, entire brands and even industries are built around nostalgia (even Coca Cola to a certain extent), so Peeps isn't exactly working a novel angle.

Still, Peeps is a unique brand and worth looking into. From the packaging I was directed to the Peeps website: www.marshmallowpeeps.com. There I learned about the history of the brand and the company behind it. (Peeps are brought to us by Just Born, "a family-owned candy manufacturer that has been in business for more than eight decades and three generations.") Headquartered in Bethlehem, PA, Just Born makes a handful of other well-loved candies like Mike and Ike's too.

In a world of consolidation and bloated public companies with ineffective boards, a successful small town, family-owned company like Just Born stands out. The company has connected with its customers and, even more to the point, its brands and products make them happy. I for one, had a very happy Easter. Thanks, Mom.

A Sentimental Victory

Just over a week ago, I joined four peers (three MBAs and a law student) to represent Cornell and compete in VCIC, the most prominent venture capital competition in the world. The competition is different from the myriad case competitions that target MBAs, because it focuses on real deals. We posed as VCs and analyzed real seed stage businesses, run by real entrepreneurs. We then chose one to invest in and negotiated a term sheet (OK, so the term sheet wasn't real). The event was a meaningful learning (and bonding) experience, and I don't even regret staying up two nights straight to complete the work.

In the end, our team took home the Entrepreneurs' Choice Award, meaning that the entrepreneurs chose us as the team that they would most like to work with, not only as an investor, but also a partner. There's an obvious tension herein in that VCs and entrepreneurs sit on opposite sides of the table and what's good for the entrepreneur isn't always good for the VC. But while VCs may choose to impose draconian terms in later stage investments to increase their upside and decrease their risk, in my opinion, that simply doesn't make sense at the seed stage. For one thing, at seed stage, no one has any earthly idea of what the value of the company actually is. Every investment is an act of faith and above all else that faith is in the entrepreneur. So disincentivizing the entrepreneur to do a good job is practically the worst thing a VC could do when making an investment.

Of course, I like taking Entrepreneurs' Choice just because, well, I aspire to be an entrepreneur.

A Brave New MBA

Venture capitalists, entrepreneurs, and other innovation-minded folks are always knocking the MBA. Some (ala Guy Kawasaki) say that an MBA is actually a mark against you. I disagree.

These naysayers seem to have forgotten that science and technology aren't the only products of innovation--education has changed too. Their illusion about MBAs is that we are a bunch of type-A, PowerPoint savvy, conformists, who all want jobs at McKinsey or Goldman, but would consider a startup only if no other offers come to pass. They hold fast to the archaic idea that all we do is sit around reading Harvard cases and "solving" business problems with Porter's Five Forces (well maybe that's what they do at Harvard).

Those notions just aren't true anymore. They may have been at one time and they may still be for some MBAs, but not as a matter of course. My MBA hasn't just been about learning how to innovate--even better, it's been about actually doing it. I've had the opportunity to manage a small venture capital fund, and in so doing I've assessed hundreds of business ideas, plans, and models. I've been able to share my writing again, through this blog, the Cornell Business Journal, and VentureViews (BRV's newsletter). I'm now working on my second business plan (the first one didn't pan out but the learnings were invaluable). I've studied the psychology of consumer behavior, which I will take to the next level this semester with a graduate psych course on automatic decision making. I've examined disruptive technologies under Don Greenberg. I've spent my summer at Novell working on a multi-million dollar strategic alliance. I could go on.

The point isn't that we don't read cases or learn the MBA staples (finance, accounting, economics, strategy...). We do that. But we do so much more, and I for one feel armed to innovate in ways that I couldn't have dreamed up before stepping within the walls of Sage Hall.

Hellos and Goodbyes

It's a fresh start, the beginning of a new semester, and yet in some ways I feel like I'm already saying goodbye. We're transitioning club leadership to the first years, picking what for most of us will be the last classes in our academic lives, and looking beyond business school to our future careers. I'm choosing my last semester's classes in an attempt to make sure I'm fully armed with the knowledge I need, while also satisfying my purest intellectual curiosity in a way that only academia can do.

While finalizing my class schedule online, I imagined the details of a course that I might design and teach at the Johnson School in some parallel universe where I was the professor and not the student. The course would be titled "The Business Novel" and it would survey works of fiction that reveal truths about corporations, markets, the economy, ethics, and generally all the human issues that affect business from Wall Street to Main Street. It seems to me that fiction has the ability to teach us those moral lessons that financial statements, press releases and even history cannot. Authors--good ones--somehow channel the sublime through their characters, and by studying them, we can find inspiration, a sense of fairness, even wisdom.

So what would be on the reading list? Atlas Shrugged would no doubt be the central work (I just read it for the first time over break and I was moved in a way that no excel spreadsheet could ever conjure). There'd be current works too. The Economist just profiled a new book called The Privileges, which is apparently the "morally ambiguous" tale of a fabulously wealthy private equity mogul. I haven't read it, but the subject matter certainly seems pertinent for MBAs who are about to be unleashed on the world to make bundles of money.

Parallel universes aside, I'm glad to be back and looking forward to my final semester at this very special place!

Break in the Burgh

I love Pittsburgh. I only spend a few weeks a year here over the holidays, but I carry it with me everywhere I go. Of course, my feelings for the Burgh are biased by the nostalgia that lingers from my youth, so it's hard to separate truth from fiction--what the city really offers from what it represents in my mind. In my mind, it's the place of my childhood--where I played wiffle ball in the front yard using a bush, a tree, and a lamppost as the three bases, where I frolicked in the leaves with my brother, where I went sledding until some lawn-obsessed neighbor demanded that we leave. It's where I played on three soccer teams at a time, where I ate countless home cooked meals prepared by my mom, and where my dad picked me up at the bus stop after school.

Of course, to other people, Pittsburgh is none of those things, although some may ring familiar. Over Christmas, my uncle mentioned a title that caught his eye in the book store: Pittsburgh: The Paris of Appalachia. We joked around a bit about what that actually means and my cousin suggested that maybe it referred to the City's fashion sensibility. I laughed with images of Steelers' jackets flashing through my mind. (Of course, with no clothing tax, Pittsburgh isn't such a bad place to be fashionable.) According to the author, that title is actually borrowed from some hipster's jab at the city. The fact that the author uses it is pretty awesome...like when Dagny mockingly names her brilliant rail the "John Galt Line" in Atlas Shrugged.

In any case, I don't see Pittsburgh as the Paris of anything. It's far too unique for those kinds of comparisons--in my case, far too personal.

Graham Who?

The cover story of this week's Economist posed a rather cheeky comparison between Obama and Graham Greene's Quiet American. Immediately, I had a profound urge to read Graham Greene...really, to read literature period. For most MBAs--business people generally, to be sure--an average reading list consists of the Wall Street Journal, The Economist, maybe BusinessWeek, plus a few industry specific publications that vary depending on the individual (TechCrunch or Wired if you're like me). That list is, of course, ominously void of literature. I have not once walked into the Atrium and seen an MBA devouring Kundera or Salinger or even Irving. In truth, I have never seen anyone reading a work of fiction, philosophy or historical non-fiction within the walls of Sage Hall. I too am among the guilty. I used to keep a copy of Thoreau's Walden on my bed stand, but only as a symbol strategically placed to preserve my sanity.

Last week Jane Hileman, CEO of American Reading Company, guest lectured in my Cases in Venture Financing class. A self-proclaimed literary activist, Jane is clearly immersed in a world of books that most business people cannot imagine. And it showed. She was graceful, a natural communicator, intellectual, soulful even. In sum, she seemed authentic in a way that every good business person should strive to be.

Winter break is just around the corner, and undoubtedly, there will be companies to research, networks to strengthen and countless news and business publications to consume. Nevertheless, I hereby vow to read something beautiful that has withstood the test of time, history and political meanderings--something that has meaning that is deeper than any corporation or bank, and as such will retain relevancy throughout the ages--something that is, at its very core, human.

Email is so 2000

I read somewhere that Warren Buffett likes to keep his schedule simple and it's been in the back of my mind all semester. I long for simplicity and focus, but the modern MBA pulls you in so many different directions.

So much of the communication, planning, calendaring, and collaboration happens on email that it's hard to remember that not-so-long-ago email was not a central part of education. In high school, our computer lab didn't even offer internet access. By the time I got to Stanford, we used T1 connections in our dorm rooms and libraries, because the campus hadn't yet gone wireless. We were using a good bit of email and instant messenger, of course, but it was not a fundamental component of education. And it was our generation that brought social networking into its own while we were undergrads.

But as surely as email is absolutely fundamental to the MBA, it's also a bit dated. It's entirely inefficient--linear, asynchronous, static. And in a world that's shifting from the personal processor to the "cloud," sending around attachments seems almost archaic.

Over the last couple weeks, I had the great pleasure of working with Novell's marketing organization on some of the messaging for its new collaboration platform--Pulse. It's like Google Wave, but truly made for the enterprise (and in fact, the products are interoperable). Google calls Wave "what email would look like if it was invented today." I agree and believe these are disruptive technologies that will render email obsolete in short order. And while older generations complain that these products promote information overload and find them distracting and overwhelming, younger generations already find email underwhelming. The Times, They Are A-Changin'.

On Fairness

In an MBA program, notions of fairness are hardly ever top of mind or ripe for discussion. Instead, we're always talking about competitive advantage, market domination, extracting value...winning. Also, business school is overrun with type-A individuals, who are predominately process oriented with concrete goals, which typically entail either looking good, getting ahead, or both. But what about fairness?

Ironically, the one class that I thought would be most focused on "winning" conjures the ideals of fairness more than any other--Negotiations. We spend our class time on live negotiations. So to say the least, the class is a meeting of egos. But the best negotiators aren't the ones with the biggest egos. They don't enter into a negotiation with the intent simply to be the winner at the expense of the loser. They are the ones who work hard to communicate, create value, mitigate risk for both sides, and innovate.

There is an art to negotiation, as with any human exchange, and when there is wiggle room that art can be the equivalent of millions of dollars. But in the end, a negotiation is truly worthwhile only if both sides win. Of course, it's always nice to win a little more.

And sometimes the only fair deal is no deal at all.

Beware of Sharks!

I don't currently have a TV, but I'm not one of those people that thinks TV is lowbrow or beneath me. I rather enjoy a good show. Particularly after a hard day's work, there is often nothing more relaxing, and being in-the-know about current TV can often play an important role in conversation (or social networking in MBA speak). Living sans roommates for the first time in my life, I'm too cheap to pay for cable, but fortunately hulu seems to offer just the right reprieve from real life.

Recently, Shark Tank, a new ABC reality series about entrepreneurship and venture capital has made its way to hulu and, as you might imagine, I figured it would be right up my alley. Most of the business ideas thus far have been horrifically bad, yet the "sharks" still invest because otherwise the show would be pretty boring.

If there is one reoccurring theme in the four episodes that have aired thus far, it's that entrepreneurs are fools. They are fools because they invest their life savings into two-bit ideas, fools because they utterly lack common sense about whether there is actually a market for their products, and fools because they value their companies on average about 10X higher than the investors.

The show is, of course, sensationalized. The sharks invest in businesses that no one would ever buy into in reality, and the show makes it appear that decisions are being made on the spot that clearly are not. But the notion that entrepreneurs are fools is an important message and I think there's truth in it. In some sense you have to be a fool to risk your livelihood on something where the odds are so poor. One in ten start-ups succeed. The only reason VCs play these odds is because their big scores offset all the losses (plus they have enough ego to believe they are good at choosing companies). But, for the individual, bootstrapping a company, these odds should be very very scary. And yet, this culture of big bets and big returns--this entrepreneurial spirit--is precisely what makes the U.S. so successful. To be sure, we should preserve it with our every last dollar.

Riptides

My Google status is slipping, so I guess the gods are telling me to blog more. I've promised to write more on my experiences at Novell, but I'm going to defer that for one more post to talk about another hat that I'm wearing this summer and throughout the school year.

As a BR Ventures fund manager, I get to focus my attention on two of our portfolio companies, one of which is Jodange. The investment decision to move forward with Jodange was made last Spring, but as most people know, a VC's job doesn't end with an investment. So, to the extent that Fund managers can successfully juggle full-time academics, summer internships, clubs and activities, as well as our comprehensive responsibilities for the Fund, we should and must work to promote the success of our portfolio companies. Of course, their success is our success, so I'm not talking about charity.

Jodange is an exciting company, technologically at the forefront of its field. The company's products are based on technology developed in Cornell's Computer Science Department under the direction of Dr. Claire Cardie. Larry Levy, the CEO, has a strong track record and all the right things VCs look for in a manger. And, the company already has substantive customer success, which speaks for itself.

BR Ventures believes that Jodange is positioned for big things (hence the investment), but that's not to say there aren't mountains to climb en route. For any company in today's economy, cash is king, but start-ups have a unique relationship with cash. By that I mean, they must do more than everyone else with far less than everyone else, with burn rates constantly pulling them out and under like dangerous riptides. I've read articles like this one on how down economies are good for first-rate start-ups. To be honest, I think that's seeing the world through rose colored glasses.

Yet, some start-ups will persevere and Jodange is at the top of my list.

p.s. I'm writing this post on a ferry headed from the Cape to MV. Lucky me.

So Much to Say

Ironically, I think the main reason that I haven't blogged much this is summer is that there are so many things to blog about, I couldn't settle on what to write. Novell (NOVL) has proven to not only offer what I have to imagine is one of the strongest MBA intern programs in the industry (i.e. access to and events with the entire senior executive team, projects that sit at the heart of the core business, social outings, not to mention recognition for hard work and delivery), but also to be a great choice for me personally.

The question of how to market and sell open source software is profoundly interesting, and perhaps what drew me to the company in the first place (in addition to the unbelievably capable team). I was at one time perplexed by how Novell could recruit and retain such talent, when so many other companies struggle to nurture the human capital that their very success is contingent upon. But as I've gotten more intimately involved with the operations of the company, I must say, I get it.

Novell is a company at a cross roads, facing unique and complex challenges. It is a company ripe with opportunity that has the maturity, resources, and alliances to take advantage of that opportunity. This sets it apart both from large, public companies that lack agility and the ability to innovate, as well as small private companies that lack resources, relationships, patent portfolios, breadth and depth.

I intend to write more later on what I've learned--specifically through my role in Alliance Marketing and generally on what I have found to be a top notch marketing organization. I also hope to offer my two cents on how this all fits with my MBA at the Johnson School, in regards to areas of strength and opportunities for improvement. But those are separate blogs for another day.

On the Road

People are always asking me, "What do you do for fun?" Whether it's a peer making small talk or a recruiter trying to figure out the person behind the resume, the fascination with what we do outside the office (or the school) is universal.

One of my great loves is taking the all-American road trip. To be sure, folks from other countries also take road trips--Parisians drive to the French countryside, for example. But long, meaningful road trips are a quintessential part of Americana. The US has such beautiful and vast expanses and so many places to go.

In California, my friends and I were on the road frequently. We went to Tahoe, Yosemite, and occasionally headed south to Santa Barbara. I never drove north to Portland and Seattle, but I should have.

My restless soul finds peace on these trips in a way that I've never felt in foreign lands and in and out of airports. So, in the spirit of Sal and Dean from On the Road, traveling back and forth across the country, going nowhere and everywhere at the same time, I hit the road after my last final exam. After a week in New York City, I returned to Ithaca to pile up my car and head towards New England.

After a detour to a town called Colonie, New York, thanks to a bad case of engine sludge, I headed east through Vermont on 9 (the scenic route) and then onwards to New Hampshire to a picturesque lake house. From there, I headed back to Colonie to pick up my Saab, newly unclogged and running quite well. I retraced the highways back to New England, this time headed for the Cape, and concluded my trip via ferry to Martha's Vineyard.

Tomorrow I'm headed to Boston, where my new cubicle awaits me at Novell. And with this one last short trip, the halcyon days of road trips to the homes of my family and friends will come to a close.

One Down

Though I can't officially call myself a second year yet, I'm no longer a first year either. As I turned in my last final exam and hurried down to CTB for a delicious bagel, I could not help but feel a sense of satisfaction. I now know what WACC is, that all the important stuff in a financial statement is buried in the notes, and that higher leverage can make for a better return or a quicker demise.

Springtime finally found Ithaca on the map, and I hope that with it, I'll find a week or two of rest and reflection. One thing that I don't need to think twice about is my affection for the Johnson School. It's not something I say lightly--I love this place and here are a few things I love most, in no particular order:

• Walking over a gorge to get to class
  
• The Park program
  
• The blueberry beer at Chappy's
  
• The responsibility of managing a venture capital fund
  
• College Town Bagels (mentioned twice in one blog!)
  
• Ladies' brunches
  
• Misplaced, yet hilarious CBJ articles
  
• A handful of close friends (I won't name names--you know who you are)
  

To avoid a totally sappy, sentimental blog, I will say that there are a few things I didn't like as well. I could've done with one less Excel model and one less mention of social networking. I also wish business schools would take the social sciences more seriously and approach them with more academic rigor. There is an inevitable tension between professional education and academic learning, and I don't believe any business program has adequately addressed it. Certainly, as an undergrad studying religion and philosophy, I was encouraged to think on a level that business school does not demand. And yet, I feel like I know so many new things. Suddenly the Wall Street Journal makes sense.

To all the second years who took the time to get to know me, mentor me, and challenge me with new ideas, best of luck! May our generation of business leaders change things.

Fortuna

Cornell's annual Entrepreneurship Celebration took place this week, giving students and alumni alike the opportunity to see some of the magic and creativity that is lurking below the surface of the University. BR Ventures hosted the Cornell Venture Challenge, a business plan competition judged by VCs and industry experts. As a new manager of the fund, I got to sit with the judges as they deliberated and see firsthand the art that goes into selecting a promising business.

I say "art" because there was nothing scientific about the process. Five smart guys sat across the table from each other, bounced around their thoughts, critiqued, criticized, complimented and chose winners and losers, taking themselves and their jobs very seriously, but making sure to crack a few jokes along the way. And in a nutshell, that's what VCs do--sure there's due diligence and expert advice, valuation, etc. but it's all highly subjective and at the end of the day, the only true authority is hindsight. The truth is that if venture capital were a science, than the good scientists would be very very rich and there would be no bad VCs left to lose.

I'm currently taking a course on valuations and the looming theme that Professor Weinbaum stated upfront is that valuations can be (and are) molded to arrive at almost any desired outcome. In effect, an "artist" can decide on the value a priori and then use a valuation to provide proof of its veracity. Someone with even an amateur (undergraduate) background in philosophy such as myself has got to laugh at this methodology. Descartes would undoubtedly get a kick out of valuations.

If it all seems pointless and futile--if VC seems like little more than a crap shoot--then business itself might be reduced to a mere game of poker, where strategy and observation play a role, but luck deals the cards. I think that luck is more relevant than most of us would like to believe, but at the end of the day, our very human skills of perception, negotiation, understanding and interconnectedness--in fact, our feelings--serve to elevate gambling into good business, if only we have the experience to back them up.

Congratulations to all the finalists and Bombyx, the winner of the Cornell Venture Challenge. And good luck!

Rock N' Roll

First of all, the book I've been touting for weeks is now available. Buy it here. You'll love it.

Last night I did something that I've never done before in Ithaca. I attended a phenomenal rock concert. As you might imagine, Ithaca isn't exactly a haven for popular musicians (although it's artistic spirit does lend itself to local bands). For some unearthly reason, Josh Ritter hopped on his tour bus and traveled to Ithaca to play a show. In truth, he played a half a show--the other half was played by a British alternative band called Gomez. Fortunately for me, Josh played first, because I left after a few songs of Gomez' act.

Josh Ritter is brilliant. He's a poet and he writes about all the right things, like Van Morrison in his heyday. I think he too was surprised to find himself in Ithaca. He kept saying "why haven't I been here before?" I'm pretty sure I know why, but it was nice of him to say he'd come back. The show was supposed to be at State Theatre, a beautiful large theater with an orchestra and a balcony, but was moved to a place called the Haunt. I'd never been to the Haunt, but it was a very cool venue, which I'll definitely go back to. Ultimately, I was glad to see the show there. It was far more intimate than it would have otherwise been and I prefer concerts where people are standing (and drinking) and involved, over concerts where people are sitting. The symphony is for sitting; rock is for standing (and ideally, dancing). The disconcerting thing about the last minute change of venues is that I can only guess it was because they simply didn't sell enough tickets and State Theatre would have felt empty. If colleges are supposed to have the pulse on great music--and not just music with mass popular following--but great, less known, more talented artists, then Cornell (and Ithaca College) seems to have dropped the ball.

My suggestion is that it picks the ball back up, and as much as I hate to admit it, the undergrads have to lead the charge. MBAs are getting too old. And Jackie Greene, if you are reading this, please come to Ithaca and play a show!

What's Up, SEC?

The release date of my dad's book is just around the corner. The book's content very much applies to my current studies here at the Johnson School, and the intersection of its release and my life is, at the very least, well-timed.

I'm taking a course this semester called "Ethics and Corporate Culture," which is co-taught between the Business School and the Law School. Interestingly, ethics is a topic that law schools teach more effusively than business schools, although I doubt anyone could come up with a correlation to the ethical standards among graduates. In fact, when lawyers or business people do very bad things, most schools seem to simply throw up their hands, putting the distance of time between themselves and the perpetrators.

My dad's book The King Rat and His Court: Lessons in Corporate Greed, doesn't let anyone off the hook, except the honest, hardworking employee and shareholder. In addition to exposing the rats, the book calls to mind many of the inherent contradictions that MBAs and law students alike must grapple with in today's corporate milieu. Here are a few that are on my mind:

• Free market capitalism is highly effective, but only coupled with integrity, respect for others, and a sense that actions, and risks, have consequences. As our finance professor used to say over and over, "there is no free lunch"...to be sure, if there is, then the free market is broken.
• While profit seeking and greed have very different connotations, they are almost certainly shackled together, and the rare individual holds the key to separate them. All MBAs seek profits, for themselves, their firms, and the various stakeholders in their lives, but are all MBAs greedy?
• Finally, if business is all about arbitrage--or more generally, finding and creating new opportunities for profit--then surely business is about shifting the market away from equilibrium, giving one player or a group of players an advantage, or taking from one to feed another. Thus, businesses engage in price gouging, monopolizing, lobbying, and strangling the competition. What's up, SEC?

Hopefully my dad's book will put some of these issues to rest...or at least spark more questions. I'll be sure to let you know when it's available on Amazon.

BOOM shakalaka

Earlier this week I attended BOOM (Bits on our Minds), the Computing and Information Science Department's showcase of undergraduate technologies. Once I got over the fact that undergrad engineers look about 12 years old, I began talking to some of them about their creations. I saw robots, and 3D printers for food, green technologies, and of course, video games.

There was one aspect of the afternoon that stood out: it is really really fun to see things, and by things, I mean inventions. Even if the inventions are totally purposeless and will never meet the hands of a consumer, they represent progress, evolution, and to borrow a cast aside ideology from the Obama campaign--hope.

That business people often do not interact with things is odd. We interact with money, markets, customers, partners, debt, and equity, but we are not inventors and many of us have never built anything ourselves.

The truth is that making things is therapeutic. So, put away your yoga matt, fire your psychologist, and go make something, write something, or play a song on the piano. Those young, idealistic undergrads may well have a thing or two to teach us after all.

Coming Up for Air

There is a myth circulating the Johnson School that the first semester is the hardest, but I'm sitting here wondering what exactly folks mean when they say hard. First semester classes were challenging to be sure, but we were on a highly regulated schedule that ensured classes, assignments, and exams were coordinated such that the burden wasn't too much to bear.

This half semester has been a wholly different story. My class schedule extended into almost every weekend, such that 6 days a week, the light coming through the ceiling of the Atrium was the only light I saw. But classes were just the beginning...add in clubs, BRV, interviews for summer internships, associated travel, various entrepreneurial activities, and, oh yes, Thursday night bowling, and the result has been very little sleep and the inability to prioritize the things that are most important, like calling my mom and dad and my equally busy brother. I try to keep perspective and allocate time accordingly, but of late, I've even begun to neglect this, my beloved blog (and by beloved, I mean that I take great pleasure in writing it).

Clint Sidle, the leadership guru at the Johnson School, once told me very simply that all-too-often people sideline themselves. They look externally, recognize life is difficult, find particular industries impenetrable, companies too competitive, risks too great, or activities too time consuming or mentally strenuous. So, they simply bow out. They sit on the sideline and watch the team play. They take a job at their third or fourth choice company or even industry. They take the wrong immersion or the wrong classes or they don't throw their hat into the ring for an elected position.

The problem herein is that the individuals who get the big jobs or start the cool companies or become elected officials are often not the best people for those jobs--they are not the most ethical or passionate or intelligent, they simply have the biggest egos or they've got nothing to lose or they are shameless. Of course, one has to be a realist too, right?

Like everything, it depends on individual circumstances, but in the end, I believe that being a bit unrealistic--building that castle in the clouds--is the way to go. And as long as my family remains the most important thing to me, I think I'll be just fine.

Valentines and Butterflies

For the first half of the year, the walls of Sage Hall were impenetrable. The world outside virtually didn't exist, and conversations revolved almost exclusively around core classes and impending job searches.

Times have changed. The Immersion program, although segregating, has enabled a certain depth of knowledge and practical experience. But there's more. I've begun exploring some of the research produced by the truly great minds of the Cornell community--the engineers.

Let's face it, business is just a tool--a mechanism to bring products to market and keep capital in the system. It's not magic, though it can be highly creative. The real innovation happens well before commerce is even relevant. The amazing thing about Cornell is that the University manages to produce some of the greatest science and technology in the world, in a wholly unpretentious way. CCTEC, the University's technology transfer office, opens its arms to MBAs, professors are supportive, and engineers are willing and excited to share their research. In a world where doors are constantly closed on young entrepreneurs and where individuals sideline themselves all-too-often, this dynamic is truly breathtaking.

When we were little kids we used to decorate shoe boxes and make cute valentines out of doilies for all the other kids in our class. A couple decades later, this kind of trade has changed slightly, but the spirit remains the same. When I learn about an exciting technology, I literally get butterflies. And then there is the unritualized, awkward process of putting myself out there, making sure there's chemistry, and finding a common goal. Truth be told, sometimes you get a valentine back and sometimes you don't. Regardless, the process is heartening.

Here we go Steelers!

I'm not a huge sports fan, but I do know all the rules, have some knowledge of the players, and enjoy the big games (thanks to my dad and brother). The Steelers have made it to the Super Bowl once again, and they are undeniably a very special franchise.

Take for example, the number of Steelers' bars outside of Pittsburgh--3000 miles away in San Francisco, there are at least two, and they are packed, body to body, for every game. Pittsburghers love their team and their players, but even people who have no association with the city have sentimental feelings towards the Steelers.

The keen eye of an MBA student should notice that this is more than just a beloved sports team...it's an incredible business proposition. If management, employees, shareholders, and towns were as devoted to their companies as they are to their sports teams, they would crush the competition every time.

One of the things my dad writes about in his book (which will be available soon) is that fragmented ownership can be disastrous for a company. In other words, managers must be accountable to someone who has access to information and has the best interest of the company at heart. Over the years, the Steelers have had the kind of devoted ownership that has served the team and the community. The owners instilled a sense of dedication that has inspired coaches, players and fans alike. Even the fickle media loves the Steelers.

In a horrendous economy, Dan Rooney and his son, Art, negotiated a deal to bring on new investors that would enable the family to maintain ownership of the Steelers. At a time when other owners would have sold out, the Rooney's seemed to understand the meaning of devoted ownership. In Pittsburgh, after all, football is not just a game; it's a way of life.

Turning a Corner

Ethics is a far more subtle phenomenon than most people would like to think. We tend to compartmentalize our world and in doing so, we regard leaders as clearly ethical or obviously unethical. In hindsight, we always point to overt ethical missteps and say, "how did the SEC miss that?" or "why didn't someone blow the whistle?" But the reality is that most ethical issues aren't grand or seemingly significant enough for individuals to pause and consider them.

We are lumbering through on-campus interviews for summer internships this month, and one common behavioral question is "Tell me about a time you faced an unethical situation." I don't know what other people say when they get this question, but I imagine many are hard-pressed to think of a situation they are comfortable talking about, if they can think of anything at all. This, I would argue, is because overtly unethical (and usually illegal) activity, even though perpetrated by someone else, is highly embarrassing and difficult to talk about in an interview, and subtle unethical behavior, the kind we are surrounded by, day in and day out, often goes entirely without notice.

For instance, slacking off is unethical--when an individual doesn't pull his or her weight, someone else has to fill in the gap or the business suffers. This is true of team projects here at business school and it's certainly true in the real world. Start-ups have very little tolerance for poor performers, and one or two really bad apples can lead to the dissolution of the entire firm.

Last week in my Entrepreneurship and Private Equity class, we discussed the management and organization of high-growth businesses. One feature of the CEO's position that Professor BenDaniel astutely pointed out is that the CEO is the role model to which every employee responds. People come into the office based on when the CEO comes in, they limit expenses during travel based on the CEO's example, and they even treat their colleagues with a similar degree of kindness and respect as the CEO exhibits towards them. What is so remarkable about this phenomenon is that individuals aren't inherently ethical or unethical--they are inherently malleable.

For the most part, no one is even conscious of how they are being influenced or whether their behavior is ethical. In the beautiful words of C.S. Lewis: "The moment of his consent almost escaped his notice; certainly, there was no struggle, no sense of turning a corner. There may have been a time in the world's history when such moments fully revealed their gravity...But for him, it all slipped past in a chatter of laughter, of that intimate laughter among fellow professionals, which of all earthly powers is strongest to make men do very bad things before they are yet, individually, very bad men," [That Hideous Strength].

The Other Side of the Table

From the moment I stepped into the real world, I began to develop a profound interest in making, marketing, and selling products. And as I try to decipher a career path in the bombarding cloud of finance, consulting, marketing and general management opportunities presented to MBAs, I realize more and more that products--real, discrete, tangible, usable, products--are what matter most to me.

Yesterday, two of my peers and I headed to the lab of a local start-up to evaluate the company for Big Red Ventures, the Johnson School's student-run venture fund. Meeting with the entrepreneurs and seeing the technology first hand went a long way in demonstrating what the company is all about--something that words and numbers on paper really can't do. One of the most interesting aspects of the experience for me was seeing what it's like to sit on the other side of the table. For once, I was the one evaluating the company from the outside, looking in. The product was not mine to market or to sell, but only to touch and feel (and consider for funding).

I can see why so many people want to be venture capitalists--ostensibly it's a pretty sexy job and there's a great deal of power in it. The venture capitalist is the gatekeeper of new technologies, particularly the capital intensive ones. As a country, we hope our VCs are on the ball, lest another country fund better projects and steal our innovative edge right out from under us.

I think that on the whole people believe that the great products and inventions will somehow find a way to the market, in spite of the system, but that is far too optimistic. Great technologies are born and die all the time because they can't reach their markets--either because the capital isn't in place to get them there, or because the people that created them simply don't have the wherewithal to market them adequately.

In part, I guess that's my entrepreneurial aspiration--to make sure that the products I believe in get a fair shot at the market that would want them and need them, if only it knew of their existence, had easy access to them, and trusted in their longevity.

My Kind of Town

Love of a city is a special kind of love. For some, it can be as powerful as love for another human being. People long for their cities when they are separated for too long; they reminisce about their cities when they are in other cities; and they gloat about them, as if they are proud parents.

I spent the past week in Chicago with four of my friends from the Johnson School. We picked Chicago as our destination almost at random--our only criterion was to be in an exciting place, where hot spots and history abound. I also had the good fortune of seeing my two best friends from high school, who live there now, and they showed us some of the magic of their city.

As MBAs, most people have two main questions lingering in their minds with everything they do: what company do I want to work for; and where is that company located. Some of us are driven by the need to try someplace new--to keep ramblin' on. Others seek their hometowns and proximity to family and friends. Most of us, given the flexibility, will ultimately follow the job of our dreams to whatever promised land it forces upon us. Lucky for us, it's far easier to fall in love with a city than with a person. Cities take us in, accommodate us with restaurants and nightlife, relax us with bookstores and coffee shops, fuel our minds with history, music, and art--and they all do it so well and so differently.

We had so much fun in Chicago and it's hard to say whether it was because of Chicago--jazz at the Green Mill, watching the Bulls lose, improv in Wrigleyville, limitless sushi, the list goes on--or because of the people I was there with. My guess is a bit of both, but mostly the people.

Rest, Rats, and Publishing

Winter break is a fantastic phenomenon that I had almost forgotten. I cherish these days off because I recognize just how rare they are. It seems that only students and Europeans know what it means to take a month off at a time.

It's a time to rest, but it's also a time to take on projects outside the walls of the school. So, I've put on my publicity hat and begun to help my dad with his first book. The (dying) publishing industry has long been an interest of mine, although I've never formally worked in it. The old guard is unquestionably on its way out, and while on-demand publishing leaves much to be desired, we are on the brink of a meaningful change in the way books are publicized and distributed.

Consumers now have a voice (beyond simple purchasing power) and it's not much of a stretch to ask why a high-profile reviewer at the New York Times or WSJ is necessarily more capable of writing a sound critique than some of the most prolific reviewers on Amazon.com.

But reviewers and publishers alike need to protect their interests and with some degree of success they have created barriers by simply closing their networks. Reviewers won't even look at a book unless it's from a major publishing company. In turn, publishing companies won't look a book unless it's from a specific sub-set of agents. And, increasingly, the only relevant question that an agent or publisher asks is "what's your platform?" not "how good is your book?" There's nothing overtly unethical about this paradigm, but just consider all the good literature that you, our culture and our world are missing out on because of it.

Aptly, my dad's book, which I will blog more about later, is about business ethics. Specifically, the book addresses the rat-like behavior that greed creates and corporate structures endorse. It's no doubt timely, with Madoff representing merely the latest, high-profile example of business gone awry.

Our challenge will be to break down those traditional barriers that publishers have created, or of course, given the opportunity, to sign on with one of them. After all, it's just business.

On the Synergies of Minds

First semester came to a close on Monday with a capstone experience known to the Johnson School as the integrative case. The case gave us a 48 hour opportunity to utilize some of the knowledge we gained in Strategy and Finance to conduct a valuation of MGM Mirage and make some strategic recommendations.

A few of the teams recommended that MGM sell properties in Vegas to improve liquidity, and by a most timely twist of fate, MGM announced the sale of Treasure Island on the morning of our presentations. This was a welcome dose of reality to be sure. All-too-often cases seem like such retrospective snoozefests (particularly the older cases), where we solve for an answer that has already played itself out. There's no imagination in it, no entrepreneurial insight. But this case was different, and although it wasn't without pain, the experience was a valuable one.

Beyond the merits of the exercise itself, the case once again reminded me of the nature of the people that the Johnson School attracts. Thus far, I've worked with three different, randomly assigned groups for various projects throughout the core. Each of the groups, in its own way, provided a distinctly positive experience. The group assignments gave us the opportunity to work with people who would have not come together otherwise, and it never ceased to amaze me how truly rewarding such forced collaboration could be.

Group work does take longer than individual work--the coordination of five minds is not always an easy task--but the product is well worth it. And there's nothing quite like burning the midnight oil to establish enduring friendships. So, if you happen to be reading this, deep thanks to Kelly, Lailee, Dan, Ryan, Bruce, Matt, Melissa, Mark, Ben, Dave, and Karey...you all made group work a true pleasure this semester!

Perspective.

Here I am in the midst of final exams (one down, two to go), and I can't help thinking about what the great thinkers of the ages would say about the corporate world and this special degree we call an MBA...

One thing is for certain--my studies thus far at the Johnson School, particularly in Economics, Finance, and Statistics, have expanded my mind in particularly salient ways. These are subjects that I now can't imagine knowing nothing of, while still understanding our modern world.

I'd wager that most of my favorite philosophers would approve of these subjects that are so fundamental to the MBA, but I'd be hard pressed to find one that would fully endorse today's corporate milieu. Thoreau had some powerful ideas about "work" and he, more than anyone, would point out flaws in the system. Ironically, Thoreau would have made a great business person--truly a great entrepreneur--both because he was adept at just about everything he did, but also because he understood how to see past the unnecessary, often self-imposed, structures that we so blindly adhere to.

That I continually hearken back to the words of a man who spent two years in relative solitude by a pond and refused to pay taxes is ironic. Still, his ideas ground my studies here with a unique perspective and I hope that nostalgia forces me to never lose sight of them, even as I wade, knee-deep, in rules, regulations, and pesky exams.

Here's one of the many intensely relevant things he said: "...if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live a life which he has imagined, he will meet with success unexpected in common hours. He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal, and more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves around and within him; or the old laws be expanded, and interpreted in his favor in a more liberal sense, and he will live with the license of a higher order of beings."

Cheers to all my classmates who took the Finance final with me today. May we all beat the mean ;-).

Cows, Barns, and Good Business

For the first half of the semester I helped out the admissions office by giving information sessions to prospective students. One of the questions that came up more than most was "how do you like Ithaca?", and on my drive out of town for Thanksgiving I realized I should address the question here.

When I first considered applying to business school, I looked predominately at city schools. I distinctly remember the Columbia information session in the Bay Area because 75% of the talk was about all that NYC has to offer. It seemed odd to me at the time because they were giving the presentation to a bunch of tech nerds who were probably far more inclined to believe that Silicon Valley is the center of the universe. Regardless, the point is that a school's location is a pretty important factor in many people's decisions about where to apply.

Last year around this time (in fact, just before the Christmas holiday) I made the long haul from San Francisco to Ithaca for my admissions interview. The experience was transcendental--I knew almost immediately that Cornell was where I belonged. I also understood this to be somewhat ironic because I had been so set on an urban location previously.

Ithaca (and upstate New York more generally) is a strikingly beautiful place. It's almost cliche to point out, as evidenced by the ubiquitous "Ithaca is Gorges" slogan, but sometimes ideas are cliche because they are so true. I've seen quite a bit of this country--I've driven across it twice--and there's no shortage of beautiful spots. Arches National Park in Southern Utah is spectacular and Yosemite is just short of Eden. But Upstate New York has a beauty all its own. My favorite part of the drive to and from Cornell is the view of some of the most picturesque farms you can imagine. The cows and old barns are the stuff of paintings and it's not hard to see why there are so many artists around.

Beauty aside, Cornell's location creates an intimacy at the Johnson School that no city school could ever rival. Upon graduation, we'll all have the opportunity to spend the rest of our lives fighting urban crowds, clawing through corporate bureaucracies, and establishing networks amongst strangers. For now, Ithaca is a respite and I can already see that it's one that never really breaks down. The Johnson School community in diaspora seems to take care of its own pretty well around the world. And believe it or not, there's a contingent that just can't leave Ithaca behind. A few weeks ago I spoke with a CEO and former Johnson School MBA who moved his start-up back to Ithaca, because he felt it was the best place to incubate a small company. I'd be willing to bet that the managers of some of the start-ups out in the Valley who are trying to justify exorbitant office leases in a tough economy might be inclined to agree with him right about now.

Reality Check

If there's one stereotype that's true about MBAs, it's that they take themselves too seriously. Sometimes it's a good thing--taking one's self seriously can lead to higher productivity, stronger drive, and a general hunger for success. Other times, it can show a lack of perspective.

The financial crisis demonstrated that the many MBAs on Wall Street ought not take themselves so seriously, as their world crumbled before them, both because of them and in spite of them. Entrepreneurs today face ongoing reality checks in the form of failures, but there was a time (during the dot-com bubble) when they were guilty too. Not only did they take themselves too seriously, but they felt they were entitled to do so.

For me, Frozen Assets, the women's ice hockey team here at the Johnson School, is a weekly reminder to laugh at myself and with my colleagues, and to find some perspective in my MBA experience. We fall on our butts; we skate in slow motion; we whiff; and we fall again. In the end, we have fun. Women's ice hockey doesn't allow checking, but let's be honest, sometimes the inability to stop results not only in a hard check, but also in a reality check.

There's a special camaraderie that comes with playing on a team--whether competitive or not--that cannot be reproduced in other areas of life. I'm not a psychologist, but I think it has something to do with the physicality of it...the blood, sweat, and tears, so to speak. Next week (Nov. 23rd at 3.45pm), we play the Johnson School faculty. I'm not sure who's going to step up to this annual challenge, and I hear a certain, well-known finance professor is chickening out this year. In any case, I think the game will be a great success...assuming everyone leaves with teeth intact.

33% Cotton, 33% Recycled Plastic, 34% Genius

Thanks to the cajoling of some of my best friends, I'm working on a MSFT case competition this weekend. You can read more about it here: http://blogs.msdn.com/firenze/. Teams participating from the Johnson School were asked to address a case surrounding environmental sustainability for the enterprise--a pretty lofty topic.

Through an entrepreneurial lens, the most interesting aspect of this topic is undoubtedly new product design, product line extension, and product augmentation. The arena of sustainability is no longer concerned simply with overlaying eco-friendly ideas atop pre-existing business models; it's about developing new business models to take advantage of opportunities created by awareness of issues surrounding sustainability.

Did you know, for example, that Coke is making apparel out of recycled bottles? Apparently, it's a 15 million dollar business. Check out the case study here: http://www.thecoca-colacompany.com/citizenship/products_case_studies.html. Hats off to the team of innovators that decided it would be a good idea for Coke to make clothes out of plastic bottles--the idea would have never crossed my mind. The point herein is not that this initiative is the absolute best thing that Coke could be doing for society. Rather, the point is that Coke is making money off a hot trend, which, in the end, is doing more good than harm to our world.

Start-ups abound that focus on sustainability on much deeper levels, from organic food to clean technology, but the opportunity for innovation and profit is far more ubiquitous. Ask Coke.

What Grows on a Decision Tree?

I just finished a stats assignment using decision trees, so I'm going to devote this blog to statistics. Stats is interesting to me because it's a science of uncertainty. It's not trying to prove one thing or another, it's simply trying to say something about those things. In that way, it's unpretentious.

I have to admit--there's something therapeutic about making a decision tree. You can lay out a problem on a piece of paper and break it down into the root probabilities and then fold back the tree and presto-chango, you have a decision. No one can really claim that it's definitely the right decision, the profitable one, the ethical one, or the strategic one...but at least you know that probabilistically, the odds are in your favor. Of course, the probabilities that you start out with have to be reasonably accurate or else you're dealing with fallacies and your tree isn't worth the paper it's scribbled on.

Business people, namely CEOs, are always talking about "going with their guts." They seem to go with their guts far more than they should, and it often gets them into trouble. The main problem is that we all have natural biases, no matter how many times we tell ourselves that we are objective. CEOs, investment bankers, et al. want to make money and they want to make as much money as they can as soon as they can, so they get bigger bonuses. "Going with their guts" necessarily coincides with this reality, whether they are conscious of it or not. Instead, they could be sitting in their corner offices jotting down probability trees, using realistic probabilities, vetted by unbiased market research. Then, they could fold back their trees and make decisions that are actually good for the firm, the employees, the stockholders, etc.

I think these special trees will come in handy down the road for me and many of my peers.

I'll have a Tall Glass of Milk with That

Earlier this week I attended a small round-table discussion with Jim Farrell, the founder of F'Real (www.freal.com), and a handful of my classmates in the Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital club. I hadn't planned on attending at first because F'Real sells milkshakes and it wasn't obvious how the company and its challenges were immediately relevant to my career. Lucky for me, there was a spot open at the last minute and I took advantage of the opportunity. Here are a few reasons why the conversation was immensely relevant:

1. Amidst all the hype of the financial crisis--all the talk of greed, recklessness and misuse of government (tax payer) bailout funds--Jim Farrell and his company were a breath of fresh air. For one thing, there are few products that incite such joy and nostalgia as the all-American milkshake. Second, Jim is a true, pure entrepreneur. This wasn't a conversation about business plans and venture funding. Rather it was about an individual believing in a product so sincerely that he was willing to take a leap of faith to create something with his own personal well-being on the line.

2. I've always believed that entrepreneurship is the most elevated form of ethics and this discussion reinforced that belief. Let me explain: MBAs, professionals and academics commonly talk about ethics in terms of what is unethical. They try to decipher unethical behavior and figure out ways to curtail it. This is fine and reasonable, but it's baseline. A more powerful approach is to understand ethical behavior in the positive. It can be subtle. For instance, with his dinner, Jim ordered a glass of milk. I absolutely loved this--a manager of a milkshake company that orders milk for dinner is poetic. As an aside, my dad once told me that he sat by Famous Amos on an airplane and for the entire trip, from takeoff to landing, the guy snacked on his own cookies. It seems to me that a manager who loves his product so completely could not help but be ethical. Ethical behavior can also be overt and it usually surprises people. Jim discussed F'Real's relationships with its dairy suppliers and the loyalties that existed even when F'Real began to outgrow the volume capabilities of some of these dairies. I won't go into the details, but it was touching. Further, entrepreneurship is inherently ethical because it is creative and progressive. By their very nature, entrepreneurs seek to make people's lives better, by offering better products, by creating new jobs, and ultimately by invigorating the economy.

3. Finally, technology and innovation are key to F'Real. The company has several patents, and it uses a special, high tech blender, and an innovative process. Again, details aside, suffice it to say that F'Real has a simple product that leverages a deep technological and process-oriented insight. All-too-often tech-focused entrepreneurs and venture capitalists are snobs about high technology--they glorify areas such as nanotechnology and artificial intelligence--but oftentimes the most productive, profitable technologies are far more grounded and intuitive.

Are you Analytical?

It's the one question I remember from my Johnson School admissions interview because it's the one question I didn't know how to answer. For me, it was like someone asking "are you nice?" or "are you a fan of Bob Dylan?"...and then pressing me to prove it. My answer was "yes," but I stumbled when I had to explain why I categorized myself as such.

Even though I highly doubt the question would be posed to an engineer, I imagine that if it was, she would just point to her undergraduate transcript, list several quant classes and put it to bed. In retrospect, I could've probably pointed to my transcript as well, emphasizing the fact that the great philosophers were masters of analytics and arguing that philosophy represents the more complex, natural extension of mathematics, engineering, and systems in general. It didn't occur to me at the time.

Now that I've officially finished one half of the core, I'd like to take another stab at the question:

The deepest, most versatile analytical ability comes not from the ability to work with numbers (although that can be important) but from the ability to problem solve. For that reason, the "ability to think" and the ability to solve problems is the very essence of the modern liberal arts education. So, my undergraduate education, which could be so easily dismissed as ancillary to business, is the very foundation that I continually rely on time and again, in the core, in business, and in life. It allows me to adapt, solve problems, and make decisions. Coupled with innate ability and professional experience, a liberal arts education is precisely what makes me analytical and allows me to solve tough problems, no matter how big the numbers are.

Anna Bruno, MBA '10, Park Fellow

My route to business school was by no means direct, but as far as I'm concerned, it makes perfect sense. An entrepreneur and a writer at heart, I found my way here via studies in religion and philosophy at Stanford, followed by a stint in public relations, marketing roles for two software start-ups, and a bit of post-acquisition work at IBM. I like wearing jeans to work, going in late and leaving late, and sitting at the same table as the CEO. I am and I always will be a Pittsburgher by association, but I've now spent almost a third of my life in the San Francisco Bay Area. Today, I'm thrilled to spend two years in Ithaca at the Johnson School-I wouldn't have it any other way