Quote on Hedge Funds

Thought I'd pass this one along:

"If you call yourself Brad Pitt, it will not make you more attractive to women. But if you call your fund a hedge fund, it can get you into a very lucrative business and you will stay there masked because you do not have to disclose anything." -Hedge Funds: Quantitative Insights

Final Stretch for Term 5

We're heading into the final weekend of Term 5, for a final dosage of Advanced Corporate Finance, Negotiations, and Investment Management. And for me, it also includes finishing up my Independent Study on Open Source Business Models and Pricing Strategy. It's got the usual high stress feel of too much to do with too little time. The add the usual Christmas rush plus the demands of work! As a result, I have not done a lick of Christmas shopping.

----------------

I came across this link and thought I would pass it along:
http://mba.tuck.dartmouth.edu/pages/faculty/ken.french/data_library.html

It's Kenneth French's data library on the current values of Rm-Rf, SMB, and HML. I found it in a book I am reading on Hedge Funds, which is pretty good and explains an investor's point of view on some of the finance we have learned in IM this past term. The book is Hedge Funds: Quantitative Insights, which I saw sitting in my local library of all places.

----------------

John and I did manage to do a bit of networking at lunch today with a WEMBA Class 28, who gave a pretty good background on his journey as a software product manager to a business-technology PWM guru at a large financial institution. What was interesting was his continued study of finance after WEMBA to get a CFA. Now he is studying for a CAIA and also a CFP. I was thinking that WEMBA was it but apparently at least five class 28s continued on for their CFA after the program. The most valuable part was talking about the exploration of different post-WEMBA options that he explored, such as I-B, VC/PE, consulting, PWM and entrepreneurship. Big takeaways for me: keeping in mind that you gotta love what you do, and that idiosyncratic skills are always the most valuable. Wise words from someone who has walked in our shoes! Apparently, the rate of radioactive decay of the MBA after graduation isn't as fast we thought it was, although I suspect that continuing on for a CFA is equivalent to injecting the degree with big boosts along the way.

Back to regressions, regressions, regressions....

Chairman P

GOLF 720 is Best Elective for Term 6

Here's the elective selection lineup for Term 6:

A / Financial Derivatives (FNCE 717) Dr. Mike Gibbons 1.0

A1 \ New Product Development (MKTG 753) Dr. Wes Hutchinson 0.5
A2 Pricing Policy (MKTG 754) Dr. Jagmohan Raju 0.5


B1 Entrepreneurship through Acquisition (MGMT 811) Dr. Robert Chalfin 0.5
B1 / Corporate Valuation (FNCE 728) Dr. Simon Benninga 0.5

B2 \ Finance of Buyouts and Acquisitions (FNCE 751) Dr. Bulent Gultekin 0.5
B2 Problems in Financial Reporting (ACCT 742) Dr. Richard Lambert 0.5

C / Mathematical Modeling and Its Application in Finance (OPIM 653) Dr. Ziv Katalan 1.0

C1 Venture Capital & Entrepreneurial Management (MGMT 804) Dr. Raffi Amit/Prof Doug Collom 0.5
C2 \ Venture Capital and the Finance of Innovation (FNCE 750) Dr. David Wessels 0.5

/ Entrepreneurial Marketing (MKTG 781) Dr. Len Lodish 0.5
D
\ Private Equity in Emerging Markets (MGMT 809) Dr. Steve Sammut 0.5

Selections are due on Saturday. Who's happier than me because I only need 2.5 cu! Looks like based on what I'm leaning towards signing up for GOLF 720 next term on Friday mornings. I know Azar is also signed up for that class; anyone else? The Presidio GC is 10 minutes away...

Gotta love the anonymous comment on my Costs of Academic Distress post signed by WEMBA East32 Clock Watcher!

Wartun32 Fantasy Football Update

The second year of our "Wartun32" fantasy football league is in the final stretch of the regular season, with only four more games to play. Everyone that participated last season is back in for a second round of competition, and it's been a topsy turvy season once again. Lots of injuries to the key players has characterized this season.

Our first place teams are as follows (there are three divisions, the Finance Division, the Management Division, and the Marketing Division):
Short Bus, 15-5; coached by Loren "I love midgets" S.
Forndogs, 8-12; coached by Frank "Mr. LSD picture show" F.
New England Saints, 12-8; coached by Azar "Patriots fan" M.

Surf over here to see the public website for our league:
http://football2.myfantasyleague.com/2007/home/56615

Costs of Academic Distress

Well, Term 5 is mid-way through already. Your friendly WEMBA blogger is heads down trying to stay afloat this term while my startup is rapidly growing right now. I'm taking Advanced Corporate Finance, Investment Management, and Negotiations this term. The great thing is that they are all 1 cu courses, so there's a lot less context switching. I hear that the Strategic Control and Entrepreneurship Seminar elective courses are pretty good through the grapevine.

The reason for this post is to talk about the costs of academic distress. In finance, there's the costs of financial distress, and in the WEMBA world, there's the costs of academic distress. Bottom line: this program takes it's toll on your health, and I don't think anyone takes it into consideration.

Here's some of the costs:

* My eyes are getting worse. My eye doctor just quantified it for me when both of my eyes had checked out as significantly different (more than 1 diopter of difference) from about a year ago. My astigmatism has gotten quite a bit worse. I was wondering why I couldn't read the greek subscripts in IM this term!

* Grey hairs, oh my! I've been blessed with a full head of hair with relatively few grey hairs. The past few terms this has started to change, however. I now have 7-8 instead of 1.

* Bags under the eyes and crow's feet. Tiger Woods 2k7 has a feature where you can build your own golfer. There's a ton of detail around facial feature customization in the game. I booted up the Wii the other day, and started to create a character and needed to know what settings to use for eye bags and crow's feet. When I looked into the mirror, I noticed there were some crows feet and slightly larger bags under the eyes. Again, I'm blessed with Asian youthfulness but WEMBA has started to take it's toll here.

* Stress! This one is hard to quantify, but the stress of constantly feeling like you are behind and don't have enough time takes it toll over time. I think that you get used to it after a while. Also, 2nd year WEMBAs are not nearly as concerned anymore about grades and classes.

* Lack of sleep. You definitely have a lot less sleep in this program. It's somewhat amazing how little one can function on.

* Second year career paranoia angst. In the 2nd year, there's a definitely increase in angst for many of the WEMBA students that haven't made a career switch. I'd characterize it it as a focus shift from academics to the real world. The big question is "what am I going to do after my MBA?", and a lot of time is consumed chasing career management opportunities (on the website, in Philly at interviews, and in other networking opportunities). The angst originates from the stress that occurs from realizing "I don't want to still be stuck at company X" after going through all that we have gone through. It still remains to be seen if the new career management office on the West Coast that is due to start next year will reduce the angst; I suspect that it will greatly reduce it. They just announced the creation of a new career management resource: Wharton Resume Book for Experienced Hires. Good idea, I'm glad they read my blog! :)

* Idiosyncratic costs. Not everyone has a family, some live far away and have to travel twice a month, and others have really demanding jobs. These costs are particular to individuals, but nonetheless should also be incorporated into the overall costs of academic distress.

In summary, this is my 0.02 on the costs of academic distress. So when the Financial Times data on the mean salary increase for the #1 exec MBA program comes out again, keep in mind that we should subtract the costs of academic distress.

Pictures and videos from the International Trip

Here's some video clips I took and some pics from classmates:

Link to video of Tango dance show in BA

Domingo Cavallo clip1

Domingo Cavallo clip2

Public photo albums from classmates (thanks Gagan, Eve):
Eve's pics from Brazil
Eve's pics from BA
Gagan's pics from Rio
Gagan's pics from BA

If other people have public pics to share, please add a comment or send me a link.

There and Back Again: A WEMBA Study Tour Recap

Well, we had a fantastic time! Words don’t do justice to the South America International trip, which we shall remember for a lifetime. Those classmates of ours who weren’t able to make it (or who just wimped out) missed out on a once in a lifetime experience. I’m really glad that I helped lobby (through the power of The Blog) to go to South America on our study tour, as it’s a place that I probably won’t visit on my own. Although after this trip, perhaps I will return. No one was robbed, no one got hurt (well, except for Zia’s ironing board accident and the wild dog attack that Mike and Frank survived), and we had a great time.

The true value of the trip is measured in the relationships that were strengthened and new ones that were formed while we were here. A lot of people I talked to said that they had gotten to know a number of classmates that they don’t ordinarily talk to in San Francisco, as well as their wives, girlfriends or husbands. We experienced two different cultures and countries, which was great. I think we didn’t get a whole lot of sleep, and we all ate too much and drank too much. I was thinking that I would lose some pounds while we were here but after eating my fifth steak by day six I knew I was in big trouble.

If I were to give advice, here’s some for Class 33:

• Sample the local food and drink as much as you can. There’s nothing sadder than seeing your classmate high tail it for the nearest Mickey Ds. I literally ate 5 pounds of steak in about 3 days, and now I have tasted a real churrascaria, a caiparinha, an Argentine golden trout, and a Malbec wine.
• Lots of work on the committee. If you are on the committee, be prepared for a ton of work in organizing the trip. Props out to Clifton, Ale and Loren for all the hard work. You guys deserve a credit or three.
• Bring medicine. I owe a big thank you to Dr Lim, who had some antibiotics when I was sick in Rio. Thanks Charles! Lesson learned: the MDs in your class are really helpful if you get sick when traveling.
• Side trips are fantastic. I went to Rio before the trip, and then to El Calafate afterwards. Those were two great decisions, and they really enhanced my experience. We were talking about it later and those of us who went really had a much better experience. It’s hard to get the time off for work but it’s totally worth it. Use those Starwood Preferred Guest points on your side trips, and the rates we got were $45 USD plus points for each night’s stay.
• Don’t bring a laptop. There are internet cafes everywhere in South America, and all the hotels we stayed in had free internet available, even in El Calafate. I thought I’d use mine more, and I didn’t. Blackberry email was fine throughout the trip for the most part.
  Bring a Skype headset. Cuts your phone bill down tremendously! Be aware that Skype is blocked in some countries though. It was fine in both Brazil and Argentina.
• Study materials for Term 5. I’m not going to retain anything I read, but at least I got some reading done on the flights there and back again.
• The travel agency was below average. I got home and discovered that I had a big package from Accent with my itinerary and travel tags in it. Completely useless! You would have thought they could have sent it a bit earlier. It wasn’t a big deal, but you’d think they could do better.

Finally, I think that everyone agrees that we owe the South American International Study Tour committee a huge THANK YOU, because of all of their hard work. Clifton, Ale, Loren and other people on the committee did a fantastic job in dealing with a lot of things that most of us never saw. In addition, John Lyon deserves some big props for being our coordinator as Sandra wasn’t able to make the trip. Professor Dyer and Lodish also deserve a big thank you for all their work. Thank you thank you obigado and muchas gracias! You guys were great, and we think you should deserve some academic credit for all the hard work you put in. I’m sure glad we didn’t go to China, as Zia would have had to plan the whole thing himself!

Now it's back to work!

Argentina – El Calafate Side Trip

El Calafate is in the Patagonia area of Argentina, which is known for its world-famous glaciers. From Buenos Aires, a group of us took a side trip there from Buenos Aires, and it was definitely worthwhile. Calafate was beautiful and reminded me much of Alaska. The town was a rural mountain town, much like Tahoe City in California. People were friendly but it was a bit more difficult to get around in my broken Spanish as there were far less English speakers, which is to be expected.

Highlights of the trip: mini-trekking tour of the Monte Perito glacier, hanging out in the town, taking a hike by the lake, and just enjoying being a tourista. Mike and I were on a mission to find some golden trout (truta) at a restaurant, and we eventually found some called Restaurante La Vaca Atada, on Av. Libertador 1176 in El Calafate. It was prepared in four different ways: lemon sauce, grilled, camarones sauce, and another cream sauce that no one order. I ordered the camarones (shrimp) version, which was most excellent! One major bonus was that we ran into Zia and Anita both on the tour and for dinner.

Mini-trekking is a must do if you ever make it to Patagonia and El Calafate. El Calafate is right on the border between Chile and Argentina, where the Andes Mountains separate the Pacific Ocean from the Atlantic Ocean. The wind and pressure create a perfect compression in the mountains to form the ice for the glaciers. You get to take a boat across the frozen lake to a small dock near where the glacier meets the land. A short hike takes groups of English-speaking and Spanish-speaking groups of 20 people to the glacier, where you put in crampon spikes on the bottom of your shoes or boots. Our one and a half hour hike was breathtaking, and we got to see some very interesting blue ice formations, crevasses, and some pools of crystal-clear, ice-cold water that form on the tops of the glacier. After the hike, we ate empanadas that were packed in our sack lunches back in town, and after a short break we were back on the boat to tour the front of the glaciers by water. The last leg of the tour was on land, where there is a site-seeing set of platforms and stairs that allows a top-down view of the glaciers. We got to see a number of large and small ice chunks break off the glacier, which sound like a gunshot with the echo in the mountains and walls of ice.

Mini-trekking in El Calafate:


Here’s a Korean Sadhu that was found on the side of the glacier:


In summary, Calafate was a fantastically great side trip. I’m really glad I did it, and it was great to see a part of Argentina that is closest to Antartica as you can get in South America.

From Calafate, we headed back to Buenos Aires for one last night before heading back to the US. I met up for business with some software engineers on my team down here in South America, and we met on an Estancia, which is “ranch” in Spanish. Argentines are proud of their ranching and cowboy heritage, and the Estancia was nothing like I thought it was going to be. There was a castle on the grounds, along with polo grounds, soccer or futbol field, horse back riding, a lodge, an airplane, and a really nice garden. My local friends there said that Estancias are used for special events, like honeymoons, wedding parties and coming of age parties (15 years old) for girls. We worked a bit of course, but we had some of the freshest steak I’ve ever had along with some traditional Argentine foods. After a long day, it was back to the airport for the ride home.

Here’s a picture of a castle on the Estancia:

Argentina – Buenos Aires International Study Tour Recap

Our travels on the second official leg of the trip brought us from Sao Paulo to Buenos Aires, also known as the “Paris of South America.” The culture and architecture of the city buildings has a distinctly European feel to it. There were a lot of nice shopping malls around, where a lot of us bought fine leather goods and clothes. There were a lot of suits purchased in BA.

Pictures of the city in Buenos Aires:


Nice shopping mall in BA - we could pretty much buy most anything you can get in the US. I think I turned metro for a few hours...:


In addition, the weather was very humid, as it had been raining for about two weeks prior. That didn’t stop Bolaji, Azar and I from attempting to go golfing on a free afternoon after visiting Turner Broadcasting in the morning. It was a swampland, however, as the only golf course in Bs As didn’t have a very good drainage system.

Attempting to golf in Buenos Aires:


Company visits included: Google, Turner Broadcasting Systems, General Electric, Boston Consulting Group, and a discussion with Domingo Cavallo, the former Argentine Minister of Finance that was responsible for pegging the Argentine Peso to the US dollar during the first Argentine currency crisis in 1991.

Ron and Sean at Turner:


Picture of Ale and Domingo Cavallo:


Maybe it was just me because I finally was feeling better health-wise, but I much preferred Buenos Aires over Sao Paulo. Or maybe it was staying in the Four Seasons Hotel, which was as great as they are all over the world. The five star hotel definitely was nice. Like Paris I found that it was very much appreciated when I used my limited Spanish speaking skills. After just a few words, most people were more than happy to be helpful. Many people spoke pretty good English, as it is taught early on in the schools.

Argentina is a town that never sleeps, and many restaurants and bars are open very very late. The first night, we didn’t finish dinner until 2am. And one club we went to called Asia de Cuba did not even open until 1:30am!

The last night, we had a big party for the everyone and their guests. The banquet was huge and it was really great! Afterwards, there were a bunch of WEMBA students that refined their late night dancing and partying skills in Argentina after sharpening them up in Brazil. Let’s just say that there was a lot of Malbec, scotch, and Cuban cigars consumed there.

The big dinner on the last night in BA:

Recap of Rio de Janeiro with pictures

Wow, this trip is going faster than I thought. Here's a very brief recap of the front end of the Wharton Internation trip to Brazil and Argentina.

Rio de Janeiro, Thu 09-06-2007
We arrived very jet lagged at 8:35am in the morning vis a vis Miami. I slept as much as I could on the plane and tried to drink as much water as I could, as I was fighting a cold. Rio was warm and about eight of us negotiated a van ride from the airport to the Sheraton Rio Hotel. It was about a 45 minute ride from the airport to the hotel. We checked into the hotel and then headed straight for the beach. While sitting by the beach, I had a fried calamari appetizer with my first and second caipirinha, the national Brazilian cocktail made with Brazilian rum.

Rio is very much a beach town, much like Oahu. Lots of tourists, lots of beach, beautiful women, and they even have bars right on the beach strand. You can spend forever just people watching. Everyone is friendly, especially if you attempt to speak a little broken Portugese. Most of the hotel and restaurant folks speak a little English, so it's not too hard to get around.

The weather was warm and mild, in the low 80s to high 70s during the day. The evenings were warm enough that we could walk around in short sleeved shirts, which was great.

Rio de Janeiro, Fri 09-07-2007
A group of us spent the day on a guided tour of the Christ the Redeemer monument and the Sugarloaf mountain tram. Check out the pictures. It was totally worth it to hire a tour guide because we got to skip all the lines. Otherwise we would have been waiting for a long time all day long, as it was a holiday.

Most of the pictures are from this tour here: link to rio pictures

Rio de Janeiro, Sat 09-08-2007
I was really sick and stayed in from Fri night to Sun morning. I heard that I missed some good and not so good parties in Rio but hey there's always another time....I figured that we have another 10 days to go and I needed to get better. Obrigado to Dr Lim, who hooked me up with some antibiotics. They really helped me and next time I am not going to travel without some.

Rio de Janeiro, Sun 09-09-2007
We left Rio and flew over to Sao Paulo, where we checked into the Renaissance Hotel for the study tour portion of our trip. More on that later.....

POKR 799 Final

IMG00044
Originally uploaded by rkpark

Here's a pic from the Poker 799 class (Advanced Texas Hold Em Simulation). There's a Flickr badge at the left for the whole set.

Congrats out to Loren who's getting married next weekend! Some pics from the Giants game (Bonds hit #754) are on here as well.

Enjoy!

Painful Time of Year and Random Thoughts

It's that familiar painful time of the term again....finals are coming up this weekend. I've got them in International Finance (cost of capital, hedging, and international tax is coming out of my ears), a buy report in Real Estate Finance, and Strategic Management. Also gotta get my independent study done, which is, btw, a ton more work that an ordinary class. Be forewarned! The only saving grace is that it's work related for me, so I can theoretically work on it during work hours. Note that I said theoretically.

Most of us agree that senioritis has set in now, and it's really been hard to get back into the groove after the three week break in July. Dyer did us a favor and gave us an extension on the strategic audit, which is now due two weeks after finals. That means it goes into Term 5, which is sorta good and bad. It really means that we don't have a break in between terms.

Check out this website: http://thefunded.com/ It was interesting to see ratings of my company's VCs out there. There was an article in today's WSJ: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118644800916989977.html?mod=hpp_us_editors_picks

I'm so looking forward to the second annual Wartun32 fantasy football draft on 8/24.

Ron

MBA Related Podcast Mini Review

This period of Term 4 is very very nice - the first three week break since, well, New Years Day! We are all enjoying the midpoint break in the WEMBA schedule. A lot of us took some time off for Fourth of July to take vacations, a novel concept for the WEMBA burdened student. Studying time has dwindled to 1/3 of the pace earlier this term. I am not sure if it's the pass / no pass option or just plain senioritis. Anyway, on to my post...

For the iPod and iPhone enabled, this post is a review of MBA and business related podcasts. Most of us Wharton-ites are already aware of the most excellent podcasts available on Knowledge@Wharton, which can be found here:
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/podcastcurrent.xml

So esteemed Wharton aside, here's my ratings of some other podcasts I've found out there on MBA and business related websites. These are great if you travel for business or have a long commute like I do.

5 Star Rating

Chicago GSB:
http://feeds.chicagogsb.edu/gsbpodcast
My take: U of Chicago has an array of content rivaling Wharton. Some interesting interviews and content, especially the tribute to Friedman and the podcast on Infosys' rise to a $2B company. Gotta ask Deepak on this one.

iInnovate:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/iinnovatecast
My take: Stanford students feature 15 minute interviews with entrepreneurs, VCs, and innovators. I liked the interviews with Geoffrey Moore, Carly Fiorina, and Andy Grove.

Stanford Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders:
http://edcorner.stanford.edu/podcasts.html
My take: Stanford again shows its Sand Hill Road strength through some great content sponsored by the Stanford Technology Ventures Program. I listened to podcasts interviewing Mark Jung (IGN), Reid Hoffman (LinkedIn), and Tien Tzuo (Salesforce.com).

MBA Podcasts: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/audio_video/podcasts/mba/ My take: I really liked the "Private equity - The new kings of capitalism" podcast.

4 Star Rating

BusinessWeek:
http://www.businessweek.com/search/podcasts/cover_stories.rss
My take: Good way to keep up on B-Week without having to read it. "Children of the Web" and "The Real Cost of Outsourcing" were interesting podcasts.

ESPN Radio Daily Podcast: http://sports.espn.go.com/espnradio/podcast/feeds/itunes/podCast
My take: The best of ESPN radio for the sports junkie. Great if you can't catch SportsCenter. I don't like the ads though. Doesn't ESPN make enough off TV?


3 Star Rating

McKinsey on Finance:
http://ksmediaserver.net/ftp/Podcasting/MoF.xml
My take: There's some interesting content but it is basically a reading of McKinsey's print content. It isn't the most exciting listening, but there are some interesting articles, including: "Preempting a hostile takeover" and "A quiet revolution in China's captial markets". Good for a late night cure of insomnia.

Not Rated

MIT Sloan School of Management Podcast:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/mitsloanpodcast
Not yet evaluated.

Venture Voice:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/vv
Not yet evaluated.

Venture Cast:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/venturecast
Not yet evaluated.

MBA Podcaster:
http://www.mbapodcaster.com/Podcasts.asp
Admissions and major related info. Not yet evaluated.

If anyone else has podcast links to share, please post them in your comments.

This WSJ.com article gave me some flashbacks to what some people have been saying for a while now:

Market's Jitters Stir Some Fears For Buyout Boom

If you take a look at the graph halfway down the page, the sheer magnitude of the present day buyout deals was what was surprising to me when you compare them to junk bond deals of the late 1980s. For those of you in WEMBA Class 32, I had a flashback to Prof. Percival's finance class last term when he was talking about this exact issue, as well as to a Knowledge at Wharton podcast on the same subject.

We're living through an interesting time while studying finance at the most sophisticated b-school in the world, and it will be interesting to see what happens to the buyout boom over the next few months. I also saw that recently IPO'd Blackstone just fell 2.7% yesterday to $29.92, below it's IPO price of $31/share. Let's see if KKR continues down the initial public offering path. Prof. Tyson must be working his retailer over, assuming he got it in writing as usual.

BTW, here's a link for the Knowledge at Wharton podcast channel in iTunes:
itpc://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/podcastcurrent.xml

Customized Portfolio Tools are Improving

I just got a call from a UBS PWM VP soliciting my money yesterday who turned out to be a Wharton grad. I kindly thanked her and said no thanks, I manage my own portfolio and asset allocation myself. It's getting easier and easier to self manage your own portfolio using free tools on the internet. It used to be that the tools were pretty simple and not very useful, but that has started to change during the last few years. I have even started to see asset classes such as private equity and hedge funds listed in your asset allocation tools.

Just found this ETF website out there from a WSJ.com article on Better Ways to Measure Your Portfolio:

http://www.indexuniverse.com

The website has some good content for those of you looking for articles on index ETF funds to match to your asset allocations. There's also even a good hedge fund overview article towards the bottom of the first page. I used the search engine to look at some REIT data, which was great to look at after looking at our Real Estate Finance course that started last weekend. I haven't had a chance to look at the free x-ray tool at Morningstar.com or on Yahoo Finance, but if anyone has an opinion, please post it.

Is Pass No Pass Academic Hazard?

Recently, WEMBA implemented a P/NP policy for elective courses in the 2nd year. Is this a Good Thing or not? The way it works is that up to 1 cu per term can be taken P/F. I was thinking about it and I think the spirit of the policy is a good thing overall. It allows us some additional flexibility in choosing electives or courses that we may have an interest in but may not choose to take for a grade. It also reduces competitiveness, which is also a good thing, as I think WEMBA is too grade focused with the switch to letter grades. However, you just have to be honest with yourself and not make it an academic hazard. The problem is that anything north of a D- is still a pass, which incents you to do the bare minimum if you choose this option. This potential academic hazard is doing yourself a disservice, akin to the moral hazard problem involved with insurance/risk management or certain types of executive compensation.

Some things to keep in mind are if you need the courses for a major. Some majors do not allow P/F units to count toward the major, such as finance.

Some advice for Class 33 and beyond:

• Starting in Term 4, there are two main sections, The Finance Section and The Marketing Section. I was one of those who was on the fence and sat in the beginning parts of both classes this term. I ended up in The Finance Section, which made me far worse off from a work perspective but better off (IMHO) from a learning perspective. Leading up to last week's International Finance midterm, I wasn't so sure if I made the right choice. But it was pretty fair so I am overall glad that I have taken the course, which has taught me a lot. If you like Abel's Macroeconomics class, you will like Bodnar's class.
• When you vote for your electives, make sure you get the requirements for majors and keep them in mind. We could have used them for our voting process, and I assert that we would have chosen different classes if we knew that.
• Keep in mind that the class pairings are what is key for the electives. It's still a great mystery of how they do it, but my guess is that they use Prof Bodnar's international finance concept of "you get screwed" when they run the LP. The optimization constraints must be to balance the number of students in each class, so that the most popular classes get paired against each other.
• Take a close look at the difficulty ratings and professor ratings for the classes offered. They will help you choose wisely.

Internet Biz Content Rocks

Diffusion of innovations theory gives us an idea about the how, why and at what rate the spread of technology diffuses through a culture. Here's a link: link. I consider myself somewhere in between innovator and early adopter, depending on the technology we are talking about.

Recently, I've found that I have started to heavily use some internet business content that previously was purely old school-based. For example, I'm using the web more and more to get information faster, and I have started using my iPod beyond just listening to Wharton lectures and Knowledge@Wharton podcasts. It's all about getting the right information at the right time. For example, I now use the Wall Street Journal online edition more than the print version. I end up reading it online first now! I also now have quite a large collection of RSS feeds loaded into IE and Firefox, and I have since cancelled my newspaper print edition. I do still read the headlines for the online versions, BTW. Another example: I found some Stanford Technology Ventures talks on iPod U that were quite good on entrepreneurship. Tien Tzuo from Salesforce.com has a very interesting talk recorded on SaaS, and there are a ton of others from some well-known VCs and CEOs in the Silicon Valley out there. The topics range from paths to entrepreneurial success, a startup panel, and software development in Silicon Valley. Quite good stuff! Saves me from having to go attend these conferences and seminars on my own time, and instead listen to them in my car during my commute.

Recently, I've been recording my Wharton lectures on a USB enabled voice recorder and then converting the WMA files to MP3 format for listening on the iPod as well. Listening at 1.5x speed enables one to more efficiently listen to the lectures. Plus you can rewind key parts to make sure that you really get the point.

So why is this important? Well, for one, the world is going electronic and there is no longer a need to print stuff out. Those of us that figured out how to use the Ikon scanner to PDF in the fifth floor copier at Wharton West now have the PDF versions of all the bulk packs. It sure beats lugging all that paper on the airplane, plus you can search. Suggestion to Wharton Reprographics: it sure would be nice (and it would save trees) if we just got the PDF versions of the bulk packs....

Boom Time for MBAs

(Forwarded from Ambal...thanks):

It's a great time to be an business school student, especially if you want to get into finance. According to the Financial Times, this year is the most competitive since dot.com bubble popped. The main source of activity seems to be private equity firms and hedge funds. Boutique-like investment firms and real estate companies have also become more active; in addition to the investment banks. The number of recruiters has risen. And they're paying more to attract talent. So we're seeing more students get multiple offers.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18909425/

My take:
I'm wondering if it's better to be off-cycle or on-cycle for business careers. There's a strong trend toward PE these days, which means a glut of talent going into the field for the big $$$ that are flowing in. But that's not necessarily a good thing. Remember when investment banking, consulting, .com startups, and VC were all the hot flavors of the day?

Early Thoughts on WEMBA Branded Career Treks

From what I can remember from our marketing classes last term, branding is very important. It's certainly important for the WEMBA program.

Now my head is full of international corporate finance and business law that I can barely remember the 5 C's and the 4 P's. And with the recent discussions about the idea of Wharton West career treks still fresh in my mind, I have recently embarked on having a number of discussions in my own personal network here in Silicon Valley to validate some hypotheses.

Here are some of my early takeaways:

• Premium brand potential is there. There is great potential for establishing a differentiated WEMBA brand identity (aka brand extension) separate from the FT brand. WEMBA would be a premium brand offering with domain expertise as the differentiator. In other words, what most of us are doing now and have done in the past matters.
• Brand awareness is low. The very idea of getting a WEMBA resume book seemed to have good traction, but that is a truly novel idea. We'd need to do some work here.
• Small treks are better. The idea of small informal gatherings like breakfasts or lunches seems to be a good one, especially if there is an influential executive that agrees to meet. I think we'd call them something different. It's not a trek; it's about executive networking.
• The network matters. Getting to the firms and people within them differs greatly from the FT trek approach. The focus would be executives that would meet future/current executives. We need to figure out how to leverage our own networks to arrange a WEMBA branded set of treks.

Here's some snippets of conversation over lunch with a partner in a VC/PE firm here in San Francisco (I have paraphased our conversation and kept the identities anonymous):

Q: Is there a separate market for experienced Wharton West grads of the MBA Program for Executives at your firm? These are people with 8-20 years of experience in their respective roles and industries.
A: I hadn't thought of it that way, but yes, there definitely is a market for those students that have great operational experience in some domain that want to move into a firm like ours. Understand that the pure play PE firms typically want deal experience found in the investment banks, and that pure VC firms want operational experience. We look for some of both.

We were looking through resume books from the top 5 B-schools last year specifically looking for resumes with specific operational experience combined with an elite B-school, but the people we were looking for were really hard to find. If there are great people that are already at the top / executive level of their disciplines, then we want to talk to them.

Q: What level would the people come in at?
A: That's a really hard one to answer, because it will vary from firm to firm. What you want to do is to identify those firms that are willing to hire from the outside at the VP, principal, or even partner level at a firm like ours. It really depends.

Q: Would you be willing to conduct a career trek session with WEMBA students only?
A: Yes, definitely. It would have to be small though, and certainly informal. I think a breakfast or lunch with about 8 people max would be a great format. You don't want them to get too big.

Hope this is useful.......

-Chairman P

Wharton Club of Northern California is Open to WEMBA Students

I'm passing along this offer to join the WCNC from Sajjad Jaffer, VP of Membership at the Wharton Club of Northern California. Note that the link to signup indicates that you must be a graduate of WEMBA, but that is not correct. All current WEMBA students are eligible to join the WCNC now:

It's been a fantastic year at the Wharton Club of Northern California, and we're on track to at least match last year's record 70+ high quality events! With the accelerated engagement of our alumni, volunteers, and Club leaders, the WCNC continues to be one of the world's largest and most active business alumni associations worldwide.

The Offer of the Wharton Club of Northern California
The Club offers Wharton alumni an unparalleled opportunity to extend their global leadership experiences as Wharton graduates. To learn by exchanging ideas and views with Bay Area and Northern California business headline makers. To build relationships with the best and the brightest business leaders who are proud to be Wharton alumni and alumnae. To open business doors for the next generation of Wharton's legendary business talent. To meet people that you will be happy to call friends. To connect with old friends from Wharton. And most importantly, to have fun while learning and sharing our collective intellectual capital and experiences. This is the offer of the Wharton Club of Northern California.

Upcoming events include:
- Happy Hours and Networking Luncheons and Dinners
- a talk by Google Vice President Marissa Mayer
- Wharton Club Day at AT&T Park (our annual SF Giants Tour/Talk/Picnic/Game Day!)
- Conference call with Wharton Marketing Professor Eric Bradlow
- Two-hour tour of Angel Island that will have us riding Segways all around the Perimeter Trail
- An insider's tour of a Silicon Valley icon--'Inside IDEO: Design and Innovation Strategies for Business Leaders'
- and more events to be announced in the coming days!

Here's a link to join:
http://www.whartonclub.com/memsub.html

Elective Selction Suggestion: Golf: For Business & Life

As those of us here in the Silicon Valley know well, it's rare to find fellow golfers even at the highest levels of technology corporations. However, golf is alive and well! I was reading the WSJ online and discovered this article:


A program called "Golf: For Business & Life," sponsored by the PGA of America, underwrites classes at colleges and universities on using golf as a business tool, sometimes for credit. Some 59 schools offered clases (<- look, the WSJ had a typo!) last year, including Stanford and the University of Texas, up from 15 in 2000. Jeff Maynor, a PGA professional who teaches the course at the University of Maryland, focuses on the things you can learn about others -- and yourself -- on the course. Meticulously arranging every detail of a round in advance, from water in the cart to logoed balls, shows thoroughness, he says. Approaching the first tee with confidence rather than offering excuses for a bad back or not having played much recently is a sign of character.

Full article:
Business golf changes course

So the next time we vote on electives, please keep this class in mind for a write-in vote. (Not that we have any choice as the equivalent of being non-voting minority shareholders in a small private corporation, for those of you who are in legal studies this term.) Some of us were saying that we sure would like to have a bit of full disclosure around the LP constraints for the elective pairings. Whatever the alorithm, it seems to come up with non-optimal pairings of courses.

Is the PGA, Calaway or Nike hiring WEMBA grads?

Venture Capital and Open Source

As some of you know, I've joined the professional open source world recently. I thought I'd share this interesting post with you on the number of open source VC investments:

http://lmaugustin.typepad.com/lma/2007/05/open_source_ven.html

WCNC Event: Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0

I managed to make it to the WCNC Web 2.0/Enterprise 2.0 event last night held at Wharton West: "Does Web 2.0 + Enterprise 2.0 = A Business Equation?"

It was attended by about 30 people, which was a pretty good sized crowd for a WCNC evening event during the week. The event started off with dinner in room 529 and a presentation by Sajjad Jaffer, WG01, who is the CEO of Mercatrix. Sajjad was entertaining and had some pretty good slides on Web 2.0. (I even saw Prof Kent Smetters wander by wondering what was going on.) Crowd was pretty subdued and mellow, probably from the food coma everyone was in.

After the presentation on Web 2.0, we had about 45 minutes for the Speed Networking event. You get in two lines and then you have 10 minutes to give your "elevator pitch" and exchange business cards. Then you rotate people and move down the line. It's a great way to meet people and everyone seemed to be asking "how can I help you?". I met a few Wharton FT grads in industries from PE to hedge to entrepreneurs raising capital to our classmate Ambal. It was good for making some contacts and putting some networking "skillz" to work. Most of the folks I met were very very helpful and friendly. My suggestion if you ever go to one of these: bring a big stack of business cards, and make sure you have some water.

Here's the link to the WCNC website blurb about the event:
http://www.whartonclub.com/article.html?aid=672


-Chairman P

Goodbye from Murat

Let me introduce a guest blogger: Murat K. Our Turkish classmate is one of the five WEMBA Class 32 students who are transferring to the Wharton Full Time program in Philadelphia. We'll miss Murat, Jennifer, Alice, Avery and Peter. Chairman P's note: our male to female ratio just suffered a severe adverse supply shock. I think we are down to about 10% women and 90% men. Let's go talk to John to see if the guys can use both restrooms on the fifth floor! :)

Good luck, and keep in touch! We'll try to visit you when we travel through Philadelphia.

-Chairman P

Murat's goodbye email is here (I have obscured his cell phone # so he doesn't get spammed with text messages). I can't say I know what all the digs or rants are referring to:
----------------------------------

Now that I am officially done at Wharton West (after such a painful homework, this weekend) , I can write my “I will miss you..!” letter…

I hate good-byes and never understood where is the “good” in goodbye! (even in Turkish, there is a “good” part in the word. -- is Spanish the same?)

Well, Just so give you all some recent updates, I am headed to NYC instead of London during the summer (will be working for a hedge fund) and will be in Philly next year. I am sure some of you will visit the area for various reasons and please feel free to give me a ring. I would be happy to get together!

I am planning to leave Bay Area in a week and probably stop by school on Friday evening. if we can’t see each other, take care. Hopefully, will see you in Brazil / Argentina.

Now, I know what I need. I need more hellos!

Cheers & Kind Regards,

Murat

Cell: (obscured, but it's 800-976-SEAN will get you the real number) :)

------------Some Random Rambles:-----------------

I had many great times and friends at Wharton and I want to thank specially, in no particular order:

I know some of you consider me irresponsible since I am leaving such a great, fun person behind--my mentor and best buddy, and future-best-man---Sean, love, promise I will *try* to stay faithful *until* I find a better looking girl-friend! (your stupid, kidding)

Nichole, hey baby! you should have mentioned that hot-tub waaayyyy earlier!

Garry, f#uk that, we will start our own!

Alejandra, what a sense-of-humor... I am still laughing at the jokes you cracked back in Philly..

Mike, dude, dude! -- back room is mine, I don’t care who sleeps on the sofa! --

Bolaji, designated driver of the crazy nights!

If it was not my buddy, I don’t know whom else I would have competed –pool tables, classes, girls…-- I will certainly need a last-minute-study-buddy over whiskey bottles, Clay!

Judy, am I drunk?

Malika, stop bluffing on the poker table..

Loren, now I can pick stock for you! (caveat emptor)

Charles, no cigarette to you my friend, you don’t smoke, you eat, o.m.g.!

Jonathan, call him doctor Usuka !

Roger, wait for Fortune magazine, May 2020 edition!

Rob, what is rattle?

Eve, all I know is pi is an interesting movie!

Sam, the last I heard, Joe Ryan started teaching at a community college down!

Raghav, you are a…!

Gagan, well, you might think you have taught me poker, but, full disclosure, Mike & I love taking your money on the poker table and spending over drinks...!

Ariel, no I don’t want to drink a half-liter whiskey-shot from a horn, wine is fine! (I still have a hangover from that night)

Sridevi, promise, I will be your guide in Istanbul, next time!

I will miss Kip a lot! His great logistic support during the exams was unforgettable. I promise, I will finish Wharton without buying any calculator or whatsoever!

Another logistic support, very important, a pen during the exams, from Michele! Thanks a lot Michele, you know which pen I’ll use!

Deepak, Ken, Peter, Preetam, Zach thanks a lot for letting me ramble in group-projects!

Keith, Frank, Charles, Eve, Clifton, Eyal, Amir, Kim, Adam (both of you), Brian, Nihal, Chris, Zia, Ron, Tyler… Good times

Avery, Peter, Jennifer, Alice, see you all in Philly

Last but not least, If I did not mention your name until now, that simply means my hands are freaking tired at this point – think Useem’s final!

Salute for the second year..!

WHCP Grades are Posted Now

Looks like WHCP (Communications class) grades are posted at Penn InTouch now...

More Advice to Class 33: More Stuff to Buy

Here's some thoughts on some additional useful stuff that I forgot to mention on my last post:

• Roller briefcase. Those WEMBA bulkpacks and books get really heavy, and having a roller briefcase is great. I think I was one of the first, and pretty soon there were quite a few of us with one. Highly recommended! I bought a Samsonite #933295, which has a collapsable handle, wheels, a compartment for a laptop, a compartment for papers, and an "executive" compartment for overnight trips. It's big enough to fit two notebooks or a heavy accounting textbook or two if you have to. Sure beats trying to jam all of it into the Wharton bag, and you can actually tell which bag is yours.
• Poker chips. Scratch that, as you can use mine if you ask the belldesk at the Le Meridian. Just remember to send me 1% rake fees :) Gagan charges 2%, so go with mine. You know they are mine because they have a metallic insert in the middle of them. Legend has it that each WEMBA West class passes the chips down from generation to generation.
• Digital voice recorder. There's not that many of them in class, and I don't actually use one. I do have one, so maybe I'll try it sometime. Some folks say that they are useful if you have the time to listen to them after lectures.

-Chairman P

Welcome Class-33. Few tips for you

Dear Class-33,

First and foremost, CONGRATULATIONS! on getting admitted to the best Exec program on the planet. Good news is that you have proved that you are capable of getting Wharton MBA, bad news is that you have to earn this prestigious degree.

Many of you have been asking questions on term-1 and some words of wisdom. Rather than answering separate emails, I am writing this blog to touch on various subjects:

General tips:
• WEMBA is a life style change. It does require good 20 hrs to 35hrs commitment. This number depends on what you want to get out of the program and what your capabilities are. You need to alter your life style to fit WEMBA in your life. Reality is that life does not stop for WEMBA, you just need to learn how to juggle studies, work and life. So start working on your individual plan to fit this time commitment.
• Don’t get behind. One key for me is to stay in the game. If you fall behind, cut your losses and move on.
• Don’t look at WEBMA as burden, look at positive side. WEBMA is painful but you can find enough things in program to make it fun experience (your classmates, San Francisco city life, restaurants and many bars around school and hotel)
• Don’t get scared by looking at your books. These books are there as study aid, you don’t have to read everything.
• Math classes in morning are recommended for people who are not inclined towards math/numbers. I did not attend as I did the Math CD.
• For people who have no accounting background, I strongly suggest to go through the accounting binder (small) before the first class.
• Spend more time to know your classmates. You will discover huge talent pool right next to you. I wish I can do more of this.
• Start building your network. I use linkedIn and you can reach me at nikul(dot)patel(at)intel(dot)com

Parking/Travel:
• Hotel parking is $25 a night. But for two days weekend, you can pay 25$ total. For three days weekend, you can get away with $50.
• Open parking near school is $14 (weekday) and $5 for weekend.
• Many people use BART to get to school. Embarcardero station is closest to school. It is just 5-10 min walk from there.
• Taxi fare (typically $6-$7) to and from hotel is reimbursed by Wharton. • For people who commute via plane, you should be able to use Oakland airport or SFO airport. From there it’s a cab ride.

Micro Econ. class:
• This is a very good class. Great concepts which will help you through out the program.
• Kent Smetters is a great professor. He is very funny. I am sure you will enjoy his class.
• Best way to prepare for this class is to spend 15-20 mins before lectures to go over his notes. This will help you with what he is talking in class. No need to read the book. His notes are sufficient. He will give out problem sets after every lecture. You should do them to stay ahead on your studies. His exams are quantitative in nature.

Accounting:
• Rick Lambert is also a very good professor. His notes, Bulk Pack, slides, eRoom and previous exams are very organized.
• Book is very good too. I had to read first 4-5 chapters as I had no background in accounting. After that I was able to follow his notes in the bulk pack.
• Before you are comfortable with Wharton, you will have a first mid-term. This will get you in the groove.
• There are two mid terms and one final.
• This is a good class which will make you comfortable with financial statements and footnotes in the reports.
• I would pay close attention to Cash Flow topics. This is slightly confusing area and will be needed in future as well.

Management of people at work:
• Good class – For many engineers with hard core technical skills, this will be too soft. Welcome to the world of management. Very qualitative class. Cases are good, insight is good. Try to put yourself in the shoes of the case character and you will appreciate problem and challenges even more.
• You will have a new professor so your experience may vary.
• Field Application Project (FAP) is a time sink. So plan for it ahead.• This class will test out inter workings of your study group.

And few words about Chairman P: He is not a self proclaimed chairman. Our study team did role playing for one of the management class. We simulated a board meeting and Ron took role of Chairman Park. We started calling him chairman P and guess what, it jives very well with his personality too:)

I hope this blog helps you. Good luck and welcome to the Wharton family.

Google Analytics Statistics

Ok, after almost a year of blogging about the Wharton WEMBA program, here's the breakdown for Google AdSense revenue on my blog:

• Page impressions: 6,221


• Clicks: 205


• Page Click Through Rate: 3.30%


• Page eCPM: $29.03


• Earnings: $180.60

The graph above shows visits per month.

Stay tuned, as I'll be throwing a end of Year 1 party for Class 32 with the proceeds!

-Chairman P

Climbing the Mountain of Lore

Here's my attempt at some bad poetry (what do you expect from a CS major), but hopefully you find it a little funny. I think I've been studying too much this week.

In the beginning, WEMBA was cool.
Marginal cost, management strategy, and a stock expense rule.

Term 2 brought us to Philly, to visit the East,
With LPs, leadership, macro and statistics the Beast.

Alas in Term 3, it’s become quite a chore,
To continue a climb up a Mountain of Lore.

Products, brand equity, and pricing, we know,
Marketing is too important to leave to the slow.

SABRE consumed a lot of our time,
And lenses for chickens fill eyes full of slime.

The speeches we gave were too late at night,
After six lattes, it just wasn’t right.

Now I’m plodding along the Efficient Frontier,
Alpha and beta, with many a tear.

Valuation of stock, CAPM and cash flow,
Calculation of debt, portfolios and rho.

Cost accounting has put me in such a state,
How do I calculate overhead rate?

When finals are over, we’ll be half done,
I just cannot wait for some golf in the sun.

-Chairman P

The Fine Art of Networking

The Fine Art of Networking is an important thing to perfect while you are in B school, and Wharton is no exception. Metcalfe's Law, as applied to B school, implies that the value of your degree is proportional to the square of the number of business cards in your rolodex.

For the Class 33 newbies that are starting the program next month, or the Class 32 folks that need to get yourself in gear, here's my set of suggestions for perfecting your networking skillz:

• Sign up for LinkedIn. I think about this one as continually building my LinkedIn network. It takes some time but it is well worth it. LinkedIn is like MySpace for professionals. I'm up to over 300 right now through professional and academic contacts. As a WEMBA student, you get ~90 classmates for free, so you might as well connect to as many of them as you can. One of my classmates recently went from about 25 to over 200 in about two months, which was highly positively correlated with his job search and interest in what the heck he was going to do after WEMBA.
• Join the Wharton Club in your local area. I signed up for the Wharton Club of Northern California, which has events going on at least once a week, like Speed Networking, Networking Lunches, and Happy Hours in SF or the Penninsula. Speed Networking for Entrepreneurs, where you have to give a 3 minute pitch on your company, fund, etc. It's a great way to meet other Wharton alumni that are starting businesses, funding businesses, or looking for job in an entrepreneurial company.
• Join the Churchill Club, which is a Silicon Valley business and technology club. Many of us that live in the SV have joined the club. There are often a number of renowned speakers that speak to the club.
• Join the Asian American Multi-Technology Association. One of our Asian classmates invited those of us interested in Asia-Pacific issues to join, and they often throw some good networking events. In case you think you need to be Asian to join, that's not the case. Warning: most of us are Asian though :)
• Join the Wharton career clubs of interest to you back in Philadelphia. You can find them on Spike. There's usually a nominal charge to join, but you'll get emails and messages about events of interest. I joined the VC&PE club, as well as the entrepreneurship club.
• Get some Wharton business cards. For you career changers, it's valuable to have a card with the Wharton brand on it.
• Check out the career resources on Spike at Wharton. They have a free subscription to The Vault, which has some great guides to "classic" MBA careers along with advice on salary negotiation, interview questions, etc.
• Join your alumni group. Maybe it's just me, but I've had so many jobs at public and startup companies in the Silicon Valley that there are a number of really good groups to join. You'll hear about jobs, personal updates, and events through the network, which is great. The Oracle alumni list has about 25 posts a day. wharton-west-alumni@yahoogroups.com allows WEMBA students to join, which is also a good group to join. (UPDATE: Click here to go to the WW alumni website.)
  

-Chairman P

So You Want to Go Into Venture Capital?

Check out this funny link from my buddy Mark whose company just raised a B round:

http://www.blueprintventures.com/holiday06.html

Advice to Class 33: Stuff to Buy

Dear Class 33,
Assuming you got the admission letter, you are about to embark on a fantastic voyage on your way to getting a Wharton MBA. I couldn't resist taking a few minutes to write down a few of my thoughts about some advice I've been giving the dudes that have been visiting our classes in Term 3 that are trying to make decisions on which program to attend.

Some common questions I get:
1. Are you that "Chairman P" guy that writes the blog? Answer: Yeah, well, that was me before I started the new job in Jan and stopped blogging for a while.

2. Should I accept Wharton or Berkeley-Columbia or UCLA? Answer: Well, if you don't want an MBA lite and you want to be in the #1 EMBA program (see ranking links to the side, as well as my thoughts last year on why I chose WEMBA), then Wharton is for you. It really is the best. Just make sure you know what you are signing up for; it is a TON of work.

3. What stuff should I buy before I start WEMBA? Answer: Here's a top 10 list of stuff that I found useful to buy this year.

Top 10 Things to Buy Before Starting WEMBA:

10. Buy a Laptop or a USB Drive. A laptop is not as necessary as you think it is, as most professors ask you not to have your laptop open during class. For a while, I got excellent mileage out of carrying a 1GB USB drive around and just plugging it into the computers at school and work. Guess you could say that you could "Go Bedoin" for a while. If you aren't familiar with the term, here's a link to a most excellent blog about the recipe for it from my old CTO: link to Going Bedoin. The deal at the Penn Computer Store isn't as good as you might think it should be, so shop around. You'll learn why when Smetters talks about price discrimination.

9. Buy a Business Calculator. Your handy dandy HP 17bII+ business calculator that Wharton recommends. BTW, f you have an old HP scientific calculator from your undergrad or grad days, you probably don't need to buy one.

8. Buy a Scanner. If you are a frequent traveler, then there is no way you can take all the papers and books with you on your trip. So if you have an administrative assistant, then have them scan in all your stuff. If not (like me), then a scanner will save you some papers to carry around on airplanes. I have a small text scanner for the handouts and my notes that scans document text into an MSWord file. It's great for cheatsheets.

7. Buy a Case of Red Bull and Subscription to Pete's Coffee Delivery. You'll find yourself drinking at least two additional Red Bull's and 4.56 cups of coffee per day. Might as well drink Pete's.

6. Go On a Quality Vacation. Go on a long vacation way before you start the program. Oh yeah, and make sure you do the pre-term reading before you start, otherwise you will be a big hole for Term 1. The first week is a killer BTW because of all the stuff that is crammed in all at once.

5. Find Some Loans. If you find yourself in need of some capital, you'll need to shop around for the best deal. The official orientation isn't that useful, as they can't really recommend anything for individual circumstances nor give data on what other students have done. I ended up with a combination of a small student loan and Prime-1.01% HELOC.

4. Cancel Your Newspaper. You won't have time to read them, so you might as well save some time recycling them.

3. Buy an Extra Duffel Bag or Suitcase. It is highly useful to keep a bag with some extra clothes in long term storage at the Le Meridian; that way you don't have to lug all your stuff every class session.

2. Get a Smart Phone. Blackberries are the weapon of choice while sitting in class, as you can read email while looking like you are sitting there paying attention. If it has IM, then even better. I have the Blackberry Pearl, which sucks for typing but has a small form factor and is a decent phone. Professors are more tolerant of typing on your Blackberry while sitting in class, and your boss will appreciate the fact that you reply to selected emails on Fridays that you have school.

1. Buy a Duplex Laser Printer. If you have one at work, then you don't need to worry about it. If you don't have one at work, then I recommend getting one. Here's why: your notebook will be filled up with all the bulk pack readings and slide notes that you have with all the classes, and by the end of the term you can't fit all the paper into one notebook unless you use duplex printing and two or three pages per sheet page layout. I bought the HP Laser 2605dn, which is better than the printer that my startup has.

-Chairman P

Interesting Post from SF Chronicle: the VC Economy

Thought I'd pass this one along since there are so many wanna be VCs in our class:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/03/21/BUGVJOO6V237.DTL&feed=rss.technology

Managing Your Own Index Fund Portfolio

The topic of index investing seems to come up quite a bit, now that we are studying finance.

BTW, I used to work for a Wealth Management software company, which specialized in software that did asset allocation and investment selection for the ultra high net worth investor. While learning the ins and outs of the domain (CAPM, Monte Carlo simulation and Markowitz mean variance analysis) I came across a website that was great for the passive investor. The investor that wanted to invest in the true "market portfolio" or something close to it that all the theory from finance has taught us.

Here's the link to the site:
http://www.indexinvestor.com/

The proof is in the pudding: my portfolio is about a 80% stock 20% bond reference allocation, and is diversified into about 12 different index mutual funds and ETFs. You see, I decided to go "passive investor" and not try to beat the market and guess which fund or stock was hot for the upcoming year. And over past five years, I've gotten the expected return for the portfolios I put together (12.8%) after subscribing to the Index Investor website above. My target return was 10%, so it worked out pretty good, even after the market correction a few weeks back. Sure beats those 150 basis points I was paying that dude from Smith-Barney! And it was with a lot less risk.

How did I achieve this? I bailed from Charles Schwab, moved all my taxable money into Brown (lowest transaction costs for ETFs. Note: Brown was recently acquired by E*Trade), and also consolidated my retirement funds into Vanguard, which offers the best selection of no-load index-based mutual funds. I also did a bunch of research on 529 College Saving Funds, and it turns out California's isn't that great but Nevada's is (they use Vanguard). So those of you who have children should consider saving tax-free for college in the Vangard 529 using index mutual funds.

So now I sleep better and night and don't worry about my portfolio. I just worry about school.

-Chairman P

Link to Why Valley VCs are Like the Mob

A lot of our class is thinking about going into Venture Capital (if they aren't already in it). Here's an interesting blog post a friend passed on to me on Why Valley VC's are Like the Mob.

Also, I should send props out to Anil for taking on Class 32 blogging to a new level. He's written a very interesting post on the Economic Lives of the Poor. For those of you looking for more earthy entertainment value, there is Men In Thongs and Beer.

WEMBA Career Management Survey Published

As of today, Zia and I have published a WEMBA Career Management Survey on Zoomerang to gather data for what we should do for a WEMBA Career Trek. So for those of you in the Class 32 cohort, go vote! There's a link in the email I sent out on Yahoo Groups.

-Chairman P

Nichole's pictures from The Old Ship

I've snailed in posting Nichole's pictures from 1/23, but here they are (thanks Nichole):

http://www.kodakgallery.com/Slideshow.jsp?Uc=11xp1mb2.9pddhw0m&Uy=kygydw&Upost_signin=Slideshow.jsp%3Fmode%3Dfromshare&Ux=0&mode=fromshare&conn_speed=1

We'll all remember The Old Ship fondly after this is all long done.....

The Coefficient of Aging

It’s been quite a while since I last published a blog post.

Here’s the reason: Term 3 is difficult. Very difficult. And psssst: Wharton makes you old. It ages you.

Oh yeah, and I should mention that I started a new job in January, which was not exactly great planning on my part. There’s a few other classmates that also started new jobs this term, and from our discussions about it, it’s not recommended. But it can be done. It just takes a lot out of you to do it.

So as I sit here reflecting on Term 3, I realize that my personal coefficient of aging has increased this term. There are a few more wrinkles under my eyes, a few more gray hairs in my sideburns, and those bags under my eyes make me look….well….very tired. My golf clubs are sitting in my garage still packed in my travel case from my trip in November to Maui, and I haven’t watched my TIVO in days. And my Outlook task list has gotten a mile long. (I was wondering why the WEMBA grads all seemed really really smart but also very aged…)

It’s not really the subject matter (marketing, finance, operations, communications) that makes it a difficult term at Wharton; it’s the sheer volume of information that you need to absorb and learn. Add the fact that we have class after dinner from 8-10pm three times this term, and you get the recipe for a difficult term. The previous class said that Term 3 was the most difficult of the program, and I think that they are correct.

So, here’s my advice in surviving Term 3, in Letterman reverse-order ranking:
10. Stop blogging in Term 3. Check, did this one. Whoever in Class 33 wants to become the class blogger, make sure you spread the wealth and share the blogging with others.
9. Stock up on Red Bull. Doh, tried to use coffee and it was too weak. It doesn’t help when you are trying to stay awake in your communications class at 9:45pm in the evening after waking up at 5am and sitting through a whole day of class. If we can Wharton to supply some after dinner, that would be great.
8. Keep up with the work. Whoops, missed this too. Don’t get behind in your reading or class preparation, or it’ll kill you. Be warned. If you don’t, try to perfect the art of reading the case during the break right before the discussion. It’s called just in time case prep! Just don’t sit in the front of the class.
7. Unplug your TIVO and cancel your newspaper subscription. Check on the first one only. There is no time for watching TV, period. I’ve cancelled all my season passes. I haven’t seen a movie in ages either, except for “Pursuit of Happyness” last week. (Which is quite good, BTW). Oh yeah, and there’s a stack of unread newspapers sitting in my recycle container every week.
6. Get ahead in your reading. Check, but it didn’t work! My strategy was to read ahead in finance and marketing prior to the start of the term. It worked for about weekend, but there was so much to learn that I had forgotten what I read two weeks before. So my strategy had limited value.
5. Collude. Big CHECK in all capitals. As we learned in Microeconomics, collusion works. If you collude (when you can of course) with your study group and classmates, it will really help! For example, just knowing that the 2005 OPIM Final had most of the solutions to the homework was key for me.
4. Prepare for an adverse productivity shock. Check. If you take a new job, prepare for the massive adverse productivity shock (and labor supply shock, as Kip correctly points out) affecting your grades.
3. Optimize your time. Check. Big check. You will find yourself constantly feeling like you are behind (which you are). And then you will find yourself trying to optimize every moment of your day. And then you will fall further behind. So this term, I started to wake up earlier to study in the morning before heading to work. It’s still a struggle to get up at 5am every day, but it allows me to spend time with my family in the evenings. For those of you considering going to Wharton: this really is the FT program, in terms of curriculum, faculty, AND time required. It’s a ton of work when you do it FT. And it’s even harder when you are working FT.
2. Focus on the big picture. Hey, we are almost 50% done now. The first three terms have flown by, and this roller coaster will soon end before we know it. There is so much truth to what my cousin said to me about doing one of these EMBAs: DO NOT stretch it out and do a three year program, and choose one that you can get over with as soon as possible. Let’s just say that if Wharton had a 1 year program I would do it. There’s only 14 months left to go! I hear it gets easier after this term. We shall see…
1. Guard against the aging process. Check. I am using wrinkle cream, keeping up my workouts, taking lots of vitamin C, and drinking lots of water. Ok, maybe the last two more than the first two. J But at least the WEMBA prospective students that come through the class still recognize me from the picture on my blog profile…

-Chairman P

Earn Up to 6,000 Starwood Bonus Points

FYI, a few classmates asked me about the Starwood Preferred Guest promo going on. Click on the link below to check it out and sign up. Props out to John for bringing it to my attention.

This one is a no brainer for us WEMBA West students: Link to SPG.com promotion

-Chairman P

Comparing Wharton Full-time and WEMBA Programs

Check out Anil's excellent post on comparing the full-time and WEMBA MBA programs at Wharton: link

-Chairman P

Wharton West Grand Prix Results: Ariel Wins the Race

After class on Saturday, Loren organized a 10 person Wharton West Grand Prix at Go Cart Racing in Burlingame. So we cruised down there after wine tasting and raced around the track! I think everyone agreed that it was very fun but very intense. Ariel took pole position from Jack in the last few laps to take over the #1 spot. The rest of us were stuck in a pileup!

Here are the final rankings:

1 Ariel

2 Jack

3 Ron

4 Loren

5 Enoch

6 Ken

7 Gagan

8 Judy

9 John

10 Sridevi

Some takeaways:

§ Great way to blow off stress! It was really really fun. If you get 20 people, then I think that they will make a custom track. The other fun thing we could do is to do paintball. Section 1 versus Section 2? I can think of some professors we might want to invite…:)

§ Wharton Competitiveness. As I was slammin’ Loren "The Crash Dummy" into the wall and passing Gagan aka "Ghost Rider", I couldn’t help but get some great satisfaction! Everyone said afterward that their driving on the road was a lot more aggressive than normal, which I’m not sure was a good thing. It was also funny how everyone tuned into the statistics and their rankings that they gave us after the race (see pics if you want to see the numbers). Takeaway: our competitiveness in class translates into the go-cart track too.

§ Need Bigger Helmets. They need to stock some bigger helmets for those of us with bigger heads. I was the only one who fit a size XXL white helmet. I was told that it was quite easy to identify me, as the helmets were colored by size.

§ Black Head Socks are In. What’s better than the ninja head socks? We should wear them to our next group presentation….

Here’s some pics that Loren’s fiancée Yung took:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/66499233@N00/sets/72157594464297598/show/

Out for now. For those of you who expressed interest in guest blogging, now is the time! So just let me know.

-Chairman P

Thoughts on Term 3, Weekend 1

Marketing 621: Taught by Prof. David Bell. This first marketing class of the core is an interesting, interactive .5 unit class whose purpose is to educate us on how to do marketing. The next class focuses on strategy. Bell has an interactive style that I really appreciate. We had two lectures in the first weekend: 1) Segmentation, Targeting, and Positioning, and 2) Markets Analysis and LTVC (LifeTime Value of a Customer). Highlight of the class: Bell showed a funny video clip of Ali G and Donald Trump. It showed some of his pitches for ice cream gloves with some VCs. I think it's interesting how quite a few of our professors are starting to use video much more during their lectures, due to the availability of interesting clips and relevant content on the internet. It's an interesting trend in teaching that I personally like. It really drives home the point to be able to see what we are talking about in class.

Here’s a link to the Ali G / Trump video:

http://www.videovat.com/videos/1577/donald-trump-ali-g.aspx

Finance 601: This class is the core finance class for Wharton. We took a big picture, high-level view of the term and learned about Value Creation and Measures of Performance, using the Emerson Electric and Progressive Insurance case studies. Prof Percival is quite dramatic in his style, and he even slapped his own face twice in both sections to illustrate a point. (I was too slow to get a video clip…sorry) It was good to learn the intuition behind the DuPont model, and to learn the concepts behind MVA and EVA, two new acronyms to add to our MBA vocabulary. I was surprised to see some companies on the Top 5 and Bottom 5 lists in certain industries.

Quips and Quotes:

“And what is the problem wid ice cream? It drips.”

“All models are wrong but some are useful.”

“I think that Fortune has become the People magazine of business.”

“The time to be particularly worried is when you are doing well.”

“If I’m a lender, I like stable, predictable companies with fondle-able assets.”

Poker 601: There was a large poker game at the Le Meridian on Friday night in our study room that went until 4am. It was so crowded I couldn’t get a seat. But I hear Gagan hit QUAD Aces, and then Frank went “All in” on him….ouch! Bolaji has a picture of it that I’ll post when I get it…

-Chairman P

Field Report: Wharton West Coast Trek Sample

Thought I'd pass along my account of a day that I took to participate in the Wharton West Coast Trek, which concludes tomorrow. A few of our classmates will be missing the start of Term 3 tomorrow to participate.

The purpose of the trek is:"Student-managed visits to companies in various industries on the West Coast for the purpose of education and networking.". There's a big auction and students can bid points on the companies that they want. It's all managed and administered on the Webcafe website.

Here's some additional info from the fact sheet on the Trek:

• Audience: MBA 1st & 2nd years; WEMBA 2nd years (WEMBA 1st years if space permits)
• Trek Dates:Bay Area / So. Cal: Tuesday Jan. 2nd – Friday Jan. 5th
• Industries: Bay Area: Healthcare/Biotech, Technology, PE/VC, Real Estate, CPG/Retail, IB,
• IM, Consulting*; So. Cal: Real Estate, Healthcare/Biotech. Media & Entertainment, Consulting*

Some initial thoughts:

• The West Coast Trek is really good for getting a broad introduction into what it like to work in different industries and companies that are hiring traditional FT MBA grads. As an engineer, I had no idea what it was like to work in the traditional MBA-ish areas that I wanted to explore.
• I took a balanced approach to it, and selected one company in Venture Capital, Private Equity, and Investment Banking. The companies I chose were: Texas Pacific Group (PE), Morgan Stanley (IB/RE), and New Leaf Ventures (VC Healthcare). There were a lot of other types of companies and industries that I did not visit, but there are some WEMBA students who went to those. For example, talk to Loren if you want to know how the Bare Escentuals tour was! Alice went to Clorox.
• It was time well spent and totally worth it. I am glad that I did it as a first year student. It's on my must do list for next year.
• If you wait until next year to think about what you want to do after Wharton, it will be too late. Gotta start now. I'm really glad that I decided to participate prior to starting a new job next week. In talking to Zia, who's also in the same boat with a new gig, he also felt the same.

Here's my account of the day:
10:00am-11:45am Texas Pacific Group. We met in the lobby at 9:45am and then proceeded to head up to TPG's conference room, which sat about twenty people, all dressed in formal business attire. I ran into Zia in the lobby, so there were two of us from WEMBA Class32 there. Another comment: those FT MBAs sure look young. Heck, they *are* young! One of them asked me if I was Enoch Lee, who appears to be quite famous amongst Chinese women from HK in the FT program. Of course I said I wasn't, but that I knew him well. :)

12:00-12:45pm Lunch. Met up for some lunch with Zia, Enoch and Loren in the building where the next trek event was at: 555 California. All the investment banks are in that building.

1:00-3:00pm Morgan Stanley. We got 15 minute slots from a bunch of different groups: Corporate Finance, Financial Sponsors, Private Wealth Management, Fixed Income, Prime Brokerage, and Real Estate. It was a whirlwind tour of the different groups within MS. WEMBA students there: Alice, Ken, Peter, Richard and Jenn were all at the event.

3:00-4:00pm Rush out of Morgan to go get my car. Paid $27 for parking (ouch, but hey, its SF), and then sped down 280 to Sand Hill Road. Yeah, yeah, I went just a littttle fast. But I just made it down the Penninsula in time for New Leaf Ventures.

4:00-5:30pm New Leaf Ventures. Saw Masha and Haitao at the meeting, which was a Healthcare VC. Man, I thought they did some technology, but I was wrong. It was interesting to see their office in the same complex as Accell/KKR and Matrix Partners.

Takeaways:

• Sign up early. If you are a WEMBA first year, we get a total of ZERO bid points. Which means that whatever is leftover from the FT program and WEMBA second years is open to us. Not really that great.
• Get your best suit ready ahead of time. In my field, we NEVER wear a suit. I had to get mine altered. I must say that everyone was styling today, so much so that I almost didn't recognize some people. I am sure they didn't recognize me.
• This trek is very good and worth the time. I recommend it to all first years who are exploring what they are going to do post-Wharton.
• It would be even better to have a WEMBA only version targeted for more experienced job seekers. We should work with the Career Management office or Class 31s to do something for next year. At least we'd get auction bid points. If we try to do this, it would require us to start now.
• Most firms are only hiring a few interns and full-timers, and I'm sure it's really competitive. For example, TPG had 1-2 summer intern positions open.
• There are quite a few different types of investment banking jobs. It is not sufficient to say "I want to be in IB", you gotta know where in IB.
• Most people at the companies had heard of Wharton West. Some had not, so we still have some marketing and awareness to work on.
• Quote on working in IB: "Investment banks are coin-operated. Pay us more and you get better service."
• A shot on consulting careers from a former BCG consultant: "Consulting is for all those MBAs who don't know what else to do."
• Some quotes about working in VC, since I know many of us are considering it:

"If you want to work in VC, don't do it for the money. Go work for a hedge fund."
"Most of the conversations you have outside the firm are uncomfortable conversations. You say no 90% of the time."
"A VC job is about getting to no quickly."
"We don't build companies. We manage money."

• We also got some great advice on searching for a job via networking.
• WEMBA suffers from not having career services locally on the West Coast. Those in Philly are at a distinct advantage. The school tells us that they are going to fix this; we'll see if it will help our cohort or not.

There were also a few social events during the week with Columbia and MIT. A group of Stanford FT MBAs was sighted walking around today as well. In addition, there was an Alumni Event tonight at Oola which I didn't make it to.

It's late and Term 3 starts tomorrow, so I'm out for now. But it is nice to think about the light at the end of the long journey we are on...

-Chairman P