The Wharton MBA Journey

When you deduct the cost of your MBA

2010-04-12T09:06:00.000-07:00

Every now and then I get some questions from entering Wharton classes on tax deductability of the MBA. So I thought I'd pass along these links:

When you can deduct the cost of your MBA

Hope this is useful!
-Chairman P

Back at Wharton West!

2008-08-22T23:05:00.001-07:00

Well, numerous Facebook and Twitter posts have let some of you know by now that I'm back at Wharton West. (Well at least Dan P, that dude noticed my Facebook post about five minutes after I posted it. The Facebook machine continues to grow, and I'm now a fan of FB for Blackberry.)

Why am I back at WEMBA? This time it's to audit Prof. Siggelkow's class, MGMT 701, Strategic Planning and Control. It's purely because this was one of those classes I wished I could have taken, plus it's only 3 weekends as a .5 unit course. The biggest reason is that it's free for alums!

There are FIVE Class 32s in there (I'll leave out last names): Frank, Mike, Charles, John, and I. One of us has a cool boss, one of us is his own boss, one of us is in between jobs, and another told his boss that he needs to repeat Term 5. Guess which one is false? And no, we didn't hang out at the Old Ship or Le Meridian afterwards. Nor sleep in the poker rooms. After after the ridicule that Raggy got from KFC when he posted a message to our email list that he was auditing a course, none of us admitted we were also heading back. I wonder who else is in MGMT 806 with Raghav. I know you 32s are back at work wishin' you were hanging out with us in the back. It's nice to live here in the Bay Area.

I gotta admit, it's kinda weird being back at WEMBA. This time I'm much more tan, relaxed, and able to concentrate. Larry still remembers me, although the look on his face made me think that he was thinking "what is wrong with that guy?". Since as auditors we are banned from talking in class, it's entertaining watching the unpreparded 33s get cold-called. I found myself thinking of former cohort classmates as certain people in the class responded to Siggelkow's questions....

As I recall, this was about the time last year that all I could think about was the one month break between the first weekend and the next real one. With the international trip in between (they are heading to China), I told a few relieved 33s that it's all downhill from this point on. And it really is.

Anyhow, it's off to sleep to wake up early to head over to class again tomorrow morning.

-Chairman P

GOLF 720 Trip to Callippe Preserve GC

2008-07-13T22:26:00.000-07:00

What do WEMBA grads do after we finish the program? GOLF 720 is in full session, thanks to Thomas and Zia. Eight of us (Bolaji, Keith, Adam, Zia, Cameron, Thomas, Haitao and I) played on Sat 7/12/2008 at Callippe Preserve Golf Course, which is a nice new golf track in Pleasanton. It was my 10th time golfing since we finished WEMBA, which is a nice contrast to the 3 rounds I played the entire year before!

Here's some pics from the outing. We'll be doing a golf event about once a month so let us know if you are interested next time!

-Chairman P

Class 32 golf champ Cameron studies his 30 footer birdie attempt on #18. His putt wasn't good, but he managed to shoot a 77 after making a par on the last hole! That was easily better than anyone else....I shot 89 and let's just say there were lots of scores in the triple digits...

(Left to right, like my ball flight: Zia, Thomas, and Bolaji on the 18th at Callippe.)

Adam chips onto the 18th green. Hint: this wasn't to save par!

Bolaji is looking, looking, and looking for his ball in the hazard. It was a one stroke penalty plus a free drop!

Graduation At Last!

2008-06-21T15:12:00.001-07:00

Graduation was a fantastic experience, and it was a time to celebrate with friends, family, and classmates. Words can't really describe it so I have decided just to post a few photos.

This post signals the end of the Wharton MBA Journey. Not this blog, mind you, just the part where I chronicle what it's like being in the program itself. From this point on, it's all about what happens after graduation.

-Chairman P

Herbst Theatre graduation ceremony ...here's what it looks like when you graduate from WEMBA West!

A celebratory kiss from my wife, who is very happy that I am done. Now I start on the "honey do list".

Graduation Loometh Ahead!

2008-05-06T19:35:00.000-07:00

Graduation looms ahead on Sunday 5/11/2008. Here's a picture of our announcements.

-Chairman P

Twittering About GOOG and Social Networks

2008-05-03T21:09:00.000-07:00

My startup is going fully Google these days. Instead of going for an Exchange server or a hosted email solution, we went with the Google apps solution for our own domain. We are talking mail, docs, calendar, chat and news. There are no SLAs or a human that will answer your phone. But they seem to have fixed the compatibility issues between running Google Apps and Gmail for personal use at the same time. Also, there's a new Blackberry sync for Google Calendars that is quite nice. I've got Outlook syncing with Blackberry desktop and also with Google Calendaring on Google Apps. Nice. I'm liking the Gmail UI quite a bit; it's very fast and intuitive to use. The filters feature gives you more productivity than using Outlook calendars, and I can say that now Outlook is relegated to a backup IMAP client. It is still the source of truth for contact information, for the time being. If the GOOG is listening, they should be working on Contact/Address Book sync and Task sync as well.

Finally, two thumbs up from me for Google Reader. It's nicely done. Be sure to subscribe to my blog if you use it! :)

With all the extra time, I've been surfing around quite a bit. On the social networking side, it seems that Facebook is gaining a lot of momentum in our age group. Apps like Texas Hold Em are doing pretty well. It doesn't compare to playing in the lobby of the Le Meridian, but hey, WEMBA is over now. If you get some time, check out www.friendfeed.com and www.twitter.com. They both seem to have some steam behind them. I just signed up for MyBlogLog and put a badge on the side...let's see how it does.

And finally, here's an interesting article on diffusion of innovation from Harvard:
http://tinyurl.com/4s3ssl

-Chairman P

Wharton Alumni Beer Mug

2008-05-03T17:23:00.000-07:00

Graduation is now only one week away; it's next Sunday at 10am at the San Francisco War Memorial, Herbst Theater.

Our cap and gown bags had this plain glass beer mug wrapped in bubble wrap that I wasn't sure what it was for until I poured some Boddington's into it. Then I saw the engraving: "WHARTON ALUMNI, University of Pennsylvania, CLASS OF 2008."

I of the black Ogio Wharton bag as costing me $75K, and the beer mug pictured to the right as another $75K. Let's hope we put it to good use.

See you all at graduation!

-Chairman P

Awards and Island Attire Day Aka Robert Y Day

2008-04-25T22:43:00.001-07:00

Here's a picture from Zia from our last weekend at Wharton. It was fun heading to school in Hawaiian shirts.

A big congrats to Robert for winning the Benjamin Franklin award, and to Clifton for winning the Dean's Leadership award. You guys deserve it!

I'm honored to be the recipient of the Dean's Spirit award this year; thanks everyone!

Raghav is our graduation commencement speaker. Congratulations! I'm really looking forward to his speech. He promises to make it short and sweet!

For graduation, they have the concept of "'row leaders" who are the top students for each row of graduates...congrats to all of you as well.

The Palmer Scholar is the top student in the cohort. I must confess that I have no idea who the Palmer Scholar is; I'm sure it'll be down to the wire for the few that are in contention. I know for sure it's not me though! :)

See you all at graduation!

-Chairman P

Thoughts Right After Sending the Last Assignment

2008-04-24T23:17:00.000-07:00

I just hit the "send" button for my last two assignments for Prof Wessel's class in Venture Capital and the Finance of Innovation. Great class, totally recommend it. I give him some props for keeping our interest for the second half of the last term. He really tied together all the finance concepts we learned in one half term course.

Here's a link to another book he wrote on valuation (already ordered a copy for my bookshelf):
http://www.amazon.com/Valuation-Measuring-Managing-Companies-Finance/dp/047170220X/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1209104817&sr=1-2

And now I am really done! Here's some thoughts....

One thing that you learn on Day 1 at Wharton is to measure everything. And I mean everything! We learned a ton of acronyms and frameworks, as well as how to measure them, and then to convert them to log scale and run regressions on them. My classmates will smile as I rattle off the following terms and acronyms from our first year: MC=MR, two-part pricing, T accounts, B/S, I/S, SCF, R^2, t-stat, PVLR, IS-LM, Fisher relation, PPP, linear optimization, the Newsvendor Model, 5Cs and 4Ps, STP, conjoint, and perceptual maps. Oh yeah, and there’s the good ole Greeks: alpha, beta, gamma, rho, sigma, tau. And before I forget, there’s some of the second year stuff: integrative and distributive negotiations, DCF, NPV, cost of capital, WACC, CAPM, currency exposure, IRP, Fama-French, Multi-factor models, APV, LBO, multiples, Section 144A, post-VC valuation, participating preferred, liquidation preferences, entrepreneurial marketing and new product development, and real options. There’s also: bricolage, kumbaya, the Saddu, Porter’s 5 Forces, total leadership, “strategery”, and synergy. We met and learned from CEOs and ex-CEOs, renowned venture capitalists, successful entrepreneurs, and the ex-minister of finance from Argentina that pegged the peso to the dollar. Bernanke wrote our macroeconomics book. (By the way, if you want to see the picture of one of my classmates unwrapping the plastic off of it right before the final, see me for more details.)

I’m sure I’m forgetting about 100 other terms that we could have talked about. For those of you who didn't get an MBA, I’m sure I lost you a while ago in the alphabet soup, but hopefully this gives you a bit of an idea of what we learned in class over the past two years.

But the Greek letters, management frameworks, and formulas will soon start to fade away; it’s what we learned outside of class that really mattered. And I think that this is much harder to quantify.

The Wharton MBA Program for Executives was also very much about learning to juggle the intense demands of a job, family, and school at the same time (and sometimes dropping more than one ball), learning how to help each other, the importance of getting to know the people involved, and figuring out that the team is indeed stronger than individuals. It's nothing short of amazing that I didn't get fired, divorced, and/or fail out of school. I know a lot of my classmates felt the same way. We learned how to think differently, to think outside the bun (er, I mean box), and to apply the tools we learned in the classroom in a world of uncertainty. And these tools and the intuition behind them will help us navigate the real world. They certainly have helped me to look at our bear stock market (worst in five years), the Bear Stearns bailout, and the sub-prime mortgage meltdown through different lenses.

But the events I will remember aren’t those from class but those outside of it, and I’m sure many of my classmates will agree. For example: the conference calls (for most of us that made them), the endless IM chats, the countless emails that made me laugh, the week long trip to Philly, standing on the top of Christ the Redeemer monument in Rio, trekking on the glacier in El Calafate, going to the Old Ship for a nightcap after 12 hours of WEMBA, playing poker, the NCAA basketball pool, the prom, our fantasy football league, travels to Philly, Las Vegas, and other places, the picnics, dinners, and parties we went to, getting pizza for a late night snack in North Beach, and countless others.

To my classmates, I leave you with some thoughts:

Whew, it’s over. It’s been a lot of hard work, sacrifice, and investment in time and money. This definitely wasn’t an MBA-lite; this was the real deal. When they say that it’s the same curriculum as the FT program, they weren’t kidding. I still remember thinking after the first week of Term 1 the following: “Oh my gosh, what did I just get myself into? This is going to be way more work than I thought.” I know that there were many others in our class that felt exactly the same way that first week.

But we made it to graduation! It’s been a tremendous experience; you are an incredible group of talented people that I am blessed to have crossed paths with.

Many of us have switched jobs already or are in the process of doing so. Some of us are staying put. But irrespective of what lies ahead, the future is bright.

We sit at the tip of the Silicon Valley, the center of the innovation for technology. One of the reasons Wharton West was established was to tap into the talent and creativity here. Our last term at Wharton kind of brought it all together for me with the classes on entrepreneurial marketing and venture capital. In thinking about starting my own company someday, I ran across some advice from Guy Kawasaki, founder of Garage Technology Ventures and an ex-Apple Fellow. Not everyone is in technology or is thinking about entrepreneurship, but I think Guy’s advice applies to way more than starting a company; it applies to life.

I’d like to share his top 10 list now:

So You Want to be an Entrepreneur? (from Guy Kawasaki's speech)

10. Embrace the unknown.
09. Don't ask people to do something that you wouldn't do.

08. Focus on implementation.

07. Don't be paranoid.

06. Pursue entrepreneurship for the right reasons.

...Happiness is temporary and fleeting. It should not be the goal of entrepreneurship.

Joy is the right goal. Joy, by contrast, is unpredictable. It comes from pursuing interests and passions that do not "obviously" result in happiness. It comes from building a great team, from family, from friends and inexpensive if not free things.

05. Continue to learn.

04. Be brief.

03. Obey the absolutes.

02. Play to win.
Play to win and don't let the bozos convince you to do anything less. Indeed, the more bozos tell you that you can't succeed, the more you may be on to something.

Playing to win is one of the finest things you can do. It enables you to fulfill your potential. It enables you to improve the world and, conveniently, develop high expectations for everyone else too.

And what if you lose? Just make sure you lose while trying something grand .

01. Enjoy your family, friends, and colleagues before they are gone.

That last one is key, and I’d like to encourage you all to think about it carefully and what it means. Enjoy your family, friends, and colleagues before they are gone. Now we have the time to reconnect and to re-examine our priorities which have been so skewed toward school for the past two years. On a personal level, I know my wife Cindy has a list of “honey-do this” stuff that I’ve been putting off for two years, and from what I hear from my classmates, we all have a bunch of catching up to do on a lot of levels. It will be nice to get our lives back.

Peace out! Gotta get to those honey-dos.

-Chairman P

Clear Admit Best of Blogging Nominee for 2008

2008-04-20T22:00:00.000-07:00

Clear Admit has just let me know that this blog is in contention for a Best of Blogging Nominee for 2008 (link). Looks like there are a number of top MBA program bloggers in contention. The nominees will be rating each other blogs and then the winners will soon be announced. From my very quick scan, it looks like I am the only exec MBA type in contention, which is cool.

-Chairman P

It Is Finished... Post-WEMBA Thoughts

2008-04-20T16:37:00.000-07:00

It is finished. WEMBA is over! We are free....the transformation is complete.

I'm feeling kinda strange today on the first day in The Chapter After Wharton; it's a combination of happy, sad, elated, disappointed, exhilarated, and exhausted all rolled into one. It was weird checking out of the Le Meridian yesterday and having the hotel employees all shake my hand and say congrats as I drove out of there. I mean, I'll be there again in three weeks for graduation but that's a bit different. We also got our Wharton caps and gowns, and I put mine along side my diploma frame when I got home. I also took a long look at the bookshelf in my office filled with all those MBA books and thought "was it really worth it?" I decided that I was too tired to give it serious thought so I'll get back to it later. I am pretty sure the answer is a resounding yes for me.

Some very out of the ordinary things I did today: slept in, read the Sunday newspaper, washed my car, went to the bank, took my daughter to lunch, surfed the web, went shopping with my daughter, and sent some personal email. I NEVER did all these things on a Sunday during the program so it's kinda strange starting to get life back again. Tonight we are heading out for a family dinner to boot.

A few classmates have asked if I'll keep blogging now that we are done. The short answer is YES! I'll keep blogging as I think this will be a good place to update each other on what's happening with after the program. I think of it as an electronic version of class updates in the back of the Wharton alumni magazine.

I'm looking forward to graduation and playing a little golf with some classmates over the next few weeks. We're gonna play some hooky for the GOLF 720 final.

I seriously think that I'll need to find a new hobby/addiction with the big void of WEMBA gone from my life. A bunch of friends that have traveled this road have said that after an exec MBA you need to train for a marathon, travel the world, and/or take up some new hobbies with all the free time. For now, my new hobbies are sleeping in and watching TV. That should work for the next few months at least.

-Chairman P

Class Gift Fundraising - Entrepreneurial Marketing

2008-04-18T13:58:00.000-07:00

We've started a very effective entrepreneurial marketing campaign (Lodish would be proud) that is now posted in the restrooms at WEMBA West.

Here's what is on the wall in the men's restroom.

Here's what's below.

You get the idea. Mallika tells me that the women's stalls have a "Don't just sit there...donate" message in them. :)

Hope I didn't disturb your lunch.

-Chairman P

Robert Y Day at Wharton West

2008-04-17T18:44:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is First Annual Island Attire Day aka Robert Y Day at Wharton West! Wear your Hawaiian shirts to the last day(s) of class. Here's what I am going to wear. -Chairman P

Group Think: Facebook, LinkedIn and GoogleGroups

2008-04-12T08:58:00.000-07:00

It's time to get rid of using those temporary Wharton email addresses and to start using the ones that look like this: first.last.wg08@wharton.upenn.edu. It's also time to make sure you are connected to the networking groups out there!

Facebook:
Those of you not on Facebook should sign up; there's quite a few of us out there now. Looks like Class 34 has a Facebook group instead of a Yahoo Group, which is a sign of the state of Yahoo and the rise of Facebook. The Facebook machine has sucked me in. I find myself spending more and more time on doing mindless things like poking people, taking crazy surveys, and yes, playing Texas Hold Em.

Here's a link to our Facebook group (Wharton Exec MBA (WEMBA) 32 West) if you aren't on yet:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=15636591214

Thanks to John K, who's Mr Facebook for our class. Oh yeah, and there are more Wharton related groups out there: Wharton School of Business, Wharton Entrepreneurs, WEMBA West, I Support Grade Non-Disclosure, and others. For you bloggers, there's also PicApp. Quick shot out there to our classmate Eval Gura, the CEO of PicApp. He will gladly give you a sticker to put on the back of your laptop. I had one but got a new laptop (a sweet Lenovo X300 with the solid state drive) so I gotta get another one.

LinkedIn:
The professional social network of choice also has some Wharton groups, such as Wharton Executive MBA Alumni, and Wharton Technology Network . There's a new Class 32 LinkedIn group I just started. Me and Guru are out there now, all by our lonesomes. :)

Here's a link if you are interested in joining the newly created Class32 LinkedIn group:
http://www.linkedin.com/e/gis/69698/2560DA67EBAF

Google Groups:
"Kumbaya" is a group for Class 32 entrepreneurs that Gagan and I started for those interested in discussing startup company issues.

Here's a link to join:
http://groups.google.com/group/kumbaya

-Chairman P

The End of the 24 Month Long Tunnel

2008-04-11T17:22:00.000-07:00

Looks like the end of the twenty four month journey is in sight! A week from tomorrow and our classes will be done!

Here's what I've posted on my wall at work to keep track of where we are.

It will give me great pleasure to cross off the last month on the academic calendar....whoooohooo!

-Chairman P

Project Manager / Planning Needed?

2008-04-10T12:08:00.000-07:00

If anyone is looking for a project manager / event planner, our WEMBA graduation planner Simone is looking for job opportunities. Just wanted to pass this along.

Contact info: four one five- 577 291 zero

Prom Night Recap

2008-04-10T11:09:00.000-07:00

It was a fun and eventual night! Our WEMBA Class 32 "prom night" was held last Sat evening at a restaurant called Circulo in the Mission district of San Francisco. The class got $10K to blow on a party / night out for the venue of our choice, and we sure partied the night away. There was a real prom photographer and everyone got a 5X7 photo of themselves and their date. Depending on who you asked, the recommended dress code was either casual (Lorenesque jeans and a nice shirt) or sophisticated evening wear (Nichole-esque short evening dress). I split the difference myself, as I must say Loren did as well. There were a bunch of small plates and appetizers, which was perfect for the type of event we had.

Congrats to the following class award winners:
Eve = MVP, class member you'd most want to have on your team (tied with Robert Yi)
Jonathan = MIA award
Kevin = Most likely to sell his grandmother for $50
Clay = Drunken Warriors fan award
Charles = Racing cars award
Adam = Biggest bootie award
Sam = angriest dude award
I can't remember the rest....:)

There were a ton of pictures taken as well. Here are some that people have shared:

Adam's prom pics:
http://picasaweb.google.com/adambedard2677/WhartonPromAndOthers

Photos from the professional photographers:
http://flickr.com/photos/66499233@N00/sets/72157604415279097/

Sri's public prom photos:
http://picasaweb.google.com/hyflyer/DonTCallItPromNight

Anshum's slideshow from our past two years (thanks - must have been a lot of work):
http://www.shardafamily.com/friends/Wemba/Wemba32_0001.wmv

Sri's last session memories (hey, some of us still have another session):
http://picasaweb.google.com/hyflyer/2008WhartonLastSessionMemories

Apparently, there was a bit of drama at the end with the paramedics being called; glad there was no serious health issues. I hear we went through the $5K open bar pretty quickly, and that there were many inebriated WEMBA students staggering around into cabs at the end. Michelle was apparently one of the caretakers as was Frank "the cabbie".

The aftermath? Lots of emails afterwards from folks asking for missing awards/items (Sir KFC, Eve, Gagan, ....). Hope everyone found what they lost, although I suspect that they didn't.

And finally, muchos gracias to Nichole "class awards queen", Loren "resident foodie", Sean "too drunk to tell us about the class gift", and Clifton "class gifts man".

-Chairman P

Blog Reorganization

2008-04-10T11:05:00.000-07:00

I just reorged my blog a bit by adding a new Most Popular Posts section...I realized that after posting over 100 times the past two years, this blog needed a summary section in addition to the Past Posts area.

Enjoy!
-Chairman P

Elective Selection Wisdom

2008-04-08T00:22:00.000-07:00

Elective class selection is pretty important at WEMBA for the second year (Terms 4 - Term 6). The list is shockingly similar from year to year as it seems that the same classes get voted in. A number of people have asked me about my suggestions, and I told them that I would write a blog article about the electives. So here we are at the end of Term 6 (two class days left), and here’s my article…read on. Hope this is useful for the classes in the future.

My overall suggestions on elective selection:

Be ready to switch if the class doesn’t pass your sniff test. I attended a number of classes to test them out. Don’t be afraid to switch if totally doesn’t interest you. This is where using your digital voice recorder along with a friend in another class can help.
Keep the requirements for your major in mind. Note that everyone gets the same MBA degree; your transcript will have your major(s) on it if you qualify. I decided on becoming a finance major because: 1) finance was more interesting to me and 2) I wanted to concentrate on a subject that I didn’t have a lot of previous experience in. I thought of my major as going short against my technologist/entrepreneur background. They say that you can never go wrong with finance at Wharton, and I think that it is right. For the record, I took a fair number of management and marketing classes to round out my education the last term.
1 cu classes are somewhat easier. Maybe it’s just me, but I like the 1 cu electives better, perhaps because they are spread out over a longer period and not so rushed. Of course they are much more in depth.
LT avoidance. You can’t LT classes that have less than 20 people in them. I know some folks (no one you know) that selected classes so they wouldn’t get Das Boot.
Art of the Pass/no pass. The art of the pass/no pass should be used to maximize your focus on those classes that really matter for your major. It’s a nice option to use your second year. Too bad we couldn’t use it our first year! Those really must have been the days when everything was Pass/No Pass.
Look at the past course ratings. Difficulty and instructor rating are the two key metrics. Some classes just aren’t that great in one or two areas.
Use the scan to PDF function. I scanned in all my bulk packs and then traded them with folks that had other classes. You never know when you’ll need some article from some class you weren’t able to take.

Term 4: Summer 2007 electives

FNCE 731: International Finance. This was probably my most favorite class at Wharton, and to take it I forewent taking MGMT 801 (Entrepreneurship), which was a bummer. It helped me to figure that I wanted to be a finance major as I loved the spot rate, currency hedge, and trade agreements material. My rationale was that my day job at a Series B startup had given me enough info on what the startup world was all about, so I took Bodnar’s International Finance class. Bodnar was a great lecturer, well-organized with excellent PDF handouts, and had an extensive website with lots of examples on it. Text book is useful. It was a heavy 1 cu course, and was easily the most difficult class in Term 4. Highly recommended.

IS 899: Independent Study. I went independent study after taking a look at Marketing Research and the OPIM product development classes. It turned out to be way more work than anything else I could have done, yet I am glad that I did an IS with Prof. Kent Smetters on open source software strategy and pricing. My 80 page report was valuable for my firm, and the company makes it mandatory reading to help them come up to speed. Don’t do an IS if you don’t want to work though. I did get an A. Recommended.

REAL 721: Real Estate Finance. This class was an interesting one but it was way too short and too quick due to the schedule constraints. We had a good guest speaker on REITs at the end, and the final project is to do a REIT valuation report. My book still has the clear plastic wrap on it. Recommended.

Classes I didn’t take but heard good things about: Total Leadership. I looked like a “grade your diary” class to me that I could do on my own. I heard that the utility you get out of it depends on who you get paired with as a partner to critique your stuff, as well as how much you are able to put into it.

Term 5: Fall 2007

LGST 806: Negotiations. This was a great class, and one of those that wasn’t preparation intensive. What made it unique was that you did a bunch of in-class real life negotiations with and against your classmates. I learned a lot about myself and my classmates, and I’m glad I took the class. You can’t audit it later after graduation, so that pushed me over the edge to take it. Notes aren't that great, book is useful. Highly recommended.

FNCE 726: Advanced Corporate Finance. My team (gasp!) LTed this class, which I thought was totally unfair, as we didn’t sign up to do a presentation as there weren’t enough slots. I thought the lectures were interesting, but Oded has you do the cases before the lecture material which I didn’t think was so hot. The lectures are high quality, the notes are below average, and the book is not the greatest. Perhaps I am just bitter. But I really wish I took MGMT 806, Formation of Entrepreneurial Ventures. I heard from my classmates who took that class that it was one of the best. I wasn’t that psyched about it, but you kinda have to take it if you want the finance major. As the syllabus says, take it only if you like ambiguity.

FNCE 720: Investment Management. Geczy’s class is about running tons of regressions, and then some more. I learned a lot about IM and liked the class, but I had one small complaint: I thought that the class was a bit research-y. Great lecture notes and great lectures. Highly recommended.

Classes I didn’t take that I heard good things about: Sigelcow’s Strategic Management and Control Class, and Pottruck’s Org Change class.

Term 6: Spring 2008

MGMT 804: Venture Capital. Raffi and Collum teach a pretty good class on VC. There’s a ton of material crammed into the class, and I liked this class quite a bit. Some of my classmates didn’t like it as much, but I liked it because it helped explain the Silicon Valley startup world that I live in. Massive bulkpack, no text. Highly recommended.

MKTG 754: Pricing Policy. I audited this one as I didn’t need the units, but it is a great class. Proj Raju is going to be chair of the department next year, and we can see why that is the case. Top notch class with good lectures. Homework isn't that long or hard, but it will make you think. Highly recommended.

MKTG 753: New Product Development. This class overlaps quite a bit with the next marketing class, MKTG 781. It’s interesting and useful, especially to a guy who heads up the products and engineering functions for his firm. If I had to do it again, I would have taken either this class or Lodish’s class. But my rationale is that I was so heavy on finance classes that I wanted to balance it out a bit, so I took both. My teams did different venture projects, so I ended up learning a lot anyway. Recommended.

MKTG 781: Entrepreneurial Marketing. Lodish has impressive credentials and brought some top-notch speakers into class, which was valuable. It’s a 1 cu class, which is good your last term. Most of your grade relies on a project for a venture idea that you work on the whole term. If new ventures aren’t your bag, then don’t take this class. But I thought it was useful for someone considering starting a company down the road sometime. Surprisingly not that much reading. Highly recommended.

MGMT 811: Entrepreneurship Through Acquisition. Chalfin’s class was a refreshing practical “street smart” type of class that I really liked. It has a 40% participation aspect to your grade, and I think he took that into consideration after talking to a few classmates who weren’t the most vocal unfortunately. The final is a big case study that will take you a while to get through, but there’s no homework along the way which is nice. Highly recommended.

FNCE 751: Buyouts and M&A. Buletkin’s class is an interesting one. I audited since I didn’t need the units. Some interesting cases on RJR Nabisco, really interesting guest speakers, and good lectures. This course is all case studies, and it gave me a good perspective on LBOs and M&A. If I had to do it over again, I would have taken this class for a grade and blown off ACF. I heard that the final in this one was a killer. Both text books are thick.

FNCE 750: Venture Capital and the Finance of Innovation. This class is a really good one, and I like Wessel’s teaching a lot. He brings together a lot of concepts and I can see how the ideas all tie together, which is cool. Too bad it’s at the end when we are all totally burnt out. There's a thin textbook and organized presentations. Highly recommended.

Classes I didn’t take but people said good things about: Derivatives (Gibbons) – supposedly a lot of work but Gibbons is a famous guy in this area…

The profs should be happy I didn't give out LTs....

Hope this helps,

Chairman P

Check For $113 from Google

2008-03-31T23:29:00.001-07:00

Even though it doesn't even make a dent in my tuition loan, it was nice to get a check for $113 from GOOG today for my blog for the past three months.

Here's my blog visit and page view stats for the past 12 months. I guess my recent increase in posting frequency has had a good effect...

-Chairman P

Survey of the Social Networks at Wharton West

2008-03-30T22:48:00.001-07:00

By popular demand from those who voted on my blog poll, this post is my take on the various social groups at Wharton. We now have only four more class days and two more weekends to go. Plus a "Prom" in between. We're long past the early days of our cohort, which felt like starting college or high school all over again from a social networking perspective. But I write about the groups that have been formed since the early days of WEMBA.

I'd characterize myself as one of those people that is able to relate to a lot of different groups, perhaps because of my fourth generation Korean-American background. (And no, Loren, I am not a twinkie.) Or my interest in poker. Or red wine. Or perhaps getting the distinction as the guy who most often got the mean on the exams. :) Anyhow, please take these characterizations lightly, and if you are offended by stereotypes then don't read on....

Some of the main social groups at WEMBA can be characterized as follows:

The Smokers. These are the hard core, I smoke a pack a day types that stand outside on the balcony or by the front entrance to the building. I didn't manage to make it into this group, except for a brief stint while in Argentina when I had access to some Cubano stogies. After Wharton started, they smoked two packs a day (consumption increase!) and made RJR Nabisco very happy. You can tell them by the smokey smell.

Your First Year Study Group. The first year study group experience at B-School is like no other group experience; it's what happens when 5-6 Type As get into the room at the same time. One of days these someone should do a reality show on B-School study groups...now that would be interesting! There are various characters such as the Slacker, the "Total" Leader, the Socialite, the Genius, the Silent One, the Never Calls In Guy, the Traveller, the Millionaire, the Know It All, and the Procrastinator. Not all of these are mutually exclusive either. You'll find out.

The Drinkers. Party party party! These are the hard core alcoholic enhanced types that hang out at the Old Ship bar late at night. To be a card carrying member, you must do one of the following: know the bartender by first name, regularly skip Sat class to get a burger and beer in the morning, break a table while drunk, and/or drink the incredibly expensive Zain's Liquor fifths with a Red Bull in the back of class at the end of a Fri/Sat. These guys and gals have livers of stone.

The Various Racial and Religious Herds. I guess I can say this since I'm in the Asians group, but we do seem to have some groups that aggregate by race at Wharton from time to time. It's not too bad most of the time, except when there's too much yammering in some foreign language. There's the Asian-Americans (from the Orient) as well as the Indian Asians, the Latins, the Europeans, the WASPs, and the Jews. Oh yeah, and there's the Ebonics Society, founded by Clifton A. The Mormons are in there as well; I think we have four of them. There's SIX (correction from the original post; it was FIVE before) Koreans in our class, which I'm sure is some sort of record. One funny story that Nicole told me was that her friends that met some of us in Brazil were wondering why everyone at Wharton was Asian. I'm sure I'm forgetting some more groups here but I better stop before the slippery slope gets steeper!

The I Hardly Show Up Team. There's a couple of guys and gals that rarely show up for class. It never fails to amaze me that they managed to get through the program, but a few have proved that it is possible to miss lots of school and still graduate. This is NOT recommended for the average person, however. I think I made it to 50% of my undergrad classes but that didn't work for me at WEMBA. This team is either made of geniuses or huge donors to the school.

The Sports Fans. I'm a proud member of this one, having commished the Whartun32 Fantasy Football League the past two years. I also teach Golf 720. Azar has also run the NCAA Men's Basketball Pool the past two years as well. You will know if you are in this group if you are caught lobbying for Sports Management elective in Term 3. We weren't successful in getting it, thankfully, but it seemed like a good idea at the time.

The Runners. There's a group of morning runners that get up early almost every Sat to go for a run before class. Charles, dude, thanks but no thanks, I'll see you in class. This one was not for me. It was a popular group though, and if I had done it I would have reduced the weight gain portion of the Costs of Academic Distress. Doh!

The Scholars. There's a small group of competitive students that I assume are vying for the Palmer Scholar award. First term pretty much took care of me so I can't tell you from personal experience. You know you are member if you finish your assignments before the term even starts. 100% attendance at all the TA and office hour sessions are part of it as well, but if you qualify for that and get good grades then you might be something that starts with a B and ends with an R.

The Team. There are a number of Intel, Oracle, Cisco, and HP students in every class. Ours seems to have a high percentage of Intel and Oracle folks. Or at least when we started Wharton....hehehe :) Change that to "seemed", past tense.

The Nerds. We're at Wharton, so I think almost everyone qualifies for this in some way. But there are some extremely nerdy folks at Wharton, and these types seem to attract each other for Dungeons and Dragons night. We are talking outliers here. And if you know what one is before Stats class, then you might be one.

The Impressives. There are a few select people in our class that I admire quite a bit for their achievements, be it in business, as an entrepreneur, or in their personal lives. It really is great to get to know some of these really impressive people on a very personal basis. That's one of the truly great things about the program.

The Family Guys/Gals. These types don't socialize that much, usually bring their families to school, and are good old fashioned family types. There are lots of these in our class. Frank and Adam qualified after having twins in Term 3 or so. Twins are not recommended, but it can be done.

The Socialite-Gossipers. These types compare what everyone is wearing, who's hot and who's not, know the latest dirt, and are pretty well connected to what's happening after class. Usually single, although occasionally married, they are always ready for some sort of social event. These types have IM always running, are always getting text messages, and just are in the know. There is a fine line between being a socialite and being that guy/gal who shows up to all social events whether you are invited or not.

The Commuter Groups. This one is usually by geographic location. I'm in one of the carpools from the Penninsula area, and I meet up with 4-5 classmates to carpool to school. Saves gas, saves parking at the hotel, and the best part is the conversation on the way there and back. There are other groups: the SoCal airplane team, the South Bay carpool, and the Sacramento commute triad. Nikul just told me that the Sacramento guys only just figured out in Term 6 the optimal way to commute from Sacto after taking BART for 1.5 years.

The Poker Players. Texas Hold Em is the game of choice in our class. I'm a card carrying member, at least before I changed jobs. (For the story of how much changing jobs affects your time to play poker, I'll have to write another blog post.) You'll know the really hard core poker types because you will get email when they play on Facebook, particularly in class. My recommendation for WEMBA is to get a privacy screen on your laptop; thanks goes out to Kip who showed me how useful it was way back in Term 1. BTW, Gagan and Kevin seem to be the top Facebook poker players in our class based on the notifications. On a somewhat related note, I recently only just cashed in my PartyPoker.com chips and got a real check, believe it or not. I think I floated those guys about $500 for two years, which was an interest free loan. Just totally forgot about it while at WEMBA.

One last thing: Gagan and I both keep our chip sets at the Le Meridian in permanent storage, so you Class 33 and Class 34's are welcome to use them. We've both decided that part of our class gift is to permanently leave our poker sets at the Le Meridian for all time. The chips with the metallic centers are from me, Chairman P. The other ones are from Gagan. Just ask for the poker set at the concierge desk. Enjoy!

I'm quite sure I missed some more groups. Maybe I'll have Gagan create a social groups app online so that people can do it on the web....

Grades Available for MGMT 811 and MKTG 753

2008-03-27T16:29:00.000-07:00

Penn Portal has our grades posted for Chalkin and Hutchinson's classes.

Now I Take the Career Leader Test! Doh!

2008-03-24T23:58:00.000-07:00

The mad blogger stikes again! Only two more weekends and four more class days til we are done done done!

We're nearing the last mile. Not that I have ever run in a marathon, but I'm sure it feels like I feel right now: every step of the last mile is painful. I can't wait til it's over, especially after seeing my classmates last weekend do some cartwheels when they had finished. (Roger, I am jealous)

One thing to pass on: I just took the Career Leader online test through the career management office. Now I take it! Doh! Guess it's better late than never. I can blame not taking it either on laziness or not having a Class 31 blogger to light the way. Guess which one I chose? :)

The test took the good part of an hour and a half, and it was totally worth it. All web-based, totally cool. I wish I had taken it earlier! Wharton grads have three months after graduation to take it, so if you are reading this and haven't taken it, go check it out. Otherwise, it'll be too late. For you first years, go do it now!

There are three parts to it:
1. Business Career Interest Inventory
2. Management and Professional Rewards Profile
3. Management and Professional Abilities Profile

My results weren't surprising, which I guess is good.

Here's my results:

Best Career Matches Section:

Very High Match: Entrepreneurship (oh gee, really?), Finance in Corporate Settings (validates my major), Investment Management (shoulda paid more attention to Geczy...)

High Match: General Management (that's why they call me Chairman P, baby), Management of New Product Development (ok, I shouldn't quit my day job), Private Equity Investment (why oh why wasn't I awake in the RJR case?), Venture Capital (Raffi and Wessel's class are good if you want to head this direction), Class Blogger

Low Match: Rock Singer (tonedeaf), Professional Athelete (no hops, although fantasy football skills are high), Male Model (especially for hats)

To give you a feel for what you get, here are some snippets from my Career Leader Professional Report (sorry, too lazy to reformat the badly formed text, but you will get the idea):

Interests You have a notable interest in three core elements of business work:
Counseling and MentoringEnterprise ControlTheory Development and Conceptual ThinkingYou are strongly interested in Counseling and Mentoring, one of the elemental activities in business work. You enjoy developing relationships -- and people -- and view this activity as an integral part of business work. A strong interest in Counseling and Mentoring is often expressed through a desire to manage groups and lead teams. The emphasis is more on the "people management" side of things than on managing processes, projects, or strategy.
With this core interest, you're likely to be highly attuned to your company's mission and culture. You may also gravitate toward organizations that:
place a high value on worker developmentreward managers who focus their energy and the company's resources on personnel development"do good" through their products, services, and missionYou'll probably also prefer work environments in which you feel you're adding value to the business endeavor specifically through teaching, mentoring, and coaching fellow workers and others. In addition, you may feel pulled toward working for not-for-profit organizations at some point in your career.
You also have an elevated interest in Enterprise Control, one of the central activities in business work. You enjoy setting strategy and seeing it carried out. You want to have ultimate decision-making authority for complete operations; to make the decisions that will determine the direction taken by a work team, a business unit, or an entire company; and to control the resources that will enable you to actualize a business vision.
In the workplace, you'll enjoy activities like:
taking the lead on implementing important strategic decisions"owning" deals and negotiationsparticipating in meetings in which strategic issues are on the agendaleading project teamshaving full responsibility for the profit-and-loss performance of an enterprisebeing involved in all aspects of a business enterprise (marketing, finance, sales, operations, etc.)acting as a "rainmaker," bringing in new clients and customersThe "enterprise" you control can be big or small, or short- or long-lived. You might want to control an enterprise that you believe will exist for your lifetime or even beyond. On the other hand, you might prefer being in charge of much shorter-lived "enterprises"; for example, "doing deals" that you know will close in only a few months or weeks.
With a strong interest in Enterprise Control, you may be eager to run something now. You may find it difficult to be patient during the early stages of your career, when you're learning and proving that you're qualified to be captain of the ship. If you feel frustrated, resist the temptation to switch to another company too early. Impatience can get in the way of your success if you let it force you off your career path too soon.
Lastly, you also have a notable level of interest in Theory Development and Conceptual Thinking, one of the fundamental activities in business work. Whether as a business professional or aspiring businessperson, you enjoy solving business problems through conceptual approaches, exploring abstract ideas and the "what ifs" of a business or industry, and considering broad economic and social trends.
You're likely to enjoy work activities such as:
developing economic theorycreating a model that explains competition in an industryanalyzing a company's competitive position in a particular marketdesigning a new process for product development or distributionconsidering the value proposition of a merger or acquisitionYou will probably be attracted to careers that provide opportunities to work closely with ideas. These may include positions in strategy and knowledge-management consulting or academia, and work in a "think tank." This is especially true if this is your only very strong interest.
Of course, having strong interests in Counseling and Mentoring and Enterprise Control and Theory Development and Conceptual Thinking doesn't necessarily mean you have the skills you need to succeed in a career in which those activities are a predominant part of the work. But people often develop abilities where their interests lie. So don't let a lack of training or prior experience as a coach, counselor, or mentor or with leadership activities or with theoretical work keep you from gaining the knowledge or strengthening the skills you'll need to express these interests.
Your interests strongly resemble the interests of entrepreneurs that distinguish them from other business professionals. This doesn't necessarily mean that an entrepreneurial venture you're involved with will succeed. Nor does it mean that you should run right out and start a new business. However, it does suggest that you would be happiest in an organization (or in part of a larger organization) that has a decidedly entrepreneurial culture -- even if you aren't the founder. (Many CEOs of entrepreneurial companies didn't set up those companies, but they are most definitely entrepreneurs.) Remember: There is no such thing as one "entrepreneurial type;" different entrepreneurs exhibit different styles in leading their organizations. Your interests are the single most important factor in your happiness and success. Organizational Culture You would feel most comfortable in an organization that places a premium on trying new approaches: "If it isn't broken, see if you can make it better anyway." People who work in such companies, departments, or teams are willing to take risks in the service of possible improvements. They're intellectually venturesome and greatly appreciate new ideas and creativity. These are typically relatively "flat" organizations, where a person's job title matters far less than the quality of his or her ideas. Your tendency in this direction is relatively strong, so pay close attention to this aspect of any organization you consider working for. For tips on how to examine an organizational culture in this regard, click here.
You would be happiest in a work culture marked by a spirit of cooperation, interpersonal sensitivity, a tendency to assume the best of people, and perhaps a degree of altruism in the organization's mission. In such organizations, departments, and teams, people tend to make decisions by consensus (when possible) and to minimize conflict and internal competition. Your tendency in this direction is very strong, so pay close attention to this aspect of any organization you consider working for. For tips on how to examine an organizational culture in this regard, click here.

Abilities You have a number of strengths, including:
Comfort with Risk: Takes risks when appropriate, isn't afraid to innovate and experiment.
Creative Thinking: Able to think creatively, generating new ideas and approaches to situations.Flexibility: Adapts easily to changing situations and is able to adopt new approaches when necessary.Gaining Trust: Inspires other people's trust.Sensitivity and Tact: Sensitive and tacful: promotes an atmosphere of good feeling and mutual consideration.Sociability: Socially venturesome and self-assured; forms new relationships easily and works to maintain them.Strategic Thinking: A strategic thinker: able to grasp the big picture and think long-term.Teamwork: A team player: cooperative, works well as part of a group.Work Ethic: Has a strong work ethic, willing to make sacrifices to achieve important goals.

Hope this is useful.

Until next post,

-Chairman P

Wharton Class 32 March Madness

2008-03-24T10:00:00.000-07:00

Two thumbs up to March Madness on-demand.

I gotta say that March Madness on-demand on the internet this year has changed WEMBA. What was better than watching jerky streaming video clips of your favorite Cinderella teams during class last session? Kudos to the IT staff for not blocking streaming video access. And the profs seemed to like getting the updates of their favorite teams real time. Awesome! (Note to next year's class: get a privacy screen for your laptop).

My boys at UCLA almost bowed out to Texas A&M, but thankfully Kevin Love and Darren Collison came up huge down the stretch. With "Puke" (er, I mean, Duke) doing a choke job in the second round as a #2 seed in the West along with the early round upsets by Western Kentucky and San Diego, the Bruins are looking like they have a third straight run to the Final Four baby! Looks like a third meeting with Stanford in the Elite Eight.

After two rounds of the NCAA men's college basketball March Madness, here's the standings of the Wharton Class 32 pool:

Name	1st Round	2nd Round	Total
Azar M	49	24	73
Richard H	40	22	62
Amir A 2	41	20	61
Amir A 1	39	18	57
Guru Sr	37	18	55
Ron P	27	24	51
Mark M	32	18	50
Brian K 1	34	16	50
Michele F	28	20	48
Andrew T 2	32	16	48
Charles O	27	20	47
Andrew T 1	33	14	47
Peter W	32	14	46
Frank F	27	16	43
Nichole J	22	20	42
Eugene Y	24	18	42
Robert Y	19	22	41
Brian K 2	25	16	41
Zia R	22	18	40
Clay A	21	18	39
Adam B	23	14	37
Bolaji O	18	16	34

I'm guessing that Clay, Adam, and Bolaji are mathematically eliminated at this point.

Blogger Sighting in WEMBA Class 34

2008-03-11T22:15:00.000-07:00

One of the things that they talk about in the management classes your first term is the concept of passing on the torch for the next-generation, aka succession planning. Not that I've done any succession planning, but I am really happy to say that another Korean dude has taken on the Class 34 blogging torch even before he has started! It makes me think it's in the Korean genes or something.

Here's the link to Dan P's blog (will also post a link on mine):
http://www.whartonblog.com/

One of the benefits that Dan will soon find out about is that everyone will know you before you meet them. I cannot tell you how many people have walked up to me in the past two years and asked "are you that blogger guy Chairman?". They even recognize me despite the picture with the shades on.

-Chairman P

Seven More Class Days in Sight...Thoughts of a West Coast Clock Watcher

2008-03-11T21:17:00.000-07:00

Oh yeah, only three more weekends and seven more days in class before graduation! My friends and family say "wow it's gone by fast", but those of us in the program know far better. It has gone by quickly, but I feel really aged over the past 23 months. It's kinda weird realizing that I only have one more project and one more final to go.

Senioritis has hit us in full stride. Seems like there are a lot of pass/no-pass and audit options being taken. We have the end in sight and it feels good. Hint for the classes that follow: take a light load in Term 6; it's really really nice having less classes the last term. As a result, all of my faithful readers out there will benefit from my lighter load: I'm going to go out on a blog tear over the next month to impart as much wisdom for the good of the cohorts that follow us. A couple of articles that I plan on writing before it is all said and done:
* How to switch jobs in the middle of WEMBA and not explode
* Navigating the WEMBA social networks and cliques
* Elective selection from a Silicon Valley technologist's perspective
* Balancing family life, WEMBA, and work: The two-legged triangle

I've started a poll; please go vote for what you'd like to see.

It was Class Gift Fund Raising Night last Fri at Wharton West. We rented a bunch of Wii and Rock Band consoles, which was fun right up until I ate humble pie, losing my boxing match with Bolaji "Apollo Creed" and my tennis match Charles "The Ahn-ninator". Poof went my chances at winning a Wii.

Here's some pics from the event:
http://flickr.com/photos/15155043@N00/sets/72157594298526216/show/

But after I got KO'ed by Bolaji (he called it a TKO but got quickly corrected), I got some redemption at the POKR 899 table, where I went runner runner kings on Gagan and took down a $70 pot that I really didn't deserve to win. Better to be lucky that good! Call me river boy.

-Chairman P

Flickr Badge Contains Best of WEMBA

2008-03-11T21:01:00.000-07:00

My contribution to the slideshow effort that Anshum is doing for the "Prom" event on 5/5 is now online: I've compiled a bunch of "Best of WEMBA" photos in the Flickr badge to the right of this post. They contain various photos I've taken over the course of our time at Wharton, from Term 1 until now (Term 6).

Enjoy!

Props Out to Ballot 2.0

2008-03-11T19:25:00.000-07:00

Gagan's "Ballot 2.0" is hilarious way to create new categories for the class awards voting that is going on right now. Major props out to the Gagster for producing this Web 2.0 ish website. Dude, hope you didn't get carpal tunnel while writing the code!

Update: Just spoke with the Gagster, and Ballot 3.0 is on the way with faculty and administrators...

-Chairman P

Be Careful to Wear the Wii Strap! Also, What is a Mii?

2008-03-05T14:15:00.000-08:00

Here's a link to what can happen to your TV if you don't use the safety strap on your Wii:
http://www.wiidamage.com/

I think that Len would approve of the name of this website...pretty self-descriptive.

Since Sean doesn't know what a Mii character is, here's a link that mimics the UI for creating on on the Wii console itself:
http://www.miieditor.com/

Rock Band, Anyone?

2008-03-05T08:32:00.000-08:00

Hey WEMBA32s,
Our class gift committee is hosting a "Wii Off" night, where there will be a video game competition and evening of fun, food and drink to raise fundraising awareness. It starts at 7pm on Friday 3/7 at Wharton West.

There will be three Wiis, two Playstations with Rock Band on them, and a presentation on why we want to try to beat WEMBA East32's contribution amount of $40K in pledges. Malika tells me to watch out for her uppercut. Azar's tennis superserve will be hard to beat. And I hear Sean is a bowling alley machine. As a special incentive, I'll give a special award for the best Mii character!

Our class participation goal is 100%, so think about what you are going to be pledging.

-Chairman P

Golf 720, Anyone?

2008-03-03T18:00:00.000-08:00

GOLF 720 Syllabus

Department: Wharton Sports Management
Course Instructor: Chairman P
Course Units: .5 cu
Target Audience: Current second year students in WEMBA Class 32.

Course Theme: Golf for the Executive MBA

Course Description:
The objective of this course is to enable students to develop the mental approach, skills, and knowledge of the fine art of schmoozing your customer on the golf course. We all know that we will sign that big deal down the road on the golf course. Yet our school does not have a single class in this subject! One of the big downsides of WEMBA is that it doesn't allow for enough golf time in between classes, so this course is designed for the student golfer to blow off the B2 slot for one morning in order to get in the only round of golf during WEMBA. I'm sure there are enough non-golfers to record an audio recording of the lectures.

Let's hope our professors lend a sympathetic golfer's ear to the cause. If either of them golf, we have an integrative negotiation opportunity here boyz! But even if not, I highly encourage you to consider this once in a WEMBA event.

Since we are a West Coast school, a special focus will be placed on Silicon Valley style venture fund raising for seed and Series A capital. Topics such as: dressing for golf credibility, fishing for strokes 101, what not to wear to the country club, and deal maker etiquette will be discussed. (A special lecture from Donald Trump on golf course financial management was originally planned, but the bro wouldn't return my calls. Go figure.)

Course Schedule:
This course has only one meeting planned for Term 6. Advanced students can opt to take an independent study elective for Term 7 for an additional 2 cu. See me for more details. I'm thinking the British Open Rota or Pinehurst might be a good option. Please give me a good reason to go on a second international trip!

Date:
Friday, March 21: 6:30am-11:00am.

Venue:
TBD. We are considering Presidio, Harding Park, Stanford, and Half Moon Bay. If you have input, lemme know. Bring your sticks to class that weekend for those of you from out of town. If there's enough interest, perhaps we can head out on Sunday March 23 as well.

Non-Disclosure Policy:
Of course, the Wharton golf score non-disclosure policy will be strictly adhered to. We will not disclose how many strokes you took out there. However, all students are required to abide by the Code of Conduct for honest counting of all strokes. No foot wedgies allowed! :)

Attendance:
Attendance is strictly mandatory for this class.

Wagers?
Let's say we'll be creating a large pot so you can put yo money where your mouth is.

Signups:
Send me some email as soon as possible to reserve your spot by this Sat. I'm gauging demand now....

-Chairman P

Real time bloggin: Curt Schilling Discusses ALS and Ankle Marketing

2008-02-22T18:25:00.000-08:00

We had a very interesting conference call with famous Boston Red Sox's pitcher Curt Schilling today in Prof. Len Lodish's Entrepreneurial Marketing class. Len got Curt to dial into our class over the audio system. It was pretty cool having a chance to Q&A with Curt about what has become known as the Schilling Tendon Procedure.

For you non-sports fans, here's some history of Curt's career, as well as the context behind the 2004 World Series ALS bloody sock event:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curt_Schilling

From Curt:
"I was originally thinking about writing Yankees suck on my ankle....(Laughs)...I have always wanted to figure out a way to give back to ALS. "

"This wasn't a brilliant marketing thing. It was a spur of the moment thing but it came from the heart."

"One funny thing: After the game, my teammates were asking me who "Al" was. This created an awareness that nobody would have ever dreamed would happen. When working in the charitable world, advertising dollars are hard to come by."

"I've been blessed by the Lord to throw a baseball at a really high speed...."

"Not a lot of people get the opportunity to impact a lot of others through their work, so if you have an opportunity to help others please try to do so."

Len was talking about word of mouth marketing being important for entrepreneurs, and this is a great example of real time bloggin' during class. It was not a great example of entrepreneurial marketing, but Curt left us with a great positive impression as a leader and as someone who stands up for what he believes.

-CP

Throwin' Down the Gauntlet! Donate to Our Class Gift

2008-02-21T23:20:00.000-08:00

One of our class prom committee reps Sean has asked that I pump up the blog waves for our class gift at Wharton.

Some facts:
WEMBA West has only a 97% participation rate for the class gift versus a 100% participation rate for WEMBA East! (Sorry Sean, didn't read the rest...too much stuff).

If you really want more info, then go attend the dog and pony show Sean and Clifton will be giving on Sat at lunch on 2/23 while trying to cram for the final in Venture Capital and Entrepreneurial Management. (That's a great class, BTW. Totally dig it.)

So get yo wallets ready to donate some cold hard cash! Looks like the Dean's Circle is priced at a bargain $100,000....yeow. Of course, that sets the proper framing for the much lower three digit pledge levels....:) Lowest level is $100. What's a three to six digit donation compared to the cost and value of your education?

R

PS - In no way is Sean trying to raise capital for his 40th birthday celebration, which happens next month. Whooo hoo, another 40-something in our class to join those of us in the "long tail".

New Product Development....Best Pizza Award

2008-02-08T16:14:00.000-08:00

New Product Development (MKTG 753) just shot up to the top of my favorite classes today, as we did a case study on Contradina Pizza today. The BASES model and the NPS spreadsheets were admittedly rather boring, but the taste test for pizza was great.

Here's Tyler, Mani, Jooyoung, Manuel, and Clifton. Notice the high concentration of female students from our population sample. :)

Thumbs up for the real life visual aid delivered by our own prom organizer, Loren S! Thanks for using your 3rd place FFB money wisely, dude!

Also, for those in WEMBA32: Go vote for the prom options when you get a chance. Personally, I want to forget about mine...the name is awful but the idea is a good one.

R

Light at the End of the Tunnel

2008-01-04T16:35:00.000-08:00

It's our last term. Wow! I can't believe this journey is almost over. There's only eight more sessions until it is over. There's some light at the end of the tunnel. Who's happier than me that I only have 2.5 cu to go. And 1 cu of those will likely make full use of the 1 cu pass/no pass policy.

While I'll be really happy that it's all over, I think I'll miss the people when it is all said and done. Everyone is heading to their respective ends of the earth, to different geographic locations and to different industries, from consulting to i-banking to startups to staying where we are today.

Wartun32 Fantasy Football Results

2008-01-04T16:27:00.000-08:00

The Wartun32 Fantasy Football Season is now over. Congrats to Azar's "New England Saints" for winning the championship, powered by the statistical anomally that was Randy Moss and Wes Welker this season. Yours truly was the consolation bracket winner. Hey, at least I got my $ back. Loren won the Whiner Award.

Here's a link to our website:
http://football2.myfantasyleague.com/2007/home/56615

The picture above is placed there to help out my fellow entrepreneur, Eyal, who's doing a beta for his company's image technology. Good luck Eyal!

R

Quote on Hedge Funds

2007-12-19T23:23:00.000-08:00

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

2007-12-19T22:47:00.001-08:00

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

2007-11-16T11:38:00.001-08:00

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

2007-11-13T09:58:00.000-08:00

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

2007-11-13T08:10:00.000-08:00

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

2007-09-23T10:00:00.000-07:00

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

2007-09-23T09:38:00.000-07:00

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

2007-09-23T09:23:00.000-07:00

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

2007-09-23T09:02:00.000-07:00

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

2007-09-11T12:21:00.000-07:00

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

2007-08-10T11:44:00.001-07:00

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

2007-08-06T23:40:00.001-07:00

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

2007-07-10T09:28:00.000-07:00

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.

2007-06-28T08:50:00.000-07:00

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

2007-06-28T08:35:00.000-07:00

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?

2007-06-26T07:41:00.000-07:00

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

2007-06-25T15:44:00.000-07:00

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

2007-06-04T12:12:00.000-07:00

(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

2007-05-31T12:13:00.000-07:00

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

2007-05-27T14:57:00.000-07:00

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

2007-05-27T14:43:00.000-07:00

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

2007-05-09T16:37:00.000-07:00

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

2007-04-25T20:04:00.000-07:00

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

2007-04-25T19:47:00.000-07:00

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

2007-04-22T10:47:00.000-07:00

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

More Advice to Class 33: More Stuff to Buy

2007-04-20T21:26:00.000-07:00

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

2007-04-19T21:48:00.000-07:00

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

2007-04-10T17:27:00.000-07:00

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

2007-04-10T15:56:00.000-07:00

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

2007-04-06T13:47:00.000-07:00

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?

2007-04-05T13:52:00.000-07:00

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

2007-04-05T13:13:00.000-07:00

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

2007-03-23T13:48:00.000-07:00

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

2007-02-27T22:14:00.000-08:00

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

2007-02-27T22:07:00.000-08:00

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

2007-02-27T22:01:00.000-08:00

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

2007-02-22T15:05:00.000-08:00

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

2007-02-22T14:20:00.000-08:00

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

2007-01-19T20:25:00.000-08:00

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

2007-01-09T19:23:00.000-08:00

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

2007-01-07T14:22:00.000-08:00

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

2007-01-07T14:19:00.000-08:00

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

2007-01-04T23:37:00.001-08:00

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

Statistics Poem By A Delusionary WEMBA Student

2007-01-02T20:47:00.000-08:00

UPDATE: Our class poet has revealed himself....Raghav!

Here's a little verse that I wrote down at the end of last term:

I shall be telling this with a sigh,
Maybe when I get a statistics high,
Richard Waterman taught me long ago,
"When p is low, the null must go."

-Found on the chalkboard of 5th floor room 529 after our stats exam last term. Talk to me if you want to know who the author is....

Heard on the Street Before Term 3 Starts

2007-01-02T13:33:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year everyone! Where has all the time gone? It seemed like just yesterday that we were sweating it out with both the Macro and OPIM finals on the same day. Three weeks is too short for time off between terms!

A few updates before we start up again on Friday:

Term 3 Starts Friday. Night classes start this term. As if we didn’t have enough time in class during the days! In talking with some Class 31s, I hear that this term is a particularly brutal one because of the extra .25 class we have in the evenings. If you are lucky enough to be in Section 1 like me, then we have our Communications class from 7:30-9:30pm three times versus the two times in Section 2. Talk about bad luck. Sandra better hook us up with a LOT of Red Bull.
Wharton EMBA Blog Proliferation is Starting! My WEMBA classmate Anil has started his version of a WEMBA blog: Anil’s Raves and Rants. Check it out and go read his account of what we've learned in Terms 1 and 2. I've linked to his blog on the right for easy access. Scoreboard: Wharton West 2, Wharton East 0. :)
GCP Trip: Alice has guest penned a most excellent account of the Global Consulting Practicum (GCP) trip to Chile. Alice has posted some pictures too. It looked like an intense and fun trip for our classmates (Alice, Raj, Jack, Guru, Zach) who traveled to Chile right after finals last term. (Zach, did you help the Sadhu in the airport?)
More Blog Proliferation on the Way: There are some other bloggers in our program who have said that they are starting a blog in the New Year or that will be guest writing here. Some of you know that my much anticipated adverse productivity shock is coming very soon; I just took a new gig starting next week. Today is my last day in the Emerald City. I'm heading over to turn in my badge and laptop. :) Yeah!
Social Events During the Holidays: Happy belated birthday to Nichole and Charles! I was out of town so I missed the celebrations. Also missed Eyal’s Hannukah candle lighting party as well, and others I’m sure. Feel free to pen a guest article or send pics.
Wharton West Coast Trek: Quite of a few of us are signed up for the Wharton West Coast Trek, which is to promote networking and informational opportunities for Wharton FT students from Philadelphia as well as WEMBA West and East students. If time permits, I may post a recap later, as I’m planning to check out a VC, PE and Investment Banking company during the trek.
Richard Wins Fantasy Football Championship. Through a series of late season "extreme makeover" trades to improve his team, Richard H has won the "Wartun32 FFL" league championship in NFL Week 16. (Lesson learned: don’t trade with a guy who used to work on Wall Street.) Congratulations to Richard! I hear that Kaiser is planning to block fantasy football HTTP requests starting next season though. The final results were:

Week 16 Results

Championship Game

Hail Mary (Richard) 168.9

Rock This Planet (Ron) 112.05

Consolation Game

The Cats (Nihal) 109.15

4th Place (Loren) 80.1

Toilet Bowl Consolation Championship

Adam's Daddy (Azar) 97.7

Wharton Westside (Adam) 94.75

§ Payouts Available. Payouts for the Wartun32 FFL are posted on our Yahoo Sports fantasy website. Lemme know how you want to get your $$$.

-Chairman P

Guest Blogger: Alice Talks Global Consulting Practicum

2007-01-02T13:20:00.000-08:00

Props out to our guest blogger Alice, who sent me this summary of the one week GCP trip to Chile. The company where the study was done is confidential and under NDA. -Chairman P
-----------------------------------

Check out pictures at http://www.flickr.com/photos/citronbay/sets/72157594362820136/show/

As part of GCP tradition we visited Chile, our client's country, in the week before Christmas.

We Like Sheraton

We settled in a B&B like local four star hotel in the beach resort town Vina Del Mar, where our partner university (UAI) is located. Soon Guru found out that his room was just the size of a walk-in closet. A single bed barely fits in. With his arms open Guru can touch both ends of the wall. We all had a good laugh. Lucky for me at least I got a king-bed.

Later on Marianne discovered that just a stone's throw away there lies a much nicer hotel with breath-taking ocean views from EVERY guest room - Sheraton! Though too late to change the lodging plan, the nostalgic Wharton Executive team paid a rather emotional visit to our SPG member hotel. Yes if you'll ever visit Vina Del Mar, our vote for the choice of the hotel is –Sheraton!

Top Reasons To Go To Chile

Our driver+tour guide Fernando obviously was very experienced. Half an hour after getting into the van I learned from Fernando all the highlights about Chile (Well, a lot of them having to do with Chilean women):

1. Contrary to conventional thinking, Chile is a liberal country. Why? Because Chile elected Socialist Michelle Bachelet, a 54-year-old single mother and pediatrician as its first female president. Imagine if Hillary lived in Chile! She would have kicked Bill out and could have won the presidential election already!

2. According to Fernando, the women to men ratio in Chile is 2 to 1. Lucky guys!

3. Chile has its own version of Hooters restaurant! And it's called "Cafe with Legs"!!! What an artistic name!

Fernando was only willing to give us a glimpse of the restaurant so I stood outside and took one blurred picture of a 'Santa' dressed "Cafe with Legs" lady. Don't worry; you will NOT miss it in my album.

4. Fernando was particularly proud that Chile had no divorce laws...couples are bound not by contract, but by faith. (Well this has changed recently.)

5. Chile is full of valleys and mountains; beaches and deserts. From the modern city of Santiago to the nature's love Patagonia, it's suited for a wide variety of interests and activities.

6. At this point you probably don't care about economy any more. But worth honorable mentioning is that Chile is actually one of the most developed and fastest growing economies in Latin America. In 2006, it became the country with the highest nominal GDP per capita in Latin America. To quote the impressed Raj, "It will take India 5-10 years to reach this level!”

A True International Team

The combined Wharton-UAI team has 10 members, coming from 8 countries:

From Wharton: India, China, Finland, and USA

From UAI: Dominique Republic, Panama, Ecuador, and Chile

And if I count spouses and faculties I'm sure the number of represented countries will double. Thus every working day we experienced a round of meetings in United Nation. Though it was chaotic at times, I was impressed by the UAI team's high working spirit and intellectual level.

After a few days Marcela and Jose became my buddies. Three of us would sneak out after lunch and drove deep onto the winding streets of Vina Del Mar's hill side. We'd stop by at Marcela's house, the President's summer palace, and take a snapshot at the 'Flower Clock' - symbol of the city. The international round table was terrific, but secretly I was longing for the road trip on Marcela's 80 something stick shift Honda with her Bond Girl like driving style. After all it was peachy early summer and we were in a flower garden beach resort town!

Vina Del Mar & UAI Campus

Vina Del Mar - the beach resort city feels much like a small Spanish town. Vintage. European. A little paradise. Our partner school, UAI is located only a few miles away. As a matter of fact our 'war' room in one of UAI's buildings got a million dollar view of the whole beach front.

Somehow UAI reminded me of California's Pepperdine University and the story about Larry Ellison's son. It goes like this: Larry's son was 18 years old and was deciding which university to go to. In particular he was choosing between Harvard and Pepperdine. The son then went to Larry for advice. "Of course Pepperdine!" Larry said.

Following Larry's wisdom we Wharton team offered to swap with the UAI folks for one semester....guess what? To our disappointment Vina Del Mar still beats San Francisco...none of the UAI folks wanted to take the offer! (Well, admittedly UAI is one of the best Universities in Chile, but still, we are Wharton + San Francisco! Oh that hurts. )

So here you go, with a week immersed in Chile, Vina Del Mar, Santiago, and UAI, we're back in whole. Happy New Year!

-Alice

Wartun32 Fantasy Football Playoff Update

2006-12-19T11:33:00.000-08:00

The 2006 Wartun32 Fantasy Football League Championship is being played this week after a couple of big Week 15 upsets of the #1 and #2 seeds. In the Toilet Bowl, a few teams have already been flushed down the drain (Victory Feast / Clay, Game Balls / Guru, Wheel Wold / Frank, It is Finished / Bolaji). Clay wins the dubious distinction of being the worst of the toilet bowl teams.

Game #1:
#5 seeded Hail Mary / Richard defeated #1 seeded The Cats / Nihal on a career performance by Marvin Harrison, who scored 34.60 points on three TDs from Peyton Manning. Final score: Hail Mary 131.35, The Cats 109.35.

Game #2:
#6 seeded Rock This Planet / Ron upset #2 seeded 4th Place / Loren (or is it Lauren?), powered by the RB tandem of Frank Gore and Rudi Johnson. Good thing the Bears were destroyed last week. Final score: Rock This Planet 100.60, 4th Place 95.10.

Here's a screenshot of the smack talk feature in use: "Any dude that interviews at Bare Escentuals is dooming himself in the playoffs"

Superbowl Matchup:
Rock This Planet / Ron versus Hail Mary / Richard. The winner takes home $288 (60% of the pot), and the runner-up takes home $48 (10%). Congrats to The Cats, who receive a payout of $48 for being the regular season winner overall (#1 seed).

Toilet Bowl Division Update:
So what happened to the rest of the money? No, the remaining money hasn't disappeared from my Paypal account; the bottom six teams are playing in the "Toilet Bowl", as the winner of the lower bracket gets the last 10% of the pot.

See the diagram on the right for a visual. (This should look familiar to the scene at the men's Wharton West bathrooms shortly after 10:30am for those of you who have heard me rant about why Wharton dudes make such a mess...) I had to calculate ("compoot", in OPIM 631 lingo) the numbers below for the bottom teams since our website doesn't do it automagically.

Toilet Bowl Division Results from Week 15: (bottom six teams)

0 points for bw	81.8
Wheel Wold	74.95

It is Finished	99.95
Wharton Westside	107.55

Worst of the Toilet Bowl
Victory Feast	98.55
Game Balls	104

Toilet Bowl Division Championship: 0 points for bw / Azar versus Wharton Westside / Adam
These guys are playing for 10% of the pot, which will help ease the pain of their season.

Here's a screenshot of the "smack talk" feature in use by Adam: "Get ready for some marginal propensity to lose, Wheel Wold":

End of Term 2!!!!

2006-12-18T14:59:00.000-08:00

Wheeeeeeeew! Term 2 is over. It feels really really good! I finally caught up on some serious REM on Sat and Sun nights, and I'm still not feeling rested! John was saying that people are telling him that the program ages you...is there any way to measure wrinkles and gray hair elasticities?

So we have three weeks of vacation before the next term. We now have the M in MBA, or the A, depending on how you think about it. It's going by fast!

Here's some funny pics from the weekend:

Link to End of Term 2 Pictures, Avery's Party, and Mallika's Poker Party

Pay attention to the "I'm with Stupid T-Shirt" with Prof Abel, Amir's unwrapped Macro book, the view from Avery's party, and the Indian Poker (hope no one is offended) pics from Mallika's party.

Thanks to everyone who responded to my post on co-bloggers...we've found a few for next term already. If you are interested in contributing an article or two, lemme know.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year's! Enjoy the holidays with your family and friends.

-R

Wharton F Yeah Video

2006-12-18T14:15:00.000-08:00

With credit to Anil and his study group, here is a link to a pretty funny video from the Wharton full-time MBA students in Philly. You gotta love the Wharton West reference at the end. John said he wasn't going to link to it from the official site, but that if ours did then ....

Link to Wharton F*** Yeah video

I'll post on a link on the side of this blog for future reference.

(Warning: explicit lyrics, so make sure your kids are not around)

WEMBA Residency Requirement: Le Meridian Accomodations

2006-12-09T21:25:00.000-08:00

A lot of potential students for the program ask me about the residency requirement, ie, the Le Meridian Hotel portion of our tuition. Guess I feel like doing a documentary tonight instead of studying....Here's my thoughts on the accomodations:

You don't have an option to pay for the hotel or not. It's part of your tuition, even if you live 5 minutes away from school. So you might as well use it.
The San Francisco Le Meridian is a four star hotel located in the Embarcadero Center of San Francisco, which is a pretty good area of The City. It used to be the Park Hyatt until a year ago or so. It's only a 10 minute walk to North Beach or Chinatown from the hotel, which is in the heart of the financial district.
The Le Meridian is in the Starwood Resort network, which is pretty good from a hospitality points perspective (Westin, W, Sheraton, Le Meridian). Here's a link: Starwood
The rooms themselves are pretty good. Music playing when you walk in, granite counters in the bathrooms, nice views (if you face the Bay or Bay Bridge), spa quality amenities (again, it varies), and free wireless internet. You'll find the typical USA Today newspaper on your doorstep in the am as well.

(Left) This is what the view from your room looks like if you **don't** get the Bay view....office buildings in SF view. (Right) This is a typical hotel room

The five guys I carpool with that are on the Penninsula area (San Mateo, Belmont, Redwood Shores) all carpool up to the hotel on school weekends. We trade off driving up there and get a chance to chat during the ride up. That's a great time to talk, and I'm glad I carpool. We get there in the morning around 8:30am and more often than not (75% of the time) are able to check in and put our stuff into our rooms then, which is great.
Parking fee (negotiated rate) is $25 a night. Sure beats $40 a night, which is the regular rate. $25 a night isn't bad for SF.
It's about a six block walk from the hotel to school, which is located on 101 Howard Street.
I've mapped it out here on Google maps. It's safe and those of us who walk haven't had a problem on the streets (to my knowledge) in six months.
WEMBA reimburses you for taxi rides back and forth from the hotel and the campus. I actually prefer walking, since it takes about 10-15 minutes and I need the fresh air after a long day in class (or a walk before class). It's a much nicer walk when it's not winter, of course. If you take a taxi, you pay cash and Wharton reimburses you after you file the receipts at the front desk. You get the $ in an envelope from Larry, the security agent on the sixth floor at the next session. The system works out pretty good.
It is nice that all of us are staying at the hotel during class weekends, usually just for a night. It would be much better if we had more time to network and get to know each other outside of class. The program is so jam packed that there just isn't that much time, unless you really make the time. Most of us spend non-exam nights having dinner with each other, playing poker, having a drink, or just chatting in the lounge.
The frequent travelers (or expert high maintenance complainers) in the class seem to get the platinum treatment, meaning they get a suite when they check in. I haven't ever gotten one, but they really are quite nice when you do get one. I really don't care because we don't spend that much time there anyway. Besides, if you've spent enough nights away from home you deserve the extra treatment. (But it would be nice to get one at least once....)
There are two suites that are reserved as Wharton "study rooms" on school evenings. If you want to do some "social studying", this is great. Or if you want to play some Texas Hold Em, it's also a great place to hang out at. I just feel sorry for the neighboring rooms.
If you need to store stuff at the Le Meridian, then they'll let you check a bag with them on a two-week basis. This is great for keeping your personal stuff there at the hotel to minimize lugging it back and forth. It's also great for storing your poker chip set as well. :)

Next time: focus on the food at Wharton West...we might need a SurveyMonkey for that though. Good luck on finals and Happy Holidays, everyone!

-R

Adverse Blog Productivity Shock

2006-12-09T21:18:00.000-08:00

FYI, I'm anticipating an adverse blog productivity shock next term. So if you are in WEMBA Class32, have a passion for reporting and writing, and own a camera phone let me know if you are willing to co-contribute to this blog. No, no, no, I'm not quiting the blog business. I am just anticipating a lot less time to keep this up at the current pace next term.

Shoot, the WEMBA marketing department is getting enough mileage from this that I ought to get at least .5 unit in an advanced Internet Marketing independent study class, don't ya think?

Seriously, if you are interested, come talk to me this weekend...

-R

End Game for Term 2: We’ve Almost Earned the “M” in MBA

2006-12-09T21:03:00.000-08:00

We’re now in the last week of Term 2, with only one more week to go before a three week hiatus for the holidays. I am sooooo looking forward to that! It was a un-typical Saturday today, as family and other activities took precedence over WEMBA: woke up at 7:30am to study OPIM, 9am conference call with study group on HW4 for stats, then off to buy a Christmas tree with my daughter, lunch, and her kindergarten Christmas program and dinner with the in-laws. Total studying time: an hour an a half. Shoot, I was hoping to do one of those Macro practice finals today. It'll have to wait until tomorrow I guess. It's pretty hard to study during this time of year.

There’s still a whole lot of Macroeconomics and Operations Management left to cram for though. And the Statistics HW4 to finish off. (My study group dropped it like a hot potato once Waterman said that we got an extension until this upcoming weekend.) We have almost earned the “M” in MBA at the 1/3 point in the program. It is flying by!

While I'm at it, here’s some pics from last week’s wine tasting:

I just got my Leadership essay back in the mail today, which explained the grade I saw posted on the transcript website. The distribution for the final was pretty tight, between 36 and 39, with a 37.3 average. Lesson learned: don’t write essays in pencil! Pen is much faster.

Looks like there’s a bunch of social activities just around the corner:

Avery, Loren, Mallika, and Jenn are hosting a Wharton West Christmas Party on Sat 12/17 at Avery’s firm in SF after we finish exams. Should be fun!

Nichole is hosting a Christmas party up in Hercules on 12/23. Sounds great, especially the hot tub, but I’m gonna miss it.

Sam is planning a Wharton West Vegas Weekend between Term 3 and Term 4, after we’re half finished with the program. If you are interested, fill out the Surveymonkey today. Sounds like WEMBA East32 isn’t going to make it out West to join us, which is a bummer.

It is also Playoff Time for the Wartun32 Fantasy Football League. Yours truly and the other fantasy football addicts in our class just finished the regular fantasy season last week in NFL Week 13, with first-timer and rookie Nihal leading the league. This has been a weird season; lots of injuries and surprises. If someone is able to figure out a regression model for FFB that explains even 25% of the variability, I'm all ears. But it's been great to have something to talk about besides academia, and it’s been pretty funny to see how many Portugese team names we had after Brazil won for our international trip!

Here’s the regular season standings:

1. The Cats 11-2-0 .846 1441.90 W-2 8 8 (Nihal)

*2. 4th Place 10-3-0 .769 1525.80 W-8 11 69 (Loren)

*3. Quem é seu pai? 8-5-0 .615 1536.30 W-4 2 3 (Robert)

*4. Gravitas 7-6-0 .538 1445.30 W-1 3 19 (Mark)

*5. Hail Mary 7-6-0 .538 1410.75 W-1 10 32 (Richard)

*6. Rock This Planet 7-6-0 .538 1398.65 L-2 12 17 (Ron)

7. 0 points for bw??? 6-7-0 .462 1435.35 L-1 6 13 (Azar)

8. It is Finished! 6-7-0 .462 1401.60 W-2 7 24 (Bolaji)

9. Wharton Westside 5-8-0 .385 1376.05 L-1 9 14 (Adam)

10. Game Balls 5-8-0 .385 1286.05 L-5 5 13 (Guru)

11. Wheel Wold 5-8-0 .385 1275.95 L-2 4 24 (Frank)

12. Victory Feast 1-12-0 .077 1091.75 L-12 1 10 (Clay)

Quarterfinals are NFL Week 14, and feature the following matchups:

Week 14:

Gravitas versus Hail Mary

Quem e seu pai versus Rock This Planet

The Cats and 4^th Place are on bye…

We’ve also got a “Toilet Bowl” for the bottom six teams, and here are the matchups for the bottom bracket:

Here's the Toilet Bowl seedings:
Week 14:
Byes: 0 points for BW, It is Finished
Victory Feast at Wharton Westside
Wheel World at Game Balls

(If you are a U$C fan, keep on reading right here!) Oh yeah, and I gotta send a shot out to my UCLA Bruins. It’s a great time to be a Bruin, with the football team knocking ex-#2 arch-rival USC out of BCS national championship contention last week, and with the basketball team racking up a #1 hoops ranking. Did I mention that I was right behind the bench for the UCLA versus Georgia Tech basketball game at the Maui Invitational over Thanksgiving? It was sweet!

Here's what the view was like from my seats. It was pretty cool to hear Howland coach the team’s defense, which finally has caught up with all the offensive talent we’ve had over the years. And this has resulted in a #1 ranking in both the AP and ESPN/USA coaches polls. Should be a great time for March Madness….back to studying…see you all in a week.

-R

Grades Posted for Management and OPIM

2006-12-05T08:48:00.000-08:00

FYI, Penn InTouch has just posted grades for Useem and Hershey's class.

-R

Elective Selection and the Balanced Portfolio Approach

2006-11-30T06:47:00.000-08:00

Here's the list of elective selections. Looks like there was some collusive behavior to get some classes voted onto the list. :) In general, the list is pretty similar to Class 31's list.

Here's the list:

TOP 30 ELECTIVES

ACCT 742 Problems in Financial Reporting
ACCT 896x Applied Financial Analysis and Equity Valuation
FNCE 717 Financial Derivatives
FNCE 719/731/748 International Corporate Finance
FNCE 720 Investment Management
FNCE/REAL 721 Real Estate Investment: Analysis and Financing
FNCE 726 Advanced Corporate Finance
FNCE 728 Corporate Valuation
FNCE 750 Venture Capital and the Finance of Innovation
FNCE 751X Mergers, Acquisitions, and Buyouts
HCMG 863 Management & Economics of Pharmaceutical & Biotechnology Industry
LGST/MGMT/OPIM 806/691/691 Negotiation & Dispute Resolution
MGMT 671 Executive Leadership
MGMT 701 Strategy and Competitive Advantage
MGMT 721 Corporate Development: Mergers and Acquisitions
MGMT 773 Managing Organizational Change
MGMT 782 Stratetic Implementation
MGMT 801 (0.5) Entrepreneurship
MGMT 804 (0.5) Venture Capital and Entrepreneurial Management
MGMT 806 Formation and Implementation of Entrepreneurial Ventures
MGMT 809 (0.5) Private Equity in Emerging Markets
MGMT 811 (0.5) Entrepreneurship Through Acquisition
MKTG 753 (0.5) New Product Development
MKTG 754 (0.5) Pricing Policy
MKTG 756 Marketing Research
MKTG 771 Models for Marketing Strategy
MKTG 777 Marketing Strategy
MKTG 781 (0.5) Entrepreneurial Marketing
OPIM 653 Mathematical Modeling and Its Application in Finance
OPIM 654 Product Design and Development

This is for the benefit of those who follow after us: after giving it some thought, I decided that I wanted the best overall business background from Wharton. So I went for a "balanced portfolio". I spread my votes across the most important classes in management, finance, marketing, and entrepreneurship, instead of going for a major. If I end up getting one, then great, but if not, it wasn't a big deal to me. The words from the Alumni panel reasonated with me: those "soft" classes are the ones that they have found over the years as they've advanced in their careers are the ones that have retained their value. The comment that quant calculations don't keep you up at night thinking about them but people issues do affected my decision to vote for more management classes than I would have. However, I think that those in our class that are contemplating a more radical career change (such as in finance) had a different approach, and instead concentrated their votes in one area. For example, no one taking a general management approach would have voted for Financial Derivatives.

Here's what I voted for:
1. Executive Leadership
2. Strategy and Competitive Advantage
3. Corporate Development: Mergers and Acquisitions
4. Marketing Strategy
5. Formation and Implementation of Entrepreneurial Ventures
6. Venture Capital and the Finance of Innovation
7. Corporate Valuation
8. Investment Management

Looks like a lot of us used the same "balanced portfolio" approach, as everything I wanted got onto the list. There's no guarantee that they will all be offered, of course. The process is that Howie is going to work with the faculty to get classes from this list scheduled. Overall, I'm pretty happy that we are in the ballpark.

Speaking of ballparks, Sports Management was one of those classes that I wanted to take but when I thought about it there's no way I'll ever be an agent for the NFL, so I didn't vote for it. I suppose that my willingness to pay was less than the tuition amount for a .5 unit class. If anyone really wants to understand why, it's a story better told over a beer.

It's been kind of hard to choose electives at the end of Term 2 for the remainder of the program; I wish that there was some way to alter the voting process to make it term by term instead of locking it in this far in advance, before we've even had the marketing core, for example. But I'm sure it's a matter of scheduling.

On the lighter side, there's some activity going on for "proper" End of Year 1 Trip for our class. Sounds like there's a lot of interest! Las Wage$, Cabo, and China were all mentioned, as well as the usual questions about the crime rate...:) Kudos to the Sam-ster who's organizing it!

-R

Section 1 Pics from OPIM 631 Assembly Line

2006-11-30T06:41:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone,
I've added some pics (thanks, Robert!) from Section 1 to my Flickr photo set of the OPIM 631 assembly line.

Here's the URL: Flickr photo set of OPIM 631 for both sections

Or you can click on the badge at the right.

-R

Wharton Teaches the Programming Model for Biz

2006-11-18T13:00:00.000-08:00

Yo, it's your friendly neighborhood blogger again...

We've been getting a ton of potential recruits for next year's cohort visiting lately, and I'm tired of studying Business Analysis Using Regression, so I decided to take a blog induced break for 10 minutes.

Here's an example of what you learn to do in the statistics core class: multiple regression with multi-level categorical variables.

If terms like r square, RMSE, t ratio, p value, leverage plots, and heteroscedasticity (try telling someone that your doctor said you had contracted it at the next dinner party) float your boat, then statistics is for you. It seems to be extremely useful in all areas that we'll soon be taking electives in: finance, marketing, management, and operations. It also has been useful for fantasy football statistics. Maybe that's why Nihal (GM of "The Cats") is The Man this season. Nihal is going down this week though, 'cuz he plays me.

If terms like those don't float your boat, then at least you know that all those complicated terms and numbers are.
----------------------------
Lest you think this is all quant and no fun, I was talking with a pretty well-known VC the other day who loves Wharton grads. Here's a quote from her that I thought I'd pass along:

"I really like Wharton grads...Wharton is a great b-school because they teach you the programming model for business. Wharton grads can quantify everything, unlike other well known and established schools in the area." Such as the one that starts with an "S"! :) As Kent said, at "S", they teach you how you should feel.

Back to studying. Gotta get HW4 done before I head to Maui for Thanksgiving! Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

In Honor of Milton Friedman

2006-11-16T20:31:00.000-08:00

Some sad news: Nobel Laureate and Famous Economist Milton Friedman passed away today in San Francisco. You know the famous guy who's on every other slide in Macroeconomics?

Here's a link from the SF Chronicle:Link
I got a chance to ask Kent about his thoughts today, and here's a part of what he said:

"Friedman was an intellectual giant outmatched only by his humility." -Kent Smetters

Thought it was worth passing along and you all would be interested.

-Chairman P

OPIM 631 Quips And Quotes

2006-11-12T22:02:00.000-08:00

There were quite a few funny moments in OPIM 631 as well this past weekend. Terwiesch is giving Abel a run for his money for the Humorous Lecturer of the Quarter Award. Here's some quotes from section 2's OPIM class:

"What's wrong with you all? I hear there's quality problems offshore now." -Zach, after making five working circuit boards with zero bad ones

"That's what happens when you take the lowest bid."

"Zach, you have a new career opportunity."

"Do you know how many units the morning line made? One. So this is good line, in a relative sense."

"What happens when there's a mistake on the line? They happily go on producing the same crap."

"Let me say it this way: sometimes it's good to be slow."

"We need more strippers. (after everyone laughs) No, not that kind."

"Can you please return the electronics kits? It won't be any good if you take them on an airplane, and they won't be impressed when the LED blinks."

"It's not a horror movie." -Terwiesch during the 1960s YouTube.com video archive of the Cranberry factory video we saw in class. Some of us thought that the musical soundtrack was ripped off from The Shining.

I've posted some pictures here: Flickr link to OPIM 631 pictures

Robert says he has some hi-res ones from Section 1 and I'll post a link later when I get a link.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! See ya in three weeks. I'm out until then.

-R

Exams, Exams and Results, Oh My!

2006-11-12T20:44:00.001-08:00

End Game for Term 2
It's crunch time! We're heading into the home stretch of Term 2. I can't believe we are almost 1/3 done with the program already! It's flying by. Here's some thoughts from last weekend, which was an extra long three day session from Thursday through Saturday. These three day sessions are real killers to get through. By the third day, everyone is pretty much brain dead. And the rain started in SF, making the trek back and forth from the hotel far less pleasant than we have enjoyed so far. I saw a lot more cab receipts this time around. I decided to walk because the fresh air and exercise really is nice after sitting through all the hours of lecture.
Exams, Exams, and Results, Oh My!
Well, we got back the results from our Macroeconomics mid-term, Statistics mid-term, and OPIM final this session, and we took our Leadership final on Thursday afternoon. I breathed a sigh of relief as I managed to do just fine pretty much across the board, with some variation. I was pretty worried about Macro, but Abel seemed like he was pretty generous on the grading, that's all I have to say! Otherwise the mean would have been much lower than 121 out of 164 (sd of 21. The amazing thing was that the average for the 7 bonus points was 6.58 with a standard deviation of 1.51. What did you have to do to get the bonus? Put your name on the line on the top of the pages in all caps. I was pretty sure the mean would be 7 with a sd of 0, but I guess someone missed that. Looks like the final exams also give bonus points for your name on the top of each page, so there's no way anyone should miss it if they read this?
MacroSim and Abel Quips
Well, we started off the weekend with a computer simulation of a closed economy in groups of two or three. My team got DQed when I failed to hit OK on the dialog in round 4. That's ok, we were outta control anyway at 78% inflation by that point anyway. And then we got out of control again when we kept playing the game. My take after playing: if these equations represent anything close to a real economy, the variables are so sensitive and complex that I now have a vastly increased respect for economists. It's anything but straightforward.

The team that won in BOTH sections won by cooperating between the fiscal and monetary teams, and they are rewarded with 12 bonus points on the final. Unfortunately, Abel said this afterward:

"The good news is that you got 12 points extra on the final. The bad news is that the final is worth 1 million points."

I'm pretty sure he was kidding, so those dudes don't have to worry about the final as much as the rest of us. Abel spent the other lectures on asset markets, money, and prices, a current policy topic on indexed bonds, exchange rates and open-economy macro policy, macro policy in Argentina, monetary non-neutrality and the Phillips curve, and political business cycles.

By popular demand, here's the top quips and quotes:
Abel: "What's the value of e?" Eve: "2.7182818284680298432". Abel: "We could get you help."
(About the J Curve): "If they came up with the idea 40 years ago, they might have called it the Nike Swoosh."
(Looking at Murat's empty seat next to Sean): "I think he thinks it's like a wedding, where you can RSVP or not. Wait til he sees the thank you note."
"This is really a rectangular hyperbola. But if you want to call it a downward sloping curve that's fine."
"'Beggar Thy Neighbor' is British speak for screw your neighbor."
"I don't mean Monopoly money, I mean the money that the monopoly issues."
"Restructuring is such a cool word. It means I owe you a ton of money and there's no way in hell I'll repay it."
"Who was Phillips?" A: "The screwdriver?"
"What's the misery index? It's not Kathleen Bates."
"Al Gore had to work really really hard to lose that election."

I got an IM message towards the end of the last session (when we were covering the plot of the Phillips Curve) that read: "This stuff is like astrology. I think I can see the Big Dipper."

Hand Cramps?
Oh yeah, and does anyone else still have hand cramps after the Leadership final? You'd think that if they could figure out how to convert the essay section of the GMAT to computer based, that Wharton could figure out how to let us use a keyboard too. One of our classmates said: "I was going to give Useem a hand signal after the final exam but my hand was too cramped."