Climbing the Mountain of Lore

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-Chairman P

The Fine Art of Networking

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

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

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

-Chairman P

So You Want to Go Into Venture Capital?

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

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

Advice to Class 33: Stuff to Buy

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

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

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

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

Top 10 Things to Buy Before Starting WEMBA:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-Chairman P

Interesting Post from SF Chronicle: the VC Economy

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

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

Managing Your Own Index Fund Portfolio

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

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

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

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

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

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

-Chairman P

Link to Why Valley VCs are Like the Mob

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

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

WEMBA Career Management Survey Published

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

-Chairman P

Nichole's pictures from The Old Ship

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

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

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

The Coefficient of Aging

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

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

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

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

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

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

-Chairman P