Goliath battle by building open technology to break IBM's proprietary hold. Even though I've been a consumer in the industry since I was 7-years old, I didn't realize that IBM had tried to make the industry a completely proprietary one. Rod recently wrote the book Open: How Compaq Ended IBM's PC Domination and Helped Invent Modern Computing and it is a fascinating tale about the beginning of the PC industry. This is similar to Cotter Cunningham's story with the founding of RetailMeNot, which began with a failed venture at the age of 46 (read this Lucky7 post on failure to learn more). He wanted to work at Texas Instruments long term but got the bug to start his own business and be his own business because of how frustrated he became with the culture. Thanks to Josh Baer, founder of Capital Factory, for securing the space at the Omni Hotel - we made this a Capital Factory, SXSW, and U.T. We cover a lot of topics in this SXSW interview, including trends in the IT industry, why Austin, and what Michael and Susan are focused on philanthropically. Marc had Google's experience to point to - with that astronomical rise in Facebook users, the advertising revenue was sure to come at one point. Of course, Mark Zuckerberg dropped out with no revenue, but I think that is different as we discussed in the Lucky7 post about Snapchat's $3 billion (at the time) valuation (written before the incredible bet by Facebook on acquiring WhatsApp for $19 billion). But most of the students that I speak with about this are considering dropping out with very little revenue. If you are a student and have sales like Michael Dell did at the beginning of Dell, I think it is a rather easy decision. It is a trade of sorts - the completion of the degree or the immediate pursuit of the market opportunity. I've used him as an example for students who have visited me during Office Hours and are considering dropping out. His sales took off at an astronomical pace and he decided to drop out as a result. Michael started Dell while attending U.T. These interviews were a great contrast to each other. You can watch the previous semester's interviews in this Lucky7 post, which include Cotter Cunningham (RetailMeNot), John Arrow (Mutual Mobile), Chris Pacitti (Austin Ventures), and Josh Baer (Capital Factory and Longhorn Startup).įor this semester, I started it off with a bang at SXSW with my interviews of Michael Dell and Rod Canion, the founder and first CEO of Compaq. All of these interviews are recorded, and I should thank the Herb Kelleher Center for Entrepreneurship for the funding to do this and promote entrepreneurship all over U.T. To that end, I interviewed seven entrepreneurs and one VC during my time in this role. In my Office Hours, I met with hundreds of students who have either launched their own business while at the University or they are actively planning on doing that at some early point in their career (I didn't become an entrepreneur myself until I was 24 and beginning my MBA, so I tell them I was a "late bloomer").Īs part of my EIR post, I continued the Speaker Series that Laura Kilcrease began as my predecessor. now has its own entrepreneurial club and initiatives. Austin from 1990-1994, where entrepreneurship was hard to find, every major college at U.T. since 2005, as reported by BBVA Compass, and you start to tune in a bit more into what is happening here. Consider that Texas has created 70% of the new jobs in the U.S. Austin is leading the way in one of the most entrepreneurial cities and states in our nation. There is no doubt a huge trend towards entrepreneurship at most top-ranked universities and U.T. The entrepreneurial energy on campus is really fantastic and very encouraging for the future of both Austin and our nation at large. I loved serving the University and it's students in this capacity. I kicked it off with a speech to the entering MBA class about the top-ten lessons I wished someone had taught me when I was beginning my MBA. Yesterday marked my last day in this role. I joined the McCombs Business School at the University of Texas at Austin as Entrepreneur-in-Residence at the beginning of the 2013-2014 academic year.
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