David Pogue at the GSB

On Monday, the Tech Club brought David Pogue to the Stanford GSB where he delivered a talk on failed consumer devices.  I had the pleasure of driving David from the city where he was keynote speaker at FailCon to the Stanford GSB for the talk.  The talk was exceptionally insightful and also funny in Pogue’s unique style.  I think his background as a Broadway guy really helps when he’s giving talks as he is able to make them very lively and entertaining.

David talked about his problems with the New Office for Mac 2011 (which I had a chance to quiz him on the ride in the car as well) and the first Blackberry Storm that was riddled with bugs.  It was a great opportunity to hear from someone who is an expert at judging the consumer experience on devices.  David seemed to have strong feelings about engineers not being well suited for designing products as well, I was not completely convinced by that argument.

He was gracious, took a lot of time to answer questions and was amazingly nice to every person who spoke to him.  I’m officially a fan.  A lot of things didn’t go super smoothly, we went a lot later than planned, food was late, etc. but David never complained about anything.

Talking about food, I actually served the 200 or so people who showed up Sri Lankan food from Kadupul (Lakdiva Foods).  It was good, only if they had shown up within an hour of the agreed upon time!

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Breakfast at Tootsie’s

I just got home after breakfast with an old friend at Tootsie’s (at the Stanford Barn).  It’s one of my favorite places on campus to just sit back, have some coffee and enjoy the wonderful weather in Palo Alto.  My friend, a second year at HBS was visiting to interview with firms in the area.  I hadn’t seen him in a long time so it was great to share stories about each other’s lives and about going to business school on the two different coasts.

It’s FOAM today, so maybe I’ll take my friend there later on and introduce him to some of the drinking games that are apparently happening today (maybe not a great idea, considering interviews tomorrow!).

Yesterday, I also sat through the S356 session for Energy / Cleantech opportunities.  There were a few students who seemed to have good ideas in the space and were looking for teammates.  I think I’ll be focusing my S356 project for on the technology/internet side but I was curious to see what this session would be like.

Over the weekend, we were at Tainted Love with a Sri Lankan friend who’s in the area.  A few busloads of GSB kids (something like 150 kids!) went up on Friday, but I wasn’t able to make the trip to see them until Saturday.  It was a lot of fun, Tainted Love is a good group.  For those who are not familiar with them, they are a popular 80’s cover band who sometimes perform at the Bimbo’s club in San Francisco.  Bimbo’s seemed like a really cool venue for a music event.

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Small Groups

I just got home from a small group dinner that a classmate organized.  The dinner was an opportunity for several of the class to share their key learning from summer internships.  From VC firms in foreign countries to small start-ups, student experiences were great to hear about.  Small group dinners like the one today are one of the key features of the GSB, bringing together students and providing a forum for bonding with each other and sharing information.

 

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