August Capital Summer Party!!

A couple friends I met at the TechCrunch conference and I managed to get into the annual August Capital Summer Party. This was big. I was elated once we got in. August Capital is one of the most respected and prominent VC firms in the Silicon Valley and the party had some very big people attending. Not to mention the awesome gourmet food, and the drinks. Some of the highlights of the night - I shook hands and spoke to Guy Kawasaki for a couple minutes! It was beyond amazing. He's a really cool guy and very humble. I also got a chance to talk to Ron Conway, a prominent VC in the area, who was on his way out. I got both their business cards :)

I interacted with many others, some of whom were CEOs of their own startups, some VCs, and one who was a professor, Andreas Weigand, at Stanford doing data mining research. I also recognized some MIT alums by their class ring! One prominent person who was there that I didn't get a chance to meet was Paul Allen.

All-in-all, the event was a blast! I learned many things and had tons of fun.

MIT/Stanford Venture Lab - Mobile Computing Event

Today, I tagged along with a good friend of mine at work to an event at Stanford University sponsored by the MIT/Stanford Venture Lab. We had just found about the event that very day and were disappointed to see it was sold out. But we went anyways and realized we could "volunteer" our way in. We signed up as volunteers and had access to a huge dinner and an event with valuable information and fantastic people! Our job was simply to collect and recycle all the plastic name tags at the end of the event. Not a bad deal.

It was related to the future of mobile computing from applications, mobile operating systems, hardware needs, and venture capital outlooks and business models -- http://www.vlab.org/article.html?aid=275. It was a great opportunity to network with developers, VCs, and some big corporate representatives including VP of Developer Marketing at Palm and Blackberry Director of Developer Relations at RIM. And not to mention the free food :)

I am looking forward to future VLAB events this summer!

SUMA Venture Capitalist Roundtable

I am on the board of the Sloan Undergradute Management Association (SUMA) at MIT. I am organizing an event, the SUMA Venture Capitalist Roundtable, taking place on April 27th, at 7:00PM in Room 3-442 @ MIT. The goal of the event is to invite five venture capitalists from diverse industries and backgrounds to educate MIT students on the inner-workings of VC firms. Namely, this will involve educating MIT students on how a VC firm works, what are the different roles played by individuals in a VC firm, how firms value start-up opportunities, etc... The Roundtable discussion will also be followed by a brief networking session. For the entrepreneurs in the crowd, this is a great opportunity to network and ask for advice on taking your idea to the next level! The industries being represented at the Roundtable include IT, Energy, Cleantech, and Biotechnology. For the finance gurus, this is a fantastic opportunity to explore what it is like to work for a VC firm and potentially secure a job for the summer!

I would like to thank the following individuals for volunteering their time to come to MIT and educate MIT students about venture capitalism:

- Frank Andrasco, Partner, Egan Capital
- Graham Brooks, Senior Associate, 406 Ventures
- Gautam Gupta, Associate, General Catalyst
- Jhanavi Pathak, Business Associate, Romulus Capital
- Praveen Sahay, Managing Director, WAVE Equity Partners

I am eagerly looking forward to this event and encourage other students in the Cambridge area to come join us in room 3-442 @ MIT on April 27th, 7:00PM!

Wall Street and MIT

One in every three people I meet at MIT are into finance in some way or the other. Some are in market research and investment banking and others are in sales and trading... seems like making big bucks on Wall Street is the central goal for many MIT undergrads. And working at JP Morgan, Goldman, and hedge funds seem like the "hot" things to do over the summer.

I come from a background of high-tech and am fascinated by next-generation web technologies, nanotechnology, AI, and the fusion of neuroscience and computers. Frankly, I have never really considered finance as potential career path. I did write some business plans and financial statements back in high school and also participated in virtual stock market games, but didn't seem to find enough time to devote to learning the ins and outs of the financial industry at that time.

Regardless of my background, however, I feel that I should make best use of this opportunity and culture and learn more about finance and how engineering can be applied to this industry. Who knows, I might get really into this stuff? And worst case, these concepts are essential to know anyways, no matter what industry I go into.

My Story with Powerset

Ever heard of Powerset? It is a private startup I have been following for several months now. It has come up with potentially disruptive search technology based on natural language processing. This basically means that their search engine has more advanced capabilities to actually unlock the meaning encoded in ordinary human language. This seems several steps ahead of mere keyword search which Google offers. In fact, recently Powerset launched a test drive of their search technology based on Wikipedia articles. Check it out at www.powerset.com.

Anyways, in addition to Powerset's technological innovations, its team has captured my interest as well, namely its Founder & CTO, Barney Pell. I have managed to schedule a meeting with him in mid-August 2008 to discuss the future of Powerset and any advice he has for students like me planning to enter the business & technology industry. Ever since, I have been counting down days to the meeting with great anticipation. I can't wait!!

And, TODAY, I learned something that seriously made me fall of my chair. Microsoft just acquired Powerset. Wow! A company that I have been following for months with excitement has, within a day, transformed from an independent self-sustaining entity to another division within the Microsoft Live Search team...though I can definitely see advantages of making this acquisition (the abundance of resources Live Search offers, for one) I am afraid that Powerset's dynamic start-up culture and independent thinking may be compromised in the process.

More fascinating to me, however, is how fast things can change in the world of business, especially in the business of technology where the tech governs the marketplace! I will continue to follow Powerset and am keen to see how it progresses from today onwards. Plus, this will provide me with interesting talking points with Mr. Pell in August :)