Paul Graham’s Best Advice to Aspiring Entrepreneurs: JUST LEARN! (Notes from CS183B: How to Start a Startup Lecture 3)

Paul Graham was the guest speaker for this week’s lecture

Not as many people showed up for this week’s viewing lecture for “CS183B: How to Start a Startup” but nonetheless, the discussion group proved to be really interesting and insightful as we not only discussed key points in the lecture but we also talked about problems we faced and how we could solve them. It was really interesting how we ended up talking about very diverse fields from machine learning to education to media and journalism to weather, wearables and smart fabric to networking and starting a startup in college. (You can jump straight to our discussion group’s points by scrolling down to the last part).

You can view resources for the class here: http://startupclass.samaltman.com/

My overall takeaway from today though was that there’s no set-way or formula to starting a startup. There are certain things that worked for some entrepreneurs that didn’t work for other entrepreneurs. At the end of the day, starting a startup is really just about having an idea, getting cofounders, building a product users love, getting feedback from users, committing your time to your startup then just LEARNING every step of the way.

Re-engineering Journalism at Stanford

Repost from my Philippine Daily Inquirer Article: http://lifestyle.inquirer.net/162227/reengineering-journalism-at-stanford

“What I think people should take away from Silicon Valley is a great sense of openness, optimism, a sense of possibility, a willingness to try and to learn by doing and a willingness to experiment. Don’t be afraid to fail and I think that’s a really important lesson to take away from Silicon Valley.” – John Temple, former managing editor of the Washington Post

With the JSK Director

Each year, around 20 journalists are chosen to become John S. Knight Fellows. The Knight Fellows take on the challenge of pushing boundaries and creating products that will help improve the quality of information reaching the public!

By taking advantage of the different classes and opportunities in both Stanford and Silicon Valley, the Knight fellows are able to explore a variety of fields and be exposed to new ways of approaching journalism.

When I found out that these fellows would be presenting their yearlong projects in an event called, “Re-engineering Journalism”, I knew I couldn’t miss this chance to attend an evening of innovation!

Re-engineering Journalism

In the past few years, technology has changed the way we consume information. A lot of people now get their news from social media platforms on their smartphones and on a go. As a result, journalism has continued to evolve.

Khan Academy: A Free World Class Education – Salman Khan@Stanford

It was always a dream of mine to visit Stanford University and after visiting Stanford today, I now have much bigger dreams when it comes to education – Thanks to Mr. Salman Khan.

I could’ve visited Stanford University on another day but I decided to visit today because there was a speaker I didn’t want to miss. Through the Stanford events page, I found out that, you guessed it right, Mr. Salman Khan, the founder of Khan Academy would be speaking on campus for the Stanford’s DFJ Entrepreneurial Thought Leader Series. I knew I couldn’t miss this opportunity, and I’m glad I didn’t because his talk was worth every minute!

“For the next 10, 15 years, this thing called education, we can make it much more equal, we can make it more like water, a fundamental human right.”

Khan Academy has changed the lives of students from all over the world

Mr. Salman Khan didn’t only keep the talk entertaining by dropping jokes and puns here and there, but he also kept the audience on board by using powerful stories, anecdotes, lessons and real-life experiences that left us all inspired.

(The video will be soon uploaded at the Stanford website: http://events.stanford.edu/events/433/43305/ and http://etl.stanford.edu/)

How it started

Mr. Salman Khan started his speech by talking about the journey of Khan Academy and how it all started. He went way back to the moment where he encountered a simple problem that he wanted to solve. This problem was his cousin having a hard time in math.

Senior Year Day 3 – Everything Happens For A Reason

We started the day off with a bang as we had our first general assembly of the year where we met our new school director, Father Ari Dy. His message to us was quite simple. He wants to help improve our Xavier experience by improving the way we learn and helping us appreciate our Chinese culture even more.

The talk that stood out though was the talk of our school principal about working hard this school year. She emphasized the importance of hard work and the fact that there is no substitute for it. If one wants to excel and get high grades, one must work hard. Actually, in everything we do, we need to work hard in order to succeed. Aside from that, she also told us to “just do it” when it comes to our homework and other non-graded things. I actually believe in this for these non-graded things are there for a reason. They are there to help us succeed in the long run.

Following the general assembly, we finally got to meet our teachers. I’m really happy that all of our teachers so far seem really good at teaching and are able to make the class very unique and interesting. As our teachers showed us the course outline for the year, I couldn’t help but feel excited for most of the topics were really interesting topics that have direct applications to real life.

I especially enjoyed our last subject, economics. Economics is something I’m really interested in and something I want to learn more about. Right now, to me, economics explains why certain things happen in our world. Who wouldn’t want to know why some countries are richer than the other? This subject seems to be really exciting and our teacher is also very vibrant and passionate about education.

It was a really hectic day though for after the bell rang, I headed to debate. Joining the debate team is probably one of the best things that could happen to me. In the 3 sessions I’ve attended, I’ve already learned so much about the world. To be honest, I actually learn so much more from Debate than from my actual subjects in school. I’m really glad that I decided to join Debate and hopefully, I can continue to improve as a speaker and more importantly as a person.

What happened next though was something that I didn’t expect. Today was the day that the SAT results would be released and as I prepared to call my driver when debate ended, I got a text from my dad of my score. I was a bit disappointed as I saw my score. To be honest, my score isn’t that bad but I was simply expecting to get higher.

The problem with my score is that it’s in the safe range and is good enough for certain schools but if I would like to pursue my dream schools, I’d probably have to retake. Right now, I feel a bit down because I got really low in the Critical Reading section. However, it’s just a test. I still have the opportunity to take it a second time but I can also opt not to. My score is good enough to pass in a lot of top schools but I guess it’s not enough for Ivy league level schools like Harvard, Yale and Stanford.

Right now, I’m leaning towards retaking the test for I know that I could still do better. The fact that the gap of my scores are quite far means that there is a lot of room for improvement especially in the Critical Reading section. Everything happens for a reason and maybe this was a wake up call for me to study even harder.

To end, I’d like to share the quote of the day from my Physics teacher about discipline, “Discipline is doing what you’re suppose to do and not doing what you’re not suppose to do whether you like it or not.”

This year will definitely be a jam packed year and how much discipline I can muster will definitely play an integral role on how far I can go!

-DOitChoco

The Road to June 1 – An Uphill Climb To That 2400 Peak!

It’s been a few days since I’ve last posted here because of the fact that I’ve been really immersing my self in review material and trying to do my best as I prepare for the SAT the I will be taking in June 1.

The last few days, I’ve been really spending time reviewing for arguably the biggest test in my life, the SAT. It’s quite absurd how one test can be so abstruse, challenging and at the same time be so universal. The Scholastic Aptitude Test is suppose to be able to measure our reasoning and analytic skills in the three core subjects of Critical Reading, Math and Writing.

It’s mind blowing how fast time flies! It seemed just like yesterday when I was telling my dad,”Relax, I still have X number of months to review before the test,” but in a blink of an eye, I have 10 days left to buckle up, put on my nerd glasses and give it everything I’ve got. In all honesty though, I didn’t expect it to come this soon; actually, I’m quite astonished that SUMMER is about to end. This summer has honestly been just one roller coaster ride full of extreme highs and lows. I’ll save my senti feelings and reflection about what a summer it has been for another time for this post is all about conquering that Blue book and the test it represents!!

Preparing for the SAT has been a really tedious and taxing process. I really only started seriously reviewing for it during April and that was only on weekends because I had Chem Camp and Basketball Training everyday. It’s also actually the first time in my life that I’ve gone to a tutor to help me out in preparing for the English part of the test. This was only on weekends though and I was still having a hard time mustering up enough discipline to do serious review on weekdays because of the tiring everyday basketball practices.

But you know how the story goes, I ended up tearing my ACL two weeks ago and these last two weeks, I’ve been really ambivalent but at the same time, I’ve decided to really give it my best and review and prepare myself for June 1 as much as I can. During the last week, I’ve been really hitting the books hard and trying grasp all the concepts and lessons that I’ll be needing to get my desired score in the test.

The road has been really daunting and there have been times when I don’t even know if what I’m doing is worth it. The past few days I’ve been taking practice tests and my score seems to be stuck in the 2000 range. This may seem like a good enough score to some but it’s not good enough for me. It’s really a dream of mine to study in Stanford and based on my research, I’d need to get at least a 2200 to give me a fair chance at getting in. Being Asian also doesn’t help for we all know how Asians are stereotyped as “nerds” and “brainiacs.”

I’m different though. Although I’ve always been in the top percentile of my batch when it comes to grades, the last time that I really studied for something was probably when I was a 4th grader and my parents were still really strict about my grades. Ever since then though, I’ve been winging it and just doing enough to be in the honor roll. I’ve honestly studied harder than ever before these past few days. Although I know this is not the best way to get a high score, I have no other choice but to just pour everything out and give my 10000% in these next days leading up to the exam.

There have definitely been moments when I question myself and whether or not I’m doing the right thing, shutting myself from all the distractions (I deleted my twitter and instagram app on my phone to avoid distractions) is worth it. There are times when getting a 2400, no even just a 2200, seems so impossible. Aside from that, getting the aforementioned scores don’t guarantee anything. It seems as though the chances are 1 in a million.

During these moments though, I just tell myself,”Damn it David, you know you have lots of potential, you’re a smart man, you just have to learn how to stick it out, persevere! Don’t give up!!” Yes!! I guess I just have to believe in myself, use the remaining days I have before the test wisely and just simply, do my best! If I do these, I’ll definitely have no regrets!

It may be an uphill battle but anything is possible! I’m just looking at this as a challenge that I have to face head on!! I definitely won’t back down and lose to a test! No way! NEVER!

-DOitChoco