On other news, it looks like the management students in my 50k team will be taking control of the team while other team members take time off to complete their PhD thesis so that they can graduate in May. But seriously, both Peter and I have plenty to do before the business plan and financial projection are due in a month from now. While it is a lot of work, I really enjoying the experience with this 50k business plan competition. I often compare the 50k experience to the taking of a 12 unit (or 4 credits) MIT class. The difference is that you actually have to "get down and dirty" in building a real business plan in 50k.

3/24/2005 11:42:54 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

Comments [10]

Entrepreneurship

I spent this week meeting with former colleagues whom I worked with at Analog Devices. I caught up with Siobhan, Steve, Joanna, and Courtney this week. It seems like they are all enjoying what they are doing now, I am really happy for them.

3/24/2005 11:40:14 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

Comments [11]

Personal

You Know it’s spring break at MIT when:

I met up with Joanna, Zach, Stephanie, and Lewis in the Stata Center at MIT on the first day of spring break. Joanna who is an alumna of MIT hasn't been on campus since 2000. Since a lot have changed since 2000, I volunteered to give them a tour of the Stata Center, the Zesiger Center (Z-center), E40 (ESD faculty/office where my office is), and the Tang Center. Joanna was impressed how modern and well-equipped the Z-center is. Our tour of the campus ended with Joanna showing us Barker Library, a place she loved hanging out when she was grad student. Have you ever wonder what is inside the Great Dome, a distinctive architectural feature of MIT? Go to the Barker Library on the 5th floor of building 10 to find out.

3/22/2005 12:29:43 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

Comments [21]

School

I thought I could finally work on my tax return on Sunday afternoon but I ended up watching NCAA basketball on TV while simultaneously reviewing the business plan and presentation from my 50k team. Later that afternoon, I went to the Z-center to run and swim. I realized that I still have a lot to go before I can swim efficiently at the triathlon event that I will be doing this summer. I am not breathing correctly when I swim, which consequently causes me to tire out quickly through heavy breathing. After working out at Z-center, I met with my 50k team to go over the presentation slides for another business plan competition that we will be participating tomorrow in Lowell, Massachusetts. Oh well, just another typical day of my life. After this blog, I am finally going to start working on my tax return.

3/21/2005 12:43:16 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

Comments [9]

Personal

Milt and I spent the last 2 days in New York City hanging out with Siobhan and Steve. Siobhan is an MBA student at New York University and Steve is a Law student at St. Johns University, both staled to graduate in May 2006. Even though this week is officially the start of MIT spring break, I can't really afford to spend too much time away from town. There is simply too much things I need to get done this week. So I only stayed for the weekend before driving back to Boston. Both Steve and Siobhan are doing well, each thriving in their own environment. I can see that they will eventually become the power couple that I know.

On our first night in New York, we went to Rickshaw Dumpling Bar for dinner. I think Siobhan had wanted to try this place out since the founder of this company is an NYU Stern alumnus and the company won 2nd prize in a business plan competition at NYU Stern School of Business last year. Rickshaw Dumpling Bar is a trendy but fast-food style restaurant that serves Chinese dumplings. However, I have a very different opinion of the place (and both Milt and Steve agree with me). I feel that:

1. The ordering of food at this place isn't as easy as ordering a Happy Meal at McDonalds. The ordering proces is fairly complicated as you can mix and match different options to get the final order that you want. To make things worse, the menu at the counter is confusing. For instance, the menu isn’t clear about ordering the dumplings as deep fried or steamed. If it is ordered steamed, it comes with soup, while deep fried dumplings come with dipping sauce. It also doesn't tell you that noodles are $3 extra. This makes it hard for first time customers to order what they want. Moreover, the staff wasn't helpful in explaining how the ordering process works.
2. Dumplings are mediocre at best. I ordered the Peking dumplings, which I thought they tasted very bare and the texture isn't as good as I have expected what good Chinese dumplings should be.
3. Last but not least, the prices are way too expensive. A bowl of Peking duck dumplings in Shitake mushrooms soup with noodles and a side order of salad cost me $16!!! I hardly tasted the duck or the Shitake mushrooms.

I dislike restaurants that look trendy on the outside but lack the substance in providing good value and tasty food to customers. Sadly, this place seem to fit this description so it gets a thumb down from me. Oh, go to Chinatown and get the real thing for $6. As for Rickshaw Dumpling Bar, I'll give it a 3.5/10.

3/21/2005 12:03:45 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

Comments [11]

Food

Because UCLA, Creighton, and LSU lost last night, I am now last in the standings. Doesn't matter, Syracuse is going win it all.

I lift weights and run regularly, but I still feel sore after last night's swim.

3/18/2005 10:06:22 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

Comments [15]

Sports

So I started the swimming part of my triathlon training by attending my first swimming lesson at the MIT aquatic center. I have to say the Z-center swimming pool is one of the best indoor swimming pools I have ever swum in (but do keep in mind that I have not swum at many places). The chlorine level in the water is very low and you can tell that the pool is well-maintained from the overall cleanliness.

I have always struggled with swimming since I self-taught myself to swimming when I was younger. However, I am usually athletic enough that brute force had work well for me in the past but with the upcoming triathlon, I need more efficiency; hence my motivation for the swimming lessons to improve my swimming ability. From today's swimming drills, I think I still have a lot to work on, especially breathing, fewer strokes, and buoyancy. Right now, it takes me 26-30 strokes to swim 25m. It takes Michael Phelps, the freestyle Olympian, 12 strokes to cover the same distance. I still have a lot of strokes to reduce.

On other sports news, it looks like I am kicking ass in the SDM NCAA bracket. However, Creighton is losing to West Virginia with 2.4 seconds to go at this very moment. If Creighton loses to West Virginia, it can seriously jeopardize my No. 1 standing... And darn it (1 minute later), Creighton did lose. On the other hand, UCLA is losing too. Oh well, I got 11 out of my 13 first round picks correct so far anyway.

3/18/2005 12:04:29 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

Comments [14]

Sports

I got this picture from a friend. For you Apple aficionados out there, the following picture shows the entire Apple products that have ever been released to the public.

3/16/2005 6:05:29 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

Comments [26]

Computers

Having dabbled in stocks (and lost quite spectacularly in the Internet bust), I really find today's 3 hour System Optimization class on optimizing stock portfolio by Professor David Simchi-Levi insightful. We covered how we can use the principles of System Optimization to maximize returns and/or minimize risk.

I particularly enjoyed the part of the lecture on how we relate diversification to correlation and demonstrated that a diverse stock portfolio is a optimal portfolio that minimizes risk. It makes more sense to me after the professor had explained diversification with correlation.

All other factors being equal, let us consider a simple case of a portfolio that consists of only 2 stocks. If a their share prices are positively correlated, then if the share price of stock A goes up, stock B is likely to go up as well. In this scenario, it doesn't make sense to diversify since you can always invest all your money in either stock. If you are looking for low risk, invest in the stock with the lowest standard deviation. For high return, you invest in the stock with the highest return. For uncorrelated stocks, they tend to be unpredictable and hence uninteresting. With negatively correlated stocks, when 1 stock goes up, the other goes down which effectively mitigates the risk. Hence, when determining a stock portfolio where the objective function is minimal risk, the optimal solution is almost always a diverse portfolio of stock.

3/15/2005 9:50:22 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

Comments [12]

School

Being an entrant to the MIT 50k competition, I was invited to the semi-final awards last night. Unfortunately, our team didn’t make it to the semi-final. Perhaps, in hindsight it isn't difficult to understand why our team didn’t win. As you can see, the more technical the idea, the more the judges (or venture capitalists) want to see a proof-of-concept of the idea. A proof-of-concept has to be defensible and most of offer competitive advantage. In other words there better be a patent or a patent-pending associated with the idea. We have a great idea but it was a little premature to ask for funding to start making products when we don’t even have any solid evidence if the idea even works. The purpose of the 50k competition is to build a company to sell products not asking for research grant.

In hindsight it is always easy to reflect on our failure. Nevertheless, I have learned so much from the experience. More than that, it is a calling for me. The 50k competition has uncovered the entrepreneurial spirit within me to get involved in building a successful enterprise. The keynote speaker for the 50k event last night, Rizwan Virk, expressed my thoughts most eloquently. Rizwan is a successful entrepreneur who had start 3 different companies to date and written a book on entrepreneurship. While most books on entrepreneurship focus on the mechanics, his book titled Zen Entrepreneurship look at entrepreneurship from a spiritual perspective. Rizwan provided insights how entrepreneurship is like embarking on a Hero's journey, in which the hero (which is you) grows to become more matured person at the end of the journey. The example that he used to illustrate his point was Frodo in the Lord of the Ring. Overall, his speech last night can be summarized in the following:

Why is entrepreneurship like the Hero's journey?

• You can win a lot of treasure.
• You will be up against impossible odds.
• To be successful, you will have to recruit allies. For you Lord of Rings fans, this means that you should go look for your Strider and Gollum.
• You never know what is going to happen next.
• You'll end up a different person than when you started.

There's a happy ending to my 50k endeavors after all as I was invited to join another semi-finalist team yesterday. I went for our first team meeting today. Like my PDD team, this new 50k team made up of a diverse group of highly talented and motivated individuals. I am really excited to embark on this new journey of entrepreneurial learning experience. Wish us luck.

3/11/2005 11:43:24 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

Comments [15]

Entrepreneurship

I have not been writing with a lot of thought and content on my blog lately. So for those of you who have been reading my blog the past week, sorry. Life has been so hectic, it has been difficult keeping up.

3/10/2005 12:22:04 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

Comments [14]

Blog

After a week of inactivity in the first Sloan Trading Competition, I finally made my first trade on Monday. So far, I am not doing too badly. With $1 million virtual money available, I made over $20k in 3 days. Of course, this is fantasy money, right. However, the number 1 ranked team in the competition has made a whopping $750k in less than 2 weeks. Wow!!!

On other fantasy news, Yoav just invited me to play in the NCAA tournament pool with other classmates. Oh yeah, I will be trash talking all the way to championship.

3/10/2005 12:21:05 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

Comments [17]

Social

Wow, I spent the past 2 nights working on the ERBA assignment in the LFM-SDM office. Once again, the usual suspects were there working on the problem set in groups. Teamwork is critical to one's success and sanity in the SDM program. But one particular person stands out from the crowd. Spiros the Greek was long done with his homework assignment and has no incentive of being there but he didn't seem to mind as helped others with their ERBA homework. For this, I applaud Spiros for his generous assistance to his fellow students. And Spiros, I owe you a beer for helping me with question 2c.

3/9/2005 1:54:00 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

Comments [12]

School

The weekend has been relatively uneventful. I spent most of time working on administrivia stuff like designing business cards, writing emails, etc. Fortunately, John and Jake (aka Kodak) were willing to hang out with me at Toad for some live music. Besides its excellent beer selection, you never have to play cover at Toad despite its outstanding lineup. Last night band was good and their music style is akin to that of the Ramones.

Speaking of music, I have been listening to early 90's music reminiscent of happier times of my undergrad years. My favorite music genre back then was Hair Metal and Alternative Rock. Looking back, it was a pity that Alternative Rock killed Hair Metal. Anyway, here are some of the albums I have been listening to in the past week.

• Surfer Rosa by the Pixies
• Doolittle by the Pixies
• Dirt by Alice in Chains
• Siamese Dreams by the Smashing Pumpkins
• Appetite for Destruction by Guns & Roses
• Incesticide by Nirvana
• Favorites by Enuff Z'nuff
• For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge by Van Halen (Note that the initials of the album title has a smirking message)
• Ten by Pearl Jam
• Long Cold Winter by Cinderella

3/6/2005 10:05:13 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

Comments [25]

Music