“Venturing to change the world”, our class at Columbia College for undergrads about startups, is back on.
Here is what we talked about today that made an impression on me.
Starting companies, social ventures, or movements is not for everyone. It’s super hard to do these things. Maybe doing everything is hard, but it’s particularly hard to make the world see things differently. — We read: Marc Andreessen’s Pmarchive post #1, and Ben Horowitz “The Struggle”.
Free thinking, challenging convention and the way the world tells you to behave is part of what’s hard. In the 250 years since Kant’s “What Is Enlightenment” or Emerson’s “Self-Reliance” the obstacles against independent thought have diminished but they have much the same character.
The highlight this week was some material Damon Phillips presented benchmarking different professional types — startup founder, social founder, corporate exec in turnaround company, corporate exec in incumbent company. Also differences between Managers and Founders. Have a look:
Follow along the course here
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