My dad recommended this course - should I bother? | Hacker News Reader

My dad recommended this course - should I bother?

continuingstudies.stanford.edu

11 pointsjohnrob13 comments

I've never heard of a college course on business that helped anyone in a startup. On the other hand, if there were one, it would probably be at Stanford.

It might be possible to meet some well-connected valley folks there.

From personal experience, I can say that a genuine course in marketing (not a 'how to write ad copy' intro to advertising) is absolute gold. Bare-minimum: Look for "M.A.S.H. Analysis" in the course outline.

To answer the poster's question: I'd say go for it. Worst-case, you're surrounding yourself with like-minded students.

My co-founder and I took a seminar on entrepreneurship offered jointly between the engineering and business schools at USC. It was actually pretty similar to YCombinator dinners -- every week someone (occasionally multiple people) came in to talk about their own experiences as an entrepreneur, answer questions. etc. Unfortunately, unlike YC, it was at 7:30 in the morning, which was tough.

It wasn't focused on software, or any one field at all actually, so there was a really wide range of speakers. I have a hard time remembering many of the individuals, but a lot of the overall lessons have stuck with me I think. I have a long set of notes I should really look over, I'm sure their are things that would come in handy right now.

How about law school? Would auditing law school classes on IP help?

Max Levchin met Peter Thiel when Thiel was lecturing students on international finance. They started Paypal almost immediately.

This is almost certainly not what you meant -- but the original Paypal business plan did revolve around international finance.

What are you expecting to gain? (not much to lose)

Stanford Continuing Studies: "We have a generous drop policy which allows you to attend two class meetings to "try out" a course."

It probably depends on the professor: is this Gibbon guy a good teacher? Try to find out if he's taught the course before and how it went.

It's the difference between just learning cute terminology (bad professor) and initiating a real interest/solving hard problems in the subject (good professor).

You can check his Linkedin profile here: http://www.linkedin.com/in/johngibbon

His resume says " Built 8 new products and enhanced 19 existing products over 14-year career. "

I'd ask him which products he built.

Don't you have friends in your program to consult for advice? Assuming you're not in that program, isn't there any kind of forum for Stanford students to discuss classes? It seems like YC is unlikely to give you the feedback you are looking for in regards to such a specific question.

To answer rms, I'm a stanford alum. I think the course is interesting enough to give it a shot - thanks for the advice. I'll be sure to summarize anything interesting I find.

Do you already go to Stanford? Do you have a college degree from somewhere else?

Is your dad John Gibbon?

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