COURSE INFORMATION

Course description.  Course teaches engineering students about issues tackled by leading Chief Technology Officers: the technical visionaries and/or managers who innovate at the boundaries of technology and business by understanding both deeply, and who are true partners to the CEO, not just implementers of business goals. Focus will be on thinking like a CTO (of a startup and a large company) from technology and business perspectives, and on software and Internet-based businesses. Industry-leading guest speakers provide perspectives too.

Required reading list. Students will be required to create a write-up for each book on the required reading list. Information on the book write-ups, including a link to the dropbox submission, can be be found on the book write-up page.

• Steven Levy, In the Plex
• Brad Stone, The Everything Store
• Walter Isaacson, Steve Jobs

Recommended reading list:

• Peter Thiel, Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future

Topics that will be covered by shorter readings The full list of articles can be found on the readings page. The readings are not assign to a specific date, due to the impromptu nature of guest lectures.

Lectures.  Lectures meet on Mondays and Wednesdays at 11am in Friend Center 006

Guest Lecturers. Past speakers have included J. Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter and CEO of Square; M. Whitman, CEO of Ebay and now HP; F. Wilson, of Union Square Ventures; P. Graham, of Y!Combinator; S. Altman, of Y!Combinator; J. Hennessy, President of Stanford University; J. Yang, co-founder of Yahoo!; D. Greene, co-founder and CEO of VMWare; J. Clark, co-founder of Netscape and Silicon Graphics; T. Siebel, founder and CEO of Siebel Systems; and C. Dickerson, CEO of Etsy.

Guest Lecturer write-ups. There will be a write-up due for each guest lecturer. You will turn in your write-ups via dropbox. A link to the dropbox submission can be found on the schedule page. Try to keep your write-up concise, while also crafting thoughtful responses. The points you need to address are:

• What are the three most useful things that you learned from this guest speaker or session that you didn't know before, or that you hadn't thought about much before, and that you think you are likely to carry with you going forward?
• What surprised you most?
• What did you like most about the speaker or the session?
• What did you not like most about the speaker or session?
• Do you think we should invite this speaker back in future semesters? Any other reasons than the above why or why not?

Feel free to include multiple observations for each bullet point, eg you could include three things that surprised you the most rather than just one. We prefer that you include your netid in your write-up and that your write-up is submitted as a PDF.

Grading.  The grading is structured as follows:

• Project paper in Lieu of Mid Term — 35%
• Project paper in lieu of Final — 35%
• Oral Presentation(s) — 10%
• Book reports / lecture write - ups — 15%
• Participation / Other — 5%

Important due dates. 

• In the Plex write-up — March 2
• Project paper in lieu of Mid Term — March 21
• The Everything Store write-up — April 6
• Steve Jobs write-up — April 27
• Project paper in lieu of Final — May 10

Late Policy. You will not get any credit for late submissions. We will grant extensions only in the case of illness (with a doctor's note) or extraordinary circumstances. Extracurricular activities and heavy workloads in other classes don't count as "extraordinary", no matter how unexpected or important or time-consuming. Please let us know ahead of time if illness or an extraordinary circumstance will cause you to submit a writeup or paper late, then you should discuss the matter with your instructor as soon as possible.

Staff, Office Hours and Other Help. 

	Instructor Jaswinder P. Singh - jps@ Office: Computer Science 423, (609)258-5329 Office Hours: M 12:30-1:30 pm
Instructor Robert Fish - rfish@ Office: Computer Science 206 Office Hours: T 2:00-4:00 pm		AI Paul Ellenbogen - pe5@ Office: Sherrerd 320 Office Hours: W 1:30-2:30, Th 11:20-12:20 am

If you have general questions about the assignments, lectures, textbook, or other course materials, please post via Piazza. Posts marked private are viewable only by instructors.