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.

Lectures.  Lectures meet on Mondays and Wednesdays from 11:00am - 12:20pm in Peyton 145

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 can be found on the write-ups page.

• In the Plex, Steven Levy
• The Everything Store, Brad Stone
• The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers, Ben Horowitz

Recommended reading list.

• Venture Deals: Be Smarter Than Your Lawyer and Venture Capitalist, Brad Feld and Jason Mendelson
• The Airbnb Story, Leigh Gallagher

Guest Lecturers. There will be a write-up due for each guest lecturer. Information on the guest lecturer write-ups can be found on the write-ups page.

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.

Grading.  The grading is structured as follows:

• Final paper — 100 pts
• Assignments — 25 pts / each
• Book write-ups — 50 pts / each
• Guest lecturer write-ups — 15 pts / each
• Extra Points for participation
• Extra Points for optional project

Important due dates. 

• In the Plex write-up — due October 28 at 5:00pm
• The Everything Store write-up — due November 30 at 5:00pm
• The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers write-up — due Dean's Data, Dec 16 at midnight
• Final paper — due on Dean's Date, Dec 16 at midnight

All write-ups and papers should be submitted via Canvas by the deadline. Please submit a PDF with the file name format COS448_Lastname_Firstname_FileDescription.pdf.

Skip Policy. Two weekly assignments or guest speaker write-ups are allowed to be skipped.

Late Assignment Policy. 10% of your final grade will be docked per day up to 5 days, after which the assignment is not accepted.

Staff, Office Hours and Other Help. 

Instructor Jaswinder P. Singh Email: jps@cs.princeton.edu Office: Computer Science 423 Office Hours: Monday 12:30-2:00PM		Instructor Robert Fish Email: rfish@cs.princeton.edu Office: Corwin Hall 37 Office Hours: Monday, 2:00-3:00PM and Wednesday, 4:30-5:30PM		AI Qiang Zhang Email: qz9238@princeton.edu Office: Friend 010 Office Hours: Friday 4:30-5:30pm .
AI Sunayana Rane Email: srane@princeton.edu Office: Zoom Office Hours: Monday 6:00-7:00PM.		AI Shruthi Santhanam Email: ss5542@princeton.edu Office: Friend 010 and Zoom Office Hours: Thursday 7:00-8:00PM.		AI Promise Ekpo Email: pe3955@princeton.edu Office: Zoom Office Hours: Friday 3:00-4:00pm.

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