COURSE INFORMATION

Course description.  Course teaches Princeton students about issues tackled by Chief Technology Officers, Technology Leaders, Technical visionaries, and managerial consultants who innovate at the boundaries of technology and business. Understanding technology and business deeply helps them be true partners to a CEO, not just implementers of products and services. Focus will be on creating team projects that innovate technically while thinking like the leaders of a startup from technology and business perspectives. Projects that use artificial intelligence and/or blockchain technology are currently on the leading edge of disruptive businesses and are fertile ground for new startups with a technical and computer science basis. During the termndustry-leading guest speakers and startup entrepreneurs will provide perspectives on these issues.

This class will have three components to it:

• Lectures - Lectures meet on Mondays and Wednesdays from 13:20pm - 14:40pm in Louis A. Simpson International Building Room A71.
  These will be given by Professor Singh, Professor Fish, or by a guest speaker.
  • One class each week will aim to be given by a guest lecturer. However, because these are busy people, sometimes the schedule will change.
  • The other class each week will be devoted to team reports and discussions as well as lecture content from the instructors.
  • Attendance is mandatory and will be tracked. Every class will be equally weighted for attendance. Attendance will be split into 36 points: 24 for lectures and 12 for office hours.
  • Instructional Staff Office Hours: Faculty and TA's will hold office hours. We expect students to interact with the instructional staff regularly about their project work or about other concepts in the course. Each weekly attendance at an instructional staff office hours will receive one point, for a total of 12 possible points.
• Projects - All students will become part of a project team. These teams will be 4 students and will remain together throughout the term. Each team will execute a project to build a startup around an idea they create. The project will be documented through presentations in class throughout the term, a final demonstration and pitch, and a collective final paper. Detailed information can be found on the project page.
• Books - Two books will be read by students:
  • The Everything Store, Brad Stone (Book Report Deadline: February 21st)
  • In the Plex, Steven Levy (Book Report Deadline: March 21st)
  A book report will be due during the term for each of these. Each project team will submit one write-up per book, and all team members will receive the same grade. Information on the book write-ups can be found on the write-ups page.
  

Recommended reading list.

• The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers, Ben Horowitz
• Venture Deals: Be Smarter Than Your Lawyer and Venture Capitalist, Brad Feld and Jason Mendelson

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:

• 10% — Attendance - class and office hours
• 20% — Book Reports
• 40% — Class presentations
  • 10% — Presentation (2/11)
  • 10% — Presentation (3/2)
  • 10% — Presentation (3/30)
  • 10% — Presentation (4/15)
• 20% — Final Pitch, Demonstration
• 10% — Final Paper

All write-ups should be submitted via Gradescope by the deadline.

Absence Policy. Attendance absence is excused with a doctor’s note for a health issue or for a family emergency, a note from their residential dean.

Late Assignment Policy.

• For the Book Reports, 10% of your final grade will be docked per day up to 5 days, after which the assignment will not be accepted.
• For Peerceptiv review submissions (required after each of the four presentations), this late penalty will apply starting with the second review assignment (Presentation 2). You will have one day after the presentation to complete your reviews of the other teams with no penalty. After that deadline, the instructor-assigned review grade will be docked by 20% per day.

AI/LLM Assistance Policy. AI tools such as ChatGPT/Claude are completely prohibited for use when drafting/writing a paper and/or oral presentation. Instructional staff will determine whether it is okay to use AI tools for other tasks such as data set generation, coding support, etc. If you have questions, ask us. In any case, all uses of AI tools must be documented in your reports, presentations, and any code you turn in.

Staff, Office Hours and Other Help. 

Instructor Jaswinder P. Singh Email: jps@cs.princeton.edu Office: Computer Science 423 Office Hours: TBD, email to schedule.	Instructor Robert Fish Email: rfish@cs.princeton.edu Office: Corwin Hall 37 Office Hours: Mondays and Wednesdays from 15:00 - 17:00
AI Stamatis Alexandropoulos Email: sa6924@princeton.edu Office: Friend Center 010C Office Hours: Thursday 2:00 - 3:00 pm

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