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ryanalam

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HBS now has courses like Building Sustainable Cities and Reimagining Capitalism, both courses created in response to what I presume is student interest in subjects beyond the profit maximization motive.

Outside of a few courses and a few class discussions within each course that are centered in exploring social value, the overwhelming majority of the experience requires students to check their social mindsets at the door and think like stewards of shareholder value.

One of the saddest parts about the HBS classroom is its reliance on student participation and student-led learning. While this is an effective way of training students to assert their opinions, I have seen several circumstances in which groupthink and conformist pressure keeps the "social" viewpoint at the margins of the in-class discussion. HBS just isn't the place for critically thinking about anything other than profit and loss.

Edit: grammar

In the US, the alternative to this would be to consume organic produce. However, most people don't realize that organic produce still uses plenty of, if not more pesticides than traditional production methods; they just use organic pesticides.

I wonder which is worse: highly mechanized, high efficiency, and low volume synthetic pesticides in traditional production methods - or low efficiency, high volume natural pesticides in organic production methods.

So does anyone know where to find stats on student debt amounts outstanding, the maturity schedules, and the proportion of variable rate to fixed rate debt? I'm curious to see how vulnerable the country is to default risk should interest rates move upward or some other shock to the economy take place.

"Even if you're cofounder hadn't left the odds are that your startup would fail."

I think that's a shitty outlook. Of course your startup has odds of failing, but if you quit on your idea because of this hiccup, your chance of failure is 100%. These things happen. Be 100% up front with your investor, tell him you need some time to find a new co-founder, and then go find one. If the investor can't stomach this challenge and wants his money back, all good - his money wasn't worth the hassle of having an investor with a low risk tolerance. But perhaps he's someone who either believes in you or your idea, and would want you to persevere and get this thing off the ground, not jump ship at the first sign of difficulty.

Your other options are to hire some freelancers/developers to help you take your early stage prototype to a public-facing finish line. Or learn to code yourself, that's always an option ;)