DSV Week Four: Learning the Difference between Management & Leadership

“Management is about persuading people to do things they do not want to do, while leadership is about inspiring people to do things they never thought they could.” – Steve Jobs Up until Silicon Valley, I always thought of leadership as someone who directs others – who brings them to success. I used to think that everyone at Duke was

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DSV Week Three: Tell Your Own Story

“Don’t be satisfied with stories, how things have gone with others. Unfold your own myth.” -Rumi I share this quote not only because Rumi has been the resounding poetic voice throughout our course with Professor Azhar, but also because its message, to tell your story, has been repeated by everyone we’ve met here in Silicon Valley. As humans, storytelling is

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Halfway there: Netflix. Stanford d.school. Cognito. Ecologic. UniversalGiving.

  We are halfway through Duke in Silicon Valley, and I have found the key takeaway of the program to be speaking with those that have personally dived into the startup and venture capital culture. Our class gets this exposure through interaction with the guest speakers at our Plug & Play classroom and site visits to diversified firms in Mountain

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DSV Week Two: Empathy in Design, Vintner’s Daughter, Carbon 3D

“Choose someone you hate. Now, put yourself in their shoes and reason why they would act this way.” Many of the volunteers who took on this task at the start of class had a difficult time setting aside one’s emotional bias against the hated person. Professor Azhar started our ethnography section of our course with this request. We learned that

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DSV Week One: First Day of Class, Palantir, Stanford

Duke in Silicon Valley has been off to a great start!  Starting off with the class with Prof. Azhar was a great and unconventional experience.  He put us on the spot and made us think unconventionally – all part of his goal to simulate what it’s like to be a part of a startup.  I think that we were all

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Wrapping it up: Seven lessons from the DSV program

I cannot write this blog post without first expressing my deep gratitude towards those that made it possible. This program was transformative for me. I know it was transformative for other students in the program as well. Thank you to Kevin (Program Director), Megan (Assistant), Emilie (Assistant), Professor Azhar, all the guest speakers, the host companies, and the generous donors who

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One day I’ll go to Heaven… I’ll look around and say, “It ain’t bad but it ain’t San Francisco” – Herb Caen

Our last week felt like a whirlwind as last-weeks often do. Monday was a bit shortened, which allowed us all to catch up on our work and enjoy the divine California sun. We also heard from a former Duke engineer-now entrepreneur- whose first words were “Don’t record anything I’m about to tell you!”. Despite his warning, he did not divulge

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Silicon Valley – A Mindset, Not a Location

…..Don’t be afraid to fail….. ….There are 2 steps to success: 1. write it down 2. go do it…. ….100% intention, only then will you have execution….. ….I wanted to love what I do, and so I followed my passion….  Sounds inspirational? Motivating? Well, safe to say this is what has been ringing in every student’s ear at DSV this

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Passion Leads to Purpose

These past two weeks have been filled with excitement as we have learned from some of Silicon Valley’s most influential figures.  Thursday, we were fortunate enough to meet with Duke Alumni, Greg Badros, Founder of Prepared Mind Innovations Inc., Melissa Dalis a data scientist, Ryan Toussaint a software engineer, Suyash Kumar another software engineer at Uber, and Ryan Callback the

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Learning Success: The Ultimate Non-Recipe

The Duke in Silicon Valley program is always busy. From 8:25am bus departures, three-hour classes, site visits, and guest speakers to dinners, Giants games, and hectic rush-hour Caltrain rides, no day is uneventful. Yesterday, however, was even more eventful than usual. The normal morning class at Plug and Play was supplemented with not one but two VC guest speakers and

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