DSV 2015 Final Thoughts

By Grant Kelly For the Duke in Silicon Valley Program, five weeks went by far too quickly. In our brief time here, we have read 28 case studies (we studied Kevlar, low fat butter alternatives, Netflix, Dollar General, Ford, and a bunch of other cool topics), visited 11 companies, listened to and received advice from over a dozen guest speakers,

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Final Week of DSV

By Jonathan Stern The final week of the program was no gradual ease into the finish. On Monday, we had class in the morning, visited Pamela Hawley at the ImpactHub in the afternoon, and attended the Giants’ baseball game that evening. The view from our seats was tremendous—we sat a few stories up from home plate, high enough to see

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Duke in Silicon Valley Week 2 Blog July 2015

By Mary Ziemba We have recently wrapped up our second week here in the Valley. As we continue our progress in the program, my classmates and I are settling into the morning routine—the 8:15 bus pickup, Professor Christensen’s ‘cold call’ at the beginning of class—that is punctuated by more varied activities each afternoon. After Monday’s class and a quick grocery

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Duke in Silicon Valley 3.0: Week 1 Recap

By Grant Kelly Hello! Greetings from Silicon Valley! The first five days of our thirty-two day program have been extremely exciting. Between all of the class sessions, team building exercises, and site visits, we have been kept very busy, to say the least. In the last five days we’ve zip-lined through some scraggly trees and walked across some tightropes as

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Apple Site Visit

By Jonathan Stern Our visit to Apple on Thursday afternoon was wonderful, and I’ll get to that shortly, but the drive over is worth recounting too. We took Interstate 280 to get there, a highway flanked on both sides by spectacular foothills, some imposing and totally covered by California firs, others tamer with sparser tree cover, instead clothed in shaggy

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The Last Day of DSV

by Caleb Ellis While formal schooling inevitably has an end, an education does not. Learning, practicing, and growing are all parts of our intellectual socialization. Gaining knowledge allows us to be better at our day jobs, more interesting at dinner parties, and, in many ways, better people. Duke in Silicon Valley certainly did that. I can confidently say that I

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Netflix Site Visit

by Kitt Rosenfield We arrived at Netflix’s Los Gatos campus, a series of beautiful Spanish-style buildings topped with red clay tiles that blend into the picturesque California backdrop, early in the afternoon on Monday. This was to be our final site visit, capping off a whirlwind tour of some of the country’s most innovative companies that call Silicon Valley home.

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eBay Site Visit

by Dhrumil Patel After arriving at the wrong eBay campus (South campus – which seemed really cool as well), my group arrived at the North campus to meet the rest of the DSV kids. Initially, this campus looked incredibly high-tech and modern. Upon entering we were all given name badges and we were greeted by Sadey Kindt, the University Recruiting

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Google Site Visit

by Peter Kann As an avid fan of all things Google, this site visit was by far my most anticipated, but I don’t think any of us were prepared for what we saw upon entering the Googleplex, the core of Google’s massive headquarters in Mountain View.  Giant steel shark fins came out of the sidewalks, flowers and trees covered the

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Apple Site Visit

by Ethan Levine We finally made it: the Mecca of the tech world. Even if you had no one told you beforehand what company was headquartered at 1 Infinity Loop, I’m sure you could guess which company it was just by the look of the smooth, sleek, and imposing building and the atmosphere it created. While not our only major

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