“I never have let my schooling interfere with my education.” – Mark Twain Every time I see my graduate students try to teach for the first time, it’s usually so painful I bite my lip. Then I remember the first day I stood up in front of a classroom. You Hired My first job in [...]
Filed under: ESL, Teaching | 14 Comments »
I love TechCrunch. If you’re a startup raising money or just want to see your name online, there’s not a better blog on the web. Reading this TechCrunch post made me remember the first time I saw someone confront a worldview they didn’t expect. Discovering that your worldview is wrong or mistaken can be a [...]
Filed under: ESL, Family/Career, Secret History of Silicon Valley | Tagged: Tips for Startups | 14 Comments »
At Zilog I was figuring out how to cope with job burnout. And one of my conclusions was that I needed to pick one job not two. I had to decide what I wanted to do with my career – go back to ESL, try to work for the Customer, or stay at Zilog? While [...]
Filed under: Customer Development, ESL, Family/Career, Zilog | Tagged: Cold War, ESL, Steve Blank | 9 Comments »
If you hang around technology companies long enough, you or someone you know may experience “burnout” – a state of emotional exhaustion, doubt and cynicism. Burnout can turn productive employees into emotional zombies and destroy careers. But it can also force you to hit the pause button and perhaps take a moment to reevaluate your [...]
Filed under: Customer Development, ESL, Family/Career, Zilog | Tagged: Early Stage Startup, Entrepreneurs, Steve Blank | 13 Comments »
Entrepreneurs tend to view adversity as opportunity. You’re Hired, You’re Fired. My first job in Silicon Valley: I was hired as a lab technician at ESL to support the training department. I packed up my life in Michigan and spent five days driving to California to start work. (Driving across the U.S. is an adventure [...]
Filed under: Customer Development, ESL, Technology | Tagged: Entrepreneurs, ESL, Steve Blank | 17 Comments »
This is Part IV of how I came to write “The Secret History of Silicon Valley“. Read Part III first and it will make a bit more sense. All You Can Read Without a Library Card It was 1978. Here I was, a very junior employee of ESL, a company with its hands in the [...]
Filed under: ESL, Secret History of Silicon Valley, Technology | Tagged: Steve Blank, Bill Perry, ESL, Signals Intelligence, Cold War | 5 Comments »
This is Part III of how I came to write “The Secret History of Silicon Valley“. 1978. Two years out of the Air Force, serendipity (which would be my lifelong form of career planning) found me in Silicon Valley working for my first company: ESL. If you’re an entrepreneur, ESL is the most important company [...]
Filed under: ESL, Secret History of Silicon Valley, Technology | Tagged: Steve Blank, Bill Perry, ESL, Signals Intelligence, Cold War | 16 Comments »
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