Dallas's Druthers

I think having Erik Hanberg as a guest lecturer was great. He was a really awesome guy and truthfully, I was worried that our guest lecturers were going to be the CEOs we hear horror stories about. You know, the cliché horror story of the evil Scrooge-like guy who cares more about the bottom line than he does the health and safety of other human beings. I wouldn't be horribly surprised if we had one of those people as a guest lecturer since by sheer odds alone we are more than likely to come across someone not so friendly. As for what he went over, I especially thought his two graphs were really interesting. In the back of my mind I guess most of it made sense but I never really thought about it. As a hired programmer you will only make so much money before somebody won’t want to pay you any more. Also, I've heard the phrase “the higher the risk, the higher the reward” several times in my life but for some reason his explanation of those graphs really spoke to me. Also on t...

I’m not exactly passionate about any of my ideas but they do seem fun and are definitely things that I wouldn't mind spending a lot of time thinking about. My least favorite idea is a military contracted hacking firm. I know this is childish and I know that I don’t know and may never know every aspect of this business but I still think it would be a good idea for someone to develop. Capable employees wouldn't exactly be easy to find but there has got to be some that are reachable. A few could come from lists of known hackers who have been caught and punished. I can imagine at least some of them would be antsy to find an avenue to legally do what they enjoy. The obvious issue would be whether you can control them or not. I haven’t figured that part out yet. My second idea is a tech focused intellectual property firm. I know these already exist with companies like intellectual ventures so there is clearly at least some market for it. Ive talked to a professor at UWT who wa...

What I want out of this class is to have a greater understanding of how I should get any of my ideas off the ground. My brother and I are currently working on a business idea that we want to proceed with but I truthfully have no idea how to go about it. My brother has a bachelor’s degree in business from WSU but he has worked at a tech start up before and he talks about how he was under prepared for what he did there because what they taught in business school was vague and generic. In my limited experience in business school I heard the phrase “business hasn't changed in hundreds of years” but I’m not sure that’s true anymore. As a matter of fact, I have heard a lot of evidence to the contrary. I hear that managing employees is very different. I hear that the order of when things happen (pursuing investments is one example) that is very different. I’m fairly capable with coding and developing the product. My brother is capable with marketing, management, and the other gene...