Stanford gives free hour long tours regularly throughout the day. We were part of a very large group, which was divided in to three smaller groups that were divvied up between the three tour guides. The tour guides were all current Stanford students, Our guides' name was Collin. He was a sophomore at Stanford, whom hadn't yet declared a major. He was very knowledgeable about the campus and spoke of it's history, culture and campus life. Collin imparted a real sense of enthusiasm, humility and pride for his campus when he spoke.
His best story by far came from when he explained the application process, and what got him excepted to Stanford University. Unlike most peoples expectations of what a Stanford students application may look like, Collin explained that he hadn't done anything particularly impressive. he never won any prizes of particular note. He wasn't exceptionally talented in any singular regard. What his application did describe, was a high school student who was motivated to go the extra mile with extra curricula activities and one who would always try to do something original.
The second place we went was the Computer History Museum. Below are some of my favorite exhibits in the Museum. The chess set is an example of a more artistic approach to using electronic parts, and below that is the PDP-1. The PDP-1 was an 18 bit system developed by the Digital Equipment Corporation. It was also the hardware used to play one of the worlds first video games, "Space Wars".
The last two places we visited were the Hackers Dojo and Concastic.
The Hackers Dojo was, what is referred to as, an incubator. An incubator is basically and inexpensive place for developers to meet up and work on their start-up ideas. There is a membership fee for people who use the space, but it is a much cheaper option than renting an office or building.
Contastic is a startup company which developed a Customer Relations Management (CRM) system. The CRM generates emails with personalized content in order to increase customer relations and raise sales. The Co-founder of Contastic, Cy Khormaee, spoke very openly with us about his life story and how he became a founder. I didn't take any pictures, but this was my favorite part of today. We got a ton of great information on how the process of creating a start up works in Silicon Valley, and how they actually receive funding. We were able to gain a lot of insight from speaking with Cy. He explained just about every aspect of his career with us, and we were all quite surprised by his admissions of failures. He explained that part of being an entrepreneur is that not every idea is going to work out, especially in the beginning. I guess I never really realized how much of a career entrepreneurship is. It really is a job that people have to learn how to do, just like every other job out there.
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