Last Lecture Series: Joel Peterson

Today at Stanford we started the Last Lecture series, where the most popular professors give a one hour lecture to the departing second years. Joel Peterson, who taught my Managing Growing Enterprises class, gave an excellent presentation today (see here for a video of Joel presenting at the E-Conference this winter). Here are the notes I took from the lecture.

One of Joel's lessons to live by is to always ask yourself: What is winning for you? For this lecture, he decided to ask himself: What is winning in life? The answer... happiness. But how do you define happiness? He says that happiness can be attained in 3 different ways: Pleasure, Joy and Peace. If you were to graph these, Pleasure would be on the farthest left and give you the least happiness. Pleasure is about meeting your needs now, but is not fulfilling. One of life's problems is that many people stay at this level. Next is Joy; all of us would agree that joy is something that has more meaning than pleasure alone. And finally, there is peace. Peace is something that is self-actualized, and is most difficult to achieve. Money and fame will not give you peace (and at best probably will only give you short-term pleasure). The key to peace and happiness? Strive for a person to be, a person to love, and a work to do.

A Person to Be
How do you discover who you are? Joel suggests:
1. Read; at least a book a week. Not TV, not movies, but reading. Read on planes, read if you can't sleep. Reading allows you to see the world through others eyes.
2. Memorize quotes, and notice which ones you actually remember. You'll learn a lot about yourself.
3. Write down your goals. Operationalize them, and let other people know. Make them memorable. For example, Joel will never forget one of his student's goals to "run a marathon at age 35 faster than at age 25." People will always be reminding you of these types of goals, which will help you accomplish them.
4. Write your own obituary. Or a six word story about yourself. Example: "For sale: baby shoes, never worn" by Ernest Hemingway.

Finally, to learn what your core values are, look at where you spend your most valuable resources: time, money and mindshare. The difference between these and what you believe are your core values is in fact a lack of integrity.

A Person to Love

• Loving another is hard work. Marriage is about making a commitment
• We love what we sacrifice for.
• Learn to listen. Ask good questions, and follow up with more questions. Joel would ask his children "Tell me about you." Be willing to accept silence and eventually people will open up.
• To truly love someone is to be able to freely exchange feedback. Thank people who give you negative feedback; this is the hardest to give.
• Laugh--you are not the center of the universe

A Work to Do

Being in business is just as noble an endeavor as becoming a doctor or researcher, because running things is very hard to do well.

To be successful in business you need 6 qualities:
1. Hardworking
2. Smart
3. See beyond what is obvious
4. Build great teams--resist the temptation to be a pleaser, you will eventually be abandoned or betrayed
5. Communication
6. Be trustworthy--help others achieve their dreams

Not the most pleasant portrayal of my friend Ash

My friend Ash was just quoted in a Newsweek article on "How to Get Rich Being Green" (see article here). The article starts off as "Ash Upadhyaya is no tree hugger," and then goes on to protray him as a money grubbing MBA student who drives a gas guzzling Porsche. While I had to remind Ash that he does drive a Boxster, anyone who doesn't know him would think he was a complete ass hole from this article. In our Managing Growing Enterprises class we spent a day on how to talk to the media, and this serves as a real world example of how difficult it is to give an interview; the writers will get the angle that they want.

Carlsberg

I gave a presentation on Carlsberg today in preparation for the Scandinavia study trip. They are quite an innovative brewery and I am very excited to meet with one of their Senior VPs, Alex Meyers. See below a quick overview of the presentation.

Carlsberg History

• Founded in 1847 by J.C. Jacobsen (after the name of his son Carl)
• Public company with over 30,000 employees and $10 billion (US$) market cap
  
• Merged with Orkla ASA in 2001, becoming the 5th largest brewery in the world

Carlsberg Brands

• Carlsberg Pilsner (4.6% ABV)
• Carlsberg Light (2.7% ABV)
• Carls Porter (7.8% ABV)
• Carls Hvede (5.8% ABV; interesting because until recently wheat beer was illegal in Denmark!)
• Tuborg (4.6% ABV)
• Tuborg Easter Brew (5.7% ABV; seasonal beer that will be released while we are in Scandinavia)

Financial Outlook

• Steady growth in volume over last 5 years
• Strong growth in EBIT (30%) because of "innovation and strong presence of international brands Carlsberg and Tuborg" -- CEO Jorgen Rasmussen

EBIT and Stock Price Growth over last 5 years

International Growth

• Clear market leader in Russia (38% market share)
• 25% increase in volume in Asia

Merger with Scottish & Newcastle

• Carlsberg and Heineken launched a joint bid to break up UK's Scottish & Newcastle in 2007
• $15.3 billion US (50% premium over share price)
• Carlsberg would gain sole possession of Baltic Beverages and S&N's French, Greek and Chinese Operations
• However, the European Commission announced this Monday (3/1/08) that it is postponing its review of the merger until April of this year

World's Most Expensive Beer

• Introduced Jacobsen Vintage #1 on Jan 25, 2008
  
• Costs 2,008 DKK (~$400 US)
• 600 bottles of the 10.5% ABV beer will be released in 2008
• Plans to release 2,009 and 2,010 version as well
  

"Probably the best beer in the world"

• Carlsberg Advertising slogan
• See the embedded online video about Carlsberg below:

First Blog

I see this blog as a way for me to somehow organize the amazing amount of ideas that are being created here at Stanford Business School. I have been here only 2 months and have met some of the most fascinating people. Right now, my thoughts have been centered on three career paths/industries: entrepreneurship, e-Commerce, and sports. Ideally, I would like to combine all three, following a path similar to Eric Baker's (GSB '01), when he formed StubHub.com.

One idea I am throwing around is college recruiting software--I have spoken with a classmate of mine who is an assistant coach for a women's soccer team, and there is a lot of room for improving the current software that they use. I am also meeting with the AD of USF (not UCSF, which I mistakenly used in an email to her--oops!), to discuss my idea. One potentially huge issue I have to address is the size of the market for college recruiting software. I spoke with a VC over lunch (he is in the executive education program here at Stanford and also graduated from Carleton in '94), and that was his first concern--while this may be a good idea, the market is probably too small for a VC firm to be interested. Also, how will I be able to convince teams to allocate resources away from their current budget to my software. So this may or may not be a path to pursue, but the great thing about Stanford is that there are so many opportunities that I feel the only limiting factor for me is time.

I'm sure I will be commenting more on this topic after my meeting Wednesday, but I also want to outline other ideas I would like to post in the near future:

-Takeaways from my Paths to Power class
-My research paper on local search
-Microfinance through Prosper.com
-What I learned at the Roads to Innovation Conference
-Tips for applying to business school, as well as studying for the GMAT--since I spent almost a year of my life doing it, I might as well share some insights :)

Cheers,
Justin