The First Generation

Marty Rubin, the CEO of Smart City, was on campus today for a lunchtime presentation to our MBA students. Marty touched on some very interesting points relative to the start-up and running of an entrepreneurial company. One point was what it’s like to live through the Black Swan moment in your enterprise. (For information on this, see Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s book on the subject.) The other interesting point was that the current group of students in college and graduate school are the first generation to be actively “teaching” their parents. I don’t know about you, but if I have questions about social networking, my phone, iTunes, or any such area of life, I go to my kids. I learn from them about music to listen to, TV shows to watch and movies to go to as well as movies to avoid. My parents on the other hand, until very late in life, never “learned” from me as I learn from my kids. For some interesting and enlightening reading on this generation, take a look at the book, Generation Debt by Anya Kamenetz