BOOK WRITE-UPS

Weight: 12%

Required reading list. Students will be required to create a write-up for each book on the required reading list.

• In the Plex, Steven Levy — due Monday March 6 at 5:00pm
• The Everything Store, Brad Stone — due Monday April 3 at 5:00pm
• Chaos Monkeys: Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Silicon, A. Garcia Martinez — due Monday April 24 at 5:00pm

Description. After reading each book, compose a write-up describing an idea that you found novel and/or suprising and reasons why you might want to implement it in your own startup. Likewise, describe a novel and/or key idea presented in the book that you would not implement in your own start up, and explain your reasoning. Submit your write-ups via Blackboard.

• Your write-ups should be about 500 words, however, this is not a hard limit.
• PDF format only
• Use the following file name format: Lastname_Firstname_FileDescription.pdf
• Include your full name and Princeton NetID in the write-up

Rubric. Grading will be based on the strength, depth, and clairty of your insights.

Clarity (total: 12 points)
4 pts  Writing quality is poor, sloppy, and careless. No real structure to the paper.
8 pts  Writing quality is good. Student attempted to structure the paper in a logical way. A few misspellings/grammar mistakes but not enough to be completely distracting.
12 pts  Writing quality is superb. The structure/logic is very clear and enhances the argument. Little to no grammar or misspelling mistakes. Paper is a joy to read.

Strength* (total: 15 points)
5 pts  Arguments are weak and unfounded.
10 pts  Arguments are supported by one or two examples but not enough to make a truly compelling argument.
15 pts  Arguments are supported by various specific examples. It is obvious the student put a lot of thought into constructing a solidly constructed argument.

Depth (total: 15 points)
5 pts  Observations are very shallow and/or obvious, i.e. "the book was very interesting"
10 pts  Student has a mix of both shallow and more insightful observations
15 pts  Student surprises and delights the reader with insightful observations. As a result, the student teaches the reader something new.

* When constructing well grounded arguments, it is customary (and expected) to look to the book for specific references/passages that support the claims you are making. Therefore, if you are lacking book references and/or page citations, your "strength" score will be hurt.

GUEST LECTURER WRITE-UPS

Weight: 10%

Description. For each guest lecturer, there will be a write-up due at 5:00pm two days after the lecture. You will turn in your write-ups via Blackboard. The points you need to address are:

• What are the three most useful things that you learned from this guest speaker or session that you didn't know before, or that you hadn't thought about much before, and that you think you are likely to carry with you going forward?
• What surprised you most?
• What did you like most about the speaker or the session?
• What did you not like most about the speaker or session?
• Do you think we should invite this speaker back in future semesters? Any other reasons than the above why or why not?

Feel free to include multiple observations for each bullet point.

• PDF format only
• Use the following file name format: Lastname_Firstname_FileDescription.pdf
• Include your full name and Princeton NetID in the write-up