COURSE INFORMATION

Course description.  Course teaches engineering students about issues tackled by leading Chief Technology Officers: the technical visionaries and/or managers who innovate at the boundaries of technology and business by understanding both deeply, and who are true partners to the CEO, not just implementers of business goals. Focus will be on thinking like a CTO (of a startup and a large company) from technology and business perspectives, and on software and Internet-based businesses. Industry-leading guest speakers provide perspectives too.

This class will have three components to it:

• Lectures - Lectures meet on Mondays and Wednesdays from 13:30pm - 14:50pm in Peyton 145.
  These will be given by Professor Singh, Professor Fish, or by a guest speaker.
  • One class each week will aim to be given by a guest lecturer. However, because these are busy people, sometimes the schedule will change.
  • The other class each week will be devoted to team reports and discussions as well as lecture content from the instructors.
  Attendance is mandatory and will be tracked. Every class will be equally weighted for attendance. Attendance will be split into 36 points: 24 for lectures and 12 for office hours.
• TA Office Hours: TA’s will hold office hours. We expect students to be interacting with the TAs regularly about their project work or about other concepts in the course. Each weekly attendance at a TA’s office hours will receive one point, for the total of 12 possible points.
• Projects - All students will become part of a project team. These teams will be 5-6 students and will remain together throughout the term. Each team will execute a project to build a startup around an idea they create. The project will be documented through a collective paper, presentations in class throughout the term, and a final demonstration and pitch. Detailed information can be found on the project page.
• Books - Two books will be read by students:
  • The Everything Store, Brad Stone (Book Report Deadline: February 21st)
  • In the Plex, Steven Levy (Book Report Deadline: March 21st)
  A book report will be due during the term for each of these. The book report will be done by each student. Information on the book write-ups can be found on the write-ups page.
  

Recommended reading list.

• The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers, Ben Horowitz
• Venture Deals: Be Smarter Than Your Lawyer and Venture Capitalist, Brad Feld and Jason Mendelson
• The Airbnb Story, Leigh Gallagher

Past speakers have included J. Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter and CEO of Square; M. Whitman, CEO of Ebay and now HP; F. Wilson, of Union Square Ventures; P. Graham, of Y!Combinator; S. Altman, of Y!Combinator; J. Hennessy, President of Stanford University; J. Yang, co-founder of Yahoo!; D. Greene, co-founder and CEO of VMWare; J. Clark, co-founder of Netscape and Silicon Graphics; T. Siebel, founder and CEO of Siebel Systems; and C. Dickerson, CEO of Etsy.

Grading.  The grading is structured as follows:

• 10% — Attendance
• 20% — Book Reports
• 40% — Project Paper
• 30% — Final Pitch and Demonstration.

All write-ups should be submitted via Canvas by the deadline.

Absence Policy. Attendance absence is excused with a doctor’s note for a health issue or for a family emergency, a note from their residential dean.

Late Book Report Policy. 10% of your final grade will be docked per day up to 5 days, after which the assignment is not accepted.

AI/LLM Assistance Policy. AI tools such as ChatGPT are completely prohibited for use when drafting/writing a paper and/or oral presentation. Each advisor or IW seminar leader will determine whether it is okay to use AI tools for other tasks such as data set generation, coding support, etc. In any case, all uses of AI tools must be documented in your reports, presentations, and any code you turn in.

Staff, Office Hours and Other Help. 

Instructor Jaswinder P. Singh Email: jps@cs.princeton.edu Office: Computer Science 423 Office Hours: TBD, email to schedule.	Instructor Robert Fish Email: rfish@cs.princeton.edu Office: Corwin Hall 37 Office Hours: TBD, email to schedule	AI Siyang Wu Email: sw2776@princeton.edu Office: Computer Science 003 Office Hours: Wednesday 3.00 - 4.00 pm
AI Stamatis Alexandropoulos Email: sa6924@princeton.edu Office: Friend Center 001C Office Hours: Thursday 5:30 - 6:30 pm	AI Minkyu Jeon Email: mj7341@princeton.edu Office: Virtual Office Hours: Thursday 10:00 - 11:00 pm	UCA Yousef Amin Email: ya4118@princeton.edu Office: Virtual Office Hours: Monday 3:00 - 4:00 pm
UCA Natalia Tam Email: nt2017@princeton.edu Office: Virtual Office Hours: Tuesday 3:30 - 4:30 pm	UCA Allen Shen Email: as8751@princeton.edu Office: Virtual Office Hours: Thursday 4:30 - 5:30 pm	UCA Brian Chen Email: bc1968@princeton.edu Office: Virtual Office Hours: Sunday 4:00 - 5:00 pm
UCA Zain Ahmed Email: za8164@princeton.edu Office: Virtual Office Hours: Thursday 9:30 - 10:30 am

If you have general questions about THE lectures, readings, project or other course materials, please post via Ed. Posts marked private are viewable only by instructors.