Chuck's weblog

STVP : Research : People : Faculty

2009-07-16T20:49:00.000-04:00

Big Move

2009-07-15T15:10:00.004-04:00

My move out West is coming up soon! Next Sat. (25th) I have a late flight to San Francisco. All of my stuff will be picked up the day before and will follow me out.

Plan is to stay in a hotel for the first few days (The Westin St. Francis
335 Powell Street, San Francisco) and then I move into my new digs on July 29th.

Can't wait! Though I will miss all of my Cambridge/Boston friends. I will not miss the frigid winter temperatures.

I'll hit the ground running, attending the REE Entrepreneurship conference at Stanford July 29-31st, then heading to Chicago in mid-August for AOM. I was invited to give a talk at Wash U. St. Louis in Oct. and will go straight from there to present at the Strategic Management Society conference in DC Oct. 11-14th. Might go to Hong Kong to present and be on a panel on univ. tech transfer at REE Asia just after that.

Lessons Learned: The Principles of Product Development Flow

2009-07-13T22:48:00.000-04:00

Lessons Learned: The Principles of Product Development Flow

Last_line_of_defense_-_statistics.gif (image)

2009-07-10T10:37:00.000-04:00

Last_line_of_defense_-_statistics.gif (image)

Initiatives ‎(Entrepreneurship at Duke)‎

2009-06-25T12:13:00.000-04:00

Great to see so many new e-ship initiatives at Duke. None of these existed when I was there from 1998-2002 except for the Duke Start-up Challenge.

Initiatives ‎(Entrepreneurship at Duke)‎: "There are a number of initiatives related to entrepreneurship at Duke University. These initiatives cover the many areas need to help create a strong entrepreneurial ecosystem that fosters the entrepreneurial spirit.

* Duke Start-Up Challenge
* Duke Entrepreneurship Education Series
* Duke Global Entrepreneurship Network (DukeGEN)
* DUhatch Student Business Incubator
* Duke Student Ventures
* Entrepreneurship Week at Duke University
* Program for Entrepreneurs"

Came across a pair of interesting articles recently on work/life balance

2009-06-21T11:04:00.000-04:00

Feld on Life Balance: “Accomplish What You Want, Not What You Think You Have to” | On the Radar...

Feld professed a belief throughout the interview that work-life balance is an important issue to everyone, yet he acknowledged that each person’s approach will be different. In fact, Feld expressed equal skepticism towards those who say “here’s how you achieve work life balance” in a one-size fits all approach as towards those who claim “work-life balance is bullshit” and life is only about working hard. But the venture capitalist did draw a line in the sand by saying that balance is an important issue to consider at all ages, as many make the mistake in believing they will “get the balance on the back half of life” an find it shorter than they hoped (“you don’t know when the lights are going to go out”). With this frame of reference, Feld spent most of the hour discussing his personal journey towards better work-life balance over the past eight years.

Doctor and Patient - Taking Time for the Self on the Path to Becoming a Doctor - NYTimes.com

According to a study from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, I am far from the only doctor who has behaved this way. The researchers interviewed residents, or doctors in training, from seven different specialties and found that they set themselves up for burnout by accepting, even embracing, what they believed would be a temporary imbalance between the personal and professional aspects of their lives. While the young doctors interviewed defined well-being as a balance between all those parts, many felt that their medical training was so central to their ultimate sense of fulfillment that they were willing to live with whatever personal sacrifice was required, even if it meant a temporary loss of a sense of self.

YouTube - Stanford Open Office Hours: Tina Seelig, Part 1

2009-06-17T10:34:00.000-04:00

YouTube - Stanford Open Office Hours: Tina Seelig, Part 1

Wine tasting

2009-06-14T13:22:00.001-04:00

House nestled in Vineyard, originally uploaded by Batikart.

A couple months back, the graduate dorm that I live in "Sidney Pacific" sponsored a wine tasting. It was my first wine tasting so I took some notes on the handout that the nuclear engineering professor at MIT who led the wine tasting handed out.

Here are the wines that we tried and their prices (which were only given to us at the end):

Alfred Gratien Brut 1989 - $90
Savennieres 2002 Clos du Papillon (Baumard) - $28
Cloudy Bay Marlborough Savignon Blac 2007 - $31
Riesling Spatlese 2005 - $34
Alsace Grand Cru Gewurztraminer 2002 Mambourg (Pierre Sparr) - $26
Grgich Hills Estate Napa Valley Chardonnay 2006 - $53
Beaune du Chateau Premier Cru 2005 (Bouchard) $40
Lucius Chianti Classico Riserva 2000 (Viticcio) - $36
Burgess Vintage Selection Cabernet Sauvignon 1997 - $80
Cote-Rotie 1998 Les Grandes Places (Jean-Michel Gerin) - $90
Ridge California Zinfandel 2006 Lytton Springs - $37
Peter Lehmann Barossa Valley Botrytis Semillon 2005 - $12 half bottle

He also recommended the book: The World Atlas of Wine (Mitchell Beazley, 2007) by Hugh Johnson and Jancis Robinson

Webcast

2009-06-06T22:00:00.000-04:00

MIT Graduation 2009:

I get my degree at 1:36:40.

Graduation

2009-06-06T11:33:00.000-04:00

Graduation from MIT 2009

2009-06-06T11:32:00.000-04:00

Sung Joo, my officemate took this photo while we were waiting for our names to be called.

Graduation from MIT

2009-06-06T11:30:00.000-04:00

Here are a few photos.

La Valse

2009-05-09T20:17:00.001-04:00

La Valse des Monstres, originally uploaded by b o n j o u r . p i n - u p ' s ..

Eun-Suk gave an absolutely incredible piano concert this evening!

Stanford

2009-05-09T20:13:00.001-04:00

Stanford arch tunnel, originally uploaded by Andrei Z.

Now that I've signed the offer letter and returned it, I guess it is official and I can announce it on the blog for anyone who doesn't already know.

I'll be moving to the Bay Area at the end of July and taking an assistant professor job at the Stanford Management Science & Engineering group!

Graduation

2009-05-02T14:19:00.000-04:00

My doctoral regalia in MIT colors arrived on Friday.

Stanford

2009-05-02T14:18:00.000-04:00

The offer letter finally arrived!

I just booked a flight out to SFO for May 25-31st to look at housing.

MIT Commencement - Webcast

2009-05-01T14:16:00.000-04:00

MIT Commencement - Webcast

The graduation will be webcast... June 4th and 5th.

My dissertation defense

2009-05-01T11:01:00.001-04:00

photo (1), originally uploaded by eesley.

I passed!

Here's a photo that Sung Joo snapped during my defense. On the right is my advisor and committee Chair, Edward Roberts, and on the left are Professors Diane Burton and Fiona Murray. My official offer letter from Stanford should arrive in the mail by FedEx today and I will walk in the graduation June 5th.

Life just got better!

Justin.tv ~ Kyle Vogt Visits MIT Imaging Ventures

2009-04-23T19:39:00.000-04:00

Maximizing Progress: Justin.tv ~ Kyle Vogt Visits MIT Imaging Ventures

How to Save Water - wikiHow

2009-04-22T12:37:00.000-04:00

How to Save Water - wikiHow

Defense

2009-04-22T12:28:00.001-04:00

From the email that was sent out yesterday:

You are cordially invited to the dissertation defense seminar of Chuck Eesley, PhD candidate in Technological Innovation and Entrepreneurship. The defense will take place on April 30th from 1-3pm in the Dean's Conference room, E52-4th floor. Complete information from Chuck follows below.

Committee:
M. Diane Burton, Fred Kayne (1960) Career Development Professor, Associate Professor of Management, MIT Sloan School of Management

Fiona E. Murray, Sarofim Family Career Development Professor, Associate Professor of Management, MIT Sloan School of Management

Edward B. Roberts (Chair), David Sarnoff Professor of the Management of Technology, MIT Sloan School of Management

Abstract:
Essays on Institutions and Pre-founding Experience: Effects for Technology-Based Entrepreneurs in the US and China

This dissertation is composed of three essays. I look at the role of two different but critical factors in shaping entrepreneurial outcomes: individual level career history and the institutional context. My work spans two outcomes in particular: individual decisions to choose high-tech entrepreneurial activities and the strategies and outcomes of the entrepreneurial firms that are established.

The first essay, entitled, “Cutting Your Teeth: Building on the Micro-Foundations for Dynamic Capabilities” with Edward Roberts investigates whether prior founding experience improves subsequent start-up firm performance. We draw on two strands of psychological theory – availability and partition dependence – and tie them together with the idea that variation in managers’ cognitive representations of the competitive landscape drive differences in firm outcomes. The results of the study are consistent with an account where improved cognitive representations form dynamic capabilities and competitive advantage but appear less consistent with passive inheritance of search routines as a source of dynamic capabilities. We examine performance produced by variation in career experience driving differences in psychological biases.

The second essay, “Who has ‘The Right Stuff’? Human Capital, Entrepreneurship and Institutional Change in China” examines a model distinguishing barriers to entry from barriers to growth. It exploits a natural experiment to identify effects on individuals at different locations on a talent distribution. The paper asks whether the 1999 Chinese Constitutional amendment increased entrepreneurship among those individuals with higher (or lower) levels of human capital. The type of institutional environment that results in higher quality entrepreneurs is a question that has not been systematically explored previously. I find that the greatest increase in entrepreneurship in the post-2000 institutional development was among individuals at the top of the talent distribution. The findings suggest that entrepreneurship among high quality individuals is driven less by the relaxation of constraints to entry (which are relatively easy to overcome) and more by constraints to firm growth.

The third essay, “What Should Drive an Innovation Strategy?” takes advantage of the comparable data from the MIT and Tsinghua surveys on individuals with similar educational backgrounds who are starting firms in very similar industries (dominated by electronics and software). The paper asks what drives (or limits) an innovation strategy in firms? This paper develops a theoretical model of the choice of an innovation strategy using a search perspective. The model is of two searches new firms undertake, one for funding and one for profitable technological ideas that affect the choice to innovate rather than imitate. Using this model we examine whether financial constraints or constraints arising from a scarcity of technological ideas have a greater impact on the decisions of entrepreneurs to attempt to commercialize innovations.

Rossi Pasta

2009-04-19T22:53:00.001-04:00

IMG_0697, originally uploaded by eesley.

Sent by mom for Easter...

Restaurant Week 2009

2009-04-05T17:12:00.001-04:00

IMG_0783, originally uploaded by eesley.

Picture from our restaurant week lunch.

CORINE & SYLVAIN's wedding invitation / le faire-part

2009-04-05T17:06:00.001-04:00

CORINE & SYLVAIN's wedding invitation / le faire-part

My friends Sylvain and Corine who I've visited in Paris often recently are getting married this June and had this very cool video made as part of their invitation.

Corine & Sylvain are getting married!
by train-de-nuit

La Feve

2009-03-29T18:07:00.001-04:00

chuck, originally uploaded by eesley.

When I visited my friends Sylvain and Corine in Paris back in January they shared a traditional King Cake with me. I was lucky to get "la feve" so I was crowned king!

Wikipedia on the French King Cake

“La galette des Rois” (the cake or "wafer" of the Kings) is a cake celebrating the Epiphany and traditionally sold and consumed a few days before and after this date. In modern France, the cakes can be found in most bakeries during the month of January. The cake consists of flaky puff pastry layers with a dense center of frangipane.
Tradition holds that the cake is “to draw the kings” to the Epiphany. A figurine, “la fève”, which can represent anything from a car to a cartoon character, is hidden in the cake and the person who finds the trinket in their slice becomes king for the day and will have to offer the next cake. Originally, “la fève” was literally a broad bean (fève), but they were replaced in 1870 by a variety of figurines out of porcelain or - more recently - plastic. These figurines have become popular collectibles and can often be bought separately. Individual bakeries may offer a specialized line of fèves depicting diverse themes from great works of art to classic movie stars and popular cartoon characters. The cakes are usually sold in special bags, some of which can be used to heat the cake in a microwave without ruining the crispness of the cake. A paper crown is included with the cake to crown the "king" who finds the fève in their piece of cake. To ensure a random distribution of the cake shares, it is traditional for the youngest person to place themselves under the table and name the recipient of the share which is indicated by the person in charge of the service.