I always find the summer solstice one of the most authentic and special days of the year.  Maybe because it is the longest day of the year, which feels important, but no one makes a big deal out of it these days.  For me, it is also the demarcation of shifting focus from one school year to the next. It is a time when I get some breathing room back.

A few random thoughts that I built up over the past months of high intensity:

1. 1. Boston Celtics are World Champions:  It was so much fun to watch this happen.  The Celtics organization did this the right way with a systematic long-term plan that they executed with patience and excellence.  They did not have the individual best player (people can’t help themselves getting obsessed with the best individual player) but rather they had the best *TEAM*.  Like entrepreneurship, basketball is a team sport, not an individual sport where success has so much to do with team members being willing to sublimate their own personal egos to the greater cause and then focus on doing their job extremely well – while also being flexible and antifragile.  This Celtics team represented this brilliantly.  They are deserving champions and this was not lucky; instead, it was a case of where preparation meets opportunity to create something special. I will leave it to Brian Halligan to write something pithier on the 7 lessons entrepreneurs can learn from this team.
   2. Twitter/X is a Mess:  My Twitter account unfortunately got hacked about a year ago at the time I started to scale back on my usage.  I decided to just let it be until I realized it could be helpful with the launch of my new book in April of this year.  Once I got my account back (thanks to a lot of help from former students), I was very disappointed at how the platform had really deteriorated even further.  While I have very mixed feelings about Elon Musk, this cannot be considered his finest hour. The platform is a mess.  Seems like LinkedIn has benefited, but I miss the previous productive platform that Twitter was even with its quirks. It had a role. I may keep trying but I’m losing hope on this platform. Hopefully, something new will come along that is less toxic to fill this vacuum.
   3. Expanded and Updated Book Launch: It seems like a year ago but my new book launch was only two months ago.  It was a lot of work to redo the book but I am so glad I did.  The response has been spectacular.  I came out on fire with multiple weeks on national best-seller lists in the US, which is amazing for something that is basically a school textbook!  I think over 20K copies have already been sold and it is still going very strong. New versions are forthcoming in Estonian and Serbian as well.  I could use more reviews on Amazon if you are willing but otherwise, the launch has been an absolute smashing success.  The old books were good, but this one takes it all to another level and will stand the test of time going forward.  So many to thank but I need to call out the great Marius Ursache for not just his illustrations but for staying on me to get this done, and the Wiley team.
   4. Disciplined Entrepreneurship (DE) Startup Tactics Book:  This title came out contemporaneously with my updated DE book and was written by my colleague and long-time co-instructor, Paul Cheek. His is not an additive contribution to my book but rather an exponential contribution.  It fills in gaps and takes the foundational materials to a whole new level.  The result is not 1 + 1 = 2 but rather 1 + 1 = 10.  As Paul says so well, Startup Tactics gives you a road map of how to take a business plan and turn it into a real business.  If you haven’t checked it out, you should ASAP.  There is so much value in this book that complements mine.  To me, it helps provide a full stack of guidance to those who are serious about learning the craft of entrepreneurship.
   5. Alicia Carelli:  After 20 years of working together and 8 years at the Trust Center as my partner, Alicia Carelli will no longer be a presence in our center.  In 2016 I asked her to come in and help me fundamentally change the center’s trajectory, and she did that and so much more. She was my trusted chief of staff but also the cultural conscious of our center.  Many of you have asked how I will survive, and I am not sure. At a professional level, it will be very tough to fill her shoes but we will find a way (we always do) but the loss will be felt even more so at a personal level as her departure will create a hole that can not be filled.  We support her decision fully as it was the right one but that doesn’t make it easy nor will it ever be the same.  Her legacy that she leaves is absolutely immense.
   6. MEET @ MIT: There are many amazing activities that have happened over the past month, such that it can become a blur, but there is one I can’t get out of my mind.  It was an event that I was asked to judge for MEET @ MIT. This organization’s mission is educating and empowering the most promising future Israeli and Palestinian leaders.  They run a three-year program focused on technology, entrepreneurship, and leadership. Each team is made up of at least one Palestinian and one Israeli and their focus was on social entrepreneurship for this stage of the program.  To say it was moving in our current environment would be an understatement. All the presentations were impressive and showed the power of entrepreneurship’s ability to unite.  The multiple alumni who spoke repeated the same message; they wanted to live in a multi-national environment and could not see themselves going back to a single one. Congratulations to the team who created and ran this today. It is such a ray of hope in what can be a dark landscape.
   7. BUILD:  Another competition I was honored to judge left me with a similar message of hope that continues with me weeks afterward as well.  BUILD is a youth entrepreneurship program dedicated to creating a more diverse future workforce by ensuring students in Boston’s under-resourced communities have access to the mentorship, professional development opportunities, and funding they need to graduate high school, go to college, and launch successful careers. Roy Hirshland, Betsy Neptune, Lenworth Williamson, and their team run a great program nationally but also here in Boston.  There were great presentations by high school students who were mostly 14 years old!  While they competed vigorously, these were not going to be big businesses.  That was not the end goal of the competition, but rather that the businesses were a vehicle to build confidence and skills in these students for the rest of their lives. The memory that sticks with me most is the alum who completed the program 5+ years ago and came back to talk about the impact the program has had on him.  He unsurprisingly had not created a for-profit startup, but put the entrepreneurial mindset, skill set, and way of operating to use every day to “be the CEO of his own life.”  Specifically, it empowered him to make decisions about his educational and career options that he would not have otherwise.  Those more intelligent decisions will pay dividends for the rest of his life.  Absolutely loved that story.  When we teach entrepreneurship, it is about much more than startups.
   8. Asia School of Business (ASB) MBA Immersion Week: Every year, we do a one-week program for Asia School of Business on Entrepreneurship.  This group of MBAs comes with a strong focus on Asia and primarily on larger organizations so it is always a challenge to get them to believe that building their entrepreneurial skills is valuable. Asia is also a different business environment and culture than our seemingly US-centric teaching approach.  There are always skeptics but, once again, by the end of the week, we had them thinking about entrepreneurship from a whole new perspective.  As you will see in the other programs that follow, I continue to be amazed at how much the first principles we teach are applicable across the globe.  Yes, they need to be slightly modified but a lot less than expected.  There are some universal truths in entrepreneurship.
   9. Lisbon EMBAs and IMBAs: Going from Asian culture to European, and more specifically, Portuguese-centric culture, once again an adjustment was required.  This was also another one-week program (you will see a pattern of four of these!). While these students were more interested in startups there were still many who did not share that interest and were ambivalent at the beginning of the week.  Similar to the ASB, our goal was to make the week-long educational experience valuable for everyone.  We wanted each person to leave the week with three key points. First, all people can be entrepreneurs.  It is in every human.  It just needs to be coaxed (or forced out in some circumstances).  Secondly, entrepreneurship is a craft that can be taught.  We have evidence to show that if approached in a systematic and disciplined manner, your odds of success go up significantly.  Finally, we wanted them to leave with the understanding that this was an increasingly critical skill for leaders to have whether you will be a startup founder or not.  By a show of hands at the end of the week, Paul Cheek and I had enthusiastically achieved all three objectives. So rewarding.
   10. Entrepreneurship Development Accelerator (EDA): In the first week of June, we experimented with a new version of our globally recognized MIT Sloan Executive Education Entrepreneurship Development Program (EDP) where participants could work on their own companies during the intensive week at MIT.  Participants did this while also working on a business plan for a new company with a team. They spent the week rubbing shoulders and networking in the same classrooms as the MIT students in the capstone delta v program.  We had tried this once before two years ago and learned a lot that was incorporated into this year’s program thanks to input from Paul Cheek and Ann Marie Maxwell.  It was ambitious and we were not sure how it was going to work so we had a relatively small class this year to test it out.  We made a lot of adjustments on the fly during the week but in the end, it really worked well.  You always have to be innovating even if it is uncomfortable – and then adjust on the fly as you learn more. Credit to Paul and Ann Marie on this one.
   11. Serbian Workshop: This was the final of the four programs that were one-week intensive workshops on Disciplined Entrepreneurship.  The difference for this last one is it was in Belgrade with 75 participants with less startup entrepreneurship experience.  To be fair, there were teams from the Katapult accelerator but overall Serbia is a country with a very strong technical capability, but much less so on the commercialization or entrepreneurship side of the equation.  This is symbolized by the well-known Serbian inventor Nikola Tesla. The workshop was full of fantastic researchers but we had to work hard to get participants to turn their focus from the technology and the product to the customers. It was not easy (and never is) but with the help of a phalanx of coaches from the region and some others imported from the US who were all partnered with local coaches, it felt like we broke through.  You also have to love a country that has such a passion for basketball as much as Serbians do.  They agreed to honor the winning team with Boston Celtics shirts (see below) which they will wear with pride for the rest of their lives (unless they run into fellow Serb Nikola Jokic of the Denver Nuggets).

       

   12. Old Friends Klarity Continue to Progress – Big Time: In September 2016 a team composed of an undergraduate in Computer Science at MIT and a student from Harvard Law School formed a team in my New Enterprises course.  They had not met each other before this.  They did a great job in the class and by the end had developed a plan for a new venture that would use AI to improve the way businesses dealt with contracts.  After the final presentations at the end of the semester, the class voted on their favorite, and their project, Klarity, did not win. I said to the class it is not the sexiest idea that ultimately wins but rather the one with the best team that executes against an idea (even a boring one) who is obsessed with solving the problem.  Nischal Nadhamuni and Andrew Antos continued their project and joined the delta v program in the summer of 2017.  After this, they were not just accepted into Y-Combinator but they were ready to excel in the program.  Because of their commitment to solving the problem, they continued to grind out the business through pre-seed, seed, and series A rounds of funding totaling approximately $20m.  Today, 8 years after they got started, they just raised a $70M Series B round and are one of the global leaders in applying AI to improve legal operations.  Kudos to Andrew and Nischal but they are far from done.  The journey in entrepreneurship is long but there is no reward for an easy job.  Nischal and Andrew are now living the dream while they continue to build it bigger and bigger. So great to see.
   13. Bill Walton: Sometimes you meet people who just amaze you the more you get to know them.  Bill Walton was one of those people.  Talk about anti-fragile.  He was arguably not just the best basketball player of his generation when he was healthy but potentially of all time *when healthy*.  The problem was all the pain that 39 surgeries stole from him and he (and we) only got to enjoy brief glimpses of his true talents … and they were amazing.  But he never complained and went on to lead a remarkable life and brought joy, inspiration, and just plain common sense to so many of us.  Here is my insufficient tribute.  RIP Big Red. You were one of a kind who lived life to its fullest despite adversity.

As many of you may have already heard, the singular figure in the field of innovation-driven entrepreneurship passed away this week suddenly at the age of 88.  He was also my mentor, protector, and dear friend.  I can’t tell you how much I appreciate all the people who reached out to offer their thoughts and check in.  It was a tough week.

That being said, we must honor Ed remember the greatness in him, and cherish how lucky the world was to have a man like him. Here is the announcement on the MIT website with details.

I was going to try to write a tribute summarizing his life but I could not do it justice of what he meant and the announcement above captures the details pretty darn well.  The best I think I can do is to share the eulogy I gave at his funeral and share the video.  I know funeral videos may not be a lot of people’s thing and I respect that, but while this funeral/memorial was particularly emotional and sad, it was also powerful, beautiful, inspirational, and poignant and captured the man better than any printed words could possibly.  It also helped the healing process and reminded us of so many important lessons that we should never forget.

What follows the video are the notes from my eulogy.  It did not exactly transpire the way I planned it or can even remember it now but hopefully, the text will be helpful to fill in holes.

Watch the Ed Roberts Funeral Service on February 29, 2024. To skip to the MIT-specific eulogies:

• 43:28 MIT President Rafael Reif’s Eulogy
• 56:44 Bill Aulet Eulogy

Outline of Bill Aulet’s Eulogy for Ed Roberts

Thank you everyone for coming out to Ed Robert’s funeral service. It has been a very tough 72 hours and our deepest condolences most of all to his wife, Nancy, and his wonderful, wonderful family.  His family bravely and powerfully spoke beautiful, beautiful words that must have been so hard to craft and deliver.  We are here for you and we cherish them.  They help us all in the healing process.  I must do as well, it is hard to follow President Reif’s comments but I must, so here we go.

“Professor Ed Roberts MIT Entrepreneurship”

Five words that are inextricably linked forever.

As you know at MIT, we love data.

So last night I googled these five words and got 6,790,000 results (0.51 seconds) 🡺 23.9M if you remove his name so he is 28% of all references.

Then of course for a benchmark … actually egotistically … I then googled “Bill Aulet MIT Entrepreneurship” – and the results were so humbling but so appropriate.

Results:

About 51,700 results (0.54 seconds)

That tells you in numbers what we know to be true.  Ed stands alone as a singular figure when it comes to MIT Entrepreneurship and even more broadly when it comes to the field writ large.  There is virtually nothing with regard to entrepreneurship at MIT that cannot be traced back to some of Professor Ed Roberts’s DNA – in the classroom and outside of it.  For instance, everything I do started with him. And so many others.

Not only at MIT but beyond, he created the field of research of entrepreneurship as a serious field in the early 1990’s.  Before that, there was essentially nothing.

How did this happen?

Visionary but Even More So Inspirational

Ed would ask what you thought … and listen …  he wanted a big vision … and then after some debate and refinement, he would say, let’s do it.  Expanding our center, designing and teaching new courses, running extra-curricular programs that are now central to the MIT experience …  Ed helped you raise your line of sight, design the course/program, and then motivated you.

Tough Task Master

He was taught by one of the toughest, Jay Forrester.  He demanded the best.  I do remember him bellowing at me in that loud voice when he got excited (or in all CAPS if it was an email), “This is not Harvard (he never let me forget that I have an undergraduate engineering degree from Harvard before they had an engineering school which he thought was crazy), this is not IBM (my employer when he met me), this is MIT and we do things differently.” He pushed you to be your absolute best.  He loved a good argument but he was always willing to change his mind (except in politics) but you had better bring facts and data.  Would not suffer fools well.  The great Brad Feld who later went on to become a famously successful venture capitalist (which means you have to be fearless) recalls the days when he was getting his Ph.D. at MIT under Ed Roberts and when he heard Ed’s boom voice coming down the hallway, he would run to the bathroom and hid in stall standing on the toilet to avoid him.

Supportive

But at the same time, he was incredibly supportive …

He provided sage advice.  He was a fabulous mentor as noted by the seemingly endless outpouring online over the past 24 hours.  He is referred to by so many as “my mentor”. He was really good at this.

If need be, he would drop his shoulder and help out.  Nothing was above him.  He was always the kid from Chelsea who married his childhood sweetheart and never, ever forgot his roots.  Never any pretensions about him.

And also, extremely importantly, once you discussed something and went forward, you always knew he had your back.  He was not a fair-weather fan.  Quite the opposite.  He liked a good fight to get things done (sometimes a bit too much honestly but hey, no one is perfect).

Extended Family

He would never forget a good deed or student.  His memory even to the end, was amazing.  He was also gracious.  His network as you see today seems infinite. It was like Plato, no matter where I went I met people coming back who knew and worshiped Ed.  Over the past 48 hours, even though the outreach has been minimal because this all happened so fast, I have been inundated with emails and stories that I never knew.

That is why and how you get 6.79 Million hits for Professor Ed Roberts MIT Entrepreneurship in Google search.

But what I want to really talk about is Ed Roberts the man.  And this will be much harder but it is so much more meaningful.

As tough as Ed could be, and he could be tough, he was even more supportive and empathetic towards others as humans.  As just one example, as some of you may know, over the past 30 days, the MIT Sloan Dean, Dave Schmittlein, had a very difficult medical diagnosis and had to resign.  Even with all Ed’s health issues, which he hid from almost everyone, he could not spend enough time trying to help Dave, and Dave was infinitely comforted by him.

About seven years ago when I was having a very dark time because of family issues, he noticed and took me out to lunch at Legal Seafoods in Cambridge and wanted to know what was going on.  When I told him, he sat and listened like a combination of a therapist and a saint and then patiently told me that family had to come first as it always had for him, and that I needed to go home right away and he would cover for me. He was right and he did.  I will never forget. Family first.

Nancy, Valerie, Andrea, and Mitch, I think you know, he put you all and those grandkids above all else.  Nothing and I mean nothing came close.  It was unambiguous. Family must come first which is a line I reuse often now with my people to this day.  Our hearts can only imagine what you all are going through.  Words fall far short.  But in the end, while we thought Ed would live forever or at least outlive us all, he had more energy at 88 than most 20-year-olds, we are all human.  We all must die and the question is, did you lead a meaningful life? Did you love, laugh and leave a family legacy? Did you give back? Did you exit with no regrets?  Did you get the most out of your time on this earth?  In all those dimensions, Ed did not cheat life.  Some have said he was larger than life.  No, let us not kid ourselves. No one is larger than life literally.  But let us rather celebrate the fact that he was human.  He was someone who embodied a life lived to its fullest.  It epitomized getting the most out of the finite life we have. He maximized it to the final day. That is all we can ask. I hope this gives you all some peace. We are all better for having known him and the world is certainly a better place.

I would like to close with a final comment and a personal story.

It seems a bit of poetry to me that today is Feb 29th.  It is a leap year.  Why?  Feb 29th doesn’t come around often.  Well, Ed was even rarer than a February 29th.  Infinitely rarer.

In life, we don’t get to meet very many generational figures and humans, but we did get to with Ed Roberts.  He was a singular figure in the history of entrepreneurship.  As you heard from President Reif, he created the field of entrepreneurship as a field of serious study in top universities across the world.  His 1991 book “Entrepreneurs in High Technology” marks the beginning of this era today that is now pervasive across thousands of universities globally. There has never been anyone like him nor will there ever be again.  He was a generation figure in terms of accomplishments but as you have heard from the other speakers today and more importantly, as a human.

Please bear with me on this last personal story because I need it to land this plane.

I will never forget the day I did one of those DNA tests to find out your ancestry, 23and Me, given to me by Trish Cotter, well let’s just say I didn’t come over on the Mayflower or anything and I knew I was a complete mutt but this made it ever clearer.  Still, the results were interesting.

I was so excited that included in the many ancestry categories was 4% Ashkenazi Jew.  Well, my excitement was nothing compared to Ed’s who proclaimed that he always thought I was Jewish and welcomed me to the tribe with unbounded enthusiasm even by his standards.

Well, you were a father figure to me you welcomed me in so many ways. I always refer to you as my mentor but in closing let me say, you were much more than just a mentor, you were my mensch.  The best mensch ever.  You changed my life profoundly and that of thousands of others.

May your memory be a blessing.

Ed, Rest in Peace and I’ll see you on the other side.