May 28, 2018 The Ladder: Razor Suleman: Today I found this article by Shelley White in the Globe and Mail:
Razor Suleman, 44, is an entrepreneur, investor and the co-founder and CEO of Elevate, a four-day tech and innovation festival happening in September across 250 venues throughout Toronto.
I’m an immigrant. I very much identify with that, it’s a part of my journey and a point of pride for me. My family came to Canada in 1975 when I was nine months old. We left East Africa where the dictator at the time, Idi Amin, gave South Asians 90 days to vacate. To me, Canada is the land of opportunity. You couldn’t have started lower than where I started in life.
I do what I’m really passionate about, and it doesn’t always make sense. I can’t always see the path or how I’m going to make money, but I believe that money follows passion. Not the other way around.
I was doing probably a couple million dollars as a teenager. I loved hockey and baseball cards and, as a 15-year-old in the early days of the internet, I created a BBS (bulletin-board system) where you could buy and sell cases of sports trading cards. It took advantage of the price arbitrage between hockey cards in Canada and baseball cards in the U.S. I did that for years, while my parents thought I was studying to be a doctor.
I think sometimes entrepreneurs are so afraid to take on the incumbent, the big monopoly. But I love playing the role of the underdog. I founded Razor’s Edge, my clothing company, out of my dorm room at [Wilfrid Laurier University], and it competed with the [university] book store. It got to the point where 50 to 60 per cent of the clothing that was bought on campus was bought through Razor’s Edge versus the bookstore.
I started Achievers [an employee recognition and rewards platform] within another company I owned, Snap Inc., with the plan that I would run both companies. But in trying to run both companies at the same time, I never felt like more of a failure.
Forty per cent of the staff quit over the summer. I went into my COO’s office and, in dramatic fashion, I slid my keys across the desk and said, “I quit. We’re failing, we’re not making customers happy, we’re running two companies poorly.”
We ended up selling Snap, the big company that had 10 times the revenue, and focused on Achievers, the little tiny company that had one-10th of the revenue. But I was passionate about Achievers and I loved doing it every day.
Forty per cent of the staff quit over the summer. I went into my COO’s office and, in dramatic fashion, I slid my keys across the desk and said, “I quit. We’re failing, we’re not making customers happy, we’re running two companies poorly.”
We ended up selling Snap, the big company that had 10 times the revenue, and focused on Achievers, the little tiny company that had one-10th of the revenue. But I was passionate about Achievers and I loved doing it every day.
By the time we moved to Silicon Valley in 2010, Achievers was a $20-million company. Sequoia Capital led a $25-million investment in Achievers and to me Sequoia was the kingmaker. They had put money into Google and Larry Page and Apple and Steve Jobs and Oracle with Larry Ellison and I’m like, “Holy crap, this is such rarefied air, I have to take advantage of that.”
But I picked Sequoia because of the firm, the brand and my ego. I didn’t focus so much on the partner that would be joining my board and helping me build the company. The partner and I didn’t really share the same values or the same vision.
I’d been pretty good at picking the right partners in life and I failed in that instance. We had a pretty tumultuous relationship.
I’d been pretty good at picking the right partners in life and I failed in that instance. We had a pretty tumultuous relationship.
When we sold the company for $150-million in 2015, my wife and I had green cards and an American baby and a beautiful home. We were having dinner and I’m like, “Where do you want to spend the rest of your life and raise our kids?” Before we got to dessert, the answer was clear that it was Canada. There’s no better place to live, work and play than our country.
Now, I’m a festival organizer with Elevate. People don’t know how on fire we are in Toronto and in Canada when it comes to tech. It’s our time to dominate. In Canada, we are way too humble. I don’t think Silicon Valley entrepreneurs are smarter than Canadian entrepreneurs. I don’t think they work harder. But they are living in an ecosystem that forces them to think huge. And we don’t tend to do that in Canada.
"Higher-education institutions need to disrupt or be disrupted": Today I found this article by Steven Murphy in the Globe and Mail:
President and vice-chancellor, University of Ontario Institute of Technology, Oshawa.
Change in the digital age affects every sector, from banking and retail to healthcare, hospitality and non-profit. Higher education is no different.
The modes and methods of teaching and disseminating knowledge are drastically changing. Consider Google’s free machine-learning courses – “ flipped” classrooms where students watch a taped lecture and use class time for discussion, or the first artificial intelligence (AI) robot teaching assistant.
Is the value added by universities and colleges offered through the lecture format still enough? I suspect the answer is a tentative yes, with the caveat that once other organizations can create credentials of equal or greater value, universities, as they are currently structured, are in trouble.
Most Canadian higher-education institutions experiment with innovation in pockets, but as a sector, we still lag behind. Further, the massive disruption in the job market forces workers to constantly retool their skill sets to stay employable.
This requires a flexible system of lifelong education, yet the current system remains focused on people between the ages of 17 and 30. There is no reason learning has to take place within the conventional format of three-hour lectures and 13-week semesters; it can be adapted to focus on 9-to-5 workers.
This requires a flexible system of lifelong education, yet the current system remains focused on people between the ages of 17 and 30. There is no reason learning has to take place within the conventional format of three-hour lectures and 13-week semesters; it can be adapted to focus on 9-to-5 workers.
Universities and colleges also face increasing pressure to improve efficiencies and reduce operating costs. In publicly-funded institutions, students pay only a fraction of what it costs to educate them.
In Ontario, with the lowest government grant-to-student ratio, we are like lemmings heading toward our abyss. The model of postsecondary education funding in Canada is broken, and we need to address it.
In Ontario, with the lowest government grant-to-student ratio, we are like lemmings heading toward our abyss. The model of postsecondary education funding in Canada is broken, and we need to address it.
How do we best prepare postsecondary institutions for the inevitable disruption to our unsustainable sector?
Educate administrators and boards of governors on disruption
Have a discussion on how to best prepare your institution to stay on the cutting edge, bringing students the benefits of technologically-enhanced experiential learning, where students can develop skills and experiences through work placement or co-op opportunities while having access to great facilities and esteemed scholars. Set benchmarks to measure innovation outcomes.
Partner with the private sector
Partnerships with industry to enhance experiential learning are key to prepare grads for jobs of the future. For example, the University of Ontario Institute of Technology’s Automotive Centre of Excellence (ACE) facility with its state-of-the-art climatic wind tunnel provides opportunities for students to work with industry partners, conducting research on real-world issues, gaining valuable hands-on experience.
Turn risk management into opportunity
Instead of shunning technological advances as threats to the system, embracing change will open up tremendous opportunities. One great example is the STEAM-3D Maker Lab at UOIT’s Faculty of Education, which is a collaborative, learner-centered environment where individuals can come together to build and create.
Disruption is commonplace in my community. The automotive industry that once powered Oshawa has adopted changes in technology, management and manufacturing. In many ways, universities need to embrace that same disruption. Given the rapidly-evolving advances in technology, universities and colleges have no choice but to reinvent themselves or risk becoming obsolete. Disrupt or be disrupted.
Are there really concerns students today would have a difficult time adapting to technologically-enhanced learning? We all know, that's not the stumbling block. But let's get some input on this idea from students at York University.
They are so expensive and are set up; for the employees instead of the students. So many profs cannot even teach properly and hack away at publishing papers or getting tenor instead of educating the paying customers. Stoggy and really sad.
Please learn some basic spelling and grammar before you jump into debates on higher education. Who are you to say that "many profs cannot even teach properly." They have a doctorate or, at community colleges, at least an MA. They know something. What do you have? What qualifies you to make such statements as you have made? Yes, real professors publish. They are creators of knowledge. That is why they are real professors and a privilege for students to encounter. There is a difference between higher education, where faculty are expected to publish, and the school system, where teachers do not. That's why it is "higher education."
No question that professors are subject matter experts in their field. The problem is that subject matter exoert does not necessarily make anyone a great teacher.
If you follow the ratings by students being taught by highly accredited professors you’ll notice comments and complaints about professors lacking basic English language skills, and other basic platform skills.The millenial student is not going to tolerate an inferior classroom experience and is quite ready to switch to an online experience they can better understand
Millennials will only switch , IF , It makes them feel better and a trophy is involved :) . We all know the gig !
Too late. Sad though.
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