Negroponte's Advice ~ Mix Market and Mission!

MIT Media Lab co-founder Nicholas Negroponte advises new grads...

"Do mix market with mission. It is, in fact, a period today where you can take an avocation and turn it into something that's very intimately connected with what you do. And if you are, you know, toying with taking a job because it pays well but you hate it, don't do that. Don't ever do that because it is the saddest period. You're gonna wake up every morning and unless you really wake up and not only smile about it but you tell your spouse or your family what happened and how excited you are. That's the life you want to live and more than ever before lots and lots of people can do that. And so that's why I think graduating today would be really interesting. Thirty years ago we were a bit more in lockstep obedience and you did things because you were supposed to and opportunity didn't include making the world a better place."

R.I.P. Amar Bose ~ Epic MIT Acoustic Engineer...

Very sad to hear that MIT Professor Emeritus and BOSE Founder Amar Bose has passed away at 83. As Glenn Rifkin writes in NYTimes obit...

"Dr. Bose focused relentlessly on acoustic engineering innovation. His speakers, though expensive, earned a reputation for bringing concert-hall-quality audio into the home. And by refusing to offer stock to the public, Dr. Bose was able to pursue risky long-term research, such as noise-canceling headphones and an innovative suspension system for cars, without the pressures of quarterly earnings announcements. [...] Dr. Bose made a lasting impression in the classroom as well as in his company. His popular course on acoustics was as much about life as about electronics, said Alan V. Oppenheim, an M.I.T. engineering professor and a longtime colleague. “He talked not only about acoustics but about philosophy, personal behavior, what is important in life. He was somebody with extraordinary standards,” Professor Oppenheim said."

So true. I had the good fortune of inviting Dr Bose to address the thousand newly incoming MIT grad students during my first year. I asked him to summarize in his remarks his lessons-learned on "How to make the most of your time at MIT and beyond." He delivered a seemingly extemporaneous stellar lecture on just that, drawing forth a dozen top lessons from his own time as MIT grad student and professor-teacher and company founder and more. Epic. R.I.P. See here Dr Bose in 1996 speaking to his acoustics students last class...