Alternative Career Paths for Engineers

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Alternative Career Paths for Engineers
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Parallel Universes

• Engineering Universe

• ESR Universe

• Focus on solving problems
• Focus on employment
• Technical issues dominate thoughts
• Monthly paychecks pay bills
• Stability, certainty, are ideals

• Focus on creating value
• Focus on independence
• Financial, economic issues dominate thoughts
• Investments lead to wealth building
• Ambiguity, unknowns, are tolerated

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Traditional Career Path

• Graduate
• Get job
• Advance
• Transfer/uproot family
• Layoffs
• New company
• Advance
• Retire

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Technology Venture Career Path

• Graduate
• Get job
• Look for opportunities
• Start company
• Build company
• Sell company
• Repeat

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Comparison

• Traditional Path
• Job 100K annual
• Savings 10K/year
• 20 years 200K
• Interest 125K
• Net 325K

• Venture Creation
• Job 100K
• Savings 10K
• 10 years 100K
• Interest 60K
• Invest 120K in venture
• Build for 10 years
• Generate 2M revenue
• Sell for 6M
• Net 6.4M

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A Third Way Stock Options

• ESOP programs enable equity participation
• Only available in smaller firms
• 1.5 position at 25 years old
• Company acquired in 15 years for 80M
• Your position 1.2M (40 years old)

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Can Entrepreneurship Be Taught?

• Approaches
• Business plan
• Entrepreneurial personality
• Simulation
• Case
• Anybody can be an entrepreneur, but not everybody

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New Venture Growth Cycle
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Your Future in Tech Ventures

• Get a job for awhile
• Deliberately practice your entrepreneurial skills
• The first time success story is the exception,
  not the rule
• Entrepreneurial expertise can take up to 10 years
  to develop
• Cultivate your ability to create multiple revenue
  streams over your lifetime

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Entrepreneurship in the Fulton School

• Engineering Entrepreneurship
• Offered each semester
• FSE 301
• Technology Entrepreneurship
• FSE 501
• Offered each semester
• Arizona Technology Investor Forum
• Atif.asu.edu