Question: What are your career aspirations, and how can an ...



Question: What are your career aspirations, and how can an MBA help you to reach them? Why now?

When I first enrolled in college, I wanted to follow in the footsteps of my father and grandfather, both renowned Physicists, and to study Sciences and Engineering. I also was ( and still am ( fascinated by modern technology and how it affects our everyday life.

However, as I got involved in applied research while doing my Master's studies, I quickly discovered that it is rarely the engineers who make final technical decisions, but rather the people in marketing and management. And, unfortunately, in our world of extreme specialization, it is increasingly rare when those in charge of company operations have sufficient background to deal with the complex technical issues which they often encounter.

Again and again, I've witnessed vastly inferior products and technologies being chosen based on nothing but the hype or the so-called "Cost-Benefit Analysis" reduced to simply selecting the least expensive option. I've also seen numerous breakthrough propositions being shelved purely out of budgetary considerations or because of internal politics, all at the same time while paying lip service to "industry-leading innovation."

Over the past four years, since I've started working in the industry, I have slowly come to realize that the only way to actually have a real impact on the way things work is by getting personally involved in Business Development and Planning, which is exactly where I see myself next. However, given my largely technical background, I feel that only an MBA from a top-rated University could quickly put me on the right track to achieving this goal.

In addition to that, my desire to eventually try to go into business for myself is only growing stronger. But having done this once already (more on that in Essay #6), I realize that I am still lacking sufficient background and experience to be truly successful and to really understand all the market forced involved.

In other words, I would like to stay in the general field of technology, but to re-join the industry in a new capacity that would allow me to finally make a real difference. Plus, if I ever see an opportunity that I won't be able to pursue from within the company that I would be working for, I need to feel that I have enough expertise and confidence to go out and do things on my own.

Question: What do you wish the MBA Admissions Board had asked you?

For my last essay, I want to talk about my experience trying to start a "dot-com" venture, which was the first time I got seriously interested in pursuing a career in business.

Ever since I remember myself, I've been actively following the latest developments in computer technology. However, for a while, this remained as just a personal interest and my professional pursuits were concentrated in the traditional fields of Engineering. But, as I was finishing up my Master's studies, my life took an unexpected turn. These were the "Internet Bubble" years and anything seemed possible.

My idea was to develop and sell integrated hardware solutions for an emerging alternative operating system called the BeOS. When I first saw its power demonstrated, it quite literally changed my perception of what a personal computer can do. At the time when Windows 95 was the most popular environment, incapable of true multitasking or advanced multimedia, BeOS was able to handle tasks that were still reserved for expensive UNIX workstations.

A friend of mine, a professional software developer, and I were so surprised that that we could finally wholeheartedly agree on a computer-related issue ( which has rarely happened before ( that we felt that this was a cause worth embracing. Subsequently , Inc. was born and we got busy building a company to support what we thought was the future of computing.

Among other things, I conducted extensive market research, wrote a comprehensive business plan, designed a custom Web site, and embarked on a long search for a source of venture capital. Unfortunately, partially because we were lacking sufficient connections and experience, but mostly due to widespread skepticism about any new technology that competes with established Microsoft products, we were unable to secure enough financial backing and eventually had to go our separate ways.

As for Be, Inc., the California company which originally developed the BeOS, it also seized to exist about 3 years later, pushed out of the market by the monopolistic practices of Microsoft Corporation, which later paid Be's founders $23.2 million to settle "groundless allegations" of anti-competitive behavior.

But to this day, when I see Microsoft implementing the features that BeOS had more than five years ago, I wonder if, for all the talk about open competition, the computer industry is actually capable of "self-regulation" when the Justice Department fails to strictly enforce the antitrust laws.

A more detailed account of my experience and the technical issues involved can be found on one of my personal sites, , in an article entitled "BeOS in Retrospect" which was originally published online through the NewsFactor network.

................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download