I think my life just got better

My "Advanced Entrepreneurship" course is being taught by a guy who founded a reasonably large and successful company in Silicon Valley. The guy is not only loaded, but extraordinarily well connected.

Yesterday, I was less than engaged in class, but he called on me to kind of call me out for being less than engaged. He asked a straight up question, and I essentially answered by telling him why I think a cornerstone of silicon valley conventional wisdom is crap. My classmates sat in stunned amazement as I went off on how adoption of new technology really happens, and why I think there is no such thing as "The Chasm" but merely a segment targeting problem.

After class I approached him to tell him that I'd be happy to send him some of the work I'd done in one of my previous jobs that applied the framework I was talking about to forecasting real adoption. Charts are better than words.

At this point, he pulled me out or earshot of the other students, and said:

Prof S: What are you doing after graduation?

Me: Looking for a change

Prof S: You're the smartest guy in the class, your comments are always spot on and incisive, and we need to find a place for you. I'm gonna take you to lunch.

The guy sits on boards of a ton of companies. He knows VCs all up and down the valley. I seem to have made a new friend. By publicly and vehemently, though civilly disagreeing with him. Go figure.

Irony is, he does a lot of enterprise software, and I think the industry could not be more boring.