As I was following my twitter stream today on TweetDeck, I noticed an announcement about “Mass High Tech All Stars”. What really caught my attention was the mention of Russ Wilcox receiving one of the awards. Russ is very deserving of this and the other awards he and E Ink have been amassing recently. I’ve had a number of great experiences with Russ, so I’d like to share a few here.
As you may recall from my first entry, there was a seminar my freshman year at Northeastern that included local entrepreneurs coming in to discuss their start-up experiences. Russ was one of those entrepreneurs, and to this day, I remember his presentation. He showed us his VC pitch and talked about his passion for changing the way we interact with books. The innovative nature of the technology and the passion he showed really stood out and definitely contributed to my growing interest in entrepreneurship at the time. From that day forward, I followed E Ink in the news to see how they were doing.
When I graduated 4 years later, it only seemed natural to apply for a position at E Ink; by working there I could learn more about a great local start-up firsthand. Fortunately, they hired me for a summer job that got my foot in the door. During that time, Russ was constantly being taped in interviews, interacting with employees and talking about making E Ink a success. His passion seemed to spread to others and his demeanor made everyone feel confident and comfortable. After overhearing he got to talk to one of my all-time favorite entrepreneurs, Mark Cuban, on the phone as part of something Mark’s HDNet was reporting on, I decided I had to get a chance to talk to him too.
I won’t lie…I was scared. I thought to myself, “this is a man running a 100+ employee company that is just starting to gain traction…he has no time to talk to me.” Luckily, I didn’t let those thoughts get the best of me, so I emailed him explaining my passion for entrepreneurship and asked if I could talk to him about his experiences. To my delight, he was more than happy to and we scheduled a meeting.
The meeting was everything I hoped it would be and more. He started out by telling me the story of E Ink; how they almost went bankrupt and the extreme situation he was handed the day he was named CEO (6 weeks of cash left, no established product) and how they made it to 2008. We then talked about his personal background and how he ended up at E Ink. The discussion then turned towards me and I explained to him what I hoped to do and he gave me a lot of great advice. He suggested a ton of reading and explained his philosophy for all that reading (essentially…there’s something to learn from all of them…the key is recognizing those key nuggets and combining it with the others). The meeting was scheduled to be 45 minutes, but we ended up talking for an hour and a half. During that time, he never looked at his watch or hinted at all that he had anything to do but talk to me.
It’s experiences like these that inspire future generations of entrepreneurs. I hope one day I can be the type of leader Russ is and hope he can continue to guide E Ink to a successful future.
————————————————————————————————————————————-
I’ll leave you with a quote from Russ that speaks deeply to his beliefs and what I think entrepreneurship is really all about:
“You live to your fullest potential when you pursue a challenging dream that builds lasting value for others. ” -Russ Wilcox, CEO E Ink
[...] Russ Wilcox, Mass High Tech All Star « The Art of Living jasonevanish.com/2009/09/25/russ-wilcox – view page – cached As I was following my twitter stream today on TweetDeck (If you’re following more than 10 people…it’s absolutely necessary to make sense of it all…), I noticed an announcement about “Mass… (Read more)As I was following my twitter stream today on TweetDeck (If you’re following more than 10 people…it’s absolutely necessary to make sense of it all…), I noticed an announcement about “Mass High Tech All Stars”. What really caught my attention was the mention of Russ Wilcox receiving one of the awards. (Read less) — From the page [...]
Hey,
What an interesting story. I was searching via the ‘twitters’ for entrepreneurs in Boston and came across you (thanks @dartboston). I have to admit Mark Cuban is also my ‘crush’- more an inspiration to me. What he has accomplished so far in his life I can only hope to even have percentage points of his success and happiness. I was reading up on Northeastern’s Master program in Technical Entrepreneurship did you enjoy it? Hope all is well with you.
God Bless,
Sarah B.
Sarah,
Thanks for reading!
As for the Master’s in Technological Entrepreneurship program, if you have a technology background (engineering, computer science, biology, etc) and want to be involved with start-ups, it really is a great degree. Taking 4 classes a semester for a year is intense, but it’s really a crash course in everything business related for a startup. They’ve collected some great professors from across a number of the schools at Northeastern and brought in experienced members of industry; I had an actual practicing IP Attorney teach my intellectual property class and a VC and Angel were involved in different classes as well.
If you want to know more…please send me a message on twitter @evanish and we can go from there.
Thanks,
Jason
[...] to see them live or on video, watch it. And if you are fortunate enough to have the chance to sit down with them, make the most of it. Focus on how they got where they are. Learn from their mistakes and try to [...]
[...] joined the Firm’s Boston office as a partner in the … market research, surveys and trends Russ Wilcox, Mass High Tech All Star What really caught my attention was the mention of Russ Wilcox receiving one of the awards. [...]