Economist: Dot-Coms Will Rise Again

Technorati and budding tech entrepreneurs trucked through Saturday’s rain to be schooled on start-ups and be told that the economy is on the verge of another dot-com frenzy at Startup School, a one-day symposium designed to promote start-up companies.

Y Combinator, a tech company incubator, teamed up with Harvard Computing Society (HCS) to host the event.

The organizers brought cognoscenti including Michael Mandel, the chief economist at BusinessWeek, to lecture to the 500-person audience in the Science Center.

Mandel summarized the dot-com boom of the late 1990s in four words: “Boom, bust, boom, bust.”

In reference to the number of people in the room and a dissipating pessimism, he said, “We are right now at the beginning of another boom phase.”

Christopher B. Stowe ’00 who is the chief programming officer for the company he founded, Memamp, was one of the conference’s attendees.

Stowe agreed with Mandel and said that “within the next couple of years we’re going to see a lot more start-ups.”

Some of the guests offered their outlook on the process of creating tech companies. Stephen Wolfram—the creator of the software package Mathematica—credited common sense with the success of his company, Wolfram Research.

One of the bigger names to speak was Steve Wozniak, who narrated the early history of Apple, the company he co-founded. He paraphrased a remark that Apple co-founder Steve Jobs once made: “It doesn’t matter if we make money or not. We’ll have a company that we could call our own.” He then added, “that’s how we started Apple Computer.”

Wozniak concluded his speech by stressing the importance for a company to stick to its values. He said that Apple’s decision to design its computer around consumers’ needs helped it find success. “When you start a company, it’s important to know what your values are. Meet with your founders, and write them down,” he said.

The attendees included bloggers who posted real-time updates on speeches and spectators recording sessions with cameras attached to their laptops. During break times, the entrepreneurs networked and recharged their laptops.

According to the project manager of Harvard Computing Society Matthew A. Gline ’06, who is also a Crimson editor, about 60 Harvard students and 50 MI students registered for the event.

Additional speakers delivered half-hour seminars on topics relevant to start-ups including venture capital, finance, law, and intellectual property.

Besides the symposium, other groups at Harvard promoting technological entrepreneurship, include the weekly lecture series sponsored by the Technology and Entrepreneurship Center at Harvard (TECH). TECH’s “mini-MBA program” brings in Business School and FAS professors to talk to interested students about their companies and offer advice on relevant issues.

Chris Sacca, who is a principal for new business development at Google talked to the crowd about Google’s mission.

“There are a lot of you in this room who will build companies we will soon buy,” Sacca said to chuckles, urging the technophiles to abandon their companies and work at Google instead.

—Staff writer Jeffrey P. Amlin can be reached at amlin@fas.harvard.edu