Columbia Flexing Entrepreneurial Power

Columbia Business School MBA students on their 2016 swing through West Coast companies. Courtesy photo

P&Q: What has changed in how Columbia approaches entrepreneurship from when you left the school after your MBA in 2003 to now?

Ponzo: You know, it’s interesting. There was always a Lang Center there. The Lang Center has actually been around for 20 years. It’s not like Columbia just recently jumped on the entrepreneurship bandwagon. It was always part of Columbia’s DNA. Even though we were traditionally known for finance and consulting and we still are, when you look at someone like Warren Buffett or Henry Kravis, who are most often cited as finance success stories, they’re also entrepreneurs. Look at what they’ve done and how they’ve changed their industries running their own businesses and starting their own businesses.

I think what has changed is, entrepreneurship tended to manifest after graduation for people. They’d go to work at Goldman, they’d go to work at McKinsey, and then maybe four or five years later, either they had then achieved monetary success or they wanted to move on in their careers, they they’d start businesses. What’s changed is, there are now more students coming to Columbia Business School wanting to do entrepreneurship from the outset. There are more students coming to Columbia Business School specifically with the intention of working at a startup. It’s not the binary banking, consulting, or starting a business. There’s now a whole channel of, “Well, I’m coming into New York or I’m going to go to the West Coast and be number five or 15 or 50 at a company.” And that is a growing channel of student interest and it’s that in-between. Because you have to be entrepreneurial to succeed and help grow a company like that. And it’s different than working at a big company, but it’s also different than starting your own business.

So, I guess if I had to boil it down to one sentence, what entrepreneurship used to be about when I was there as a student was that it was just about starting a business. What entrepreneurship is about now is, really thinking entrepreneurially, which applies to every business school student at Columbia — starting a business, yes, but also scaling a business and investing in businesses as well.

P&Q: We’ve spoken a bit about why you think this rise of MBA students wanting to do entrepreneurship from the onset is occurring, but I’m wondering if you’ve seen any changes or have any more thoughts on why this interest is surging now?

Ponzo: I think it’s a number of things. A lot of the students that are here now — if I do the back-of-the-envelope math — they were probably just graduating college during the financial crisis, give or take a couple years. So, for most of the students now, that was a transformative experience, in one way or another, whether it affected their parents, or themselves, or an older brother or sister. And I think that changed people’s perspectives a little bit on what work means, what they want to do for work, and really how fragile work and career can be. That in and of itself has tipped people to be more entrepreneurial about their careers in general. They’re more adaptive and flexible and try to stay one step ahead of the curve. And I think there is a subset of those students who say, “Look, if I’m going to work 100 hours a week, and still maybe lose my job or the company could go bust, why not put that time and effort into building my own company?” A lot of people who come to Columbia Business School — as well as most schools, I imagine — are passionate and they want to take what they learn in business school and apply that to their own business. They want to be masters of their own destiny, they want to be their own managers, they have their own passion projects.

And all of this is reinforced by the media. There is a lot happening right now. There are TV shows about entrepreneurship, there are movies, and I think it’s the culmination of all of those things. And then when you layer on top a personal passion or an area of interest, people say why not?

We have a culture here in America — thankfully — where failure isn’t stigmatized. If you fail, you’re not ostracized from your family, you’re not ostracized from getting a job again. People look at it for what it is, which is a learning experience. And I think especially if you have an MBA, you have something to fall back on. You’re eminently employable. You can try and try and if it doesn’t work out, you can get a job. So I think you see more people trying that path and saying, “OK, if it’s not for me or it doesn’t work out, I’ll go get a job somewhere and maybe try again later” — versus what I think used to be the more traditional path for entrepreneurs at a business school, which was, “I’ll bank for ten years or I’ll consult for ten years and then I’ll try something.”

P&Q: What was it that made you want to leave your own startups and the private sector for this role in academia? 

Ponzo: I had lots of reasons on a personal and professional side. Personally, I had been working at startups for six or seven years at that time — had great experiences, but working at a startup is hard and it’s a lot of work. It’s very rewarding, but I had just gotten married. My wife is a professor and it was the right time in my life to work in a little more work-life balance.

But more importantly, I had an amazing experience when I went to Columbia. It was the only business school I wanted to go to and when I got in, I had a great time. It’s really changed my life. I mean, obviously I work there now, so it’s really changed my life. But I feel like I owe a tremendous debt to Columbia. And while I had a successful career in startups, I didn’t have the successful career where I could write a seven- or eight-figure check and name a building after myself. So this was my way of giving back; I knew I could help. I had been in the New York City ecosystem for a while. I had a strong network. I was at an education startup before coming to Columbia, so I had a good idea about the content that people needed to learn. I had a good idea about the changes happening in higher education. When you combine my personal passion for Columbia and where I was in my life and knowing I could come in and make a difference, it was kind of a no-brainer. It was really just the perfect place at the perfect time.