Jack O’Brien      

MIT, Sloan School of Management

“Enthusiastic builder and proven entrepreneur with two acquired businesses looking for my next company!”

Hometown: McLean, Virginia

Fun Fact About Yourself: After graduating college, I renovated a full-sized school bus and lived in it for two months with a group of friends while visiting 13 national parks and 33 US states (@oldrelly on Instagram!).

Undergraduate School and Major: Princeton University, Bachelors of Science and Engineering from the Department of Computer Science

Most Recent Employer and Job Title: CTO of Stonks.com, a16z backed company that’s raised $19M to democratize venture capital.

Aside from your classmates, what was the key part of MIT Sloan’s MBA programming that led you to choose this business school and why was it so important to you? I was drawn to MIT for its entrepreneurial focus and interaction with other high-tech programs across the institute. I’m excited to meet other brilliant MBAs – including those with engineering backgrounds – along with PhDs, Master’s students, and undergrads with a passion for science and technology.

What course, club or activity excites you the most at MIT Sloan? I’m most excited to get involved with CSAIL (Computer Science and AI Laboratory) and MITEC (MIT Energy and Climate Club). To get involved in both before arriving on campus, I volunteered as a managing director for the MIT Energy and Climate Hack, a three-day hackathon with the theme of “Fighting Climate Change with AI”. I couldn’t be more excited to explore the intersection of climate tech and AI, at the home of cutting-edge research in both fields! Check out the event at mitenergyhack.org.

Action Learning Labs are one of MIT Sloan’s biggest attractions. Which lab interests you most? How does it fit with your interests? I’m most excited to participate in the Entrepreneurship Lab. I’ve been a founder and a part of several startups, and a big reason I decided to come to MIT Sloan was to start another business (although I don’t have deep conviction around a particular idea right now). I think building big, ambitious projects is all about building slightly smaller ones and using that experience to go after increasingly larger goals. I’m hopeful the Entrepreneurship Lab will provide more great challenges to learn from at an accelerated pace.

When you think of MIT, what are the first things that come to mind? How have your experiences with the Sloan program thus far reinforced or upended these early impressions? At my core, I’m an engineer, and MIT is synonymous with engineering and technological progress. I’ve read books about topics from biotech to AI to space travel that all revolve around MIT. Even in fiction, Iron Man went to MIT! The institute is living up to the hype so far thanks to the thoughtful and driven people I’ve met before even moving to campus. I can’t wait to spend more time with them.

Describe your biggest accomplishment in your career so far: I built a software startup that was used by 5,000 companies and acquired! I owe so much to my co-founders, and this was a huge win for us all.

What other MBA programs did you apply to? I did not apply to any other MBA programs. I was interested in high tech entrepreneurship at MIT, and if I had not gotten in, I would not have gone to business school!

What do you hope to do after graduation (at this point)?  My goal is to launch a new business. If that comes one year into MIT, right at graduation, or several years after, I’ll be pumped.

What advice would you give to help potential applicants gain admission into MIT Sloan’s MBA program? MIT Sloan’s application is all about what you have done, not what you want to do. If you’re usually humble, now is the time to brag. I’m sure you’ve done incredible things, so make sure they shine through. I also spent a good chunk of time working on the video application and used a few props!

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