Last Day to Register for the NC Summer School

Hello there,

I am Utkarsh, the CEO of Network Capital, writing to share a short update about one of my investments and to gently remind you that today is the last date to register for the NC summer school.

Investment Update

Maven, a company I invested in even before it had a name, just raised $20 Million (~150 crores INR) from a16z, one of the world’s leading venture capital firms. In its first 4 months, instructors did over $1M of course sales on Maven.

I see many areas of collaboration between Network Capital and Maven, and hope cohort-based courses become the default mode of learning online.

On Network Capital we constantly keep an eye on the content, community and career intelligence trinity. Content + Community + Career Intelligence = Future of LearningMaven has been an inspiration for shaping Network Capital Fellowships which now serve thousands of subscribers around the world. The Network Capital Summer School will also be structured as a CBC.

Registration Details: Summer School

Network Capital Summer School is designed for ambitious and curious school students to spark their love for learning. Our focus will be writing, public speaking, critical thinking and deep reading, timeless skills that will serve them well for the rest of their lives.

We have designed the curriculum after consulting with some of the most accomplished professionals from around the world, many of who will be teaching the summer school students. Take a look at some of our faculty members.

Our Three-Pronged Approach for the Summer School

First, thinking deeply. Let’s call it second order thinking. In our modern lives of perennial distractions, the ability to be indistractable (a term coined by author Nir Eyal) is our super power. Be it religion or politics or policy or business, there are obvious things that everyone claims to be aware of (surface level knowledge) but very few actually dive deep and form their own points of view. It is easy to be loud and wrong. Sitting comfortably in an echo chamber is the enemy of good decision making. And if you cannot make sound, contrarian decisions, you will end up following the herd. Students deserve better. They need to learn to form their own views based on facts and first-principles thinking. Competition and FOMO is for losers, as I explained in my Harvard Business Review article.

Clarity is power and second-order thinking enables that. It is a habit shaped with practice. You won’t suddenly become a deep thinker tomorrow but if you commit to trying, in a few months it will seem natural. You will be able to filter signal from noise.

Second, writing clearly. Network Capital would not exist if we didn’t learn how to communicate complex ideas through the power of words. It is an acquired skill honed with practice Almost every leader worth remembering writes well. Good writing is persuasive, stylist and as Elizabeth Gilbert likes to call - surprising and inevitable. Good writing is both art and science. Students and future leaders must master writing if they wish to build meaningful careers in any sector.

Third, speak purposefully. As students embark upon their career trajectories, they will learn that complex coordination is the single most important charter for getting stuff done. They will need to learn to inspire people, give tough feedback and do so with empathy. Legendary investor Warren Buffet says that one of the best investments he has ever made is to enroll in a public speaking course. He was petrified of sharing his views publicly and the course helped him become reasonably good. He explains that speaking well is an asset that will pay dividends for 60-70 years and turn out to be a liability if kept unchecked.

Some Other Network Capital Newsletters You May Enjoy

1. Elon Musk’s EdTech Adventure: Elon Musk is setting up a school to reimagine the way students learn. Safe to say that Musk is a busy man running a wide range of public companies but the very fact that he is venturing in the edtech space gives us hope that one day schools will be more than factories designed to produced standardized Jacks and Jills trained to ace tests.These are the first few sentences of Elon Musk’s school Ad Astra which has now been rebranded as “Synthesis”, a weekly, 1-hour enrichment program for students who want to learn how to build the future.“Some students want to be physicists. Others want to be poets. Some want to be both. Most aren't sure yet, but they want to be people who make a difference.”Read Elon Musk's EdTech Adventure

2. The Creative-Cliff Illusion: The Brainstorm to Brain Drizzle Effect

   1. More ideas = Better Ideas

   2. Your best ideas don’t come fast and early

   3. Resilience helps shaping our ideas. Stick with the difficult ones, build on them

   4. Creativity and productivity are not the same thing

   5. Creativity does not drop off with timeRead Creative-Cliff Illusion

3. Should you quit your job to become a writer?Writing, like product design or development, is hard but learnable through deliberate practice. Like software, media (aka words), scales. Once done, the marginal cost of replication is 0. For example, it takes the same effort to write an article or a newsletter for 100 people or 100,000 people. Should you quit?

——————————————————————————————————————————Masterclass Recommendation: Product Management with Facebook’s Khushboo Taneja

Instagram today announced it’s adding a new feature to help connect online shoppers to product drops through its app. Drops, which are a newer e-commerce trend, help sellers create buzz for forthcoming products in the days and weeks leading up to their availability.

Khushboo Taneja is the woman who worked with her team to make it happen. She conducted a masterclass on Network Capital. Take a look.

To watch all our masterclasses, read the newsletters and join our cohort based fellowships, consider subscribing to Network Capital. My team and I are committed to making the learning experience memorable for you.

Utkarsh

P.S. Next time you want to gift something meaningful to someone, we hope you consider gifting the NC subscription.