Ahead of the Curve Read Free Page B

the next morning at seven. The Spangler meeting rooms were jammed with Math Campers struggling with the as-yet unidentified industries. Their enthusiasm for the task was staggering. The halls rang with discussions of profit margins and leverage ratios. Banks, I heard someone say authoritatively, tended to have huge short-term liabilities—otherwise known as the money in their customers’ accounts, which could be withdrawn at any time—and similarly huge amounts of receivables, or loans made to its customers. For banks, loans are assets, while the money it holds for its customers is a liability. It took me a while to get this straight. The money they have is a liability, whereas the money they have given away is an asset. But once I had figured it out, I looked at my unidentified industries and there it was, leaping out at me, the bank! Finally I had something to offer my group. I raced into the room with my discovery, but they had already figured this out. It was a relief to go to class.
     
 
There are two main classroom buildings at HBS, Aldrich and Hawes, which contain thirty or so almost identical classrooms. Aldrich is named after Senator Nelson Aldrich, a lavishly mustachioed Rhode Islander, whose daughter married John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Rod Hawes graduated from HBS in 1969 and made his fortune in insurance. He built and sold Life Re Corporation of America and has since diverted much of his fortune into philanthropy. In each of the classrooms ninety or so seats ascended in five semicircular rows, divided by two aisles. A few of the rooms had tall windows looking out onto campus, but most had none at all. Sitting in these windowless, temperature-controlled, mercilessly lit rooms was like being in a casino, with no sense of the world outside, immune to time and nature. We were each allotted two laptop widths of space along the curving desks and a swiveling office chair upholstered in purple. When we arrived in class at our assigned seats, we had to slide a white laminated card printed with our names into a slot in front of our place so the professors could identify us. Tucked under each desk were plugs for our computers. To my right was Laurie, an Alaskan with a doctorate in chemistry who previously ran a research center for a biotech company. To my left was Ben, a former employee of the New York City Parks Department. Laurie would spend the two weeks of Math Camp in a state of staring-eyed terror. Despite her obvious brilliance, she dreaded being called on by a professor. Give her a molecule to decompose, she said, she would decompose it, recompose it, and tie it up with a bow. Ask her for an accounting ratio, and she dissolved into a puddle. Ben was much calmer. He wore a beard and sandals and had spent the previous two weeks hiking the Appalachian Trail. Like me, he seemed allergic to his computer and took his notes in longhand. But he evidently had one of those clear, logical minds that would lend itself well to this place. Occupying the lower two thirds of my view was the thick buzz-cut neck of a former marine. For several hours a day, for the next two weeks, his surreal muscles flexed and twitched inches from my face, distracting me from the weighted average cost of capital and decision trees.
    The professors stood in the pit, with a desk for their notes and three sets of blackboards and projector screens to play with. The more adventurous ones could play videos or use a polling gizmo. Students could vote on any issue by pressing one of the buttons built into their desks, red or green, and see the results instantly displayed on a screen up front. The professors could stand close to the front or roam up and down the aisles and rows, spurring their students to talk.
    Harvard Business School had adopted the case method of teaching from the Harvard Law School. Classes begin with a cold call, in which the professor picks out a student to introduce the case we prepared the night before. This can be a harrowing