Philadelphia CEO Urges Prospective Tech Students To Learn Moore's Law
Ari Jacoby is CEO and co-Founder of Solve Media. Previously Jacoby served as a senior consultant in the Business-to-Business division at Google. He previously, served as director of business development for Reed Business Information-US, a division of Reed-Elsevier. Ari is a graduate of Georgetown University with a B.A. in Government.
What sort of education is needed to successfully do your job?
"Whether someone comes from a technology-oriented educational background or a purely liberal arts background – let's say an English major – what everyone who is successful in our field has in common is that they remain curious. So, the 'needed' education is one that enables a candidate to get hungry and stay hungry, leveraging their curiosity toward innovation. My B.A. is in government, and others on our team studied communications, law, and engineering. There's no one path – there's only a desire and an ability to continue learning."
What is the most relevant aspect of your education that applies to your day-to-day job?
"By twelve noon pretty much every day, I've had to manage people and tasks that require thinking about technology, engineering, law, human resources, math and economics. So, the most relevant aspect would have to be intellectual flexibility. Some of the smartest people I've ever run across run companies in our field. Not all of them were great students, but all of them know they have to learn something new every day."
What is the most fun aspect of your job?
"It's actually that intellectual flexibility that I enjoy the most. No single day is so much like any other day in our field. We solve problems and deliver innovative solutions to our clients like any successful business has to in order to succeed. But, we also get to leverage creativity in new ways all the time. And that's a blast."
What advice would you give someone just starting out in the field of technology?
"If you succeed in technology, your job in three years probably won't resemble your job today. So don't ever think you know more than others you work with. The whole point is to push against what you don't know, and to get as much exposure as you can to those who know more than you do. The pace of technology is accelerating to the point that Moore's Law applies across the enterprise. And if you don't know what Moore's Law is, learn what it is, and what it implies about the pace of change in technology. And do the reading."
Christina Thompson is a freelance writer living in Philadelphia. Her work can be found at Examiner.com.