It’s nine o’clock on a Fri­day, Guil­laume and I shuf­fled in…
…to the Star­bucks in New York City where we met with Hal Stern, our Princetern­ship host. (My apolo­gies to Billy Joel.) There, we spent some time intro­duc­ing our­selves and dis­cussing the tech­ni­cal chal­lenges involved in net­work operations.

We then walked over to the Juniper Net­works offices in NYC to meet with one of Mr. Stern’s cowork­ers. Our dis­cus­sion at Juniper was less tech­ni­cal, rang­ing from stock dilu­tion to eval­u­at­ing the ben­e­fits of work­ing for a com­pany that allows you to travel before you are tied down by fam­ily oblig­a­tions. I gained valu­able insight into the world of tech star­tups, and how reg­u­larly the process of merg­ers and acqui­si­tions occurs.

Hal Stern, Erica, and fel­low Princetern Guillaume

Down in SoHo, we met with another acquain­tance of Mr. Stern’s, the founder of the “fig­ure out what to do” web­site, hotlist. He explained, based on his expe­ri­ence, what it takes to found and main­tain a suc­cess­ful startup, includ­ing how to choose a busi­ness part­ner, the mer­its of fail­ing, and how to respond to user inter­ests. Over­all, I gained valu­able insight into the world of tech­nol­ogy busi­nesses that I might never have had the chance to encounter oth­er­wise before being plunged directly in dur­ing a full-blown intern­ship or full-time posi­tion. This gave me the chance to expe­ri­ence it for myself, in order to help me eval­u­ate bet­ter where I would like to even­tu­ally fit in. My Princetern­ship was a won­der­ful expe­ri­ence, and I strongly rec­om­mend the experience.