Ask Sally – Sally Answers your questions

Reporter : S. B.

In our returning articles, Sally Pierce, the all-knowing, all-seeing, all-perceiving overseer of the Sloan program will answer your questions. As we all know there are no ‘stupid questions” but you are free to make assumptions about the person that asked the question.

If you have additional questions that you would like to ask Sally, please e-mail them to ‘you know who’ or ‘whose name shall not be spoken’.


Dear Sally, I am having a lot of fun in the Sloan program. This is great. I never realized it would be this much fun. – Wildly Optimistic

Dear W.O., It is called Stockholm syndrome. You can look it up on Wikipedia or ask Hakan about it. By the time you are done with your mid-terms, you will start thinking that this has been the best year of your life and that you will miss the classes, your classmates and even us. Fortunately, these effects will go away after years of therapy. Hope this helped.


Dear Sally, I am looking forward to the Latin Party. But it keeps on getting postponed. When is it eventually going to happen?. – Party Hardy

Dear P.H., I have been with the Sloan program long enough to notice some trends with the parties. All the Sloan parties will have bad 80s music, The Asian party will have karaoke, the Indian party will start late and end late. With regards to the Latin party, it will happen when it happens and clocks and calendars are not very useful in predicting it. Like with fine tequila, you will have to be patient. It will be worth the wait. Hope this helped.


Dear Sally, Why is the Sloan program so hard? We spend almost all our waking time studying, reading cases, working on assignments/project reports and yet it still does not seem enough. Am I missing something? – Think I am an Admissions Mistake

Dear T.I.A.A.M, You are not an admissions mistake. We are not supposed to discuss this but your question sounds so sincere and so I am disclosing this for the very first time. The Sloan program is a social experiment to determine how far a person can be pushed before they break. So everytime you seem to get a grip on your workload and you have not broken down, we increase your workload.


But lately, I noticed that we may be getting close to a breaking point. Marie, Sandy, Virginia and I talked to Dean Robert ‘Milgram’ Joss and we told him, “Bob we need to stop this. I think you have all the data you need for your research already. We have pushed this class past their breaking point. Last week, we saw Brian Tice in the Sloan lounge, curled up in fetal position. He was shaking and muttering that he would rather be in Fallujah avoiding sniper fire. If Brian is close to breaking, then the more sensitive people like William must be in a serious downward spiral.” As he has done in the past, he told us in a very even mode “Please continue. The experiment requires that you continue. It is absolutely essential that you continue”. So we came back and added more work. Hope this helped.


Dear Sally, My partner has noticed that since I joined the Sloan program, my ..err… drive has gone up substantially. I have been trying to figure this out and I think I may be accidentally ingesting huge amounts of Viagra. Besides attending classes, the only thing that has changed from my pre-sloan days is the M & Ms that I eat in your office. Are you sure those M & Ms are not spiked? – Excited & Delighted

Dear E.D., The only thing that you will find in my M & Ms are love and some empathy mixed with chocolate, sugar, nuts and approved coloring. There is a far simpler explanation for your increased...let’s say, perkiness. At the Sloan program, you spend hours sitting on your behind in classes in small cramped spaces. Most people do not realize how much of an aphrodisiac this can be. The seats in the MBA classrooms are not as comfortable as the ones in the Sloan classroom and have you noticed how much more ‘driven’ the MBAs are. Hope this helps.

90% of my time at Stanford GSB

Reporter : Kristine Whiteman

This week I had the privilege of standing in front my classmates and addressing them as I introduced Michael Isikoff. “Distinguished colleagues,” I said, practicing for our certain future. I realized as I spoke that it’s true right now.

I think 90% of the time school is exhilarating and marvelous and one of the best inventions of the modern world. 10% of the time it sucks and threatens to take me down.

The grass is certainly always greener isn’t it? I have had a number of convos this week with classmates who are ready to go back to work. The novelty of school has worn off, we’re tired of spending rather than earning, and it starts to feel like the world is whizzing past and all we’re doing is sitting here, observing instead of participating.

This year is especially tough for a crowd that’s used to doing and not just being. Being a group member instead of the obvious group leader; being the person getting talked to all the time instead of doing the speaking; being told where to go and when and how much is expected, rather than getting to set all these benchmarks for ourselves and the teams we’re running; being the learner instead of the teacher; in short, being the participant instead of the instigator.

Of course these are all good lessons. Of course we have willingly set the stage to take on this training. Its just not always that fun or easy. Our 2nd (& a ½) term is almost complete. One more to go. Unbelievable. Astonishingly amazing and wonderful.

Let’s hang in, yeah…fellow Sloans? Let’s continue on our quest to be extraordinary. Let’s be remarkable.

My Sloan experience, so far....

Reporter: Escobedo Sergio,


We've just passed the middle point of our program. What a ride has been so far. As to why this is my first post? So many things to do, so little time. But hey, I'm here. Finally.


This term has been much more exhausting for me. I was really tired by the end of January. It was almost impossible for me to keep up with all the readings, and I think I read fast. Fortunately I now am down 2 classes and that has freed up so much time for me. I now can relax, socialize a little bit more and of course watch Lost without feeling guilty.


So far being here has been an amazing experience. Being honest, I'm still in awe of everything and everyone. Every single day has been a source of inspiration, knowledge and challenge. Every single day has been an opportunity to build new friendships, try new things and just grow as a human being.

I don't know if I'll remember everything from our courses. What I know is that I'll never forget the Seattle trip, the hiking trip, the day we went karaoke'ing, the day we saw two movies in a row, the dinners, the lunch's, the ice cream Tuesdays and Thursdays and the other one thousand things we've done together.

I look forward to the second half of our year. Here's me wishing more good memories for everyone.

Sloan Ski Trip Awards - January 2008

Reporter : S. B.

We made this awards list to have some good natured fun to recap our successful Sloan ski trip. These are not meant to be mean or insulting to anyone. Hope you enjoy them as much as we enjoyed creating the list.



Flanagan-Bernanke Award goes to June Yang and Robert Jungerhans for making their classmates overspend wildly for a weekend of skiing. In addition to affecting personal happiness surplus accounts, they have also made a positive contribution to GDP and negative contribution to personal savings and deficit. Hence, the Sloan class of 2008 is thrilled to present this award to Robert and June.

Award of Honorary Mayor of Tahoe City goes to William ‘Billy’ Shaw for schmoozing everyone from bartenders to busboys, from random strangers on the slopes to ladies at the cash register. He used his hip flask and its social lubricant to smooth out any and all social situations.

Award for Best Outfit goes to Kazuomi Kaneto AKA K2 for wearing the most easily identifiable outfit on the mountain and for bringing some much needed cutting edge Harajuku fashion to the slopes. Like his outfit said “he stormed to the finish in all his whole races”. Yes indeed.

Award for Best Accessory goes to Brian Tice for showing that real men are not afraid to wear a fanny pack ahem, I mean a Waist Survival Pack.

Sloan Daredevil Award AKA Orthopedics’ Dream AKA I’m Surprised he is not dead yet goes to Pete ‘Beerman’ Cooper for skiing down slopes that most hormone crazed sixteen year olds would have the sense to avoid. These included vertical slopes with barely a patch of snow and exposed sharp rock.

Award for Best Supporting Role goes to Ed Swenson for loaning his pants to Jaime Perena. The pants then made their way into Billy Shaw’s hands and then to Koichi Zaiki and so on. In the end, it seemed like more people got into Ed’s pants this weekend than during any weekend in Ed’s college days. Way to go Ed.

Award for Best Nutritionist goes to Koichi Zaiki for showing that not only can you survive on a diet of coffee, beer and hard alcohol, but that when you smoke cigarettes on top of that diet, it actually helps you ski better.

Award for Top 3 Snowboarders (Male) goes to
1. Krish Ulag
Everyone else skied
Everyone else skied

Award for Top 3 Snowboarders (Female) goes to
1. (tie) Karen Sansot and Brooke Schulz
3. Everyone else skied

Snow Flake Award (this award was formerly known as the Party Pooper Award) goes to Kristine Whiteman for (i) not going on the Sloan Ski Trip and (ii) using a really lame excuse to justify her not going.

Award for Most Stoic Skier goes to Jim Roth for willing to wear his ski boots and walking in them all day including to breakfast, dinner and (hopefully not) to bed.

and finally….

Award for Best Sport goes to Amanda Tucker for joining the class on this trip.. for having fun and being a great fun herself and for generally being a wonderful person.

ECON 101 as explained by Sloan 2008s

Reporter : S. B.


Econ :
1. Short for Economics, Economic etc
2. Has the term “Con” in it. Need I say more
3. Branch of empirical science developed to explain events many years after they have happened. New theories are constantly produced to predict future events and explain past events that older theories had failed to predict.

Decreasing Rate of Marginal Returns :
1. Explains why the more the time one spends studying for an exam, the less one will remember during the exam

Deadweight Loss :
1. In economics, a deadweight loss (also known as excess burden) is a loss of economic efficiency that can occur when equilibrium for a good or service is not Pareto optimal.
2. In Sloan Land, a Deadweight Loss occurs when one spends a huge amount of time on an individual assignment and later finds out that the assignment only counts for 0.02% of the final grade.

Zimbabwe :
1. Country in Africa whose economy is in such an unbelievably bad shape that it can be used to explain every possible economic theory however ridiculous it might be. Example : Nations can use price controls to combat inflation. E.g. Zimbabwe (or) Reducing taxes does not help the economy as proven in the case of Zimbabwe

Bartering :
1. System used by Sloans to allocate work in their study groups
Example : I will work on the initial model, if you will clean it up and write the report (or) I will bring pastries for our next study group meeting, if you can finish the assignment without me.

Ceteris Paribus :
1. The clause is often loosely translated as "holding all else constant." A prediction, or a statement about causal or logical connections between two states of affairs, is qualified by ceteris paribus in order to acknowledge, and to rule out, the possibility of other factors which could override the relationship between the antecedent and the consequent.
2. For Sloans, you may receive extra credit if you pre-pend this term to answer all questions regarding Shadow Price, Reservation Price, Reduced Costs, Crystal Ball Simulations, Explaining Coefficients etc. in Modeling and Analysis.


N.A.I.R.U :
1. Non-Accelerating Inflation Rate of Unemployment
2. Also known as natural rate of unemployment
3. 2008 Sloans know that this definition caused Prof. Flanagan to say “Ladies and gentlemen it is 15 minutes to 2 PM and the man is awake”

Fundamental Value of Currency
1. If a Sloan Fellow’s value in the job market were a currency, this would be what his/her worth would be in the open job market based on his/her skills and experience

Overvalued Currency
1. Again, if a Sloan Fellow were a currency, this is what the Sloan Fellow would expect their value to be after the Sloan Program.

Twin Deficits :
1. Term to used to explain how one can spend a lot of time on a subject and yet they seem to fall farther behind while also not getting enough sleep.

China :
Antonym : Zimbabwe
1. Country in Asia that one has to use as a standard disclaimer to all growth based econ theories.
Example : Raging fast growth will always cause very high inflation except in the case of China

My First Mid-term Exam in 20 Years !

Reporter : Pete Cooper

The weather was still pretty mild during mid-terms this Fall. Halfway through the Modeling take-home, I needed a break and decided to take a walk around the sprawling residence hall. Heading down through the Schwab lobby I ran into two of the front desk folks. My hair must have been sticking straight up in the air, because they smiled knowingly. “Yep”, I said, “first mid-term in 20 years”.

After 20 years of nightmares about missing classes and showing up late and unprepared to the final, everything in the Fall quarter has gone surprisingly smoothly. My trusty alarm clock wakes me up on time every day, I never end up in class unwittingly half naked, and the awareness of my personal investment is rarely needed for motivation. The Sloan administration bonded all of my classmates and I together quickly and we have been inseparable ever since.

One of the important lessons of the first quarter is to strike a balance between the instinct to focus entirely on academic performance and alternatively to take advantage of the wealth of other valuable opportunities at Stanford. In general it’s plausible to do reasonably well in the classes, get adequate sleep, and not be overwhelmed. The real key is to push the envelope a bit, attend the different speaking and networking events and take time to enjoy your classmates outside of class. I can’t think of a better time in life to lose a bit of sleep to see a prominent CEO speak, network with the wealth of local VC’s, or have a beer with what may end up being some of your best friends.

The test taking process ends up a lot like riding a bike. It comes back without a lot of prompting. Everyone is in it together, from fellow Sloans and the MBA’s to the folks at the Schwab front desk or the Sloan staff. It is amazing to me how we all give and take a little to help one another over the challenges.

Sloan Holiday Party

Reporter : K2

It was very hard time in my life. Even though I spent a lot of time in overseas up to now, studying at Stanford GSB put me in very difficult circumstances - studying in native English, devating with incredible students from over 20 different countries, coping with hectic academic life, expanding networking even in busy life, overcoming culture shock..... I noticed such things would happen before leaving Japan for USA; however, the burden on my shoulder was much more than expected. I can say it was a good experience to have harsh burden; however, only people who experienced those things knows how hard it was.

Sometime I felt loneliness especially when I strongly felt burden from the above hard situation. When I need comfort from my family, they were not around me as I left them in Japan. However, what I found here at Stanford and what is now my precious fortune is my frineds here. All students at Stanford GSB was selected from a lot of candidates, thus their career background and academic record are great. What makes me feel "they are my fortune and part of my family" is their integrity and being humble. All people here is very coorperative and never be competitive nor selfish.... This experience opened my eyes what is important in our life and this experience will surely enrich my private and business life following this program. They give me comfort and make me more humble guy with pure integrity. Everybody is eager to contribute to class thus class becomes more enjoyable and comfortable place for all of us.

We finished yesterday our autumn term and had a Sloan Holiday Party at Schwab Residentical Center (located on Stanford Campus). It lasted for almost 5 hours. However, I felt time passed so quickly.... I learned before that if people really enjoying something, she/he feels time passes so quickly. In the meantime, if people should feel a difficulty in killing time, he/she feels time passes so slowly.

I do not know who made this idea; however, we sung a song, which we sung during our west coast trip in November. We can say that this song becomes a theme song of Sloan 2008! The title of song is " My Way". Yes, this song is famous - a song with lyrics written by Paul Anka and popularized by Frank Sinatra.

We spent 4 months together and will spend another 6 months from now. We will have hard time and pleasant time. We can share those time so that impact from hard time becomes less and pleasant time will be more great time. Each student will capture the things in different way and it will become each persson's root to grow up their tree further. They will find their own way for further career and private life. I wish we can repsect ways of others and can sing the song "My Way" again before graduating from Stanford and even after the graduation somewhere in the world. This is really a fun for our classmates and big fortune in our life.