As you may know, I was at MIT today to attend commencement and watch my son, Mark, receive his MBA. What a couple of days. Thursday night reception on the Skywalk at the Prudential Center. A reception today immediately following commencement and another smaller (hand-picked) reception hosted by Ken Morse, the “Entrepreneurship Guru” at MIT, Sloan School of Management. You can’t imagine how in awe I am at the talent, drive, confidence and creativity that I saw in these new graduates.

I met a surgeon (that’s right, a surgeon) who now has an MBA and wants to ease off being a surgeon to chase his dream of being an entrepreneur.

I met and attorney who now has an MBA and is weighing her options.

I met a new graduate who’s interested in energy. He held a conference that attracted industry leaders and raised over $80,000. His new company is based in Boston.

One of these graduates turned down an offer from Johnson & Johnson.

Getting to interact with these new graduates on their special day is going to go down as being one of my special days, but the coup de gras was a high five from Ken Morse. In talking with his students, I learned that his philosophy and mine ran parallel. He teaches his entrepreneurs that it’s all about the customer. The way I’ve been saying that to you is that it’s not about the features and benefits of what you have but your customer’s compelling need and urgency to fix a problem that they have. He was easy to talk to and that combined with the total alignment in basic philosophy left me understanding why his students were so impressive.

Thank you, Ken Morse, for what you do at MIT and especially with my son, Mark.