From politics and Wall Street to Harvard's Field X

All right, Matt, thanks so much once again for making the time for us today. We are so excited to get to know you closely. I have a feeling you're one of the most underrated in Masters and under the radar. That's because when I started looking for you and searching for you, I was not really able to find so much yet. You have a stellar success story and life story. For us, do you want to get started by introducing yourself with your own words?

Sure. It's a pleasure to see you all today, and thank you for your kind words. So my name is Matt Sutton. I live in Cambridge, Massachusetts. And I'm a native of Massachusetts resident. Grew up in Western Massachusetts, attended a public college, UMass Amherst. And spent some years in politics. Along the way, my travels brought me after college to Oxford university, Trinity college, where I spent the summer there. And, um, and again, went into politics after that. I did that for a while. And in 1994, I, uh, I 92, I, uh, joined Columbia business school. I got a finance degree, went to wall street. It was very excited about doing that. And, uh, I got to work with a fantastic firm, Oppenheimer and company and see IVC world markets for. The better part of 12 years where I became a managing director and I had a chance to work with some of the most brilliant founder or investors at places like Fidelity and Wellington management company. And I learned how institutional money management worked. In 2007, I decided I would step away from working on Wall Street right, right before the recession. was unusual and unfortunate timing, but I joined a private equity firm that was buying industrial manufacturing companies. had known the founder through business school and he was a brilliant founder. And, ⁓ over the course of about, six years, we bought a half dozen industrial manufacturing companies. And through that, learned the whole process of, financing and purchasing companies, ⁓ working through a recession. learning about labor unions and how to work with other people in challenging environments and deal transactions. So that was a hugely formative experience for me. And then in 2012, I left that opportunity and thought I have some really interesting experiences, including in the political world. had worked in, again, in Wall Street. I had gone to business school and worked in private equity. And I thought if I could take all these skills and experiences and put them to use. in supporting early stage companies that I could provide some context and background about how to build a business from the ground up. so I set forth at that point in time. I did that. And from there, ⁓ I, along the way, was offered an opportunity to join Professor Randy Cohen, who was launching a class called Field X at Harvard Business School. So I'm not a professor. but I'm on staff and I've been there for 10 years, eight years, just about eight years working on staff. And Professor Cohen and I built that course together. And through that, we've had over a thousand students in our class, incredible founders that we've gotten to know very well over their life, lifetimes as they leave and move on to their next career or build their company. We've also had the pleasure of having people like Jason Kalkanis, Tim Draper. Kevin O'Leary, many other founders who will come in speak to the class. And then we will work with the students directly. So I've done that. I've also worked with Harvard Ventures, which is an undergraduate group focused on venture capital and entrepreneurship. And I've done some engagements where I've been a moderator, a keynote speaker at events on space media AI over at MIT. So I'm spread around a bit, but I am obsessed with entrepreneurship and I enjoy it thoroughly.