A wise friend shared an experience teaching a class of graduate students recently. He is a professional investor and shared some of the lessons he learnt – covering concepts like funding rounds and managing a board.
A student came up to him after the class and remarked that they found the content “rudimentary.”
This friend asked the student about their background and learnt that the student had done a 3 month internship at a venture capital firm.
“You learnt all this in that internship” – he enquired
“Yes” – said the student.
“That’s something. This took me 12 years to learn.”
The exchange made me chuckle.
It is a beautiful illustration of the idea that “words are containers.” This student might have known the words. But the containers weren’t anywhere as deep as that of a practitioner who’s been at it over a decade.
In other words, don’t confuse exposure for knowledge… and certainly not for wisdom.
