I recently read Tribes by Seth Godin and I couldn’t help but think back to the experiences we all shared as we built Alpha Epsilon Zeta (AEZ). Godin describes a tribe as a “group of people connected to one another, connected to a leader, and connected to an idea.” Sound familiar? This is the fundamental idea that AEZ was founded upon. We wanted to connect a group of like minded individuals in a meaningful way – both professionally and socially. We’ve created a platform that fosters creativity and entrepreneurial thought, while weaving together a powerful and diverse human network in parallel. The concept of entrepreneurial thought that spreads throughout the organization is unique and extremely powerful. No, I don’t mean entrepreneurial in the sense of starting a new business or working at a start up (although many of our brothers do!). It’s really about having an integrated, well-balanced entrepreneurial approach to all endeavors you pursue – academically, professionally and socially.
I’ve had the unique benefit of seeing the organization grow over the last 6+ years and it’s absolutely mind blowing to see how far we have come. When we first started AEZ, the Mercury News related us to a Silicon Valley corporation and that concept has not changed. Each new school year brings upon a new leadership team, new ventures, new events and lots of new learnings. It’s an honor to me, that as an Alumni, I still have the opportunity to interact with and talk to each new class as they embark on their college careers. Every year that passes brings on new brothers to our tribe and new connections to our network. We’ve only started the process of realizing the true potential of the platform we’ve built and I’m confident that as new classes come in and leverage this platform, we’ll start to see some truly amazing initiatives by AEZ brothers.
Himanshu Shah
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A Founder’s Perspective – a note from AEZ founder Mohit Jain
