If you are an entrepreneur, one of your priorities, in addition to building your company, is ensuring you have enough money at the right times. Early Stage Capital will consider a broad range of questions that entrepreneurs deal with on this front, including the following: What should your strategy and your priorities be in raising early stage capital? What are the market norms and standards in structuring VC deals? What are the critical negotiating strategies and tactics? How will your company be valued? How can you obtain the optimal valuation for your new venture? What are the critical elements in the relationship between venture capitalists and entrepreneurs? How is the “venture model” evolving? Is it broken? What is the impact of Super Angels and micro VCs?
These are key questions that face all entrepreneurs in 2010, particularly first-time entrepreneurs. This course aims to prepare you for these decisions, as either a potential entrepreneur or venture capitalist. Using live interactions with leading figures in the venture finance community, most of the class sessions will analyze fundamental strategies of the venture-capital investment process and the critical importance of the relationship between entrepreneur and investor. As well, we will have a tactical focus on demystifying the legalities and jargon of the term sheet and the “A round” financing process. Significantly for 2010, we will also frequently consider the rapid and arguably fundamental change in VC today as the “lean startup” model threatens much of the traditional role and value of the venture investor.
Disclaimer: The websites for this course and the materials they offer are provided for educational use only. They are not a substitute for the advice of an attorney and no attorney-client relationship is created by using them. All materials are provided “as-is”, without any express or implied warranties.

The Early Universe provides an introduction to modern cosmology. The first part of the course deals with the classical cosmology, and later part with modern particle physics and its recent impact on cosmology.
In the News
For more about Professor Guth’s work, listen to this interview from WBUR, Boston’s National Public Radio news station.
You may also be interested in this MIT Alumni Association Podcast Inflationary Cosmology—Is Our Universe Part of a Multiverse? with Professor Guth.

The Climate 101 presentation was developed by Brandon Leshchinskiy in collaboration with Professor Dava Newman, MIT Portugal, and EarthDNA in an effort to mobilize young people as educators on the issue of climate change. The presentation addresses not only the science but also the economics and civics of climate change, incorporating a negotiation activity that brings key concepts to life.
This resource includes the slides and instructions for the presentation, along with an introductory video from Prof. Newman, a video of Leshchinskiy actually delivering the presentation to a classroom full of students, and extensive supporting materials that will help users to become climate ambassadors and deliver the Climate 101 presentation themselves.

This subject examines the interactions of East Asia with the rest of the world and the relationships of each of the East Asian countries with each other, from ca. 1500 to 2000 A.D. Primary focus on China and Japan, with some reference to Korea, Vietnam, and Central Asia. Asks how international diplomatic, commercial, military, religious, and cultural relationships joined with internal processes to direct the development of East Asian societies. Subject addresses perceptions and misperceptions among East Asians and foreigners.

This subject is an introduction to various forms of culture in East Asia (focusing on China, Japan and Korea), including both traditional and contemporary examples. Critically examines the shared cultural elements that are widely considered to constitute “East Asian culture,” and also the diversity within East Asia, historically and today. Examples include religious and philosophical beliefs (Confucianism and Buddhism), literature, art, food, architecture, and popular culture. The study of gender will be an integral part of this subject. The influence and presence of Asian cultural expressions in the U.S. are also considered.
This class is suitable for students of all levels, and requires no Asian language background. Students who wish to fulfill the MISTI-Singapore requirement may do the final project on Singapore. Taught in English.
The course includes field trips to the Museum of Fine Arts and the Peabody Essex Museum.

Ecological urbanism weds the theory and practice of city design and planning, as a means of adaptation, with the insights of ecology (the study of the relationships among living organisms and their environment and the processes that shape both) and other environmental disciplines. Ecological urbanism is critical to the future of the city and its design: it provides a framework for addressing challenges that threaten humanity, such as climate change, rising sea level, declining oil reserves, rising energy demands, and environmental and social injustice, while fulfilling human needs for health, safety, welfare, meaning, and delight.

Ecologies of Construction examines the resource requirements for the making and maintenance of the contemporary built environment. This course introduces the field of industrial ecology as a primary source of concepts and methods in the mapping of material and energy expenditures dedicated to construction activities.

This course provides a review of physical, chemical, ecological, and economic principles used to examine interactions between humans and the natural environment. Mass balance concepts are applied to ecology, chemical kinetics, hydrology, and transportation; energy balance concepts are applied to building design, ecology, and climate change; and economic and life cycle concepts are applied to resource evaluation and engineering design. Numerical models are used to integrate concepts and to assess environmental impacts of human activities. Problem sets involve development of MATLAB® models for particular engineering applications. Some experience with computer programming is helpful but not essential.

We will cover fundamentals of ecology, considering Earth as an integrated dynamic system. Topics include coevolution of the biosphere, geosphere, atmosphere and oceans; photosynthesis and respiration; the hydrologic, carbon and nitrogen cycles. We will examine the flow of energy and materials through ecosystems; regulation of the distribution and abundance of organisms; structure and function of ecosystems, including evolution and natural selection; metabolic diversity; productivity; trophic dynamics; models of population growth, competition, mutualism and predation. This course is designated as Communication-Intensive; instruction and practice in oral and written communication provided. Biology is a recommended prerequisite.

Introduction to econometric models and techniques, simultaneous equations, program evaluation, emphasizing regression. Advanced topics include instrumental variables, panel data methods, measurement error, and limited dependent variable models. May not count toward HASS requirement.

The course will cover several key models as well as identification and estimation methods used in modern econometrics. We shall being with exploring some leading models of econometrics, then seeing structures, then providing methods of identification, estimation, and inference. You will get lots of hands-on experience with using the methods on real data sets.

15.010 is the Sloan School’s core subject in microeconomics, with sections for non-Sloan students labeled 15.011. Our objective is to give you a working knowledge of the analytical tools that bear most directly on the economic decisions firms must regularly make. We will emphasize market structure and industrial performance, including the strategic interaction of firms. We will examine the behavior of individual markets – and the producers and consumers that sell and buy in those markets – in some detail, focusing on cost analysis, the determinants of market demand, pricing strategy, market power, and the implications of government regulatory policies. We will also examine the implications of economics on other business practices, such as incentive plans, auctions, and transfer pricing.

Game Theory, also known as Multiperson Decision Theory, is the analysis of situations in which the payoff of a decision maker depends not only on his own actions but also on those of others. Game Theory has applications in several fields, such as economics, politics, law, biology, and computer science. In this course, I will introduce the basic tools of game theoretic analysis. In the process, I will outline some of the many applications of Game Theory, primarily in economics.

14.454 is an introduction to current macroeconomic concerns with particular emphasis on medium-run economic fluctuations, economic crises, and the role of asset markets. Topics include the explanation of high chronic unemployment in some nations, the source of modern liquidity crises, the origin and end of speculative bubbles, and the factors that lead to substantial periods of economic stagnation.

This course examines why we plan for economic development, how government is funded in the US, what strategies are commonly used to attract and retain development, and how effective they are at accomplishing goals. We look at the tools and techniques of development through a variety of lenses, including those of effectiveness, equity, sustainability, and impacts on other aspects of public finance.

This class analyzes the theoretical and historical reasons why governments in latecomer countries have intervened with a wide array of policies to foster industrial development at various turning points: the initiation of industrial activity; the diversification of the industrial base; the restructuring of major industrial institutions; and the entry into high-technology sectors.

The economic growth of developing countries requires the acquisition of technological capabilities. In countries at the world technological frontier, such capabilities refer to cutting edge skills to innovate entirely new products. In developing countries, the requisite technological capabilities are broader, and include production engineering, project execution and incremental innovation to make borrowed technology work. Theories of technology acquisition are examined. The empirical evidence is taken from two sets of developing countries; the most advanced (Taiwan, Korea, India, China and Brazil) and the least advanced (Africa and Middle Eastern countries).

Choice of material has implications throughout the life-cycle of a product, influencing many aspects of economic and environmental performance. This course will provide a survey of methods for evaluating those implications. Lectures will cover topics in material choice concepts, fundamentals of engineering economics, manufacturing economics modeling methods, and life-cycle environmental evaluation.

This half semester class will present an introduction to macroeconomic modeling, particularly economic growth. It will focus both on models of economic growth and their empirical applications, and try to shed light on the mechanics of economic growth, technological change and sources of income and growth differences across countries.

This course offers a comprehensive survey of world economic history, designed to introduce economics graduate students to the subject matter and methodology of economic history. Topics are chosen to show a wide variety of historical experience and illuminate the process of industrialization. A final term paper is due at the end of the course.