Joel Philip Friedman – 50th Reunion Essay

Joel Philip Friedman

15 Horseshoe Ct.

Hillsborough, CA 94010

joelpf@earthlink.net

650-619-7109

Spouse(s): Sharon Friedman (1969)

Child(ren): Jeff Friedman (1971), Dave Friedman (1974)

Grandchild(ren): Elise Friedman (1998), Nathaniel Friedman (2001), Savannah Friedman (2015)

Education: Yale (BA – Economics, 1969), Stanford Graduate School of Business (MBA, 1971)

Career: Management Consulting and Venture Capital, Accenture for 34 years; Corporate Director for 20 years

Avocations: Golf, travel, music

College: Morse

I recall an experience during my working career, sitting at breakfast at a hotel in Baton Rouge surrounded by a horde of teenage girls preparing for their speeches at the Louisiana Junior Miss Pageant. They all had to present their thoughts on “What Being an American Means to Me.” The assortment of vapid clichés echoes as I attempt to follow the instructions for this essay reflecting on what the Yale experience has meant to me and how it influenced me over the next 50 years, which perhaps explains why I’ve procrastinated until the due date to record my thoughts.

My four years at Yale can best be summarized as a process of overcoming insecurity and anxiety, which may be as much a reflection of surviving the teen years as anything else. I was admitted to Yale off the waitlist and wondered whether I was as qualified as 1,000 apparently more capable classmates. Freshman year was an academic struggle, something that I had never experienced, and which reinforced my self-doubt. Perhaps Yale’s unique contribution to my evolution was the easy access to a few extraordinary faculty members who nurtured and rewarded intellectual curiosity and encouraged the challenge of conventional boundaries. I emerged with far greater self-confidence but little sense of future direction.

I went to Business School (Stanford) largely because I failed my army physical and wasn’t drafted despite a low lottery number (the army docs didn’t like my history of dental surgery). My Stanford experience was more of what I wish my Yale experience had been like: strong academic performance, active involvement in campus affairs, frequent interaction with the faculty and administration, and development of a broader array of friendships. Maybe it was just being two years older or married, but it was frankly far more satisfying.

Professionally I spent 34 years in management consulting and venture capital, taking with me the joy of intellectual curiosity and the enthusiasm for pushing boundaries (and maybe a pinch of short attention span, never wanting to do the same thing twice). My career was as satisfying and as much fun as anyone deserves to have. I’m particularly proud of the many people whose careers I helped nurture, the products and services I helped my clients invent and introduce, and the new businesses I created for my firm.

In my 13 years since “retiring” from full-time employment, my pursuits can largely be described as mentoring both companies and individuals, sharing whatever morsels of wisdom I may have accumulated over the years. Perhaps more importantly, I’ve learned that I enjoy spending time with Sharon, who I married a few months after graduating from Yale. Having spent most of my career traveling for businesses, I’m lucky to now have time to constantly rediscover why we got married in the first place.

So I haven’t pinpointed “What being a Yalie means to me” and apparently won’t win any pageants. But I’m really glad that I had the experience.