JAMES
PARK
Stanford
GSB
Application
-
Round
1
The
summer
I
turned
twenty
-
two
,
I
watched
my
father
cry
at
a
cash
register
.
It
was
July
2019,
and
a
new
point
-
of
-
sale
system
had
crashed
during
the
lunch
rush
at
our
family
grocery
in
Flushing
,
Queens
.
My
father
who
could
tell
you
the
preferred
brand
of
tofu
for
two
hundred
regular
customers
,
who
had
survived
the
2008
financial
crisis
by
negotiating
directly
with
Korean
distributors
,
who
had
never
once
closed
the
store
early
in
fifteen
years
—
sat
on
a
milk
crate
in
the
back
aisle
,
overwhelmed
by
an
interface
I
had
recommended
.
In
that
moment
,
I
understood
that
operational
efficiency
without
emotional
grounding
is
violence
disguised
as
progress
.
I
had
spent
months
optimizing
his
inventory
spreadsheet
,
proud
of
the
margin
improvements
I
had
engineered
,
without
once
asking
what
change
actually
felt
like
for
the
person
who
had
to
live
inside
it
.
That
failure
launched
a
decade
-
long
obsession
with
the
intersection
of
systems
and
human
behavior
.
After
graduating
from
Georgetown
with
a
degree
in
Economics
,
I
joined
Boston
Consulting
Group
,
where
I
advised
a
regional
grocery
cooperative
on
supply
chain
restructuring
.
The
work
was
analytically
satisfying
—
we
reduced
spoilage
by
18
percent
and
improved
EBITDA
by
$
4.2
million
—
but
I
kept
returning
to
the
store
floors
.
I
remember
a
night
shift
stocker
in
Newark
named
Angela
who
explained
that
the
new
ordering
algorithm
,
while
mathematically
elegant
,
never
accounted
for
the
fact
that
her
delivery
dock
flooded
every
third
Tuesday
.
Her
workaround
was
to
manually
override
the
system
,
which
broke
the
compliance
reporting
I
had
designed
.
Strategy
,
I
realized
,
is
only
as
durable
as
the
trust
between
the
person
writing
the
plan
and
the
person
executing
it
at
5:00
a
.
m
.
That
insight
propelled
me
to
leave
consulting
in
2021
and
join
Harvest
OS
,
a
then
-
stealth
startup
building
predictive
inventory
tools
for
independent
grocers
.
As
the
fifth
employee
and
first
non
-
technical
hire
,
I
spent
fourteen
months
driving
between
stores
in
Washington
and
Oregon
,
carrying
a
prototype
tablet
that
crashed
constantly
,
learning
that
our
customers
did
not
want
an
"
AI
solution
."
They
wanted
to
stop
throwing
away
plantains
on
Fridays
.
We
rebuilt
the
product
around
specific
waste
events
rather
than
abstract
forecasts
.
By
early
2024,
we
had
scaled
to
forty
-
seven
employees
,
serving
three
hundred
stores
across
eight
states
,
and
raised
a
Series
B
led
by
Bessemer
.
Yet
the
transition
from
startup
to
structured
organization
nearly
broke
us
.
Founder
dynamics
fractured
under
board
pressure
.
Our
head
of
engineering
resigned
because
we
lacked
the
vocabulary
to
discuss
equity
and
role
clarity
honestly
.
I
was
promoted
to
VP
of
Operations
not
because
I
was
the
best
leader
,
but
because
I
was
the
only
one
willing
to
have
the
uncomfortable
conversations
.
I
succeeded
enough
to
survive
,
but
I
failed
enough
to
know
I
was
operating
beyond
my
training
.
I
am
applying
to
Stanford
Graduate
School
of
Business
because
I
need
to
learn
how
to
build
institutions
,
1 / 2
not
just
products
.
At
Harvest
OS
,
I
mastered
the
zero
-
to
-
one
phase
:
scrappy
hiring
,
product
iteration
,
narrative
fundraising
.
But
the
next
chapter
—
scaling
a
mission
-
driven
company
without
losing
its
soul
—
requires
fluency
in
organizational
design
,
board
governance
,
and
capital
allocation
that
I
do
not
yet
possess
.
I
am
particularly
drawn
to
the
GSB
'
s
Leadership
Labs
,
where
experiential
learning
forces
the
kind
of
real
-
time
feedback
I
received
from
Angela
on
the
store
floor
,
and
to
Professor
Baba
Shiv
'
s
research
on
the
emotional
mechanics
of
decision
-
making
under
ambiguity
.
Stanford
'
s
emphasis
on
"
changing
lives
,
changing
organizations
,
changing
the
world
"
is
not
marketing
to
me
;
it
is
the
exact
sequencing
I
have
lived
.
My
immediate
post
-
MBA
goal
is
to
join
the
leadership
team
of
a
growth
-
stage
fintech
focused
on
working
capital
for
immigrant
-
owned
small
businesses
—
companies
that
treat
operational
banking
as
a
strategic
advantage
rather
than
a
commodity
.
In
that
role
,
I
want
to
absorb
how
venture
-
backed
scale
operates
at
the
board
level
,
how
compliance
and
innovation
negotiate
in
rooms
I
have
not
yet
entered
.
Within
ten
years
,
I
intend
to
launch
a
company
that
provides
integrated
operational
and
financial
tools
to
the
forty
thousand
independent
grocery
stores
in
the
United
States
,
starting
with
the
Korean
-
American
grocers
I
grew
up
among
.
The
technology
exists
.
The
capital
exists
.
What
is
missing
is
leadership
that
understands
both
the
spreadsheet
and
the
milk
crate
.
When
I
visit
my
parents
now
,
I
still
help
my
father
close
the
register
on
Saturdays
.
He
has
since
adapted
to
the
POS
system
,
though
he
still
keeps
a
paper
ledger
in
the
back
office
, "
just
in
case
."
I
no
longer
try
to
convince
him
to
abandon
it
.
Instead
,
I
see
that
ledger
as
a
reminder
that
the
most
resilient
systems
are
built
on
trust
first
and
efficiency
second
.
Stanford
GSB
is
where
I
learn
to
scale
that
trust
.
2 / 2