Between Two Firms is an interview series accompanying Economics@Work. We ask alumni speakers the candid questions students can’t ask in person. This week’s guest is Don Sweeney, a ’94 Econ alumnus with a background in consulting and entrepreneurship. The current co-founder and CEO of Ashling Partners sits with us to talk about U-M in the 90’s, starting your own business, and “the future of work”.
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C: Has U-M or the Economics Department changed since your time as an undergrad?
D: It certainly has. You didn’t have minors when I was in school, so I think that the breadth of services that the department provides is astronomically larger than it was when I was here. There’s so many more people who can take it, take it as a minor…who can go into niche areas—I was talking to a student today that’s doing PPE—none of these options existed in the 90’s.
C: Going off of that, what was your favorite Econ course?
D: There was a course called “The History of Economics In Japan”, which was really interesting, because in the 80s, Japan had started kicking our butts, if I can say that (laughs)—at least in the auto industry. So there was this course that really explained the concept of a keiretsu and the tight-knit markets that Japan had between their partners and suppliers. I found that really interesting, along with the personal finance courses. In the day, you took 201 and 202—intro to micro and intro to macro—and you had to take those to do other things, like business. But I enjoyed them so much I just kept going.
C: What was your favorite non-Econ course?
D: Honestly I would have to say some of my courses in the School of Natural Resources (which I believe has changed its name at this point). I was kind of like the outsider because they were natural resources students, and I was the big bad business student.
C: I noticed that you have a background in tech and IT. Did you also discover your interest in that through college?
D: You know, I did not. I tried to take a computer science course one time, which was on North Campus of course, and I dropped it. I thought, this is terrible. Not only did I not like the course, which was hard, but I also did not like commuting up to North Campus. So that was my one foray into tech, and I didn’t like it at all. Consulting is a broad word, and there’s a lot of different types, so when I worked at a firm now known as Accenture right out of college, that’s technology consulting. They take people without tech backgrounds but they train you for the first six weeks, so that kinda is what got me down that path. To this day I’m not a developer, I’m a business person, but I bridged that gap between the two.
C: So when you were an undergrad, what did you think you were going to be when you grew up?
D: I wanted to be an entrepreneur before I really knew what the word meant. I had these business cards in freshman year at high school with my home phone number printed on them. So I always knew that I wanted to start a business.
C: As you mentioned, Econ is so broad that people need to find what direction to take it. What advice do you have for students that don’t know what to do with their major yet?
D: I would encourage people to not look at Econ-to-job as a straight line, whereas engineering is, accounting is, med school and law school is…there are plenty of degrees that are straight lines to a job. I’m a big proponent of not doing that. I think you have to embrace the unknown, not fear the unknown. You have to look at this like you’re building a foundation, which is a strong analytical and social science degree that will let you be successful in potentially whatever your endeavors are. If you have a job that pays you money, you basically have to understand the fundamentals of economics.
C: In terms of the “future of work” that you talked about, what do you think that this means for students in academia? Do you anticipate that the minimum required level of education for jobs will rise, or will trade schools become less valuable in their current state?
D: Or you could argue they may come back. That’s a very speculative question with a very speculative answer, but…I think that if you look at history, only a certain amount of the population truly needed to go to college, yet a higher percentage went for their job. We can argue the merits of learning to learn, which I obviously condone, but not all work roles really required a four-year education. So we have overeducated people for the work that they truly do. I think that is going to change, and the work is going to catch up to the fact that people are educated and that people can analyze data. As work catches up, I think then universities and higher ed will need to reinvent themselves again.
C: To add onto that, we’ve talked about changes you like about the new “industrial revolution” which affect the workplace. Are there any changes or trends that you think are less savory?
D: Boy, that could be an hour-long conversation. If you think about AI, it learns in a very unbiased way—it doesn’t know right from wrong. So an example was…I gotta say McDonald’s—they created a bot on Twitter to respond to people’s tweets. It used AI, and mimicked the behavior it saw on Twitter. So it very quickly became racist, homophobic, and hate-speech spewing, so they had to shut it down. And look at all the concerns about Facebook on the news. I think this is such an early stage on AI that we don’t truly know how to grapple, how to make it just a positive, and I think that will come with maturity.
C: People have been waxing lyrical about jetpacks and self-driving cars for ages. What technological advancement, then, are you most excited to see happen in your lifetime?
D: I think healthcare is going to be the one that modifies the most. So wearable tech—people already wear FitBits or Apple watches that can give you your heart rate—I think that’s going to explode, and having a more 24/7 monitoring of your health. I see that being something that’s not only interesting and exciting, but something that is in the relatively near future.
C: So then in terms of AI—are you more hesitant in terms of security issues, or optimistic for what it can bring to the future?
D: I’m an optimist by nature, so I believe over time there’ll be plenty of positives—from a security standpoint, for example, people can’t audit or validate 100% of activity. Whereas you can scale that via technology in such a cheaper manner that you can now audit every transaction for fraud, every single entry-point into your network…all of these things are only going to benefit and help security. At the same time, as AI becomes more autonomous, there’s a whole lot of questions and concerns about that.
C: Jumping more specifically into your businesses, our students were wondering, what made you decide to break out of the mold and start your own business?
D: To be successful in starting a business, you need to have a lot of grit and resolve, meaning you have to overcome challenges. If you work for somebody else, you’ve put it on them to support you and make you successful. When you start a business, that doesn’t exist—there isn’t that support network. So you’ve gotta have a lot of belief and self-worth to do that—if you don’t have a lot of self-confidence, it’s going to be tough for you to start your own business. (Laughs.)
C: Did you come across any challenges or make any mistakes?
D: Plenty. So, first of all, I started when I was 25 years old. In the 90s that didn’t really happen. So I had to lie about my age, and say I was older than I actually was. People weren’t willing to take a chance on such a young person. Then there was the learning curve—you learn how to be relevant to a client, how to differentiate your services so you’re not commoditized, how to do a project, how to repeat it and make it more scalable. I’m still learning.
C: Is there anything you would do over again in a better way with your career path?
D: You know, I go back and forth on that. It’s a great question. Part of me is a perfectionist and looks at everything I do and thinks, “How could I have done that better?” Part of me also thinks that who I am today is because of the journey that got me here, so changing that journey would change who I am. So as long I take everything as lessons learned, then I wouldn’t change anything.
C: How much stock do you and employers of your generation put into the millennial stereotype?
D: I would say with a lot of stereotypes there’s a level of truth, but it depends on what part you’re talking about. I would see a millennial is someone who is a “right-now” generation—when they want something they want it right now. It’s also an empowered generation. Think of the Parkland High School shooting—those have happened before, unfortunately, but you now have individuals who feel like they can make change. In today’s world, anyone with a social media account can promote their cause. Not only are millennials demanding more equality, they also have the capability of promoting that demand to the world.
C: What are some downsides to the millennial image that students should be aware of when they’re presenting themselves to employers and trying to put their best foot forward?
D: When you’re interviewing, think of what’s on your Twitter and Instagram account, what you’re posting. I know firsthand of someone who was not given a job offer because—it was a young lady who had posted a picture of herself drinking a beer funnel in the shower. I’m not here to judge, but there are people who will judge. They look at that picture, and think, “that’s who you are”, and they’ll extrapolate. They see one bad thing and say, “Oh, that’s the tip of the iceberg. There’s a whole lot more hidden.”
C: Our last question—what’s one thing you should do or visit in Ann Arbor or campus before you graduate?
D: Wow, great question… You know, everyone should go up to North Campus once or twice. There’s some really cool things going on up there—they’ve got the drone area, VR, 3D printing, and I’m not sure everyone’s really aware of that. Really just explore your university. There’s a lot of capability here and opportunity, and that idea of broadening your horizons by being a liberal arts major—do that physically as well. See how much the university truly has to offer for you.
This interview has been edited for length and for clarity.