Xiaohe Gu
Staff Writer

Journalist and writer Colin Woodard and entrepreneur and cofounder of Peak6 Investment Company Matthew Hulsizer ’87 spoke as part of the Christensen Speaker Series on March 29 and Apr. 5, respectively.

Woodard spoke about his new book, American Nations, which focuses on the diverse cultures throughout the continent.

“When I was travelling [throughout America], I found out that the real cultural divides and fissures don’t match the state boundaries on the map,” Woodard said. “Americans misunderstand our identity, history, and constitution and all sorts of things because that the original colonies were founded by very different people, so those cleavages remained.”

Woodard also spoke about another book he wrote, The Republic of Pirates, which was adapted by NBC and made into a drama called Crossbones.

“After realizing that lots of Americans nowadays tend to misinterpret the history and culture back in the colonial period, I wanted to use pirates as a vehicle to pull the Americans in understanding that period,” Woodard said. “However, as I dug more into the pirate story, I found it was so much different from the received story and I ended up getting hooked up in it.”

Hulsizer spoke about his experience of becoming an investor and entrepreneur and offered some advice. He said that he found success because of his willingness to try new things.

“Nobody can prevent you from doing some really, really, really stupid things in your life,” Hulsizer said. “The important thing is to learn from [mistakes] because the key of being an entrepreneur is to make the most of your life.”

Hulsizer said that as Peak6 profited beyond his expectations, he tried many different businesses strategies that failed.

“It is okay to fail because you will learn from it,” Hulsizer said. “The point of being an entrepreneur, an investor or a human being is not to go through life and do the same thing over and over again. It is to learn and to get better.”

“From [Hulsizer’s] speech, I learned that success in business, particularly investing, relies heavily on one’s ability to make [his] own luck,” Liam Wall ’14 said.