Mount Pleasant: My Journey from Creating a Billion-Dollar Company to Teaching at a Struggling Public High School

A Silicon Valley entrepreneur takes on the challenge of a lifetime: teaching in one of California’s toughest high schools.

Entrepreneur Steve Poizner has run a billion dollar company, but the greatest challenge of his life was the year he spent teaching twelfth graders at San Jose’s Mt. Pleasant High School. On many days, like the one when a student’s boyfriend was arrested for bank robbery, his managerial and entrepreneurial skills seemed irrelevant. But on others, they helped him demonstrate how exciting it is to learn. Playing Jeopardy with the class and inviting speakers into the classroom, Poizner motivated his students by expanding their horizons far beyond their high school’s walls.

Poizner writes, “Often I came to ask myself one question: What exactly are you doing here? As it turns out, I was receiving one hell of an education.” Mt Pleasant is ultimately a success story, as Poizner wins Rookie Teacher of the Year honors and, more important, ensures that all his students graduate.