Val Cole Director of Worldwide Sales and Marketing for iTunes Gift Cards came in the second week of Winter quarter to the PIE. With Apple slated to make a major announcement this Wednesday, we were all as excited as the entire blogosphere to hear about his experiences working at a large, innovative company such as Apple.

After working at 2 separate startups (both of which had IPOs) Val worked as a marketing consultant for five years before joining Apple in… 2002 and …moving into the iTunes group. Santa Cruz has a very strong start-up culture, and it was very interesting to hear an entrepreneur’s (working at Apple) advice to our young students.

He mentioned that working at a company such as Apple gives you access to many resources that you might not have otherwise.  He also told our students how great a place Apple is to work and that even though it is a large company, he is constantly given the opportunity to innovate with other smart, driven people.

His advice to our students: stay tenacious and don’t worry if you’re not a specialist. He also advices that you don’t necessarily need to go straight into the “perfect” job that many of the most successful people he new are in totally different jobs than they started out in (he described one example of a teacher who got into learning technology).

Stay tenacious young students! Stay tenacious.