By: Lewis Dvorkin, Entrepreneur in Residence

I got a really good piece of advice when I started a news platform company 10 years ago: learn to say, “No.” So, I did. It took me little time to say no when a trusted colleague urged me to launch a mobile site with our desktop site. Sure, MVP (minimal viable product) was on my mind. Mostly, I wanted to avoid chasing shiny objects. Back then, the iPhone had just been released and mobile was still glitter. I practiced the art of saying no (mostly nicely, I hope) after Forbes bought my startup. It enabled us to reimagine an iconic media brand with innovative products and minimal distraction.

Today, as Entrepreneur in Residence at CSUN’s David Nazarian College of Business and Economics, I’m enjoying the fun of saying, “Yes.” And why not! Young minds should be free to dream and do — shiny objects and all. Within days of arriving at Nazarian, I met a young woman who wants to set up a financial-service shop for the Hispanic community. “Go for it,” I said. Two young engineering students from India approached me with a campus security idea tied to Amazon’s Echo. “Love it,” was my reply. There was also a drone idea. “Wow, that’s cool, I said.” One young mother of two, a CSUN grad, rattled off three ideas. All were yeses, but the class course sign-up through Alexa sounded most intriguing. With all the ideas, the burdens of reality can wait.

Actually, the reality is CSUN students are well positioned in both time and place. I moved to California a year ago for an opportunity that was only a piece of my much larger belief that Los Angeles, in particular, would propel America and the world forward, shaping how we live. Think about it. California (which would be the sixth-largest economy in the world) is a global cultural and economic force in technology, entertainment, transportation, climate control, medicine, food and healthy living. What happens here travels across the country and is exported around the world.

CSUN’s multicultural being enhances entrepreneurial thinking in ways that play to a larger world. So many of its students are the first generation of their families to attend an American university. They are well aware of consumer needs both here and elsewhere. And, starting a company is all about finding solutions for everyday life. The faculty, too, is from all over, as are its benefactors and administrators. Nazarian College is named after David Nazarian, an Iranian-American businessman, philanthropist and CSUN graduate, and its dean is from Malaysia.

There is a refreshing air to entrepreneurialism at CSUN. At Forbes, we spent a lot of time tracking down and chronicling young people dreaming of unicorns, or billion-dollar startups. The Forbes Annual Under 30 List is full of impressive hard-chargers. There is a fine line between entrepreneurialism and small business creation. I’ve heard little, if any talk, of unicorns as I roam around campus. Last night, I attended a CSUN Nazarian class (my first night class in 45 years!) on the foundations of entrepreneurialism. As part of an end-of-semester project, teams of eager students kind of pitched the ideas and status of startups that had raised some cash, mostly through crowdsourcing. I loved their selection — startups with products integral to their daily lives, like coffee, sleep and music. Next semester, they’ll get into operations, perhaps even coming up with there own ideas.

One more thing about my yeses at CSUN. My wife chides me for not being “food fun” because I reject so many tasty dishes (barbecued spare ribs) and treats (think Twizzlers). Well, a CSUN grad recently proposed that we walk to the farmer’s market on campus for a Salvadoran-inspired delight called Pupusas — a thick corn tortilla packed with lots of stuff. Of course, I said, “Yes.”