While college basketball fans sat on the edge of their seats Thursday, desperately hoping their brackets would not be ruined in the opening round of play, fans of a different competition gathered in The Tang Center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to witness their champion — Randal Pinkett, winner of the fourth season of “The Apprentice.”

Pinkett, an MIT alumnus, spoke candidly about the controversial final episode, life after television and about Donald Trump before a crowd of professors, business students and prospective entrepreneurs.

Pinkett was catapulted into the national spotlight last December when billionaire Trump hired him over 17 other contestants to become a full-time employee of Trump Enterprises. Pinkett, the first African-American “Apprentice” winner, garnered admiration from many viewers but also drew ire from some fans of the show for his decision concerning the fate of fellow finalist Rebecca Jarvis.

Soon after Trump uttered his famous catchphrase, “You’re hired,” Trump asked his newest employee if he thought Jarvis should be named co-champion.

“He was asking if this should be a tie,” Pinkett recalled. “This was no tie … I had a perfect record … I raised $11,000, she raised nothing.”

Pinkett said he stood by his decision because choosing a tie “would have gone against my principles.”

Pinkett revealed that Trump is not the terrible, overbearing boss he is portrayed as on television, calling him patient and “very accommodating.” Pinkett admitted, though that Trump “is definitely tough when he has to be tough.”

In the months following his victory, Pinkett said he was swept up in a whirlwind of media attention, finally reporting to work at Trump Enterprises in Atlantic City, New Jersey in February to oversee the renovation of several Trump casinos.

Pinkett offered guidance on becoming successful in the business world and advised the audience to take risks, citing chances he has taken in his personal life, including his decision to appear on “The Apprentice.”

“Risk pays off,” he said. “Risk is something you should embrace and, in fact, pursue if you want to be successful in business.”

According to Pinkett, “The Apprentice” producers were concerned about how he would handle the pressures and attention of being the only African-American contestant on the show.

“I was comfortable being the black guy,” he said, “It’s been like that my whole life.”

The crowd erupted in laughter when he joked about his time studying at Oxford University, a school with a black population of less than 1 percent.

“At Oxford, good gracious,” he said, “I’d go days without seeing a black face, except when I looked in the mirror.”

Pinkett’s business endeavors on “The Apprentice” have carried into his career off the show, as he is set to appear in a national ad campaign for Outback Steakhouse, and he is a national spokesman for the Autism Speaks charity, both of which he worked closely with on the show.

Pinkett said he stands to prolong what he calls his “twenty minutes of fame,” though he admitted people probably will not remember his name in 10 years. He is currently in the process of writing two books, The Campus CEO, a novel geared to college students, and Black Faces in White Places, the tale of how he and his college roommate, also an African-American, maneuvered through universities, jobs and business arrangements dominated by whites.

The charismatic businessman said he has come a long way since his humble childhood beginnings as an unsuccessful lemonade stand operator.

“It failed miserably,” he said, “I had a bad location.”