Saturday, December 22, 2007

Happy Holidays to Everyone!

All of us at STVP wish everyone a very joyous holiday season.

Thursday, December 20, 2007

Thank You, Deloitte!

The Stanford Entrepreneurship Network (SEN), of which STVP is a founding member, would like to offer its most heartfelt thanks to Deloitte for its generous sponsorship, including the funds that make Entrepreneurship Week at Stanford possible.

Monday, December 17, 2007

Seeking Companies for Entrepreneurship Week

We are deep into planning for Entrepreneurship Week and are seeking some company involvement. If your company is interested in getting in front of Stanford students and the broader entrepreneurship community, here are some ways to participate:

  • Donate audience prizes (giveaway items with or without your company logo)
  • Donate small giveaway items for audience goody bags to be given at the Launch event (movie premiere)
  • Donate prizes for the Innovation Tournament winners
  • Venture capitalists: Sign up for the VC/Student "speed dating" to hear business pitches and provide feedback
  • Start-Ups: Have a recruiting booth at the "Start-Up 101" Job Fair
  • Join the SEN mailing list to become part of the Stanford entrepreneurship community (send request to charvett@stanford.edu)
  • Plan to attend any or all of the events, including presentations, mixers, and receptions
  • Schools and universities: Conduct a local version of the Innovation Tournament; contact us for information.

To learn more, visit the website at http://eweek.stanford.edu or contact Christina Harvett at charvett@stanford.edu.

Entrepreneurship Week at a Glance

We are conducting Entrepreneurship Week at Stanford to ignite awareness throughout the entire Stanford community about the importance of being entrepreneurial - whether that means starting a new business, developing an innovation for an existing company or solving a societal problem. To that end, we have planned a series of events to engage people in various dimensions of entrepreneurship. Each day will feature a different theme, such as Social Innovation, Technology, International, and others. Events will include presentations by prestigious speakers; roundtable discussions; a mixer for venture capitalists (VCs), students and entrepreneurs; VC/student "speed dating," allowing students to pitch their ideas; and a start-up job fair.


We will also host the Innovation Tournament, an "Apprentice-style" competition that will be open to student teams around the world. On Friday, February 22, be sure to attend the big Launch event and world movie premiere of ImagineIt!, a documentary featuring numerous students competing in last year’s Innovation Tournament.

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Save the Date! Entrepreneurship Week 2008 at Stanford

Mark your calendar! The Stanford Entrepreneurship Network (SEN) is co-hosting the second annual Entrepreneurship Week at Stanford University during the week February 22-29, 2008. (http://eweek.stanford.edu) Anyone is invited -- students, alumni, members of the greater Stanford community and the general public. Last year’s event was a tremendous success, and we plan to make this year even better. Stay tuned for more information over the coming weeks.

Wednesday, December 5, 2007

The Art of Fundraising (Part 2)


In this clip, Professor Eisenhardt stresses the importance of researching regional VCs and understanding the true motives behind their interests. These insights are based on in-depth scholarly research led personally by her.

Monday, December 3, 2007

The Art of Fundraising (Part 1)



Kathleen Eisenhardt, Ascherman Professor and Co-Director, Stanford Technology Ventures Program

As many already know, Professor Eisenhardt leads the field in entrepreneurial strategy and management research. In this brief video clip, she describes the key elements associated with successful fundraising for start-ups. She discusses the importance of asking for the correct amount of money at the right time from the appropriate people.

Thursday, November 29, 2007

New Educators Corner feature: Embed videos on your webpage

We just added a new feature to the STVP Educators Corner that allows users to embed a video on their own webpage. I've included an example below of Guy Kawasaki.


Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Marketing a Start-Up



Donna Novitsky, CEO, Big Tent Design - 2 min. 49 sec.


Our very dear friend, supporter and colleague (as an adjunct professor), Donna Novitsky, talks in this brief video clip about developing a marketing strategy for a start-up. She addresses key issues about segmenting customer priorities and their pain-points; and building a competitive strategy. Novitsky notes that customers are the biggest marketers for an organization. She also illustrates from her personal experience about partnering with other players to generate mutual benefits.

To hear her full talk, "From Venture Capitalist to Entrepreneur," get the podcast at this location on the STVP Educators Corner website.

Thursday, November 15, 2007

New Entrepreneurial Thought Leader Podcasts Now Available

Below is the lineup of speakers for our Fall quarter of the DFJ Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders lecture series. Free podcasts and video clips of the following lectures are available on the STVP Educators Corner website:

From Venture Capitalist to Entrepreneur, Donna Novitsky, Big Tent

Lessons from the Electric Roadster, Martin Eberhard, Tesla Motors

Startups: The Need for Speed, Dominic Orr, Aruba Networks

The Art of Negotiation, Stan Christensen, Arbor Advisors

The Growth of Solar Ventures, Larry Bawden, Jadoo Power

Connecting Common Experiences, Armen Berjikly and Julio Vasconcellos, Experience Project

Delivering a Digital Torrent, Ashwin Navin, BitTorrent and Ping Li, Accel

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

STVP Professor Kathy Eisenhardt Receives Awards

STVP Professor Kathy Eisenhardt has received two prestigious career awards.

Along with former STVP PhD student, Associate Professor Jeff Martin of University of Texas, Austin, she was awarded the Schendel Paper Prize, 2007, for the paper: "Dynamic Capabilities: What are They?” This annual award, sponsored by the strategic management society and Wiley-Blackwell, recognizes the paper published at least 5 years ago that has had the highest and most enduring impact on the field of strategy.

She has been elected as an inaugural fellow of the Strategic Management Society, 2007, the premier honorary society in the strategy field.

And she and her work were recently featured in Valley Life Quarterly magazine.

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Stanford & MIT Research Results: Xbox, iPod, RAZR Development Shows Benefits of Taking Turns

Excerpted from Network World article, Nov 7, 2007

Apple, Google, Motorola and others stand to deliver more successful products the more they are willing to cede total control to development partners -- at least temporarily, according to new MIT and Stanford University research.

The researchers -- Jason Davis of MIT's Sloan School of Management and Kathleen Eisenhardt of the Stanford Technology Ventures Program -- say the process of "rotating leadership" was found to be beneficial based on their examination of 10 companies across eight technology collaborations. Their paper, "Rotating Leadership and Symbiotic Organization: Relationship Processes in the Context of Collaborative Innovation"), disguises actual companies and projects behind names such as Cleopatra and Falstaff, but does cite specific companies such as Apple and Google and their willingness to work together in new ways to deliver potentially powerful products, such as an iPhone that plays YouTube videos, even as they might also go head to head, as in the case of the iPhone vs. Google's Android and possible gPhones.

Rotating leadership entails one company leaving its partner or partners completely alone for some period of time to concentrate on developing a product based on its area of expertise. The study illustrated the success of this approach in areas from VPNs to middleware to mobile e-mail.

Read the rest of the article online: Network World

Thursday, November 1, 2007

600 People at Launch of Stanford Entrepreneurship Network

Wow. The launch of the Stanford Entrepreneurship Network (SEN) went even better than we could have hoped! On October 10, about 600 people gathered to hear Tesla Motors give an absolutely fascinating presentation about the journey to build a car company in Silicon Valley, starting with two guys who knew nothing about the car business. It was standing room only, and when Martin Eberhard, Co-Founder and President of Technology, finished, hardly anyone moved. He was riveting.

Afterward, people filed into a “trade show” reception to learn about the various entrepreneurship groups on campus. A lot of new students signed up to join the SEN mailing list and were thrilled to find out there are so many options on campus.

You can learn more about SEN at http://sen.stanford.edu.
Here's the podcast of Martin's talk.

Monday, October 29, 2007

Very Cool Immersion Program for Entreprenuerial Students

This past summer, STVP and Thammasat University in Thailand launched the REE Fellows Program to bring students together from around the world and immerse them in Silicon Valley and the entrepreneurial experience. (REE is the Roundtable on Entrepreneurship Education, a series of educators conferences we conduct.) We invited REE faculty to nominate their best and brightest, and we selected 42 students from all over the world. On August 1, the students were placed on interdisciplinary, international teams and assigned two faculty mentors per team. For the next three months, the teams worked together remotely on a project in which they evaluated business opportunities related to electric vehicles.

The REE Fellows and their mentors then traveled to Stanford on Friday, October 19, to meet in person for the first time and spend a week together. While here, they toured and met with representatives from local companies, such as Google, Tesla, and IDEO; participated in intensive workshops and the REE USA conference; and prepared their final presentations, which were delivered to a panel of venture capitalists and industry experts.

It was an extraordinary experience for everyone involved, including the faculty. To a person, the students said it was a life-changing experience, and some returned home with entirely new career plans. Among the interesting, unexpected outcomes was learning to overcome the inherent challenges of a geographically dispersed project team, ranging from language and cultural issues to the selection and use of productivity tools.

Consider nominating your top students for this program next year. For more information, go to: http://ree.stanford.edu/usa/fellows.html or email Christina Harvett at charvett@stanford.edu.

If you were a REE Fellow, please chime in and tell us in your own words what the experience meant to you. Perhaps you'll inspire others to apply.

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers: New Educators Corner Sponsor

We're pleased to welcome the esteemed Silicon Valley venture capital firm Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers as a STVP Educators Corner sponsor.

Monday, October 15, 2007

Recipe for Google Culture: How to Get Some of What They've Got

Here's a terrific story in Fortune about how Shona Brown, Senior Vice President, Business Operations at Google, has shaped the unique culture there. Google's culture is largely based on the bestselling business book Shona co-authored with one of her mentors, STVP Professor Kathy Eisenhardt: Competing on the Edge, Strategy as Structured Chaos.

Friday, October 12, 2007

STVP Affiliated Faculty Honored with Nobel Peace Prize

Given that one of Stanford and STVP's three core initiatives revolves around solving environmental problems, we are especially proud to announce that our very own John Weyant, STVP affiliated faculty, has been honored with the Nobel Peace Prize. He is a key member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with former Vice President Al Gore.

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Sign Up to Receive Educators Corner Website Newsletters

You can now receive periodic newsletters highlighting new Educators Corner website content and pointing you to particularly interesting podcasts and video clips.

Sign up here.

Here's a sample of what one looks like.

They must be effective. Every time he sends one, we get a big pop in site traffic.

Tuesday, October 2, 2007

STVP Professor Bob Sutton Gains Honors

Congratulations to STVP Professor Bob Sutton, who has been named by BusinessWeek as one of the top ten all-star professors who have had an impact beyond academia.

I’ve mentioned his latest book in a previous post: The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn't. It’s doing very well. It has hit the bestseller lists for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek, USA Today, Publishers Weekly, and Amazon.com, where it reached #1 for nonfiction.

It also just won a Quill Award for best business book published in 2007. He and other winners, such as Al Gore, will be honored at the awards ceremony in New York City on October 22.

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Create a Local High-Tech Playground

I gave a presentation today on the Silicon Valley Ecosystem, STVP and entrepreneurship at Stanford to a delegation from the Netherlands, and it was very interesting to meet and talk with them. Led by the Mayor of the high-tech business city of Enschede, the group consisted of entrepreneurs, senior leadership from the University of Twente (based there), research institutes, and the local and regional government. Enschede just signed an economic agreement with the City of Palo Alto. The triangle of the "Technology Valley", "Health Valley" and "Food Valley" region in the East of the Netherlands is very ambitious, working to attract and stimulate innovative high-tech companies.

The delegation wanted to learn what makes Silicon Valley tick, so they can work to create a similar environment at home. It was very inspirational to see how committed they are to establishing an even more entrepreneurial culture.

Among other things, I encouraged them to “create a playground in which really smart people can experiment freely and fearlessly.” I’d say that’s one of the key differences between Silicon Valley and other places. If you aren't taking risks, you aren't innovating.

Friday, September 21, 2007

Coming Soon: Feature Film on Entrepreneurship Competition

Check out the trailer for the upcoming film, "ImagineIt!" It covers the global student competition held during EntrepreneurshipWeek USA last February. We gave students across the U.S. and around the world four days to create as much value from a pack of Post-It Notes as they possible could. You won't believe what they came up with.

After watching the trailer, check out short videos of individual team stories. Pretty amazing stuff.

Monday, September 17, 2007

Stanford Entrepreneurship Network Launch Event

Wednesday, October 10
4:30-6:30 p.m.
Stanford Campus

We are pleased to announce the formal launch of the Stanford Entrepreneurship Network (SEN) on Wednesday, October 10, and we invite you to join in the festivities!

(See my previous post for what SEN is all about or visit the SEN website.)

Please join us during the Launch event on October 10. Our featured speaker will be Martin Eberhard, Co-Founder and President of Technology, Tesla Motors. A game-changing, Silicon Valley start-up, Tesla is currently rolling out the new, earth-friendly Tesla Roadster, which promises to revolutionize our perception of the electric car. It can go from zero to 60 miles per hour (mph) in about four seconds with a top speed of over 130 mph; can travel more than 200 miles on a charge; and can pull electricity from a number of power sources – even a standard wall outlet.

During the event, we will also give a brief introduction of SEN, its new programs and its member organizations. A showcase and networking reception will follow the presentation. Enjoy complimentary hors d'oeuvres and beverages and visit SEN member organization information booths to learn about their offerings. Executives from Deloitte will also be on hand with information about career opportunities and new venture services.

For more information and details, visit http://sen.stanford.edu/launch.

We hope to see you there!

Monday, September 10, 2007

Stanford Entrepreneurship Network Website Has Launched

Good news! No matter where you are in the world, we just made it easier to plug into the myriad entrepreneurship resources at Stanford! You now have "one-stop shopping."

Visit http://sen.stanford.edu.

Thanks to generous sponsorship by Deloitte, we are in the process of formalizing the Stanford Entrepreneurship Network (SEN). This is a federation of at least 15 groups on campus that are related to entrepreneurship through teaching, research and/or outreach.

The organization's official kickoff is on October 10, but in the meantime, the website has launched. We'll be beefing it up over time, so do send suggestions for what you would find useful. A big "thank you" goes out to STVP Program Coordinator, Christina Harvett, for all of her work to put this together.

Thursday, September 6, 2007

STVP Professor Bob Sutton on CNN: Is Your Boss a Bully?

Professor Bob Sutton seems to have started a movement with his latest book, The No A**hole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn't. He comments on the subject in a short CNN video talking about a new survey that says 37% of Americans are bullied at work, mostly by bosses. Are lawsuits on the way?

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/living/2007/09/02/finnstrom.bad.bosses.cnn

Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Teaching Educators In India To Teach Entrepreneurship

This article offers a glimpse into a wonderful partnership between the Stanford Technology Ventures Program (STVP) and the National Entrepreneurship Network (NEN) to encourage entrepreneurship education throughout all of India. This article talks about one of several initiatives we have together: the Entrepreneurship Educators Course (EEC) to enhance the efficiency of Indian entrepreneurs.

Friday, August 24, 2007

Stanford Was Named Today by Fortune as One of America's Best Colleges for Entrepreneurs

The Stanford Technology Ventures Program was named as one of 25 top programs for undergrads.

Here’s what they said about us. (Note: The reference to a lack of formal curriculum is misleading, considering we offer at least 20 courses for undergrads.)

“With its extensive network of Silicon Valley contacts and successful integration of entrepreneurship into its engineering program, Stanford wins rave reviews from entrepreneurship professors nationwide. Even though it does not have a formal undergraduate curriculum on the subject, the school fosters entrepreneurship through organizations such as the Business Association of Stanford Engineering Students, which connects both undergrads and grad students across campus at networking and educational events. "We teach students the skills that help them take their ideas out of the lab and into the real world to make a global impact," says Tina Seelig, Executive Director of the Stanford Technology Ventures Program. Entrepreneurship Week, launched this year at Stanford, featured a contest to create value out of a pad of Post-Its.”

Thursday, August 16, 2007

Entrepreneur’s Podcast Spotlight: Entrepreneurship Visionary and Author Carl Schramm

The Positive Impact of Entrepreneurship in the American Economy

Carl J. Schramm, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation

Listen to this inspirational podcast of Carl Schramm talking about the vital role of entrepreneurship in the changing economy. For example, half of the U.S. jobs created in 2007 are from firms less than five years old. Though focused on the American economy, his points apply across the world.

Friday, August 10, 2007

STVP Faculty Chosen as Sloan Industries Fellow


We are very pleased to announce that STVP’s Riitta Katila, Assistant Professor of Management Science and Engineering at Stanford University, has been chosen as a Sloan Industry Studies Fellow, 2007-2009.

Sloan Industry Studies Fellowships are intended to enhance the careers of the very best young faculty members in the interdisciplinary field of Industry Studies. Awarded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, these fellowships support the development of industry studies, a multidisciplinary field of research on industries that is grounded in direct observation.


Awards are made to scholars who show the most outstanding promise of making important contributions to understanding the complex systems of companies, product and labor markets, institutions and their interactions that shape the multifaceted environment of modern industrial enterprises.


Sloan Industry Studies Fellows, once chosen, are free to pursue any direction of original investigation in industry studies, subject to an expectation that they will establish or maintain close working relationships within a chosen industry.

Tuesday, August 7, 2007

Entreprenuer's Podcast Spotlight: Interview with Legendary NFL Quarterback Steve Young

Negotiations On and Off the Field

Stan Christensen interviews Steve Young, Former NFL Quarterback

Steve Young, former quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers, was named the Most Valuable Player of Super Bowl XXIX and was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2005. He’s also a lawyer and entrepreneur. Here he describes the lessons he's learned in negotiating with teammates, agents, and in his personal life. Interviewed as a guest in STVP instructor Stan Christensen's Negotiations course, Young provides insight through humorous anecdotes across a broad range of experience.

Thursday, August 2, 2007

STVP-AlwaysOn Stanford Summit Coverage - Part 3

Day Three of the conference has proven to be just as interesting as the other two.

Highlight #1: How to Get Acquired By One of the Big Players

If your exit strategy is acquisition by one of the big technology brands, you’ll want to listen to the archive of “Who do the Big Brands Want to Eat to Grow Their Businesses? The panel consisted of Google, Microsoft, Intel, IAC and Cisco. Panelists offered some great advice and practical tips on how to engage in discussions with them. Entrepreneurs will find this one so useful that I’ll probably do a separate posting based on detailed notes I took during this session, so stay tuned.

Go here to watch and learn for yourself. -- View Archive --

Highlight #2: How Students Created Enterprises From a Pack of Post-Its in Four Days

Tina Seelig, Executive Director, Stanford Technology Ventures Program, gave a wonderful talk on Entrepreneurship as an Extreme Sport.” -- View Archive --

Her main point: Yes, entrepreneurship can be taught. And she proved it by sharing the outcomes of a global competition held during national Entrepreneurship Week last year. Student teams around the world had four days to create as much value as possible from a pack of Post-It Notes®. Again, this one warrants its own posting at a future date, but suffice it to say that the stories were pretty fascinating. So fascinating, in fact, that a feature-length documentary shot during the competition is due for broadcast sometime this fall or winter.

She talked about what some of the more creative, ambitious teams accomplished and showed some video clips of their stories. She also played the brief promotional trailer for the film, which you can view yourself.

Other Highlights

Pretty much every session was fascinating, but a couple that you might especially want to check out are:

The New News -- View Archive --

Moderator: Andreas Kluth, Technology Correspondent, The Economist
Ann Grimes, Acting Dir., Graduate Program in Journalism, Stanford University
Alan Warms, CEO, BuzzTracker
Chris Tolles, CEO, Topix
Dan Cohen, CEO, Pageflakes

Social Networking 3.0 -- View archive --
Moderator: Charlene Li, Senior Analyst, Forrester Research
Travis Katz, SVP, MySpace International
Dustin Moskovitz, Co-Founder, Facebook
Rich Rosenblatt, CEO, Demand Media
Gina Bianchini, CEO, Ning
Karl Jacob, CEO, Wallop

Wednesday, August 1, 2007

STVP-AlwasyOn Stanford Summit Coverage - Part 2

I'm here at the Stanford Summit Day 2. STVP hosts this technology trends conference with AlwaysOn. It was a non-stop parade of high-tech celebrities. Here are a few highlights from today.

View the program/agenda here.

View any presentation in full via the webcast archive here.

The Rise of Virtual Worlds

Just go see this session for yourself in the archives. Philip Rosedale, CEO of Linden Lab, opened with a demonstration of Second Life. If you aren't familiar with what Second Life is, you soon will be. It's fast becoming a household name on the order of You Tube. (Beyond the mere fun of creating an alternate existence, it's very tempting to go out there and start a business as an extra income stream! And now that I think about it, this could be a place for young entrepreneurs to go test their skills.) The panel discussion was also very interesting. There was a very compelling discussion about how virtual worlds will go mainstream, what drivers could affect that, and interesting behaviors of their users. The panel consisted of:
  • Irving Wladawsky-Berger, VP, IBM
  • Philip Rosedale, CEO, Linden Lab
  • Craig Sherman, CEO, Gaia Online
  • Chris Melissinos, Chief Gaming Officer, Sun Microsystems

Why Aren't VCs Happy?

This panel discussion was interesting. It started with a brief presentation by Paul Deninger, Vice Chairman, Jeffries & Company, who argued as to why VCs shouldn't be happy right now. He offered up many statistics to support his point of view. He also addressed what he considers a myth: That
the IPO market is back. In his view, it may feel like it's back compared to the crash, but it's still way behind the average pre-bubble level in the 1990s. He also said that about 90% of the current deals are M&A, and the majority of those are being done by only ten huge companies ($100 billion market cap). He noted that twice as much money is being poured into companies, yet the number of exits is the same ("exit" defined as an IPO or $100+ million merger or acquisition). He said that industry is mortgaging its future by selling its best companies too early.

With that, the rest of this impressive panel joined him on stage. The full panel consisted of:

  • Mark Stevens, Managing Partner, Fenwick & West
  • Roger McNamee, Partner, Elevation Partners
  • Erik Straser, General Partner, Mohr Davidow Ventures
  • Paul Deninger, Vice Chairman, Jefferies & Company
  • Bill Gurley, General Partner, Benchmark Capital
There was a lot of point/counterpoint during this discussion. Again, it's worth watching this one online, especially if you'd like a quick primer on capital market dynamics and interrelationships as they relate to new ventures. A few of the many viewpoints the panelists expressed:

  • Gurley sees a real problem: few executives willing to run public companies because of Sarbanes-Oxley
  • Straser sees an abundance of inexpensive money; the challenge is companies around the world taking advantage of it in a productive manner
  • McNamee argues that today's environment (low IPO count) is the norm vs. what was going on in the '90s (not the norm); it doesn't make sense to use the volume of the '90s as the bar
  • Companies on the leading edge of technology are of big interest for M&A right now
  • Another driver of M&A is that younger companies are easier to integrate; you also get more network effects with young Internet companies
  • McNamee says that in the near-term, we're going to "vaporize" a LOT of venture money, private equity money and public money first, then there will be a bull market (natural cycle)
  • Sarbanes-Oxley: Government is going to have to loosen up the enforcement in order to enable U.S. companies to compete in today's truly global capital markets
  • This is a great time to be an entrepreneur - just be prepared to bootstrap it for awhile and eventually the market will be right for accepting money and putting it to work
John McCain

Regardless of one's politics, it was interesting to hear John McCain's views up close and personal (in my case, about 20 feet away, to be more precise). He was in town for a fundraiser and came by the conference to share his position on some key issues and take questions from the audience. Up on the stage for a full hour, he was fully engaged and also expressed his appreciation for the impact that members of the audience have on the world through their contributions to technology.


Tuesday, July 31, 2007

STVP-AlwaysOn Stanford Summit Coverage - Part 1

For the rest of this posting, I'll write in real-time as I listen to the presentations:

6:23 p.m. Our co-host Tony Perkins (you remember him as founder of Upside and Red Herring magazines and now AlwaysOn) is giving STVP a nice plug right now -- thanks, Tony.

6:30 It's worth checking out Tony's slides in the web archive, if you didn't watch live -- he shows some interesting trends and statistics re the Web and the "green" movement.

6:58 An exciting new company just won the overall AO100 award as the most promising new company of the year, so check it out: virtual reality company Gaia Online.

7:03 Guy Kawasaki, who is always hilarious and insightful, is leading a panel of three very interesting new companies, and you'll just have to go watch it yourself. He's got the audience in stitches with his fantastic way of ripping into the panelists such that he elicits fascinating information. It's hysterical and educational, so just go watch it. These guys are telling great stories and giving terrific, real-world advice for would-be entrepreneurs (and investors, for that matter).

We've Launched the New Stanford Technology Ventures Program Blog!

Welcome to the inaugural posting of the STVP technology entrepreneurship blog! For those of you who aren’t familiar with us, The Stanford Technology Ventures Program (STVP) is the entrepreneurship education and research center at Stanford University's School of Engineering. We provide engineers and scientists with the entrepreneurial skills needed to use technology innovations to solve major world problems related to the environment, human health, and other global issues. Our goal is to inspire and prepare students for leadership roles within existing organizations, new ventures, and academia.


STVP conducts scholarly research and teaches numerous courses which are open to all students at Stanford. We also aim to serve others throughout the world interested in entrepreneurship. Our global outreach program includes annual conferences on four continents and the Educators Corner, a website with thousands of video clips and podcasts on entrepreneurship for students, faculty, and entrepreneurs around the world.

If you’ve never been to it, definitely check out the Educators Corner – it’s the next best thing to having lunch with almost every major player in Silicon Valley to ask them for advice on how to succeed as an entrepreneur.

We thought that coverage of the AlwaysOn and STVP Stanford Summit, a technology trends conference being held in Silicon Valley would be a fitting occasion for launching our new blog. It will be starting just minutes from now. Stay tuned. OR watch the free live webcast here. All of your commentary during the webcast will be visible to the the speakers and the entire audience of over 1,000 executives. So join in now!