Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders (ETL)

Amit Chatterjee, founder and CEO of Hara, the growing energy management solutions company, shares the wisdom of his entrepreneurial experience. He covers an array of topics vital to launching and running a successful enterprise, including the importance of product innovation, new market development, thriving in a competitive landscape, and the critical importance of building a brilliant team.

Juan Andrés Fontaine, Chile's Minister of Economy, Development and Tourism, discusses his government's recent practices and programs that strive to develop Chile's entrepreneurial ecosystem. Topics touched upon include government incentive programs to attract international investment, growth and development to Chile's university research and development, and a desire to build the nation into the i...

Alec Ross, Senior Advisor for Innovation in the Office of Secretary of State and Co-founder of global non-profit One Economy, discusses in detail innovation policy and how it can change national diplomacy. In addition, Ross offers advice to global innovators, stressing quality time management, effective hiring practices, the mutual benefits of mentoring, and assertive risk practices.

Josh Makower, CEO of ExploraMed, speaks briefly about his experience working in medicine and technology. Dr. Makower also discusses at length the numerous political, financial, and regulatory hurdles against future medical innovation, and calls for audience involvement in the tangled web of healthcare, patents, and insurance reimbursement.

Serial entrepreneur Marc Andreessen offers the Stanford audience a rare opportunity to pose open questions. Topics addressed include everything from the state of VC and the stock market, to Facebook's market dominance, to the rebirth of consumer electronics. In addition, Andreessen offers ground rules for the start-up, including tips on attracting top talent.

Lisa Lambert, Vice President at Intel Capital, speaks at length on the experience of working for a mammoth, corporate-backed strategic venture capital firm. She unpacks the challenges of the post-recession VC world, and speaks at length about the industry at large. In addition, Lambert discusses critical issues of work/life balance and the conundrum of personal choices faced when climbing the corp...

After nearly two decades in the trenches of Pets.com, Apple Computer, and the You Don't Know Jack game series at Berkeley Systems, Tom Conrad (Pandora CTO) shares his acquired wisdom on succeeding in the consumer internet space. He discusses agility, crisp decision making, and focus, and peppers his lessons with numerous entertaining anecdotes of dot-com days and corporate progress.

Twenty percent of the world's population do not have access to clean drinking water, says Miox CEO Carlos Perea. What's an entrepreneur to do? Ideally, find a way to clean and reuse the global water supply that's, "twice as good at half the cost" of conventional chlorine decontamination. In this lecture, Perea demonstrates his company's abilities and explains the benefits and challenges of being a...

What can extreme surfing and World of Warcraft teach the enterprise? Independent Co-Chairman of the Deloitte Center for the Edge and former Xerox PARC Chief Scientist John Seely Brown holds them as examples of the power of frequent benchmarking and full industry info-share. He also uses them to show how the core ecosystem can be made stronger by sharing knowledge gathered from learning on the edge...

Accenture's Liz Tinkham interviews salesforce.com's Polly Sumner about entrepreneurship that occurs in both large and small companies. They both agree that innovation and risk-taking occur in any-sized company where the culture emphasizes "no idea is a dumb idea." Sumner advises young entrepreneurs to not fear risk: every failure teaches you a valuable lesson, and once learned, success is that muc...

People, passion, perseverance. Former AOL CEO and Chairman Steve Case describes these words as the bedrock of successful entrepreneurship. Heading into what may be a "golden era of entrepreneurship," he says that he relies on the "three p's" as assessment tools to help guide his direction and goals. When all of the three parts are in balance, an entrepreneur can achieve success like that of AOL; w...

Jonathan Boutelle and Rashmi Sinha, founders of the presentation-sharing site SlideShare, describe the entrepreneurial process as a series of pivots. Boutelle explains it's not just a jump, but an evolving growth of stages that leads to an idea that can start a business. From there, Sinha says that focused execution keeps the vision moving forward. By continually measuring the activity, they both...

Six young Stanford grads and entrepreneurs -- Steven Garrity, Clara Shih, Kimber Lockhart, Jeff Seibert, Josh Reeves, and Tristan Harris -- share their experiences starting companies and raising capital. While being in their 20s may seem to be an obstacle to outsiders, they said they "flipped" this liability into an asset -- focusing instead on their raw ability to bring innovative ideas to life....

It's not just your strengths as a leader, it's your passion, says William Hagstrom, CEO of Crescendo Bioscence, in South San Francisco, CA. He strongly advises future entrepreneurs to think of your business as a worthy crusade. Giving example with his own career, he urges those starting a company to architect their venture deeply, form a culture of excellence, and think about risk early. The culmi...

Don't set sail without thinking first: this sage advice sums up risk analysis for Elisabeth Paté-Cornell, department chair of Management Science and Engineering at Stanford University. She explains that risk assessment involves the study of scenarios, probabilities, and consequences. A risk analyst uses logic and statistics to makes sense of uncertainties and provides possible solutions to derail...

David Heineimeier Hansson, the creator of Ruby on Rails and partner at 37signals in Chicago, says that planning is guessing, and for a start-up, the focus must be on today and not on tomorrow. He argues that constraints--fiscal, temporal, or otherwise--drive innovation and effective problem-solving. The most important thing, Hansson believes, is to make a dent in the universe with your company.

Dr. John Adler, Jr. and John "Trip" Adler III discuss their entrepreneurial experience and evolution as a business leader: For Dr. Adler, he describes his bumpy course in developing his biotechnology company, Accuray Incorporated; for his son Trip, he emphasizes the persistence and luck in developing Scribd, a social publishing site. Despite building companies in different fields, the two offer th...

Stanford instructor and seasoned serial entrepreneur Steve Blank looks back at the commonalities and quirks of the quarter's previous speakers. Blank outlines a thorough checklist of questions and analysis helpful to any new enterprise leader, and offers insight and case studies from industry giants and new technology plays alike.

Hip-hop artists Quincy Jones III and Chamillionaire discuss mastering the business side of the music industry. Keeping up with cutting-edge technologies, production logistics, and finding creative ways to gain direct audience contact are essential tactics for the self-produced artist in the digital age.

Serial entrepreneur and Zynga founder Mark Pincus and Bing Gordon, longtime Electronic Arts creative mind and investor on behalf of KPCB, provide a very laid-back and desultory conversation. Topics touched upon include successful CEOs, building sustainable companies, mentorship, and the consumer pay-driven Web 3.0.

Intel Corporation legend, former CEO, and Chairman of the Board Craig Barrett discusses his personal career path from a Stanford Associate Professor, to Silicon Valley consultant, to a 35-year career inside one of the globe's most prominent players in technology. His talk concentrates on Moore's Law and the myriad factors in place to ensure its continued progeny.

Whereas the 20th century belonged to the scientist, the 21st century, says Sun Micosystems' CTO Greg Papadopoulos, is the domain of the engineer. Rather than secretly toiling away on new discoveries, modern engineers are concerned about social responsibility, renewable materials and product lifecycles, collaborative and open source discovery, and furthering industry-wide innovation.

Steve Jurvetson, partner at Draper Fisher Jurvetson, offers perspective on the market opportunities in innovation and technology. Topics discussed include the necessity for utter market disruption, interdisciplinary solutions (particularly across the "bio-nano" life sciences and engineering), and advice for those interested in working in the venture capital arena.

Speaker, author, and entrepreneur Eric Ries shares rapid fire wisdom on building nimble, responsive, and efficient online software-based businesses. He also offers his wisdom on streamlining processes and progressing engineering systems, and puts forth front line insight into why some new ideas succeed where others have failed.

Robin Li, CEO of Baidu, speaks in detail about the launch and growth of the company and the search engine. He discusses how its intimate understanding of Chinese language and culture - and a unique social approach to search - have allowed it to succeed where many North American search giants have faltered.