In a recent paper, Stanford professor Chuck Eesley and Notre Dame professor Yong Suk Lee observed that formal entrepreneurship education helped Stanford alumni founders raise more funding and scale more quickly than peers who received no formal entrepreneurship training. But entrepreneurship education didn’t lead to a higher rate of startup creation itself. What should that finding mean for entrepreneurship educators? In this episodes, Eesley poses that question to three thought leaders devoted ...
Sep 22, 2021•21 min•Season 16Ep. 33
Ashley Flucas is the founder and general partner of Flucas Ventures. Based in West Palm Beach, Florida, the syndicate of around 2,000 angel investors has invested in more than 200 startups. Flucas, a graduate of Duke University and Harvard Law School, also serves as a partner at Jupiter, a Florida-based real estate finance fund with $3 billion in assets under management. In this conversation with Stanford associate professor Chuck Eesley, she explores how syndicates, platforms and digital networ...
Sep 15, 2021•49 min•Season 16Ep. 32
Jon Zieger is a co-founder and the executive director of Responsible Innovation Labs, a nonprofit working to create tools and standards to help innovative companies scale responsibly. He was previously the general counsel of Stripe, where he built and oversaw the company’s legal, compliance, public policy, and corporate security functions and helped Stripe scale from a small startup to one of the largest fintech companies in the world. In this conversation with Stanford professor Riitta Katila, ...
Sep 01, 2021•50 min•Season 16Ep. 31
Tom Eisenmann is the Howard H. Stevenson Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School; Peter O. Crisp Chair of Harvard Innovation Labs; and faculty co-chair of the HBS Rock Center for Entrepreneurship, the Harvard MS/MBA Program, and the Harvard College Technology Innovation Fellows Program. In this conversation with Stanford professor Tom Byers, he shares insights from his book “Why Startups Fail: A New Roadmap for Entrepreneurial Success” (Currency, March 2021), which an...
Aug 11, 2021•51 min•Season 16Ep. 30
Nicole Diaz is the Global Head of Integrity & Compliance Legal for Snap Inc., where her responsibilities include promoting ethical business standards and adherence to the Code of Conduct, managing risk in key areas such as anti-bribery and trade law, and leading internal investigations. In this conversation with Stanford professor Tom Byers, Diaz insists that ethics is a strategic imperative for 21st century businesses, and explores how the concept of “enlightened self-interest” can create a...
Jun 02, 2021•50 min•Season 16Ep. 29
Jannick Malling is the co-founder and co-CEO of Public.com, an investing social network where members can own fractional shares of stocks and ETFs, follow popular creators, and share ideas within a community of investors. In this conversation with Stanford lecturer Toby Corey, Malling discusses building magical products in a highly regulated industry, turning company values into everyday tools, and why having two CEOs is sometimes better than having one.
May 26, 2021•51 min•Season 16Ep. 28
Rudy Cline-Thomas is the managing director of Mastry, Inc., which brings together athletes and technology companies to create platform-building opportunities. A three-time NBA Champion, Andre Iguodala has played for the Miami Heat, the Golden State Warriors, the Denver Nuggets, and the Philadelphia 76ers. Off the court, Iguodala has invested in more than 50 companies through his firm F9 Strategies, including Zoom, Robinhood, Datadog, and Allbirds. In this conversation with Stanford lecturer Toby...
May 19, 2021•50 min•Season 16Ep. 27
Maëlle Gavet is the CEO of Techstars and the author of Trampled by Unicorns: Big Tech's Empathy Problem and How to Fix It (Wiley, 2020). In this conversation with Stanford lecturer Toby Corey, she explores how to deploy “ruthless empathy” in tech by combining big ambitions and cutting-edge ideas with a deep respect for other people.
May 12, 2021•49 min•Season 16Ep. 26
Howie Liu is the co-founder and CEO of Airtable. Inspired by his own experiences learning to code and building customized business apps, he co-founded the company in 2013 to democratize software creation. Prior to that, he was the founder of Etacts, an intelligent CRM tool that was acquired by Salesforce. While Etacts was a furious one-year sprint to acquisition, Liu followed a very deliberate, long-term approach with his second startup. In this conversation with Stanford lecturer Ravi Belani, h...
May 05, 2021•51 min•Season 16Ep. 25
Miriam Rivera is the co-founder and managing director of Ulu Ventures, a seed stage venture fund focused on IT startups. Previously, she was a vice president and deputy general counsel at Google, where she joined as the company’s second attorney. In this conversation with Stanford adjunct lecturer Heidi Roizen, Rivera discusses the state of diversity and inclusion in Silicon Valley, how she evaluates investment opportunities to eliminate bias, and the importance of great mentors. ...
Apr 28, 2021•49 min•Season 16Ep. 24
Michelle Zatlyn is the co-founder, president, and Chief Operating Officer of Cloudflare, an internet security, performance, and reliability company that is on a mission to help build a better internet. In this conversation with Stanford lecturer Ravi Belani, Zatlyn discusses the intense challenges involved in scaling a high-growth business, and offers insights about how to find optimism and build a great team amid those challenges.
Apr 21, 2021•50 min•Season 16Ep. 23
Othman Laraki is the co-founder and CEO of Color, a distributed healthcare and clinical testing company. From population genomics programs to high-throughput COVID-19 testing, Color provides the technology and infrastructure to power large-scale health initiatives. In this conversation with Stanford lecturer Toby Corey, Laraki discusses the genesis of Color, the immense challenges and opportunities in the healthcare sector, and Color’s race into COVID testing when the pandemic hit....
Apr 14, 2021•54 min•Season 16Ep. 22
In our first-ever ETL Research bonus episode, we look at one of the first empirical studies of lean startup. In a recent paper published in the Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal , researchers Michael Leatherbee and Riitta Katila find that lean startup’s emphasis on “customer discovery” — that is, directly testing business hypotheses with potential costumers during product development — does help teams converge on business ideas. They also find that MBAs are both hesitant to embrace the method a...
Mar 24, 2021•23 min•Season 16Ep. 21
Hemant Taneja is a managing director at General Catalyst, and has been an early investor in market-leading companies like Digit, Grammarly, Gusto, Livongo, Mindstrong, Samsara, Snap, and Stripe. His 2018 book Unscaled articulates the need for accountability, transparency, and explainability in AI technologies, and his 2020 book UnHealthcare proposes a new model for impactful healthcare innovation. He is also the author of the influential Harvard Business Review article “The Era of ‘Move Fast and...
Mar 17, 2021•47 min•Season 16Ep. 20
In January 2019, Aicha Evans was named CEO of autonomous vehicle startup Zoox, which was acquired by Amazon in 2020. Prior to joining Zoox, Evans served as Senior Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer at Intel, where she drove Intel’s transformation from a PC-centric company to a data-centric company. In this conversation with Stanford adjunct lecturer and former Zoox board member Heidi Roizen, Evans discusses building cutting-edge technology in a crowded market, dealing with skeptics, and l...
Mar 10, 2021•48 min•Season 16Ep. 19
While attending Harvard Business School, Katrina Lake saw an opportunity to combine data science with human stylists to reinvent the retail space. Lake founded Stitch Fix in 2011 to help women everywhere discover and explore their style through a truly client-focused shopping experience. In this conversation with Stanford lecturer Ravi Belani, Lake discusses experiencing and fighting bias, achieving massive and unexpected financial success, and leading with authenticity.
Mar 03, 2021•50 min•Season 16Ep. 18
David Rogier is the founder and CEO of MasterClass, a streaming platform that allows members to watch video lessons from top-performing professionals like Steph Curry, Margaret Atwood, Martin Scorsese, Sarah Blakely and Serena Williams. In this conversation with Stanford lecturer Ravi Belani, Rogier discusses why he created MasterClass; how he engaged the right investors, advisors, and talent; and how he dealt with hundreds of people telling him that his idea was impossible....
Feb 24, 2021•51 min•Season 16Ep. 17
Vlad Tenev is the CEO and co-founder of Robinhood, a fast-growing brokerage platform giving millions of people access to investment opportunities and financial tools. In this conversation with Stanford lecturer Ravi Belani, Tenev offers a behind-the-scenes view of high-stakes decisions related to the GameStop crisis, discusses the future of the financial services industry, and reflects on both past missteps and ongoing efforts to innovate at Robinhood and transform securities trading in the 21st...
Feb 17, 2021•49 min•Season 16Ep. 16
Stephanie Lampkin, a TEDx speaker and former downhill ski racer, is the founder and CEO of Blendoor, which creates enterprise software that leverages augmented intelligence and people analytics to mitigate unconscious bias in hiring. Her 15-year career in the tech industry has included founding two startups and working in technical roles at Lockheed, Microsoft, and TripAdvisor. In this conversation with Stanford lecturer Emily Ma, she discusses her experiences as a Black woman in tech, the impor...
Feb 10, 2021•45 min•Season 16Ep. 15
Tony Mugavero is the co-founder and CEO of Rad (formerly known as Littlstar), a consumer streaming platform delivering live and on-demand Esports, music, comedy and sports. A veteran of the content streaming space, Mugavero has witnessed virtual reality’s transformation from an over-hyped new technology into a growing, real-world consumer experience. In this conversation with Stanford lecturer Emily Ma, he discusses how to build a sustainable business in a cutting-edge niche, why relationships a...
Feb 03, 2021•49 min•Season 16Ep. 14
Alyssa Ravasio is the founder and CEO of Hipcamp, a platform for booking outdoor stays, from national parks to blueberry farms. Hipcamp partners with private landowners to unlock more ways for people to get outside, while also preserving land and ecosystems. In this conversation with Stanford lecturer Emily Ma, Ravasio discusses the early days of Hipcamp, analyzes several major pivots, and unpacks the values that drive the company.
Jan 27, 2021•50 min•Season 16Ep. 13
In this special micro-episode of ETL, Stanford lecturer Ravi Belani reflects on his key entrepreneurial takeaway from 2020. In a year that defied expectations, he notes that most companies start with good ideas but ultimately fail because founders spread their focus too thin. Belani shares clips from two 2020 ETL talks — one from PlayVS founder and CEO Delane Parnell and one from Zoom founder and CEO Eric Yuan. Both Parnell and Yuan, observes Belani, exemplify the laser focus that drives success...
Jan 06, 2021•6 min•Season 16Ep. 12
In this special micro-episode of ETL, Stanford lecturer Toby Corey reflects on his key entrepreneurial takeaway from 2020. Corey emphasizes that the entrepreneurial journey is a process, particularly when entrepreneurs are presented with extreme challenges or are solving big problems. He shares a clip from the ETL talk “ Reimagining Meat ,” featuring Beyond Meat founder and CEO Ethan Brown. Brown shares how his early experiences with animal agriculture, his concern about the connections between ...
Dec 23, 2020•5 min•Season 16Ep. 11
In this special micro-episode of ETL, Stanford associate professor Chuck Eesley reflects on his key entrepreneurial takeaway from 2020. In a year that defied expectations and presented entrepreneurs with unique challenges, Eesley stresses that entrepreneurs have a responsibility to create a more diverse and inclusive tech ecosystem. To drive the point home, he shares a clip from the ETL talk “ Entrepreneurship and Racial Justice ,” featuring OHUB executive director and CEO Rodney Sampson and RUN...
Dec 16, 2020•5 min•Season 16Ep. 10
In this special micro-episode of ETL, Stanford professor Tom Byers reflects on his key entrepreneurial takeaway from 2020. In a year that defied expectations, Byers underscores that more than ever, entrepreneurs have a responsibility to consider the implications and consequences of their technologies and ideas on society. He shares a clip from Floodgate founding partner Ann Miura-Ko’s 2020 ETL talk “ Disruption and Abundance ,” in which Miura-Ko emphasizes the importance of responsible tech....
Dec 09, 2020•6 min•Season 16Ep. 9
In this special micro-episode of ETL, Stanford professor of the practice Tina Seelig reflects on her key entrepreneurial takeaway from 2020. Seelig observes that, especially in times of great change and uncertainty, entrepreneurs can be empowered by the necessity to innovate. When it comes to COVID-19, the challenges of the pandemic also presented an opportunity to refine remote work. Seelig shares a clip from Digits co-founder Jeff Seibert’s 2020 ETL talk “ Making Remote Work Better ,” in which...
Dec 03, 2020•7 min•Season 16Ep. 8
In December 2018, Sarah Friar was named CEO of Nextdoor, the world’s largest private social network for neighborhoods. Prior to leading Nextdoor, she was CFO of Square and SVP of Finance & Strategy at Salesforce. She serves on the boards of Walmart and Slack, and is the co-founder of Ladies Who Launch, a nonprofit that celebrates and empowers women entrepreneurs. In this conversation with Stanford professor Tom Byers, she discusses what attracted her to Nextdoor, and explores how she aims to...
Nov 18, 2020•46 min•Season 16Ep. 8
Ravi Mhatre is a founding partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners and focuses primarily on software/cloud infrastructure, applications and internet investments. Before starting Lightspeed, Mhatre was an investor with Bessemer Venture Partners and before entering the venture capital industry, he was with Silicon Graphics, where he was a product manager and later directed the company’s workstation market development efforts. In this conversation with Stanford lecturer Ravi Belani, he explores what ...
Nov 11, 2020•42 min•Season 16Ep. 7
Jessica Norwood is the founder of RUNWAY, an organization that uses entrepreneurship to close the wealth gap in Black communities by providing pre-seed and friends-and-family capital to fund Black-owned companies. Rodney Sampson is the CEO and executive chairman of Opportunity Hub (OHUB), a multi-campus entrepreneurship center and tech hub that empowers underestimated and under-tapped communities. In this conversation moderated by Stanford associate professor Chuck Eesley, Norwood and Sampson di...
Nov 04, 2020•49 min•Season 16Ep. 6
After growing and leading the team that developed WebEx, Eric Yuan left his role as Corporate Vice President of Engineering at Cisco in 2011 to found Zoom Video Communications. Santiago Subotovsky, a general partner at Emergence Capital, led his firm’s investment in Zoom. In this conversation with Stanford lecturer Ravi Belani, they discuss what drove Zoom and how they built the confidence to launch this new company into an already crowded video conferencing market.
Oct 28, 2020•48 min•Season 16Ep. 5
