Business Association of Stanford Engineering Students

Feeling Entrepreneurial?

Stanford University's Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders Seminar is a weekly speaker series that brings innovation leaders from business, finance, technology, education, and philanthropy, to share their insights with aspiring entrepreneurs from all over the world.

Fall 2009 Speaker Lineup

Sept 23 Hewlett 200	Robin Li ~ Co-Founder, Chairman and CEO, Baidu Inc Robin Li has served as the chairman of Baidu since their inception in January 2000 and as the chief executive officer since January 2004. Prior to founding Baidu, Robin Li had accumulated extensive knowledge and practical application experience in search engine technology. Mr Li worked as a staff engineer for Infoseek, a pioneer in the Internet search engine industry, from July 1997 to December 1999 and he was a senior consultant for IDD Information Services from May 1994 to June 1997
September 30 Skilling Auditorium	Eric Ries ~ Author, Startup Lessons Learned Eric Ries became a Venture Advisor at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, after co-founding and serving as Chief Technology Officer of IMVU. He is the co-author of several books including The Black Art of Java Game Programming (Waite Group Press, 1996). While an undergraduate at Yale Unviersity, he co-founded Catalyst Recruiting. Although Catalyst folded with the dot-com crash, Ries continued his entrepreneurial career as a Senior Software Engineer at There.com, leading efforts in agile software development and user-generated content. In 2007, BusinessWeek named Ries one of the Best Young Entrepreneurs of Tech.
October 07 Skilling Auditorium	Steve Jurvetson ~ Managing Director, Draper Fisher Jurvetson Steve Jurvetson is a Managing Director of Draper Fisher Jurvetson, a leading venture capital firm with affiliate offices around the world. He was the founding VC investor in Hotmail (MSFT), Interwoven (IWOV), and Kana (KANA). He also led the firm's investments in Tradex and Cyras, acquired for $8 billion. Current Board positions include Synthetic Genomics, SpaceX, NeoPhotonics, Tesla Motors, and Wowd.
October 14 Skilling Auditorium	Greg Papadopoulous ~ CTO, Sun Microsystems As Chief Technology Officer and Executive Vice President of Research and Development at Sun, Greg Papadopoulos directs the company's approximate $2B in R&D portfolio with an eye toward innovation, simplicity, and eco-responsibility. With more than 20 years experience in the technology industry, Papadopoulos is responsible for managing Sun's technology decisions and architecture. His team leads Sun Labs, the DARPA High Performance Computing Systems program, global engineering architecture and advanced development programs.
October 21 Skilling Auditorium	Craig Barrett ~ Retired CEO/COB, Intel Craig R. Barrett was Chairman of the Board of Intel Corporation from May, 2005-May, 2009. He became Intel’s fourth President in May of 1997 and Chief Executive Officer in 1998. He was elected to Intel’s Board of Directors in 1992 and served as Chief Operating Officer from 1993 to 1997. Barrett began his tenure at Intel as a Technology Development manager in 1974. Prior to joining Intel, Dr. Barrett was an Associate Professor at Stanford University in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering.
October 28 Skilling Auditorium Join us for a Mixer hosted by Zynga after the event	Mark Pincus ~ Founder, Zynga and Bing Gordon ~ Partner, KPCB Mark Pincus is the frenetic visionary of Zynga. His DNA is one strand entrepreneur and one strand competitive gamer. Mark founded Tribe.net (www.tribe.net), one of the first social networks in 2003. Prior to Tribe, he was the founder and CEO of SupportSoft (Nasdaq: SPRT), the world's leading provider of support automation software. Prior to SupportSoft, Mark co-founded Freeloader, the first consumer push information service. Bing Gordon served as Chief Creative Officer of Electronic Arts from 1998 to 2008, after heading EA marketing and product development off and on since EA's founding. He joined EA in 1982 and helped write the founding business plan that attracted KPCB as an initial investor. Bing has driven EA's branding strategy with EA Sports, EA's pricing strategy for package goods and online games, and has contributed design and marketing on many EA franchises including John Madden Football, The Sims, Sim City, Need for Speed, Tiger Woods Golf, Club Pogo and Command and Conquer.
November 04 Memorial Auditorium This event will be free to Stanford affiliates. The general public may purchase tickets online for $15 before Nov 1st, or after for $20.	Quincy Jones III ~ QDIII Entertainment and Chamillionaire ~ Hip-hop Artist Quincy Jones III is a bona-fide hit maker in hip-hop, R&B and pop. In addition to his many hits for artists such as Tupac Shakur, Ice Cube, and LL Cool J, he has remixed singles for artists such as Prince, Ronald Isley, Queen Latifah, Coolio, Naughty by Nature, Everlast (Erik Schrody), and Morcheeba, among others. For this work, QDIII was nominated for a Source magazine award for Producer of the Year, along with Dr.Dre and others. Chamillionaire founded the Chamilitary label and began grooming the careers of brother Rasaq and 50/50 Twin. His hit single, "Ridin'," off The Sound of Revenge, reached the top of the Billboard singles chart and was later nominated for a pair of Grammy Awards. The follow-up to Revenge, titled Ultimate Victory, was released in September 2007.
November 11 Skilling Auditorium	Steve Blank ~ Stanford Professor, Serial Entrepreneur Steve Blank is a retired serial entrepreneur with over 28 years of experience in high technology companies. He has been a founder or participant in eight Silicon Valley startups since 1978. They include E.piphany, two semiconductor companies (Zilog and MIPS Computers), a workstation company, a supercomputer firm, a computer peripheral supplier, a military intelligence systems supplier (ESL) and a video game company.
November 18 Skilling Auditorium	A special presentation of the Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders Lecture Series ~ Global Innovation Tournament Showcase Prepare to be amazed. Watch an entertaining showcase of the Global Innovation Tournament, in which students had eight days to "Make Saving Money Fun!" Their goal was to create value and have impact, presenting their results in short YouTube videos. We will announce winners of the local Stanford tournament and show the videos. The audience will pick some winners, so bring as many friends as possible! This event is free and open to the public. The Global Innovation Tournament is organized by the Stanford Technology Ventures Program and generously sponsored by Intuit Inc. This event is hosted by the organizers of the Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders Lecture Series: Stanford Technology Ventures Program (STVP) and Business Association of Entrepreneurial Students (BASES)