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February 24, 2007
How Stanford Does It
While traditional tech entrepreneurship boosters over-fixate on how the Valley does it, folks (like me) interested in getting good early-stage science out of labs sometimes over-fixate on how Stanford University does it. Is it culture? Permissiveness? Local capital? Role models? Kathy Ku? Luck? Other?That is one of the subjects of a panel in which I'm participating today up in San Jose, but it's also the indirect subject of a front-page profile of Stanford President John Hennessy in the weekend Wall Street Journal. While this will come as no surprise to anyone who knows Hennessee's connections and entrepreneurial pedigree, the WSJ walks people through how a "lowly" university president earned $43-million over the last five years, considerably more than the annualized equivalent of his $616,000 annual salary.
Mr. Hennessy, 54 years old, represents a new model for the American college presidency, once the province of tweedy scholars. Stanford has long been intellectually and financially intertwined with Silicon Valley -- companies such as Google, Hewlett-Packard Co. and Sun Microsystems Inc. owe much to the school -- but none of its previous leaders have had such close and lucrative ties to the tech world.To be clear, I have no problem with this. While it creates major obligations for disclosure and transparency, swimming in the entrepreneurial ecosystem is one of the major things that makes Stanford so different. Instead of fretting about possible conflicts, a few more top-drawer universities could usefully mull how they could get some senior officers a little more "conflicted".
In addition to sitting on the boards of Google, Cisco and Atheros, Mr. Hennessy has invested in elite venture-capital funds, partnerships that back high-tech start-ups. The venture firms include Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Sequoia Capital and Foundation Capital. He has advised and found backers for a number of college-based companies.
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You are so right, Paul. After reading this story, I was left thinking, "so what's the point?"
The point, exactly, is we need MORE John Hennessys! I'm so sick of hearing about how much promising technology is languisihing on university shelves. If you're in this game, try some way, any way, to be like John.
Sure, Stanford has the advantages of "culture" and "local capital," but leadership makes a difference, too. University presidents and their lieutenants should take a lesson.