This post previously appeared in Poets and Quants. We just finished the 14th annual Lean LaunchPad class at Stanford. The class had gotten so popular that in 2021 we started teaching it in both the winter and spring sessions. During the quarter the eight teams spoke to 919 potential customers, beneficiaries and regulators. Most students spent 15-20...

We just finished our 9th annual Hacking for Defense class at Stanford. What a year. Hacking for Defense, now in 60 universities, has teams of students working to understand and help solve national security problems. At Stanford this quarter the 8 teams of 40 students collectively interviewed 968 beneficiaries, stakeholders, requirements writers, program...

Join us for the final presentations of our two Stanford classes this Tuesday June 4th and Wednesday June 5th. Tuesday = Hacking for Defense Wednesday = Lean Launchpad The presentations just get better every year.  Attend in person or via Zoom. This year AI seems to be part of almost every team. Zoom link and RSVP for Hacking for Defense here...

Gordon Bell passed on this month. I was a latecomer in Gordon Bell’s life.  But he made a lasting impact on mine. The first time I laid eyes on Gordon Bell was in 1984 outside a restaurant in a Boston suburb when he pulled up in a Porsche. I was the head of Marketing for MIPS Computer, a RISC chip startup. The entire company (all of five of us)...

Ilya Strebulaev at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and Director of the Stanford Venture Capital Initiative just came out with a book that should be on your reading list – The Venture Mindset. The books premise is that Venture Capitalists (who were responsible for the launch of one-fifth of the 300 largest U.S. public companies) have a different...

This part 2 of the Secret History of Polaroid and Edwin Land. Read part 1 for context. Kodak and Polaroid, the two most famous camera companies of the 20th century, had a great partnership for 20+ years. Then in an inexplicable turnabout Kodak decided to destroy Polaroid’s business. To this day, every story of why Kodak went to war with Polaroid is...