Stanford Lunch with President John Hennessy Shangrila Singapore 30 Jan 2010, originally uploaded by yinglantan.With Nick Yang (President of Kongzhong), President John Hennessy, Dean James Plummer, Edmund, Managing Partner, Axiom Capital, Beh Swan Gin, MD, EDB, Forrest Li, CEO of Garena
Some many pearls of insights from President John Hennessy (I wished I brought along a tape recorder)-
"Stanford's secret sauce is entrepreneurial faculty, angels, VCs, infrastructure, lawyers who back startup without revenues, bankers and most importantly, management executives. Andy von Bechtolsheim wrote the check for Google.
Role models - When entrepreneurs in the valley see success, they think "I want to be like him. I CAN be like him."
Backing Top VCs - "50% of KPCB are backed by insiders, followed by Harvard, Stanford, Yale e.t.c, how much is left for others? The distinguishing factor for Stanford's endowment is its venture portfolio. However, If you are not backing top-quartile funds, you will not get the returns."
Internet startups follow a bimodel distribution with big successes at one end of spectrum.
I gave President Hennessy a copy of my book and signed off a personal note to him.
