Spreadsheet One

Getting In Tune with Human Potential

Illustration by Elwood H. Smith

LEGENDARY JAZZ GREAT Herbie Hancock brought in one of his typical standing-room-only crowds to the Business School in November. This time, though, he wasn't performing. He was speaking at the invitation of the 1997-98 Public Management Initiative on Technology and Social Change, a year-long examination of the ways people use technology to change society, for better or worse.
      A Grammy- and Oscar- winning artist, Hancock has been a leader in bringing technology to the music industry. As he has helped shape virtu-ally every new phase of jazz since the early 1960s, he also has involved himself as a catalyst for social change, advocating the harnessing and sharing of technologies to improve human potential, particularly in underserved communities. Hancock founded the Rhythm of Life Organization in 1996 to reduce the gap between technology haves and have-nots by supporting grassroots technology transfer and training. Stanford MBA students are doing pro bono planning, research, and consulting for Hancock's community education and enterprise effort in San Francisco.
      Hancock was introduced by Associate Dean Robert Flanagan, a longtime purveyor of the big band sound in his role as sax player with the Stanford and Silicon Valley group Tuesday Night Live.

Photograph by Steve Castillo

Bill Gates' View from the Top
"THE ROAD TO STARDOM in high technology is littered with the bones of firms that missed the next great step or succumbed to bad management, Bill Gates said during his January visit to the School. Companies that don't keep their goals in sight or understand changing demands can disappear overnight, said Gates, adding: "Part of what makes things fun is to come to work every day knowing that we can destroy the company."
      "What's it like going to work every day knowing that the Justice Department is trying to destroy your business?" asked a student. "A privilege of success in this country is government scrutiny," countered the chairman and CEO of Microsoft Corp. "We have a very sexy industry. The Justice Department enjoys learning about these things."
      Decked out in a Stanford GSB sweatshirt, a gift from his student hosts, Gates visited at the invitation of the School's View from the Top student committee and Public Management Initiative. Asked what principles he applies to philanthropy, Gates, believed to be one of the world's richest men, said he has given away over $500 million to date. One foundation Gates supports is dedicated to equipping every library in the United States with a computer and an Internet connection.
      "Assuming that my stock in Microsoft is still worth something in a few years, there'll be quite a bit of money to give away to good causes. I'm not going to pass it on to my children. It's there for society. I'm just a steward."

Illustration by Elwood H. Smith

So That's How They Do It!
BACK IN 1993, this magazine reported on the 10-year-out survey of the MBA Class of 1982 and found that the women of '82 who worked full time were earning only 73 percent of their male classmates' income. Now comes a new 15-year survey and we learn they're making only 72 percent. So what's the good news?
      Says Julie Kaufman, MBA '82, whose firm, Kaufman Associates, conducted both surveys, "The big surprise was that the few women who are working full time and are not self-employed are earning almost as much as their male counterparts--97 percent, up from 73 percent in 1992."
      As for the self-employed, it turns out that men who work for themselves are making a higher median income than the other men, while self-employed women are making less than the other women. "My hypo-thesis is that women have chosen to become self-employed for lifestyle reasons and have compromised their work hours, travel, etc.," Kaufman speculates. "Therefore, they make less." Indeed, women in the class average 45 hours' work a week to men's 55, and spend only half of the men's average five nights a month away from home. "The men who've be-come self-employed," suggests Kaufman, "may have done so because they've been successful enough in business to go off on their own and do even better."
      There may be yet another reason for the men's success. According to the survey, the typical member of the Class of 1982 is a male in his early forties who lives in California, works in investment banking or electronics, enjoys a net worth of between $2 million and $10 million--and is married to a nonworking wife who stays home to take care of their two kids.

Emerging Markets Conference in May
THERE'S STILL TIME to sign up for the Emerging Markets Conference, cosponsored by the Business School and the Global Management Program May 8 and 9. The GSB will host between 250 and 300 participants from the business community for dinner, key-note speeches, and a choice of workshops on topics such as trade, finance, high technology, corruption, intellectual prop-erty, market entry strategy, human resources, and supply chain management in the emerging economies of Asia, Eastern Europe, Latin Amer-ica, the Middle East, and the former Soviet Union. For more information call Heidi Hillis or Cheryl Rathan at 650- 723-7529.