Leib, Lombardi, and Lui are among nine members of the Class of '99 profiled in a USA Today piece describing how the School has become an incubator for new business ideas. "Venture capitalists are typically crawling all over the Stanford Business School," wrote reporter Kevin Maney. "It's good policy: They get an early look at potential startups they could fund. For students, it generates more of that interaction."

New Girls in Town
THE GLASS CEILING is only beginning to crack in England, reports the magazine Management Today. At present, only 3.2 percent of all non-executive directors of British companies are women. Yet the magazine managed to compile an impressive list of 50 women who, in their estimation, move Britain. The list includes Lorna Parker, MBA '85, a managing director for Spencer Stuart, England's premier headhunting firm.

CEOs to Go
IN A WORLD WHERE IDEAS move at breakneck speed, Silicon Valley companies face a big risk if they spend months searching for a CEO. Enter the new firm iCEO, founded by Ken Coleman, MBA '89, and David Powell to match interim leaders with firms that suddenly find themselves without a CEO.

Coleman told the San Francisco Chronicle that the idea of stepping in temporarily appeals to many business leaders from 45 to 65 who are considering retiring from their current posts but want to keep involved without a long-term commitment. The arrangement offers the CEO a mix of cash and equity. Coleman expects to have 50 interim executives on board within the next two years.

Music in the Air, Everywhere
DUBBED THE General Motors of toddler music classes by the Wall Street Journal, the North Carolina-based Kindermusik operates in all 50 states and is the oldest and largest firm in its industry.

In its programs for youngsters of varying ages, children sing and read and use picture books, compact discs, and similar materials. "We use music as a vehicle to promote social, emotional, cognitive, and physical learning," says CEO Michael Dougherty, MBA '88.

Protecting the Nation's Highest Honor
THE CONGRESSIONAL MEDAL of Honor has been awarded 3,410 times in U.S. history, but today there are only 157 living recipients. A concerted effort has been under way since 1995 to expose frauds who falsely claim to hold the nation's highest award for bravery. One of the leaders in the effort is Paul Bucha, MBA '67, president of the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, who, in 1968, received the medal for his actions as a young Army captain leading an infantry company in Vietnam.

Theorizing on why people pretend to honors they have not earned, Bucha told the San Francisco Chronicle: "We rationalize behavior that is totally unacceptable, all for the purpose of winning. Why do we use connections to get into colleges we normally couldn't get into? Why do we use human growth hormones in the Olympics? Second place is not good enough. We've placed such tremendous value on the cosmetics. Winning has become everything. That is the society in which a fake or a fraud presents himself."

Women Have More to Give
IN 1959, THERE WERE ONLY five philanthropic funds in which money was raised and given out by women, often to causes that benefited women, reports Time. Today there are 95, and 51 percent of all charitable foundations are run by women. In general, charitable gifts from women appear to be getting bigger, the magazine reports, spurred by greater earning power. Women now own a third of all privately held businesses and employ more people than the Fortune 500 companies combined.

One person the magazine cited is Catherine Muther, MBA '78, who earned an impressive portfolio of stock options as an executive at 3Com and Cisco Systems. In 1994, said Time, "she pulled $5 million from her purse to create a fund that supports everything from female entrepreneurs to girl athletes."

Ask Me Anything
"I BELIEVE THAT ECONOMISTS must learn to communicate their ideas to a wider audience, one that goes way beyond the academic community," economics professor Paul Romer told the Singapore Business Times.

Romer was in the island nation teaching in the Business School's executive education program offered jointly with the National University of Singapore. "I would rather business publications concentrate on conveying economic ideas," said Romer. "That's why I occasionally sit down with journalists working on complicated business stories to help them with the economic details. They don't quote me. I'm there more to provide the background, the context."

Can Do!
ENTREPENEURS ARE NOT the daredevil Evel Knievels of the business world, says Fortune. They are people who see risk differently and don't shy from it. Business School lecturer Joel Hyatt told the magazine that critics often don't appreciate the optimism and dreams that entrepreneurs possess.

"Bill McGowan [the founder of MCI] spent 10 years working to end AT&T's monopoly on long-distance service. People would say to him, "Ten years! How could you do that?" He would respond, "Do you mean you think I was stupid? I never thought it would take that long. I thought I could do it tomorrow."

Fine-Tuning Retirement Portfolios
HE INVENTED the capital asset pricing model, which showed investors how to value securities. So it shouldn't surprise many that Fortune has picked the 3-year-old financial management company founded by Emeritus Professor William Sharpe as one of the hottest tech companies of 1999.

The firm, Financial Engines, sells a program that helps individuals manage their 401(k) or other personal retirement funds. Enter information such as current income, risk tolerance, and desired retirement age into the program and it creates a rough prognosis and makes suggestions for changes. The Palo Alto company (www. financialengines.com) is run by CEO Jeff Maggioncalda, MBA '96.

Everybody's Doing It
As if there weren't enough madness about Internet start-ups, venture capitalist Geoff Yang, MBA '85, says that right now being young and inexperienced isn't necessarily a detriment to getting funding. "Everyone graduating from Stanford wants to start an Internet company. In five years they will be much less fundable," he warns.

Patricia Nakache, MBA '91, reporting in Fortune, says that today's Internet startup frenzy is like a land grab, "where potentially fertile plots — groceries, gifts, drugs, and such — go not to the person with the best credentials, but to the one who gets there first.

Among the participants in this new land rush are John Kremer, MBA '94, and classmate Mark Benning, who are starting Advoco.com, an electronic marketplace for professional services. Part of a cyber family, Kremer's wife, brother-in-law, sister, and brother are also involved in Internet startups.

"Everyone is one step removed from someone who is being very successful with an Internet business," says VC partner Steve Jurvetson, MBA '95. People like Allyson Campa, MBA '91, watched the success of others and said, "I can do that." In Campa's case, seeing a friend having fun with an Internet launch led her to the idea of corporate gift center BravoGifts.com .

For today at least, experience isn't the key component of getting funding, says venture capital veteran, Bruce Dunlevie, MBA '84. "You can't find a lot of people who are Internet experts. Instead, you look for people who have leadership and smarts and can shift strategy in real time."

Tuscany in Napa
To say that Garen and Shari Staglin's Napa Valley home is a showplace is to understate the obvious. Town & Country describes the house as resembling a small Tuscan village, with rooms that flow into outdoor terraces overlooking vineyards.

The house, which can accommodate 200 for dinner, also serves as the business center for the Staglin winery, whose wines have risen "to cult status among small-production wineries," says the magazine. Staglin's 1996 cabernet tied for first place out of 132 premium California cabernets in a tasting by London's Decanter magazine. Staglin, MBA '68, and his family moved to the Napa Valley 15 years ago. Much of their entertaining benefits health, education, and arts organizations, the magazine reported.