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Jude Shao Released from Chinese Prison
Jude Shao, MBA ’93, was paroled from a Chinese prison in early July after serving 10 years of a 16-year sentence for alleged tax evasion and fraud. A naturalized U.S. citizen, Shao will spend his probationary time in Shanghai.
Classmates who had been working to free Shao for the past seven years had used part of their 15th reunion just weeks before Shao’s release once again to draw attention to his incarceration. A briefing for the class as well as the news media was organized by Cyn Dai, Chuck Hoover, Caroline Pappajohn (pictured), Lang Anh Pham, and Mark Williams and drew attention of print and broadcast media, including the Asian Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, San Jose Mercury News, and UPI. The group maintains a website called freejudeshao.com.
“Under China’s legal system, Shao had been eligible for parole since 2006. But [on July 2]—a day after U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice concluded a visit to Beijing during which human rights were discussed—Shao walked out of Qingpu Prison,” reported the Los Angeles Times.
Mining for Green Tech
In an effort to speed clean-energy technology to the marketplace, the U.S. Department of Energy recently opened its research labs to venture capital firms. Each selected firm has an exclusive right for a year with a single D.O.E. lab to license the lab technology that interests them. Michael Bauer, MBA ’98, is Foundation Capital’s entrepreneur in residence for a year at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
Lab employees who invent these technologies may be more scientists than entrepreneurs, Bauer told GreenTech Media. “For those technologies where the inventor wants to stay in the lab and continue to be a scientist, we would find some other technologist to support the technology within the startup,” he said.
Bawdy Shots Stimulate Investing
If you’re trying to persuade a man to take a financial risk, showing him an erotic photograph might help. In a study using magnetic resonance imaging, researchers found that erotic pictures increase blood flow to the same area of the brain as financial risk-taking, and men who view those photos are more willing to bet high on a random chance game.
If you are pitching a woman, will the same strategy work?
It’s unclear, Camelia Kuhnen, PHD ’06, told the Chicago Tribune. She and Stanford psychologist Brian Knutson used 15 young, heterosexual Stanford men in their study. They didn’t test the theory on women, she said, because it was too difficult to find an erotic image that appealed to many different heterosexual women.
Recruiter to Presidents
Being a headhunter for the country’s top firms is old hat for executive recruiter Joie Gregor, Sloan ’83. Things even got political when Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai sought her advice on activating private-sector growth in 2006, said the Pajhwok Afghan News.
Last September the U.S. commander in chief asked her to be his assistant for presidential personnel, a job that taps her extensive recruiting skills, this time for White House staff. Before starting at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Gregor was vice chairman at Chicago-based executive search firm Heidrick and Struggles.
Raising the Ante
Dr Woody Myers, MBA ’82, the first African American to hold the post of Indiana State Health Commissioner, triggered the federal “Millionaire’s Amendment” by using personal funds to help finance his U.S. congressional campaign in the Hoosier state. This allowed his Democratic opponents to receive triple the usual donation limit, according to House Race Hotline. Although not victorious in May, the former New York City Health Commissioner and UCSF School of Medicine professor told the Associated Press, “I have really no regrets at all, other than the fact that we came in second instead of first.”
Plan for Silver Linings
In turbulent economic times, many companies cut costs. These austerity measures “have been responsible for the relatively shallow recessions of the past few years,” wrote Asaf Farashuddin, MBA ’94, in Strategy+Business. “However, a mere recovery from crisis is not enough to deliver sustainable success,” said the vice president of corporate strategy for Visteon Corp. Restructuring plans should consider the upturn as well as the current crisis.
Newsmakers
Who's in the News: A Round-up of Media Mentions
GSB Team Celebrates Hoopsters’ Glory
What’s the greatest comeback by this year’s Boston Celtics, who won their first championship in 22 years with a victory against the Los Angeles Lakers in game six of the National Basketball Association finals? According to CNN Money, it wasn’t the play on the court as much as in the front office where a team of investors led by Wycliffe Grousbeck, MBA ’92, and his father, H. Irving Grousbeck, a professor and director of the School’s Center for Entrepeneurial Studies, kept fans in the seats through five losing seasons until they were able to bring about this year’s return to glory. Celebrating with the Grousbecks were three other Celtics owners who are GSB alumni: Joseph Lacob, MBA ’83; Stephen Luczo, MBA ’84; and Mark Wan, MBA ’92.
Asked to explain the victory, Irv Grousbeck told the Associated Press, “I don’t want to make it seem like this was our master plan, but our strategy was to build assets and remain opportunistic—be looking for what you can do and build, build, build. If you do nothing else over time, you’ll build a good team.”
Meanwhile, the Houston Rockets were helped to a 22-game winning streak, the second-longest streak in NBA history by number cruncher Sam Hinkie, MBA ’05. His data analysis and keen observation skills place him somewhere between analyst and scout, according to The Oklahoman. At ease poring over a spreadsheet or examining a layup, he combines those findings to recommend team recruits. “What we try to do is draw a clearer picture,” Hinkie said, likening his analyses to one piece of the puzzle in putting together a winning team.
Run from the Joneses
How does Jason Feinsmith, MBA ’00, keep his monthly Silicon Valley mortgage and housing costs under $1,000 a month? Twelve years ago he and his wife, Elana, watched friends struggling to get into million-dollar homes. This wasn’t for them, so the couple decided to buy a manufactured house in a Sunnyvale mobile home park. They still call it home and have since paid off the mortgage, leaving them with a reasonable monthly space rental fee.
Because of his low, affordable housing costs, Feinsmith told Bankrate.com, his wife is able to stay at home with their two children, he can sock away more in his retirement account, and there is enough money to start his own software venture. They considered moving into a traditional house but the $800,000 price tag for a fixer-upper meant Elana would have to return to work.
On the Road Again
You may remember a feature story in the November 2006 issue of Stanford Business on Bill Browder, MBA ’89, the founder of the highly successful Russian investment firm Hermitage Capital. Declared by Russian officials to be a threat to national security and public order, many suspect because of his public criticism of Russian corporate governance and regulation, Browder was denied re-entry into Russia in 2005, which left him running the business from London.
Now, according to the New York Times, he is setting his sights on an investment fund concentrating on the Middle East, including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates.
Boring Brings Bucks
Being boring paid off for Donald Ellenberger, MBA ’86, (at left) and his Federated U.S. Government Securities fund. While the credit crunch routed equities and nongovernment fixed-income securities last winter, his fund’s conservative Treasury holdings weathered the storm, with a 1-year return of 11 percent, according to Barron’s. The fund won the 2008 Lipper Fund Award for three-year adjusted risk, and Morningstar gives it five stars, its highest ranking.
Ellenberger started with the Pittsburgh-based company in 2005 and extends his cautious investment attitude to his personal life, preferring to spend time with family over mountain-climbing or sky-diving. “I’m a bond guy,” he says. “We don’t do risk.”
Scalpel, Suture, Joystick
Steady-handed surgeons know a tiny slip of the knife could spell big trouble. Dr. Frederic 
Moll, Sloan ’88, (at right) left his surgical residency in the mid-’80s to explore improving surgical tools. That search brought him to Silicon Valley, where he started several medical equipment businesses.
Moll’s employer in 1994 thought surgical robots were too risky. So Moll started, and later sold the firm, Intuitive Surgical, whose da Vinci robot is able to handle surgical tools and sewing needles. His current company, Hansen Medical, developed a robot that can send a catheter deep into the heart, which could become the go-to tool for treating a host of circulatory problems.
Surgical robots guarantee steady, controlled movements and can withstand radiation. “The public has no idea of the extent of difference between top surgeons and bad ones,” Moll told the New York Times. He hopes his products will close that gap, making surgeries safer and more accurate.
Drug Studied for Alcohol Intolerance
An estimated 40 to 50 percent of East Asians have ethanol intolerance, an inherited metabolic disorder that gives them unpleasant symptoms—from facial flushing to nausea—when they drink alcohol. Regular drinkers can also face more serious long-term risks, including digestive tract cancers.
Now Raptor Pharmaceuticals has started clinical trials of a treatment for the disorder, overseen by Ted Daley, MBA ’92. Daley studied food science before getting his MBA, and he founded a pharmaceutical company called Convivia to work on the treatment, which he sold to Raptor.
“I knew people who were affected by this disorder, who felt very sick if they would drink alcohol,” Daley told the Marin Independent Journal. “It always struck me as odd that there wasn’t a way to address it.”