Sunday Message: Stanford Seed Podcast

This week, I had the pleasure of attending the annual BBSA conference, focused on Black leadership. It was a tremendous success — inspiring, educational, and uplifting. Like many of our virtual events this year, it brought together hundreds of participants from Stanford GSB and across the country and the world. I had the opportunity to open for the rapper Nas, leaving my children impressed — albeit skeptical that Nas would ever open for me.

I am reminded of how our students have responded to national events in the last year, by demonstrating leadership and constructive action. That energy and drive, combined with the skills we teach at Stanford GSB, are a powerful combination. As we watch the Derek Chauvin trial unfold, and continue to witness shocking violence in a number of cities, the need for compassion and empathy is high. It is motivating to see the Stanford GSB community working toward positive change.

School Updates

• Big Tech Regulation. With the rising sentiment toward regulating technology companies, many of us have been following the antitrust battles between Google and the European Union. Mike Ostrovsky has new research on one of the EU’s big moves to generate more mobile search engine competition, showing why it has had minimal impact. Mike uses market design economics to show that a small change in the mobile marketplace rules might lead to a very different competitive dynamic — great to see market design being used to promote tech competition.
• Stanford Seed. This week, Stanford Seed is launching a podcast, Grit and Growth, to tell the stories of some of the amazing entrepreneurs who have been through the Seed Transformation program in Africa and South Asia. Darius Teter, Executive Director of Seed, will host, with entrepreneurs, faculty and other expert guests. The upcoming Stanford Business magazine also has a wonderful article about Seed, and an interview with Darius.
• Building Momentum Conference. On Wednesday, the Center for Entrepreneurial Studies is running the third Building Momentum conference, focused on educating and encouraging founders from under-represented backgrounds and groups. I look forward to seeing many of you there.
• Doriot Award. Finally, congratulations to Ilya Strebulaev as the winner of the inaugural Doriot Prize for private equity research. Ilya is being recognized for his work on venture capital decision-making, which should be well-known to students of FIN 385.

It feels great to write that everyone at Stanford GSB is now vaccine-eligible. If you haven’t had time to book your shot yet, just do it!