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Thanks Dad
Here's info on the dad, Irv Grousbeck. He's in two
Fortune.com articles, one entitled "Heroes of Small
Business" the other "The Top Ten Minds in Small
Business".
http://www.fortune.com/indext.jhtml?
channel=print_article.jhtml&doc_id=00000270
Irv Grousbeck PROFESSOR
Without Stanford University, would there be a Silicon
Valley? That may sound extreme, but it starts to make
sense when you consider the long list of famous companies
that got their start on its campus: Hewlett-Packard, Sun
Microsystems, Silicon Graphics, Cisco Systems, Yahoo.
Stanford feeds the new economy a steady stream of
engineers, lawyers, bankers, and moguls-in-training. At
the heart of the academic machine is H. Irving Grousbeck,
co-director of Stanford's Center for Entrepreneurial
Studies.
Grousbeck teaches one of the most popular courses at the
business school, Seminar in Selected Entrepreneurial
Issues. Second-year graduate students vie to snag one of
the coveted 66 seats. Grousbeck gets the stars of Silicon
Valley to come to class to participate in his case
studies of their companies. A lecture on Intel? Chairman
Andy Grove is likely to be sitting in the front row,
answering questions. A lesson in venture capital? John
Doerr will be there.
Students say Grousbeck pushes them to think through
startup glitches. He teaches from experience. After
getting an MBA at Harvard in 1960, he co-founded
Continental Cablevision in 1964 with $650,000 in
financing. It grew to become the third-largest cable
company in the U.S. But Grousbeck left the world of
management early. After teaching at Harvard, he accepted
a one-year gig to teach at Stanford in 1985. Smitten with
the high-tech hothouse, he stayed. Grousbeck, 66, says he
doesn't make entrepreneurs, and he takes no credit for
his students' successes. "I try to demystify the
process," he says.
****
http://www.fortune.com/indexw.jhtml?
channel=artcol.jhtml&doc_id=205714
In 1964, Irv Grousbeck and partner Amos Hostetter each
pooled $3,500 to start a small cable TV company. When
Grousbeck stepped down as president in 1980, Continental
Cablevision had become one of the biggest cable companies
in the nation. Ever since, Grousbeck has been sharing his
expertise with budding entrepreneurs. This professor at
the Stanford Graduate School of Business isn't out to
sell how-to books or pound the lecture circuit; to him,
it's the students that matter. And to them, he is
godlike. Nearly all Stanford MBA students try to get into
Grousbeck's two entrepreneurship classes.
Grousbeck's goal is to demystify entrepreneurship for his
students. When an MBA leaves school $80,000 in debt,
corporate-consulting or banking jobs might seem safe, but
Grousbeck asks his students to compare the risks of
entrepreneurship with the slim chance that they'll ever
become partners at a large firm.
The professor also stresses that "startup" doesn't
necessarily mean "start from scratch." In the 1980s he
was at the center of a new model for launching a business
known as the "search fund." Here's how it works: A
prospective entrepreneur will raise, say, $300,000 to
$400,000 in $20,000 units from investors. For their
money, they get equity in the company at a stepped-up
value, plus a right of first refusal to invest more. The
entrepreneur uses the funds for salary, research and
acquisition expenses. To mitigate the risk associated
with the entrepreneur's lack of experience, ideas, and
money, the investors insist that a chosen company
be "unbreakable," that is, profitable, stable and largely
free from technological, industrial or regulatory risk.
They also have a say in establishing an experienced board
of directors. A 2001 Stanford study of 28 search funds
shows an investor return rate averaging 36% per year.
***
also: "you've got to have attitude" by Irv Grousbeck
http://www-
gsb.stanford.edu/community/bmag/sbsm0397/attitude.html
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