Stanford's Entrepreneurship Corner: Jim Breyer, Accel Partners - Chris Larsen, Prosper Marketplace

The Emotional Roller Coaster

Description

Chris Larsen, a veteran entrepreneur, CEO and co-founder of Prosper.com shares the ups and downs he faced during the first year and a half of starting Prosper.com. He stresses the importance of being empathetic while also staying focused on the task at hand.

Jim Breyer Biography

Jim has been responsible for Accel's investments in over twenty-five companies that have completed public offerings or successful mergers. These include Actuate (ACTU), Agile Software (AGIL), Centillion (acquired by Bay Networks), Centrum (acquired by 3Com), Claremont, Collabra (acquired by Netscape),Corsair (acquired by Lightbridge Communications), Foundry Networks (FDRY), Hyperion Solutions (HYSL) (formerly named Arbor Software); Lightspan/Plato Learning (TUTR), Macromedia (MACR), Microprose, Motive (MOTV), Narrative (acquired by @Home), RealNetworks (RNWK), RedBack Networks (RBAK), Savista/Accenture, Synopsys (SNPS), and Walmart.com (WMT). Recent mergers include Alphablox / IBM and Groove Networks / Microsoft.

Jim is currently on the Board of Directors of Wal-Mart Stores, Inc (WMT), where he is the Lead / Presiding Independent Director, and Chairman of the Strategic Planning and Finance Committee. He also serves on the board of Marvel Entertainment (MVL), RealNetworks (RNWK...

Accel Partners

Chris Larsen Biography

Chris Larsen is Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of Prosper.

For over a decade Chris Larsen has focused on using the Internet to make consumer lending more efficient, fair, honest, open, and trustworthy.

Prior to Prosper, Mr. Larsen co-founded and served as Chairman and CEO of E-LOAN. Under Mr. Larsen's leadership, E-LOAN closed over $27 billion in consumer loans, and was consistently ranked as one of the nation's most trusted consumer brands. E-LOAN earned consumers' trust by taking radically pro-consumer actions such as being the first company to provide consumers with access to their credit scores, and playing a critical role in the passage of the strongest consumer financial privacy protection law in the nation. Mr. Larsen led E-LOAN through a successful IPO in 1999, and oversaw the company's acquisition by Popular, Inc. in 2005.

Mr. Larsen holds an M.B.A. degree from Stanford University and a B.S. degree from San Francisco State University, where...

Prosper Marketplace

Entrepreneurial Thought Leader Speaker Series

2006-12-01

2min 33sec

ID: 1623

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