Career Advice

Liz Wiseman teaches leadership to executives around the world. She is the president of the Wiseman Group, a leadership research and development firm headquartered in Silicon Valley, California. Some of her recent clients include: Apple, Dubai Bank, Genentech, Nike, PayPal, Salesforce.com and Twitter. She has been listed on the Thinkers50 ranking and named one of the top 10 leadership thinkers in the world. She is the author of Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter, a Wall Street Journal bestseller and The Multiplier Effect: Tapping the Genius Inside Our Schools. She has conducted significant research in the field of leadership and collective intelligence and writes for Harvard Business Review and a variety of other business and leadership journals. A former executive at Oracle Corporation, she worked over the course of 17 years as the Vice President of Oracle University and as the global leader for human resource development. She is a frequent guest lecturer at BYU, Harvard, the Naval Postgraduate School, Stanford and Yale. Liz holds a Bachelors degree in Business Management and a Masters of Organizational Behavior from Brigham Young University.

Tristan Walker is the Founder & CEO of Walker & Company Brands. Prior to his founding Walker & Company he was an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Andreessen Horowitz. Prior to his time at Andreessen Horowitz, he was the Director of Business Development for foursquare, where he oversaw strategic partnerships and monetization. In this role, Walker managed integrations with large brands and media entities including American Express, The New York Times, CNN, MTV, Starwood Hotels & Resorts, and Starbucks. He has been named to Ebony Magazine's 100 Most Powerful People list, The Hollywood Reporter's Digital Power 50, and Black Enterprise's 40 Next. He is also the Founder and Chairman of CODE2040, a program that matches high performing black and latino undergraduate and graduate coders and software engineering students with Silicon Valley start-ups for summer internships. Walker holds a bachelor's degree in economics from Stony Brook University, where he graduated as valedictorian, and an MBA from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business. He currently lives with his wife in Palo Alto, California.

Ferdinando Buscema is a corporate specialist designing "magical experiences" for organizational growth. With a background in mechanical engineering, humanistic psychology and hermetic traditions, Buscema has been chosen as a partner by multinational companies to create high-value training events, on the themes of innovation, leadership and communication skills. As a conjurer and sleight-of-hand artist, Ferdinando is a credited performer at the Magic Castle in Hollywood, the most exclusive stage for magical entertainment in the world. Buscema is the Magic Experience Designer at IED Istituto Europeo di Design, serves as Advisor for the philanthropic foundation Fetzer Institute, and is a Magister Ludi at Mister Gamer.

Stephen Cohen currently serves as Executive Vice President, and sits on the board of Palantir Technologies, a private company in Palo Alto, CA that develops software analysis products used by governments and financial organizations around the world. Prior to joining Palantir, Stephen worked at Clarium Capital Management. Stephen graduated with a BS in Computer Science from Stanford University. His primary interest is creating leverage on real-world problems through Natural Language Processing, Linguistics, and Machine Learning inspired techniques.

Marten Mickos builds global disruptive businesses. As CEO of MySQL AB for seven years, Mickos grew that company from a garage start-up to the second largest open source company in the world. After the acquisition by Sun Microsystems of MySQL AB for $1bn, he served as Senior Vice President of Sun's Database Group. Previously, Mickos held multi-national CEO and senior executive positions in his native Finland. He is a member of the board of Electrosonic. Mickos holds a M.Sc. in technical physics from Helsinki University of Technology. In 2006 he received the Audemars Piguet "Changing Times Award: European Entrepreneur of the Year 2006" and the Nokia Foundation Award.

Steve Case is the founder, former CEO and Chairman of the Board of America Online. He currently acts as chairman and CEO of Revolution, a holding company that helps build companies. In 1991, Case founded America Online through a reorganization of Quantum Computer Services, merging its two ISP services, AppleLink and PC-Link, under a single umbrella. Better known as AOL, the company became synonymous with the Internet. With its online software suite, named after the company, it acquired one million users in 1994 and at its peak, maintained more than 30 million users worldwide. The accelerated growth of the company led to the billion-dollar merger with Time Warner in 2000. On Dec.9, 2009, AOL officially split from Time Warner. Case's entrepreneurial spirit continues with his new venture Revolution, launched in April 2005. Its mission "is to partner with entrepreneurs in building businesses that give people more choice, control and convenience in important areas of their life," as stated on the company's Web site, revolution.com. Some of its companies include Zipcar, Exclusive Resorts and Revolution Money, which American Express announced would purchase for $300 million in November 2009. Case also believes strongly in philanthropy. Founding the Case Foundation with his wife Jean in 1997, the organization describes its purpose on its Web site as promoting everyday philanthropy, deepening civic engagement, and broadening the use of new technologies to make giving more informed, efficient, and affective. Some of its initiatives have included Accelerate Brain Cancer Cure and America's Giving Challenge. Case earned a political science degree from Williams College, in Williamstown, MA, in 1980. He was inducted into the Junior Achievement U.S. Business Hall of Fame in 2009.

CEO and co-founder of Apture, Tristan Harris has been rated number 16 in Inc. magazine's top 30 entrepreneurs under 30. Based in San Francisco, Apture allows bloggers and publishers to integrate multimedia content into their sites through the use of a plugin. The Apture "'super' link button opens the door to an entire library of content in the Apture Media Hub that can be linked or embedded into the page with just one click," explains the company on its Web site. A former Mayfield Fellow with the Stanford Technology Ventures Program, he earned a Bachelor of Science in computer science from Stanford University.

Clara Shih is CEO and founder of Hearsay Social, whose predictive analytics technology helps salespeople reach out to clients at the right time with the right message while staying in compliance with industry regulations. A pioneer in the social media industry, Shih developed the first social business application in 2007 and subsequently authored the New York Times bestseller, "The Facebook Era." Her latest book, released in April 2026, is "The Social Business Imperative: Adapting Your Business Model to the Always-Connected Customer." Shih has been named one of Fortune's "Most Powerful Women Entrepreneurs," Fast Company's "Most Influential People in Technology," BusinessWeek's "Top Young Entrepreneurs," and both Fortune's and Ad Age's "40 Under 40." She was also named a "Young Global Leader" by the World Economic Forum. Shih is a member of the Starbucks board of directors and previously served in a variety of technical, product and marketing roles at Google, Microsoft and Salesforce.com. She graduated No. 1 in computer science at Stanford University, where she also received an M.S. in computer science. She also holds an M.S. in internet studies from Oxford University, where she studied as a U.S. Marshall Scholar.

Jeff Seibert is an experienced serial entrepreneur with a passion for deeply technical Internet software. His most recent company, Crashlytics, was acquired in 2013 by Twitter, where he now serves as Senior Director of Product. Seibert was the CEO of Crashlytics, which he co-founded in 2011 with Wayne Chang. Crashlytics delivered crash analysis tools for iOS and Android apps via an SDK that reached 300 million mobile devices worldwide. In 2007, Seibert co-founded Increo and served as its COO and lead architect until its acquisition by Box in August of 2009. He subsequently oversaw the integration of Increo's document preview and annotation technologies into the company's cloud-based content platform. Seibert gained experience at Apple in both marketing and engineering capacities and led Stanford University's Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders seminar series as Co-Coordinator. He was selected as a Mayfield Fellow in 2007 and received a B.S. in computer science from Stanford University in 2008. Seibert discovered his passion for entrepreneurship and programming at a young age, founding Arios Software during high school in Baltimore and dedicating countless hours to developing Mac desktop software long before it was a cool platform. Outside of work, Seibert enjoys surfing, snowboarding, hiking, and tennis.

Joshua Reeves believes in the power of software to solve complex problems and founded ZenPayroll (now Gusto) to deliver delightful, modern payroll to businesses everywhere. ZenPayroll launched in 2012 with funding from the CEOs of Dropbox, Yelp, Zuora, Box and Yammer, as well as Y Combinator, Google Ventures and Salesforce, and is now processing hundreds of millions of dollars in payroll. Reeves was selected to the 2012 Forbes "30 Under 30" list and is a regular contributor to Forbes, Entrepreneur and Business Insider. Prior to co-founding ZenPayroll, Reeves was the CEO and cofounder of Unwrap, a SaaS startup which was acquired in 2010, and he began his career as an early employee at Zazzle. He holds a B.S. and M.S. in electrical engineering from Stanford University, where he was a Mayfield Fellow and a recipient of the Terman Engineering award.

Steve Garrity is a co-founder and chief technology officer of Hearsay Social, which provides software and tools to help companies manage and measure their presence across Facebook, Twitter, and other social media. Prior to starting Hearsay, Garrity was a program manager and engineer at Microsoft in Seattle (working on mobile search, Live Mesh, and Azure .Net Services); and a product manager at Fortify Software. At Stanford, Steve was a Mayfield Fellow while studying computer science (BS '04, MS '05).

Danish-born David Heinemeier Hansson is the programmer and creator of the popular Ruby on Rails web development framework and the Instiki wiki. He is also a partner at the Web-based software development firm 37signals, based in Chicago. Ruby on Rails provides a "basic development environment" for programmers, according to Wikipedia.org. Based on the programming language Ruby (developed by Japanese programmer Yukihiro Matsumoto in 1995), Ruby on Rails focuses on user interface and "convention over configuration"; meaning, developers can focus on the unique qualities of their Web site or program rather than the building blocks that every application may require. Released in 2004, Ruby on Rails has been incorporated into many applications used by some of the biggest companies, from Twitter to Apple's 2007 release of Mac OS X v.10.5 "Leopard." Aside from his development of Ruby on Rails, Heinemeier Hansson also works as a partner for Web-based software development firm 37signals. Joining the company in 2003, he has helped develop Basecamp, Campfire, Backpack and other Web-based applications. Working in similar ways like Web-based e-mail services like Yahoo! e-mail and Google's Gmail, 37signals hosts a broad range of IT services for companies, including project management to information-sharing. The firm's software has been used by Kellogg's, Sun Microsystems and even Obama '08. Hansson received his bachelor's degree from the Copenhagen Business School in 2005. In that same year, he moved to Chicago and received Hacker of the Year honors for his work on Ruby on Rails from Google and O'Reilly Media. He runs a blog called LoudThinking.com.

Dr. John R. Adler, Jr., launched his first enterprise in 1987, when he invented the CyberKnife System, a robotic surgical tool that uses image-guided computer systems to eradicate tumors throughout the body. With highly concentrated amounts of radiation, the tool can noninvasively ablate tumors almost anywhere in the body. With this technology, Dr. Adler went on to found Accuray Incorporated in 1990. Nine years later, the FDA approved the usage of CyberKnife Systems for treatment of head, neck and upper spine tumors; today it is approved in Europe, Japan, Korea and the United States for use in treating tumors throughout the body. Dr. Adler served as Accuray's Chief Executive Officer from 1999 to 2002, and as the Chief Medical Officer up until 2007. He founded the CyberKnife Society in 2002 and served as its President until 2009. Presently, Dr. Adler serves as a member of the Accuray Board of Directors. Educated at Harvard College and Harvard Medical School, Dr. Adler completed his residencies at Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham and Women's Hospital, both in Boston. He also completed a radiosurgery fellowship at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden. Today, Adler is the Dorothy and Thye King Chan Endowed Professor of Neurosurgery at Stanford Medical School.

John R. "Trip" Adler III is an American entrepreneur who started the social publishing company Scribd. Adler grew up in Palo Alto, California, and then attended Harvard University where he studied biophysics and graduated in June 2006.

Dr. Craig Barrett recently stepped down as Chairman of the Board of Intel Corporation, a post he held from May 2005 to May 2009. He is a leading advocate for improving education in the U.S. and around the world. He is also a vocal spokesman for the value technology can provide in raising social and economic standards globally. Dr. Barrett joined Intel Corporation in 1974 as a technology development manager. He was named a vice president of the corporation in 1984, promoted to Senior Vice President in 1987, and Executive Vice President in 1990. Dr. Barrett was elected to Intel Corporation's Board of Directors in 1992 and he was named the company's Chief Operating Officer in 1993. He became Intel's fourth President in May 1997, Chief Executive Officer in 1998, and Chairman of the Board on May 18, 2005. Craig Barrett was born August 29, 1939 in San Francisco, California. He attended Stanford University in Palo Alto, California from 1957 to 1964, and received his Bachelor of Science, Master of Science and Ph.D. degrees in Materials Science. After graduation, he joined the faculty of Stanford University in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, and remained through 1974, rising to the rank of Associate Professor. Dr. Barrett was a Fulbright Fellow at Danish Technical University in Denmark in 1972 and a NATO Postdoctoral Fellow at the National Physical Laboratory in England from 1964 to 1965. Dr. Barrett is the author of over 40 technical papers dealing with the influence of microstructure on the properties of materials, and a textbook on materials science, Principles of Engineering Materials. Dr. Barrett served until June, 2009 as Chairman of the United Nations Global Alliance for Information and Communication Technologies and Development, which works to bring computers and other technology to developing parts of the world. He co-chairs Achieve, Inc., is Vice Chairman of the National Forest Foundation, serves on the Board of Directors of Science Foundation Arizona and Dossia, and he has recently been appointed to the faculty of Thunderbird School of Global Management. Dr. Barrett has served on numerous boards, policy and government panels, and has been an appointee of the President's Advisory Committee for Trade Policy and Negotiations and to the American Health Information Community. He has co-chaired the Business Coalition for Student Achievement and the National Innovation Initiative Leadership Council, and has served as a member of the Board of Trustees for the U.S. Council for International Business and the Clinton Global Initiative Education Advisory Board. Dr. Barrett has been a member of the National Governors' Association Task Force on Innovation America, the National Infrastructure Advisory Council, the Committee on Scientific Communication and National Security, the U.S.-Brazil CEO Forum, and he is a past chair of the National Academy of Engineering. Dr. Barrett formerly served on the Board of Directors of the U.S. Semiconductor Industry Association, the National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering, and TechNet.

Steve Young is a former quarterback for the National Football League's San Francisco 49ers and Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and the Los Angeles Express of the short-lived United States Football League. He was named the Most Valuable Player of Super Bowl XXIX, and was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2005, the first left-handed quarterback to be so honored. He holds the NFL record for highest career passer rating and won six NFL passing titles. Steve is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and is a direct descendant of Brigham Young.

Carleton S. (Carly) Fiorina was president and chief executive officer of Hewlett-Packard Company from 1999 to 2005. She served as chairman of the board from 2000 to 2005. Prior to joining HP, Fiorina spent nearly 20 years at AT&T and Lucent Technologies, where she held a number of senior leadership positions and directed Lucent's initial public offering and subsequent spin-off from AT&T. Fiorina was named an honorary fellow of the London Business School in July 2001. In 2002, she was honored with the Appeal of Conscience Award, and in 2003 she received the Concern Worldwide "Seeds of Hope" Award in recognition of her worldwide efforts to make global citizenship a priority for business. The Private Sector Council honored Fiorina with its 2004 Leadership Award for her contributions to improving the business of government. Also in 2004, the White House appointed her to the U.S. Space Commission. Fiorina has a bachelor's degree in medieval history and philosophy from Stanford University. She holds a master's degree in business administration from the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland at College Park, Md., and a master of science degree from MIT's Sloan School.

Stan Christensen is a partner at Arbor Advisors, an investment banking firm where he negotiates on behalf of mid-market technology companies. He has nearly twenty years of experience in both transactional and operations roles and has worked on hundreds of transactions. Before starting Arbor, he was the General Manager of Eazel, a Linux-based software startup. He started his career in corporate finance on Wall Street, and then worked for ten years with CMG, a negotiation advisory firm affiliated with The Harvard Negotiation Project. In this capacity he worked with corporations and governments-advising, negotiating, and mediating transactions and conflicts. In 1996 he was selected as a Kellogg Fellow for his work in the non-profit and public sectors. He is a member of The Council On Foreign Relations and currently teaches a course on Negotiation at Stanford University in The School of Engineering. He holds an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School and a B.A. from Brigham Young University.

Joel Peterson is a lecturer at the Stanford University Graduate School of Business. Peterson was valedictorian at his undergraduate institution, Brigham Young University and earned an MBA from Harvard Business School in 1973. Between 1973 and 1991, Peterson was treasurer, CFO, Board member and ultimately CEO of Trammell Crow Company, one of the world's largest real estate development firms. In 1995, he founded Peterson Capital, a firm focusing on private equity investing. He currently sits on a number of corporate Boards of Directors, including JetBlue Airways, Franklin Covey and Asurion, among others. Peterson has taught real estate development and management of growing enterprises at the Graduate School of Business since 1992. Joel is married to the former Diana Hulme. Together, they have 7 children and 6 grandchildren.

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 he was named the 2004 Alumnus of the Year.

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) and a number of privately held companies such as BBN Technologies, BrassRing, Brightcove, Facebook, Maven Networks, ModelN, and Prosper.com. Jim is on the Strategic Investment Committee/Board of Accel-KKR and IDG-Accel China Fund. Earlier, Jim worked as a management consultant at McKinsey & Company in New York, and in product marketing and management at Apple Computer and Hewlett Packard. Jim is the former Chairman of the National Venture Capital Association, a former President of the Western Association of Venture Capitalists, and on the Board of the Associates of the Harvard Business School, Pacific Community Ventures, Stanford Technology Ventures Program, and Technet. Jim is Chairman of the Stanford Engineering Venture Fund, Chairman of the Harvard Business School California Research Center, and is the Chairman of the Silicon Valley region committee for Stanford University's Campaign for Undergraduate Education. In December 2005, Jim was appointed an Honorary Professor at the 1,000 year-old Yuelu Academy, Hunan University, China. He graduated from Stanford University with a B.S. degree and from Harvard University with an M.B.A. where he was named a Baker Scholar.

Mark Zuckerberg is the founder of Facebook, a networking tool used by college students to meet people, reconnect with old friends and arrange events. The company just redesigned its Web site and received venture capital. Founded as Thefacebook in February 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg, Chris Hughes, and Dustin Moskovitz at Harvard, the website spread across campus and, within a few weeks, over half the undergraduate population had registered. The website then expanded to allow students from Columbia, Stanford, and then other Ivy League colleges to register. It became something of a network phenomenon, spreading rapidly to other schools, despite some competition from similar, local websites. Courtesy of http://www.accel.com/people/index.php, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6596533/site/newsweek, and http://www.seacoastonline.com/news/09082005/biz_nati/61811.htm.

Katie Rodan, M.D., is the co-developer of Proactiv Solution, a highly successful acne skin care system for adults and teens, launched in 1995. Proactiv Solution continues to monopolize the acne skin care market as it offers a solution for both treatment and prevention. Proactiv Solution has been used by over three million people, positioning Dr. Rodan in the forefront of acne treatment in the medical community. A well-recognized expert in her field, Dr. Rodan has been interviewed and quoted in many national magazines, including Cosmopolitan, Glamour, Self, McCall's, Allure, Teen, Cosmogirl, Oprah, Redbook, Mirabella, Elle and Reader's Digest. She was featured in First Magazine for Women, "Secrets of the Beauty Docs" (July 1996) and in Harper's Bazaar, "Five Hot Derms" (April 1998). She is a guest medical correspondent for KRON-TV News, the NBC affiliate in San Francisco, and has appeared on national television shows, such as The Montel Williams Show, Barbara Walters' The View, and Later Today. In addition, Dr. Rodan has been included in Best Doctors in America. Dr. Rodan is an Adjunct Clinical Assistant Professor, Dermatology, Stanford University School of Medicine. She has a private practice in medical, surgical and cosmetic dermatology in Oakland, CA. Dr. Rodan received her undergraduate degree in history from the University of Virginia and her medical degree from the University of Southern California School of Medicine in Los Angeles. She completed her residency in dermatology at Stanford University School of Medicine. Courtesy of Proactiv Solution

Jerry Kaplan is widely known in the computer industry as a serial entrepreneur, executive, technical innovator, and author. Most recently, he was co-chairman of Egghead.com, Inc. Previously, Mr. Kaplan served as chairman of the board and chief executive officer of online auction company Onsale, Inc., which he co-founded in 1994. Prior to Onsale, he was co-founder and chairman of GO Corporation, which developed PenPoint, a pen-based operating system. Mr. Kaplan wrote a best-selling book about his experiences at GO Corporation entitled "Startup--A Silicon Valley Adventure", published in May 1995 by Houghton-Mifflin. Before founding GO, Mr. Kaplan was the principal technologist at Lotus Development Corporation, where he co-authored Lotus Agenda, the first personal information management software. In 1981, he co-founded Teknowledge, a public company specializing in artificial intelligence. Mr. Kaplan received a Bachelor's degree in history and philosophy of science from the University of Chicago (1972), a Doctorate degree in computer and information science from the University of Pennsylvania (1979), and was a research associate in Computer Science at Stanford from 1979 to 1981.