Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders

Tien Tzuo, Chief Strategy Officer for Salesforce.com, describes seven lessons for transforming an enterprise software business from a traditional direct sales model to one which leverages the internet to produce in-bound sales. He stresses the awareness cycle for Salesforce.com's products, free-trial offers, onion-based product design and the continuing importance of events in the complex enterprise software industry.

Janice Roberts, General Partner at Mayfield, discusses how Mayfield is going global and carefully evaluating opportunities in countries like India and China. She stresses the importance of accessing the needs of young customers who are embracing new technologies at an extremely fast pace and demanding more products and services.

In a humble and anecdotal talk, Scott Kriens, CEO of Juniper Networks, walks through the founding and growth of the company. He provides insight on a variety of issues ranging from the power of strong markets, to personal growth, to globalization and net neutrality.

Greg Ballard, a veteran entrepreneur and currently the CEO of Glu Mobile, shares his business insights on products, people and values through a variety of enlightening and entertaining anecdotes.

Nick Earl, Vice President and General Manager of Electronic Arts shares his thoughts on the future of the gaming market. He discusses the changing global market space, the latest generation of consoles, mobile game distribution, user generated content, social networks and EA's strategy in the online gaming space.

Joe McCracken, Vice President of Business Development at Genentech, walks through the founding and growth phase of the company. In particular, McCracken describes the culture at Genentech, which is credited for consistent ground breaking R&D and the resulting financial success.

Jim Breyer, a partner at Accel Investments, interviews Chris Larsen, the founder and CEO of Prosper - America's first people-to-people lending marketplace. Ranging from regulation to global financial markets, Larsen shares a wide variety of experiences in founding both e-Loan.com and Prosper.

Rick Wallace, recently appointed CEO of KLA-Tencor, shares his management philosophy and the key to the company's success over the last 30 years. He stresses the importance of having a clear vision, distinct values and a well defined strategy to take care of his key constituencies: employees, customers and shareholders.

Kathy Eisenhardt, co-director of Stanford Technology Ventures Program and professor in Management Science and Engineering, shares results from her research regarding successful ventures, addressing fundamental issues such as team building, market creation and financing.

Robert Sutton, Co-Director of the Center for Work, Technology, and Organization at Stanford University focuses on what it takes to stimulate innovation and creativity in the workplace and relates the key points from his book "Weird Ideas that Work."

Gil Penchina, CEO of Wikia, and an 8-year veteran of eBay, contrasts his experiences and lessons of working in a big company with heading a small start-up.

Ryan Phelan, founder and CEO of DNA Direct, shares her thoughts on entrepreneurship, both for-profit and not-for-profit, based on her experience launching groundbreaking healthcare initiatives that provide public access to comprehensive medical information and genetic testing.

Marissa Mayer, Vice President of Search Products and User Experience at Google, shares nine lessons learned about fostering creative ideas and innovation based on her experience developing highly successful Web applications at Google.

Pam Marrone, founder of AgraQuest, relates the challenges and rewards she experienced in building a successful biotechnology company that specializes in ecologically friendly agricultural products.

Joel Peterson, founder of Peterson Partners, discusses the secret to successful negotiations. He reminds us that negotiation is how one navigates their way through life, and in order to have successful negotiations, people must be empowered, have high character, and confidence. Peterson draws from his experience as CEO of one of the world's largest real estate development firms and most recently founded Peterson Partners- an equity fund in search of talented and visionary CEOs.