Stanford Entrepreneurship Videos

DJ Kleinbaum, co-founder of Emerald Therapeutics, shares the unique beliefs and values core to the biotech-research startup. He stresses the importance of defining these "contrarian truths" and getting support for them early on. As the company grows, its leaders can point to them as the cornerstone of its culture, Kleinbaum says.

Emerald Therapeutics Co-Founder DJ Kleinbaum describes an exercise that allows his company to constantly re-examine its operations and culture, where all new employees are asked to keep a journal and write down their initial impressions of anything unusual. They are then asked to turn to coworkers with more tenure for an explanation, and possibly suggest solutions.

DJ Kleinbaum of Emerald Therapeutics explains "Eroom's Law," which says that the cost of getting a drug developed and approved will double every nine years. At that pace, pharmaceutical companies would have to spend $16 billion on drug development in the year 2043, according to Kleinbaum. Aside from driving up national spending on healthcare, the industry would be forced to develop only the most profitable drugs -– not the ones most needed.

Astro Teller, director of the moonshot factory at Alphabet known simply as X, explains how he is a "culture engineer" and how he systematizes innovation by creating a work environment where employees are encouraged to be audacious. He says they are given the freedom to work on projects that inspire them and that they want to own – whether they fail or succeed.

Astro Teller, director at X, talks about how failure is not only accepted within Alphabet's moonshot factory, but how teams that kill their ambitious projects early are rewarded generously for the lessons that the failures yield. The seemingly counterintuitive practice establishes workplace norms that incentivize boldness and transparency.

Astro Teller, director of Alphabet's moonshot factory, X, distinguishes pointless failure from the kind of failure that leads to insights that can accelerate innovation. He explains how the time spent figuring out how to do something is in fact learning. "I'm not pro-failure. I'm pro-learning," he says. "We mean find incredibly efficient ways to learn."

Alphabet's Astro Teller describes the "pre-mortem," an exercise used by organizations to identify possible pitfalls it may encounter. Teams imagine in great detail that a project has launched and then predict what could go wrong. Depending on the likelihood and seriousness of the problem, the organization can take proactive steps to prevent it from happening.

Astro Teller says the momentum within X, Alphabet's moonshot factory, depends on teams discovering as fast as possible if something is a bad idea, so they can move on to the next one. That requires a work environment where both creativity and critical thinking are rewarded. "Every place is a legitimate place for ideas to come from," Teller says. "You can't destroy the positivity that comes from saying crazy ideas."

"We're looking for things that can have a huge, meaningful impact on the world within about five to 10 years," says Astro Teller, director of Alphabet's moonshot factory, X. He cautions that a parent company's priorities can sometimes distract subsidiaries, but then adds how his division's mission supports the imperative businesses have to constantly find new problems to solve in order to grow.

Astro Teller explains how the audaciousness of an idea for generating electricity once shared in Alphabet's moonshot factory outweighs its impracticality in his mind. He discusses how committing resources to a bad idea costs his organization more than turning down a good idea before looking into it. "Humanity is in no danger of running out of huge problems to work on," Teller says.

Astro Teller, director of Alphabet's moonshot factory, X, describes how smart bets on world-changing innovations are aided by a culture that celebrates only the most audacious projects and rewards teams for showing the courage to find the biggest flaws. He also discusses how innovation can be systematized regardless of business type, resources or role at your company.

While Google's holding company, Alphabet, enjoys all the wealth of the search engine's success, Astro Teller insists that vast sums of money aren't needed to motivate people to do their best work. Teller, the director of Alphabet's moonshot factory, X, describes how incentives like pay raises are ineffective in the long run, and how what people want most is recognition.

Bernard Roth, co-founder and academic director of Stanford University's d.school, shares design-thinking tools for reframing life's stubborn problems and unlocking solutions. Professor Roth, author of the book "The Achievement Habit," also engages audience members in exercises meant to cut through the excuses we tell ourselves that hold us back from accomplishing our goals.

Patent attorney Jeffrey Schox gives a brief overview of the most important reasons a startup should build a patent portfolio: to increase valuation, deter patent-infringement lawsuits, and to protect intellectual property when partnering with a larger company. Schox, a lecturer at Stanford University, also explains when patents become important for startups.

Jeffrey Schox, a patent attorney and lecturer at Stanford University, discusses the best way to describe your unique invention to get a patent application approved. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office approves 60 to 70 percent of applications, and an ideal description for an invention is about 200 words and could outline a handful of steps, according to Schox.