About
WELCOME
Welcome to Stanford Entrepreneurs!
Join us for events, expand your network, share insights, and explore collaboration opportunities. However you engage, you’re part of a thriving, high-caliber community that supports and accelerates entrepreneurs at every stage.
Get involved, make connections, and let’s build something extraordinary—together.
- Joseph Pigato, President Stanford Entrepreneurs
Join Stanford Entrepreneurs on the Stanford Alumni Association website!
Who we are
Our Story and Vision
Stanford Entrepreneurs began in 2008 as the Stanford Small Business Entrepreneurs, founded by eight alumni gathered on a sunny afternoon at a small Palo Alto café.
They came seeking encouragement, feedback, and community—support to help turn bold ideas into thriving ventures. The group quickly gained momentum. Within weeks, over a hundred participants attended, outgrowing the café patio and moving the group to monthly meetings on campus. They featured speakers and rapid-fire introductions that sparked deeper conversations, relationships, and partnerships.
Seventeen years later, Stanford Entrepreneurs has grown into a vibrant network of thousands—playing a vital role in the professional journeys of alumni across the world and helping shape the future of Stanford-founded startups.
Empower Stanford entrepreneurs of all types and stages to grow their businesses and themselves by offering programs responsive to the needs of our members.
Stanford Entrepreneurs provides community, learning experiences, relationship building opportunities, and resources that leverage the strength of the Stanford community to enable our members to grow in leadership as they launch, scale, and sustain successful businesses of all types from solopreneurships and small businesses to high-growth institutional venture capital startups. We are a healthy, ethical, inclusive community that helps each of us move more quickly and effectively in growth towards our goals. We measure our mutual success by participation, engagement, accomplishments of each of us, connection with each other, and net positive happiness.
- We believe all varieties of entrepreneurs and their business sizes are valuable for the advancement of mankind and our stewardship of our world. Entrepreneurs and their creations contribute immensely to long term impacts for our communities, nation, and world in all aspects of human endeavor.
- We believe collaborative, hands-on, interactive, and self-reflective experiences help entrepreneurs and our community learn iteratively to be more successful and move forward faster.
- We believe a community centered on entrepreneurship support, comradery, learning, and connection keeps founders and owners on track and resilient.
- We believe in stewardship as a process to create great productive companies and cultures that are consistent with expressed vision, so that people can joyfully contribute.
- We believe that advances in human understanding and grace for each other in productive relationships need to be used toward the productive goals of an entrepreneurial community and in all its activities.
Our gratitude to the team of Stanford Entrepreneurs Advisors who crafted our Mission, Values, and Purpose statement: Kathryn Gorges, Ed Wang, Kuang-Han, Vincent Lui, Sophie Ren, Colin Johnson, Nabila Elassar, and Joseph Pigato.
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ImpACTING THE WORLD
Legacy of Stanford entrepreneurship
For over a century, Stanford University has been a driving force in global entrepreneurship. From pioneering tech giants to cutting-edge startups, the university and its alumni have shaped industries, created millions of jobs, and advanced groundbreaking technologies.
By the Numbers
- 39,900+ active companies have been founded by Stanford alumni.
- These companies generate over $2.7 trillion in annual revenue, roughly the size of the world’s 7th largest economy.
- Stanford alumni-founded companies have created over 5.4 million jobs globally.
- Stanford entrepreneurs and researchers have filed 21,000+ patents.
A Legacy of Founders & Industry Disruptors
Stanford has been the birthplace of some of the most influential companies in history. A few of the many industry-defining startups launched by Stanford alumni include:
- HP (1939)
- Trader Joe’s (1958)
- Nike (1964)
- Gap (1969)
- Atari (1972)
- Victoria’s Secret (1977)
- Cisco (1984)
- Pixar (1986)
- Capital One (1988)
- IDEO (1991)
- Nvidia (1993)
- Yahoo! (1994)
- Expedia (1996)
- Netflix (1997)
- Google (1998)
- LinkedIn (2002)
- Space X (2002)
- Tesla (2004)
- Palantir (2004)
- TechCrunch (2005)
- YouTube (2005)
- Bonobos (2007)
- WhatsApp (2009)
- Instagram (2010)
- Pinterest (2010)
- Snapchat (2011)
- DoorDash (2013)
- Robinhood (2013)
- Open AI (2015)
Beyond individual companies, Stanford has been at the heart of Silicon Valley’s rise, serving as the hub where ideas, capital, and talent intersect to create world-changing innovations.
A Timeline of Stanford’s Entrepreneurial Impact
- 1939 – HP is founded by Stanford graduates Bill Hewlett & Dave Packard, marking the start of Silicon Valley.
- 1951 – Stanford Research Park is established, fostering collaboration between academia and industry.
- 1962 – The first venture capital firm on Sand Hill Road opens, setting the stage for future startup funding.
- 1971 – Stanford professor Vinton Cerf co-develops the TCP/IP protocol, laying the foundation for the internet.
- 1996 – Google is born from a research project by Ph.D. students Larry Page and Sergey Brin.
- 2005 – The Stanford d.school is founded, cementing the university’s role in design thinking and innovation.
- Today – Stanford continues to produce some of the most impactful startups, with alumni raising over $100 billion in venture capital in the last decade alone.
More Than a University—A Startup Ecosystem
Stanford’s impact goes beyond company founders. The university fosters entrepreneurship through:
- Stanford StartX – An accelerator supporting high-potential startups from the Stanford community.
- The Stanford d.school – A global leader in design thinking and innovation.
- The Stanford Venture Studio – A hub for student entrepreneurs to test and launch their ideas.
- Dozens of entrepreneurship courses & student organizations, including Stanford Entrepreneurs, which connects alumni founders and innovators.
Join the Legacy
Stanford’s entrepreneurial spirit isn’t just history—it’s happening now. Whether you’re launching a startup, investing in the next big idea, or looking to connect with fellow founders, Stanford Entrepreneurs is your home base.
