Pulse2 Technology and Social Media News » Stanford University

How Stanford Almost Expanded To New York City

Amit Chowdhry — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 16:09:57 +0000

Ken Auletta of The New Yorker wrote a hard-hitting piece about how there are no walls between Stanford and Silicon Valley. Many of Stanford’s alumni have built some of the largest technology companies in the world and the pressure to live up to that amount of success is high.

“Innovation comes from myriad sources, including the bastions of East Coast learning, but Stanford has established itself as the intellectual nexus of the information economy. In early April, Facebook acquired the photo-sharing service Instagram, for a billion dollars; naturally, the co-founders of the two-year-old company are Stanford graduates in their late twenties. The initial investor was a Stanford alumnus,” wrote Auletta.

Peter C. Wendell, the founder of Sierra Ventures, has been teaching Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital part time at the school for the past 21 years. He invites 16 venture capitalists to his class to work with his students including Google chairman Eric Schmidt and Intuit co-founder Scott Cook.

Stanford’s Office of Technology Licensing has licensed 8,000 campus-inspired inventions and generated $1.3 billion in royalties for Stanford. There are five thousand companies that “trace their origins to Stanford ideas or to Stanford faculty and students” including EA, Intuit, eBay, Sun, HP, Netflix, Google, Yahoo! and E*Trade.

The article written by Auletta also pointed out that Stanford was close to opening a branch in New York City, but ended up changing their minds. He wrote: “This was not to be a satellite campus. It would be solely an engineering and applied-science school. Hennessy proposed that each department base three-quarters of its faculty in Palo Alto and a quarter on Roosevelt Island. Nor was it to be solely a research facility. (Stanford has one at Peking University, in Beijing.) Faculty members across the country would share videoconference screens, and students in New York would be able to take online classes based in Palo Alto.”

In December 2011, Stanford withdrew their bid to expand because the city had changed the terms of the deal. They wanted a fully operational campus with a complement of faculty sooner than Stanford thought was feasible. Demands from New York City would result in millions of dollars in fines if they project was delayed. The demands came from city lawyers instead of the office of Mayor Bloomberg.

Google’s Stock Split Will Cause The New Half To Not Have Any Shareholder Voting Power

Amit Chowdhry — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 23:13:30 +0000

When Google announced that they are splitting the company into two halves, it turns out that the newer half will not have any shareholder voting power. Google will be joining the likes of a liquor producer, home builder, and several other media conglomerates that are controlled by families. The current shareholders would have a new nonvoting share for every share they own. This will help Google CEO Larry Page, Google co-founder Sergey Brin, and Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt retain a lot of power.

The three would control over two-thirds of the voting power, which means that the three of them can make all of the company decisions. They would be able to hand on stock options to employees and make stock-based acquisitions without having to dilute their shareholder voting power too.

Other companies that have a nonvoting class of shares include Discovery Communications, Viacom, and Comcast. Comcast CEO Brian Roberts controls about one-third of the shareholder voting power while owning a small fraction of its shares. Cable maker Molex, Brown-Forman (known for making Jack Daniels whiskey and other liquors), and home-builder company Lennar have a similar structure.

“Investors need to come to this with their eyes open,” stated Stanford professor Joseph Grundfest. “It’s not a surprise to anyone that when you invest in Google you’re investing in Larry and Sergey. And any good investor also knows that if you’re investing in [soon-to-be public] Facebook you’re investing in [CEO] Mark Zuckerberg, and if you invested in Zynga you invested in [CEO] Mark Pincus,”

Google Being Sued By An Apple Safari User Because Of Privacy Violations

Amit Chowdhry — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 05:53:00 +0000

Google is being sued over a privacy breach through the Apple Safari web browser. Google was able to bypass computer settings that was designed to block the online activity of users. Safari is the primary browser on Mac OS X, the iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch. “Google’s willful and knowing actions violated” federal laws and other computer related statutes, stated the attorneys of Matthew Soble. The privacy violations were discovered by researchers at Stanford University. The Apple Safari settings were designed for blocking cookies used for following users’ activities on the Internet. Google was outed by the Wall Street Journal earlier this week. [BusinessWeek]

Steve Jobs’ Last Words: “OH WOW. OH WOW. OH WOW.”

Amit Chowdhry — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 17:38:06 +0000

Mona Simpson is an op-ed contributor for the New York Times, a novelist, an English professor at UCLA, and she is the biological sister of the late Steve Jobs. On October 16, 2011 Mona Simpson delivered a eulogy for her brother at his memorial service at the Memorial Church of Stanford University. Her eulogy was published on the New York Times this past weekend. In the eulogy, Simpson revealed that before Jobs passed away, he looked at his sister Patty, then his children, and then his wife Laurene. Then he looked over their shoulders past them and said “OH WOW. OH WOW. OH WOW.”

Stanford Professor: Google Consumes 0.01% Of The World’s Electricity

Amit Chowdhry — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 21:34:45 +0000

Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) uses about 900,000 servers to power their cloud computing, advertising, web-productivity apps, social network, and Google search engine services. Those servers use 0.01% of the world’s electricity. Stanford University professor Jonathan Koomey made this prediction based on data centers making up 1.5% of worldwide electricity (2.2% in the U.S. alone). [Geek.com]

Photo Of Silicon Valley Tech Titans and President Obama

Amit Chowdhry — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 22:10:06 +0000

The White House has uploaded some images on Flickr of President Barack Obama’s meeting with the tech titans of Silicon Valley. This photo symbolizes how the meeting went. The meeting was about how these executives plan to support entrepreneurship, increase exports, and strengthen the economy. The executives in this picture includes:

-John Doerr, partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers
-Carol Bartz, president and CEO, Yahoo!
-John Chambers, CEO and chairman, Cisco Systems
-Dick Costolo, CEO, Twitter
-Larry Ellison, co-founder and CEO, Oracle
-Reed Hastings, CEO, NetFlix
-John Hennessy, president, Stanford University
-Steve Jobs, chairman and CEO, Apple
-Art Levinson, chairman and former CEO, Genentech
-Eric Schmidt, chairman and CEO, Google
-Steve Westly, managing partner and founder, Westly Group
-Mark Zuckerberg, founder, president and CEO, Facebook

President Obama Meeting With Major Silicon Valley CEOs Today

Amit Chowdhry — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 20:51:26 +0000

President Barack Obama is making a trip to Silicon Valley today and is meeting with some major tech CEOs. The names of the executives that he is meeting was revealed by the L.A. Times. The meeting will be about supporting entrepreneurship, increasing exports, strengthening the economy, etc. Below is the list of people that he is meeting:

* John Doerr, partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers
* Carol Bartz, president and CEO, Yahoo!
* John Chambers, CEO and chairman, Cisco Systems
* Dick Costolo, CEO, Twitter
* Larry Ellison, co-founder and CEO, Oracle
* Reed Hastings, CEO, NetFlix
* John Hennessy, president, Stanford University
* Steve Jobs, chairman and CEO, Apple
* Art Levinson, chairman and former CEO, Genentech
* Eric Schmidt, chairman and CEO, Google
* Steve Westly, managing partner and founder, Westly Group
* Mark Zuckerberg, co-founder, president and CEO, Facebook

Stealth E-Commerce Company BeachMint Raises $10 Million

Amit Chowdhry — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 23:01:38 +0000

BeachMint.com is a social commerce company that has raised $10 million in funding. The investment was led by Trinity Ventures, New Enterprise Associates, Anthem Ventures, and Stanford University. BeachMint was founded by MySpace co-founder Josh Berman. Diego Berdakin is the other co-founder of BeachMint. Below is the full press release:

BeachMint Announces $10 Million in Funding From Trinity Ventures, Stanford, NEA and Anthem Ventures

SANTA MONICA, Calif., Dec. 27, 2010 /PRNewswire/ — Recently launched social commerce company, BeachMint, announces a $10 million round to accelerate the company’s remarkable growth and reach new markets. The investment is led by Trinity Ventures, with participation from Stanford University and existing investors, New Enterprise Associates and Anthem Ventures.

BeachMint, a social commerce company founded by MySpace Co-Founder, Josh Berman, and serial tech entrepreneur, Diego Berdakin, successfully launched their first ecommerce vertical in jewelry with style icon, Kate Bosworth, and her celebrity stylist, Cher Coulter. JewelMint (www.jewelmint.com) is an exclusive jewelry of the month club featuring monthly collections designed by Kate and Cher.

The growth of JewelMint helps the company penetrate the rapidly growing online retail industry, which is expected to reach $175 billion in sales in 2010, according to Forrester Research. Berman noted, “We are extremely excited to add Trinity Ventures and our new Board member, Patricia Nakache, to our team. Their vast ecommerce experience and understanding of the explosive growth in the social commerce space is a welcome addition for BeachMint and our journey ahead.”

This new round of funding will be used to bolster the staff and launch new verticals and celebrity partnerships in 2011, which BeachMint will announce in Q1. Berdakin noted, “We’re on fire and looking to hire aggressively. We couldn’t be more excited about this space and its potential. The company currently has a headcount of twenty, which we’re planning on doubling over the next couple months.”
For more information, or to view membership details of BeachMint’s first vertical, please visit: WWW.JEWELMINT.COM

SOURCE BeachMint

YouTube Co-Founder Chad Hurley Offers Feross Aboukhadijeh A Job Through Twitter For YouTube Instant

Amit Chowdhry — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 00:21:42 +0000

Feross Aboukhadijeh is a computer science student at Stanford University that is expected to graduate in 2012. That is until he built YouTube Instant and the YouTube co-founder offered him a job through Twitter. Here’s how it all went down.

Earlier this week, Google had announced real-time search results through a service called Google Instant. Feross took this idea and twisted it by creating a similar service for YouTube. He called it YouTube Instant. Aboukhadijeh announced YouTube Instant initially on Y-Combinator’s Hacker News feed. Then he received coverage from TechCrunch, AllThingsD, and VentureBeat. Eventually YouTube co-founder Chad Hurley heard about him and sent him the following tweet (it sounds like Stanford is about to lose a student to YouTube):

Hey @FreeTheFeross! Loving YouTube Instant… http://feross.net/instant/ Want a job? less than a minute ago via webChad Hurley
Chad_Hurley

Hey @Chad_Hurley. Glad you liked YouTube Instant! Is that a for-real job offer? less than a minute ago via webFeross Aboukhadijeh
FreeTheFeross

@FreeTheFeross Are you ready to leave school? I’ll send you a DM.less than a minute ago via webChad Hurley
Chad_Hurley

[VentureBeat]

Pulse iPad App Gets Praise From Jobs, Pulled From App Store Shortly After

Amit Chowdhry — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 14:56:38 +0000

Pulse News Reader was an application on the iPad app store. Essentially it was a RSS reader and news feed service created by a couple of Stanford University graduate students. The application was talked about by Apple CEO Steve Jobs himself at the Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco.

However the application was pulled from the Apple App Store by the afternoon because of a written notice from The New York Times lawyers. “The Pulse News Reader app, makes commercial use of the NYTimes.com and Boston.com RSS feeds, in violation of their Terms of Use*. Thus, the use of our content is unlicensed. The app also frames the NYTimes.com and Boston.com websites in violation of their respective Terms of Use.” said the letter from the lawyers. The app contains news feeds for the New York based publications which links back to the original content. The funny thing is that The New York Times wrote an article last week praising the Pulse Reader app too.

“I don’t blame Apple, because they have to respond when contacted by lawyers from the Times,” said Akshay Kothari, one of the app’s creators. “But it was definitely a roller coaster of a day.” Kothari worked on the app with Ankit Gupta, who are both students at the Stanford Institute of Design. Kothari and Gupta worked on the app for four weeks through a company they created called Alphonso Labs. It was downloaded 35,000 times at a price of $4. [AllThingsD]