Podcasts about stvp

Kathleen Eisenhardt is the Stanford W. Ascherman M.D. Professor in the Stanford School of Engineering. She is also a faculty member with STVP, the Stanford Engineering Entrepreneurship Center, and the Stanford Digital Economy Lab. Among the most widely cited entrepreneurship scholars in the world, Eisenhardt is the author of over 100 articles and several books, most recently (with Don Sull), “Simple Rules: How to Survive in a Complex World.” In this presentation, Eisenhardt shares strategies for founders of new companies in new and disrupted markets, providing case studies from her extensive research.

Julia Collins is the founder and CEO of Planet FWD, which is empowering the next generation of sustainable consumer companies with its climate management platform. Planet FWD is focused on decarbonizing global supply chains with the belief that all organizations can achieve Net Zero. The platform is inspired by Planet FWD's own snack brand, Moonshot, which launched in 2020 as the first climate-friendly snack brand. In this conversation with Mo-Yun Lei Fong, executive director of STVP, the Stanford Engineering Entrepreneurship Center, Collins explains the growing climate tech market — especially the areas of decarbonization and climate accounting — and shares advice for founders based on her experience as a serial entrepreneur.

Emmy Sobieski, CFA, is the chief operating officer of Competitive Storytelling, Inc., which helps venture-backed founders from seed and beyond tell their story through methods such as the Founder Fundraising Program. Sobieski is also the author of the book $100M Careers: The 5 Fastest Paths to Wealth Beyond Your Wildest Dreams, released in December 2022. In this conversation with Mo-Yun Lei Fong, executive director of STVP, the Stanford Engineering Entrepreneurship Center, Sobieski shares her advice on how to develop personal skills that support building wealth and a successful career.

James Joaquin is the co-founder and managing director of Obvious Ventures, leading the team's investments focused on plant-forward approaches to food (like Beyond Meat), “good for you” consumer goods (like Olly), and companies at the forefront of how people find and do their best work (like Incredible Health). Joaquin has been working in venture capital since 2007. Prior to investing, he served as president and CEO of Xoom.com and president and CEO of Ofoto, and co-founded When.com. In this conversation with Stanford adjunct lecturer and STVP director of principled entrepreneurship Jack Fuchs, Joaquin discusses his commitment to “world positive investing” and his belief that many highly successful 21st century businesses will be devoted to solving the world's biggest problems.

James Joaquin is the co-founder and managing director of Obvious Ventures, leading the team's investments focused on plant-forward approaches to food (like Beyond Meat), “good for you” consumer goods (like Olly), and companies at the forefront of how people find and do their best work (like Incredible Health). Joaquin has been working in venture capital since 2007. Prior to investing, he served as president and CEO of Xoom.com and president and CEO of Ofoto, and co-founded When.com. In this conversation with Stanford adjunct lecturer and STVP director of principled entrepreneurship Jack Fuchs, Joaquin discusses his commitment to “world positive investing” and his belief that many highly successful 21st century businesses will be devoted to solving the world's biggest problems.

In our first-ever ETL Research bonus episode, we look at one of the first empirical studies of lean startup. In a recent paper published in the Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, researchers Michael Leatherbee and Riitta Katila find that lean startup’s emphasis on “customer discovery” — that is, directly testing business hypotheses with potential costumers during product development — does help teams converge on business ideas. They also find that MBAs are both hesitant to embrace the method and especially successful when they choose to employ it. Katila is a professor in Stanford’s Department of Management Science and Engineering and research director of the Stanford Technology Ventures Program, and Leatherbee is a professor at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile as well as President of the Advisory Board for Startup Chile. In this conversation they are joined by Stanford adjunct professor Steve Blank, whose Lean Launchpad class and 2003 book The Four Steps to the Epiphany were foundational to the lean startup movement.

Kevin Systrom, co-founder of Instagram, first spoke at ETL in 2011, just seven months after Instagram launched. Here, he returns to ETL nine years later to draw some new insights about the the startup's rocket-like growth. In an interview with Stanford professor of the practice and STVP faculty director Tina Seelig, Systrom reflects on the lessons he's learned during the course of that journey, and also talks about his work on Rt.live, a new platform that aims to model the COVID-19 pandemic.

Kevin Systrom, co-founder of Instagram, first spoke at ETL in 2011, just seven months after Instagram launched. Here, he returns to ETL nine years later to draw some new insights about the startup's rocket-like growth. In an interview with Stanford professor of the practice and STVP faculty director Tina Seelig, Systrom reflects on the lessons he’s learned during the course of that journey, and also talks about his work on Rt.live, a new platform that aims to model the COVID-19 pandemic.

Kevin Systrom, co-founder of Instagram, first spoke at ETL in 2011, just seven months after Instagram launched. Here, he returns to ETL nine years later to draw some new insights about the the startup's rocket-like growth. In an interview with Stanford professor of the practice and STVP faculty director Tina Seelig, Systrom reflects on the lessons he’s learned during the course of that journey, and also talks about his work on Rt.live, a new platform that aims to model the COVID-19 pandemic.

Too much friction drives you crazy, but too little leaves you adrift. In this episode, Stanford Professor Bob Sutton and Hayagreeva Rao, professor in the Stanford Graduate School of Business and coauthor of Scaling Up Excellence, discuss their quest for the “just right” amount of friction. Sure, you can make structural changes, but you’ll never optimize friction if you don’t understand and deal with what people are feeling.

The temperature is higher and things move faster, but restaurant kitchens aren’t so different from any other workplace—you’ve got egos, stress, and the constant pressure to deliver. In this episode, Craig and Annie Stoll, husband and wife owners of the renowned San Francisco-based Delfina Restaurant Group, talk with Stanford Professor Bob Sutton about the organized chaos that rules restaurant kitchens. What keeps everything from going off the rails, the Stolls explain, is predictability and consistency.

The modern workplace is killing people and no one cares. That’s the sobering conclusion of Jeffrey Pfeffer’s new book "Dying for a Paycheck: How Modern Management Harms Employee Health and Company Performance—and What We Can Do About It." In this episode, Stanford Professor Bob Sutton and Pfeffer, a professor of organizational behavior at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, discuss the toxic workplace practices that are making employees not just miserable but sick. To cure this dangerous state of affairs, Pfeffer prescribes a healthy dose of butting out: companies need to stop micromanaging, and let employees do their work and go home.

Rules get an unfairly bad rap. In this episode, Stanford Engineering Professor Kathleen Eisenhardt, author of Simple Rules: How to Thrive in a Complex World, and Stanford Professor Bob Sutton discuss the virtues of structure and guidelines. As long as your rules are clear and customized to your organization, Eisenhardt says, they won’t get in your way. In fact, the right set of rules—everything from Michael Pollan’s “eat food, not too much, mostly plants” to “no emails on the weekend”—can keep teams focused, productive, and harmonious.

You don’t need as many ideas as you think you do. In this episode, Stanford Professor Bob Sutton and Henning Piezunka, assistant professor at the European Institute of Business Administration (INSEAD), debunk brainstorming myths and talk about the importance of saving time and energy. Piezunka explains that rejecting ideas is a delicate art that can actually deepen relationships—and that saying “no” is much better than saying nothing.

Can you dampen friction in the bureaucracy-laden, ego-filled halls of the United States government? Yes-- you can, says Jennifer Anastasoff. As head of people for the United States Digital Service (USDS), a non-partisan tech group in the federal government created to better deliver government services and improve the lives of people in America, Anastasoff looked for people who cared about the USDS mission more than their own glory. In this episode, Anastasoff and Stanford Professor Bob Sutton talk about the importance of working behind the scenes to build consensus, and valuing results over recognition.

Many companies likes to think they’re practicing design thinking, but most of them are wrong. Sam Yen, former Chief Design Officer of SAP and now Managing Director at JP Morgan Chase & Company, speaks with Stanford Professor Bob Sutton about how the design thinking movement gets lost in translation. He shares how SAP harnessed the energy of customers to combat employee inertia and foot-dragging.

Robert Sutton is a Professor of Management Science and Engineering and a Professor of Organizational Behavior (by courtesy) at Stanford University. He co-founded the Stanford Technology Ventures Program (STVP) and the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design (which everyone calls “the d.school”). He’s also a Ph. D., but he doesn’t like to be called Doctor, or even Robert. His latest book is called The Asshole Survival Guide: How to Deal With People Who Treat You Like Dirt, and that’s what he and Laurie talk about on today’s episode. Bob and Laurie both think the management landscape is broken, and according to Bob, managers tend to make two major mistakes. First, they overestimate their own value. In practice, this means that the more they micromanage employees, the more highly they'll rate their employees’ performance, whether they actually perform better or not. Second, managers don't know when to back off. It’s true: when an authority figure is in the room, it has a stifling effect – and Bob reveals why leaving the room is often the better move. What’s the solution? Bob argues that we do need some management, but we need as little as we can get away with. Think about it: nowhere in the animal kingdom or in human society does there exist a group without some sort of pecking order. Google tried to get rid of it in the early days, but that blew up in their faces. Bob shares another story about GitHub’s dysfunctional lack of management adhocracy which led to every business owner’s worst nightmares and a founder getting forced out. So where do you land between ‘Lord of the Flies’ and militaristic management? Laurie and Bob talk about the difference between authority and authoritarian assholes, and between narcissists and guilt-prone leaders. What do you do if you’ve just founded a company and are looking to build strong leadership without being a stifling leader? Bob believes that the best leaders have ‘strong opinions that are weakly held.’ They also bring in people who offset their own weaknesses. Finally, if you’re going to be a leader, you HAVE to be resilient. Want some quick and dirty advice on how to deal with assholes when you’re stuck in your job and you can't get out? Bob’s got some tips for you. In fact, he’s the expert on how to deal with assholes; he even wrote the book on it. But the answer is probably going to shock you, and he shares a story of someone who worked at Apple for 25 years and how he avoided Steve Jobs’ wrath. You also don’t want to miss the technique another of Bob’s colleagues uses on assholes – he deals with this problem like a research scientist would! On a more poignant note, Bob and Laurie discuss some of the greatest scandals in the past decades, from sexual abuse in the Catholic Church to Bill Cosby to Harvey Weinstein – there is strength in numbers. When you have people around you standing up for the same reason you are, you can no longer be singled out as a crazy person. Bob’s latest passion project is spearheaded by his podcast, Friction. What is organizational friction? Bob’s learned a lot about it – he and his co-host have tracked organizations as they scale, and how great ideas and excellence can spread, but the big obstacle is continuing to do the great things they’ve been doing all along. Friction, frustration, and fatigue – they bring everyone down. But in his research, Bob has also found good things about friction, such as when friction was a result of a problem that could be fixed. Bob gives us a preview of an episode of his podcast that hasn’t come out yet, a husband and wife team who run a 7-person restaurant chain in the San Francisco area. From dealing with substance abuse to the rhythm of the typical workday, Bob details some of the areas of friction they deal with. How do they do it? Like it or not: the answer is hierarchy. When is friction good or bad? Are there times when you should embrace the friction or you should change the system to eliminate it? Bob shares a wealth of insights on how to deal with friction in the workplace. One of these is ‘the cone of friction.’ It’s a person who, wherever they go, cause friction around them. He also draws in the legendary George Carlin’s saying: “Your stuff is shit; my shit is stuff.” Some of the worst managers and leaders act like children and lick the cookie. Rebecca Hinds was a guest on Bob’s podcast, and he shares the DIY sabotage that creates bottlenecks and breakpoints within a company. Shifting gears, you have probably noticed the trend of many companies to celebrate failure. Fail forward! Fail fast! But is this the best path? Certainly, we shouldn’t run from it, but if we’re going to fail, we should be failing in new and interesting ways. Bob and Laurie talk about what healthy failure looks like. The DIY HR Handbook Wouldn't you love to get your hands on Laurie's no-holds-barred, honest DIY HR Handbook for employees and pros alike? Download it for free! Bob Sutton Website Twitter LinkedIn Friction Podcast Asshole Videos Books Podcast Appearances Bob’s Favorite Friction Podcast Episodes Don’t Sugar Coat Your Culture with Patty McCord Friction’s Antidote: Radical Candor with Kim Scott DIY Sabotage: Lick the Cookie with Rebecca Hinds of Dropbox

If your stunt coordinator falls asleep in an important meeting, you can expect trouble later, says Hollywood executive producer Sheri Singer. In this episode, Singer and Stanford Professor Bob Sutton talk about the value of worry in the workplace. Singer, executive producer of 37 made-for-TV movies including “Halloweentown,” says that in the fast-paced, budget-crunched world of moviemaking, she’s learned to keep a watchful eye for problem people on her film projects—and to trust her gut about small behaviors that may signal major problems.

When companies get big, they stop innovating. In this episode, Eric Ries, author of The Lean Startup, talks with Stanford Professor Bob Sutton about ways to fight back against the sluggishness of scale. If you really want employees to come up with new ideas, Ries says, workplace posters and glib slogans won’t cut it. You’ve got to measure innovation and reward it, failures and all.

The best leaders cultivate empathy, patience and an awareness of their own vulnerabilities, says Nancy F. Koehn, a historian at the Harvard Business School. She’s the author of Forged in Crisis: The Power of Courageous Leadership in Turbulent Times, about the zigzagging paths of five historical figures, from Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass to environmentalist Rachel Carson. In this episode, Koehn speaks with Stanford Professor Bob Sutton about how transformational leaders slow down and harness their humanity to overcome significant challenges.

Stanford Engineering Professor Bob Sutton is back at it to find the causes and cures for dysfunctional organizational friction. Part organizational design, part therapy, season two of the FRICTION podcast dives into stories of trailblazers who knew when to slow down and think -- and when to speed up and break through the walls of bureaucracy. Buckle up for episodes featuring leadership coach and Harvard Business School historian Nancy Koehn, Lean Startup guru Eric Ries restaurateurs Craig and Annie Stoll and much, much more. New episodes drop May 30th.

Today's Flash Back Friday takes us to Episode 67 from July 2012. Join Jason Hartman for an insightful conversation on creativity with author and Executive Director for Stanford Technology Ventures Program, Tina Seelig. Tina points out that many people incorrectly believe they lack creativity and that it cannot be learned. She views this as a huge problem in that it is a matter of attitude. “If you think about it, every single sentence that you utter is a creative act,” Tina explained. “From the moment you're born, you're creating your life.” Creativity is not exclusive to artists or musicians. Problem-solving at all levels requires creativity, whether it's fixing a meal or designing machinery or coming up with an efficient technique. It is incredibly important to every aspect of life. Tina gives examples of how to encourage and expand creativity, as well as examples of how it is often stifled. Some of the tools for bringing out creativity are reframing, connecting and combining ideas, and challenging assumptions. Tina explains our “innovation engine,” a tool we all possess. There are three things people need to possess as an individual and three things that are critical in the outside world. As an individual, we need basic knowledge, imagination and motivation. We are affected by our environment by resources, habitat and culture. Dr. Tina Seelig is the Executive Director for the Stanford Technology Ventures Program (STVP), the entrepreneurship center at Stanford University's School of Engineering. STVP is dedicated to accelerating high-technology entrepreneurship education and creating scholarly research on technology-based firms. STVP provides students from all majors with the entrepreneurial skills needed to use innovations to solve major world problems. She teaches courses on creativity, innovation, and entrepreneurship in the department of Management Science and Engineering, and within the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford. Dr. Seelig is also the Director of the National Center for Engineering Pathways to Innovation (Epicenter), which is dedicated infusing entrepreneurship and innovation skills into undergraduate engineering in the United States. Funded by the National Science Foundation and directed by STVP, the Epicenter is an education, research and outreach hub for the creation and sharing of entrepreneurship and innovation resources among U.S. engineering schools. Dr. Seelig has also written 16 popular science books and educational games. Her books include The Epicurean Laboratory and Incredible Edible Science, published by Scientific American; and a series of twelve games called Games for Your Brain, published by Chronicle Books. Her newest books, published by HarperCollins are What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20: A Crash Course on Making Your Place in the World (2009), and inGenius: Unleashing Creative Potential, which will be released in April 2012. She has a Ph.D. in Neuroscience from Stanford and is the Executive Director of the Stanford Technology Ventures Program, which is the entrepreneurship center at Stanford University School of Engineering. Seelig also teaches a course in the Department of Management Science & Engineering on Creativity and Innovation. In 2009, Seelig was awarded the highly prestigious Gordon Prize for her innovative work in technology, engineering, and education.

For our wrap-up of FRICTION, Stanford Engineering’s Bob Sutton returns to the premise of the podcast - work doesn’t have to suck - and shares his top five takeaways from all the lively and frequently raw discussions he’s had over the summer with fellow experts on management, organizational behavior and other aspects of today’s work environment. A professor of management science and engineering, Sutton signs off by asking listeners for answers to two questions about friction that still haunt him. Here’s your chance to nail a simple test by a tenured Stanford professor and bestselling author.

For our final full episode, Stanford Engineering’s Bob Sutton sits down with Kim Scott, author of the New York Times bestseller “Radical Candor: Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity.” Before a live audience in San Francisco, they discuss how we can all develop the courage to tell co-workers when they can do better, as well as face critical feedback ourselves. Do you pull punches just because you want to be liked, or fear you’ll make someone else angry? Multiply that over an entire organization, and you have the sort of ubiquitous friction that’s devilishly invisible but disastrous overall. As Scott says, the goal is to both care personally and challenge directly: “We totally forget that our humanity is an asset, and we should bring it to bear at work.”

Professor DeCelles studies settings that are rife with friction, frustration, and fatigue. In this episode, Stanford Engineering’s Bob Sutton interviews the University of Toronto’s Katy DeCelles about how people deal with the constraints and stresses of prison and airports.  Employees in both settings are required to enforce strict rules, which can inflame the often distressed, manipulative, and overbearing people that they care for and oversee. DeCelles explains how prison guards and airline workers do their jobs in ways that protect their own physical and mental health, and at the same time, allow them to maintain order among the people they are paid to serve, protect, and control.  The strategies these employees use include a curious blend of empathy and emotional detachment. DeCelles also discusses her research on another kind of pushy workplace character, the “organizational vigilante”– those self-appointed enforcers who take it upon themselves to chastise you for violating some obscure policy or arriving to work five minutes late. 

As kids, it worked every time: Out of sheer greed, you claim the last Oreo by licking it and grossing out all your friends. As adults, it’s your colleague who tells everyone he plans to work on something just so no one else does - halting productivity and progress. In this episode, Stanford Engineering Professor Bob Sutton and his co-conspirator Rebecca Hinds crack open a recently declassified World War II field manual for undercover saboteurs, drawing parallels to the ways businesses undermine themselves and competitors. Whether it’s a pre-meeting before a meeting, or hitting “reply all” in an email, these little acts gunk things up as badly as a fistful of rice in a Humvee’s fuel tank.

In order to understand how friction helps and harms work, Stanford’s Bob Sutton, author of the forthcoming “Asshole Survival Guide,” interviews management expert Michael Dearing, a former senior vice president at eBay who has done corporate strategy for the Walt Disney Co. and now heads Harrison Metal, a VC and education firm that focuses on general management, business leadership and product development. Discover the timeless truths of good management, the rules of engagement to allow for creative tension, and the virtue of velocity for the entrepreneur.

Startups may want to downplay the free food, beer and haircuts and start hiring and treating workers like the adults they need to thrive long term, according to acclaimed leadership consultant Patty McCord. In this episode, the former chief talent officer of Netflix speaks bluntly with host Bob Sutton about how backstabbing, passive-aggressive behavior and overall coddling of employees are all bad for businesses — and how actual grown-ups can hear and handle the truth, even when they disagree.

Friction is the force that stands in the way of getting things done, and it’s everywhere because we work in an increasingly complex and collaborative world. But before we can eliminate this costly drag on our time, we must first call out the enemy. In this episode, Stanford management Professor Bob Sutton and Stanford business Professor Hayagreeva "Huggy" Rao describe how friction takes hold and spreads within workplaces, how to recognize when you or those around you are just adding to the "muck," and why it’s especially important for entrepreneurs to eliminate drag that blunts their only edge in the market: speed.

In this video, Felice Frankel demonstrates how to create an image of a STVP device.

People in Silicon Valley often talk about failing fast. But what exactly does that mean? In this pilot episode of STVP’s new podcast series, Stanford Innovation Lab, Professor of the Practice Tina Seelig interviews serial entrepreneur Alberto Savoia, who describes how to fail smart. Based on his experiences founding two companies, as well as his time at Google and Sun Microsystems, Alberto discusses different types of failure, and how specific practices can be used to fail faster and more efficiently using a concept he calls “pretotyping.”

Former U.S. Undersecretary of Energy Kristina Johnson discusses the empowering experiences of her life and career in academia, government and private industry. In a conversation with STVP's Tina Seelig, Johnson identifies the strengths of each of these areas to affect change and innovation, and offers lessons in leading a life that can capitalize on new opportunities.

Former U.S. Undersecretary of Energy Kristina Johnson discusses the empowering experiences of her life and career in academia, government and private industry. In a conversation with STVP's Tina Seelig, Johnson identifies the strengths of each of these areas to affect change and innovation, and offers lessons in leading a life that can capitalize on new opportunities.

InDinero Founder Jessica Mah discusses the realities of the startup experience, in conversation with STVP faculty member and entrepreneur Steve Blank. Sharing the early successes and missteps for her company, Mah honestly reveals the lessons she continues to learn while directing inDinero's path to success through its commitment to customers.

InDinero Founder Jessica Mah discusses the realities of the startup experience, in conversation with STVP faculty member and entrepreneur Steve Blank. Sharing the early successes and missteps for her company, Mah honestly reveals the lessons she continues to learn while directing inDinero's path to success through its commitment to customers.

InDinero Founder Jessica Mah discusses the realities of the startup experience, in conversation with STVP faculty member and entrepreneur Steve Blank. Sharing the early successes and missteps for her company, Mah honestly reveals the lessons she continues to learn while directing inDinero's path to success through its commitment to customers.

Tom Byers is a professor at Stanford University where he focuses on technology entrepreneurship education. He is founder and a faculty director of the Stanford Technology Ventures Program (STVP), which serves as the entrepreneurship center for the engineering school. STVP includes the Mayfield Fellows work/study program, Educators Corner website of teaching resources, and a set of global Roundtable on Entrepreneurship Education conferences. Tom is also a faculty director of the AEA/Stanford Executive Institute, a general management program for technology executives. Tom is co-author of a popular textbook called "Technology Ventures: From Idea to Enterprise" published by McGraw-Hill. Tom also holds visiting professor appointments at the London Business School and University College London. Tom holds a BS in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research and an MBA from UC Berkeley. He also earned a PhD in Business Administration (Management Science) at UC Berkeley.

Tom Byers is a professor at Stanford University where he focuses on technology entrepreneurship education. He is founder and a faculty director of the Stanford Technology Ventures Program (STVP), which serves as the entrepreneurship center for the engineering school. STVP includes the Mayfield Fellows work/study program, Educators Corner website of teaching resources, and a set of global Roundtable on Entrepreneurship Education conferences. Tom is also a faculty director of the AEA/Stanford Executive Institute, a general management program for technology executives. Tom is co-author of a popular textbook called "Technology Ventures: From Idea to Enterprise" published by McGraw-Hill. Tom also holds visiting professor appointments at the London Business School and University College London. Tom holds a BS in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research and an MBA from UC Berkeley. He also earned a PhD in Business Administration (Management Science) at UC Berkeley.

Donna Novitsky, CEO of Big Tent Design and a former venture capitalist at Mohr Davidow Ventures contrasts her experiences as an executive in a start-up, a venture capitalist and as an entrepreneur. Novitsky addresses the role of risk mitigation in investing in new ventures and the importance of having a singular focus, aligning company goals with funding requirements and team work in an entrepreneurial environment. Her motto, "Go big or don't go!" has driven her endeavors from her first job to her new venture.