Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders (ETL)

The team behind Cooliris - CEO Soujanya Bhumkar, Product Manager Josh Schwarzapel, and CTO Austin Shoemaker - discuss in detail the launch and management of their innovative web-discovery business. Topics discussed include cultivating vigorous start-up energy, building monetization into the product, and building an effective and talented team.

Hugh Martin, Chairman and CEO of Pacific Biosciences, looks back on the evolution of his career - from building computers to creating the future of medicine. Martin charts the lessons he learned working for large technology firms, as a leader in several successful start-ups, and while being courted by the VC community to launch a new wave in bioscience.

Stan Christensen, a partner at Arbor Advisors, offers advice on transactional negotiations and relationship management geared toward the student embarking upon their career. Topics covered include choosing a career, on-the-job expectations, work/life balance, and benefit mediation.

Tom Kelley, general manager at the world-renowned design firm, IDEO, presents five core practices that enhance creativity. Through entertaining stories and examples, he describes how these techniques help us all become more innovative in every aspect of our lives and lead to more success.

As a research scientist at Stanford University, Anna Patterson committed herself to indexing the world's online information. Her latest venture, Cuil (pronounced "cool") is a search engine that is challenging Google. She explains how she is using her experience with startups and non-profits to take on her former employer.

JLabs LLC CEO and author Judy Estrin puts the processes and philosophies of innovation under the microscope. Her current analysis indicates that we're short-changing the business arena and culture at large, as we've stopped planting the seeds for true, monumental invention and problem-solving.

Toss the old notions of environmentalism into the recycling bin. Investor Vinod Khosla of Khosla Ventures shatters conventional wisdom of energy reduction, and instead encourages entrepreneurs to solve environmental problems via cost-effective, innovative, and scalable engineering.

How do we love all of the children of all species for all time? The unlikely answer comes from architect, materials designer, VC, and eco-efficiency expert William McDonough, who sees the challenge of cycling biological and technical "nutrients" as industry's ultimate goal.

Mohr Davidow Ventures partner Erik Straser offers insight on the unfolding sector of new energy technologies, and discusses how it will be affected by an economy in credit crisis. He unveils the market's high level of industrial innovation, and offers students of entrepreneurship sound advice on finding the next crest in grand socioeconomic opportunity.

Ninety-percent of Silicon Valley's start-ups fail not because of faulty product, but because they don't tap the right market and they don't know their customer. Well-seasoned serial entrepreneur Steve Blank drafts a new model for plotting the path between good idea and market success.