Stanford Dream

From the March of 2005, many Stanford people entered my life and became my good friends. Many people in eBay graduated from Stanford, either from Computer Science, or from MBA program. The list is just too long to name one by one. Among them, Xiaofeng Jin is an important person. She introduced me to the great network of Stanford. We met for the first time in Starbucks and scheduled to talk for 1 hours, but it turned out to be 4 hours. Xiaofeng highly recommended me to go to Stanford for either Salon or EMBA program and described her wonderful 6 weeks in Stanford - it was very attractive for me.

Today, Xiaofeng did another great thing. She invited me to join Stanford Alumni meal in Shanghai, so I extended my “Stanford network” to many more great people.

The Meal

We had Marie Mookini, the Senior Associate Director of MBA Career Management Center (CMC), the former Director of Adminsion, and Virginia Roberson, from MBA Career Management, Xiaofeng, Raymond, Nisa, and Jane (all GSB graduates)… It is about 11 people - a small group. Just as Virginia put it, Stanford GSB enjoys smaller groups, and the feeling of a family. I like that.

Taken by Jian Shuo Wang, on December 12, 2005. First visit to Stanford

Stanford = Internet?

In my mind, Stanford is an icon for Internet. I first know about Internet when I listened to a lecture in Shanghai Jiaotong University in 1995, and the professor talked about Jim Clark, and Marc Anderson, the two founders of Netscape. They came from Stanford. Not to mention the later Jerry Yang, SUN, eBay, Google… A big part of the Internet industry is something like a Stanford history.

Stanford to me means Internet and **Innovation ** in the first few years. To me, it is just like a university with only one major in my mind - computer science (or Internet entrepreneurship). (Just kidding. I certainly know they have other great departments).

Recently, I found Stanford means more than innovation. I still need time to get used to the facts that B-school of Stanford has a very diversed students, working on many industries, from banking to to biotech, from real estate to energy. How that works with the Stanford innovation tradition still puzzles me.

Anyway, what I learnt most from my friends in Stanford (for example, from Xiaofeng) is, “Inspirational” and “Visionary”. I like these two words very much. Along with the word Innovation, they are my most favorite English words. :-) The best place to find the combination of these three ehtics is Stanford. I don’t think Harvard offers Inspiration and Innovation as much as Stanford does. To me, Harvard means more like Business. (MIT? I was a very big fan of MIT when I was in university, but later found for Internet industry, Stanford is THE place).

I am feeling the strong desire to learn some business recently. Last time, when ex-Microsoft people (EXMSFT) met, we talked about Meetup: MBA or Not, that is a Question. I don’t care the Master degree - (why should I care?) but I do think the skill to speak a new language is important for me - the language of business. I am thinking seriously to get to business school for several months now. Virginia showed us the new campus (not a new building, a new campus!) of Stanford GSB. The campus is to complete in 2010. Maybe at that time, I can go…

S t a n f o r d - this word looks nice.

P.S. Thanks everyone for giving me the permission to write about the event, and sorry that I don’t have other’s names yet. When you are with this blog for long enough, you know my rule for privacy is not to mention people’s name unless 1) I got explict permission, or 2) the person also has a blog.