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Teaching

I am very actively involved in educating current and future business leaders and decision-makers, at Stanford and elsewhere. At Stanford, I developed a course on Angel and Venture Capital that covers most of the aspects of start-up financing and investing. This course has been taught to multiple cohorts of Stanford students.

I also work actively with senior executives, at Stanford and around the world. The topics I cover are those that are critical for today's business leaders to internalize and act upon: fostering  and investing in corporate innovation, making better strategic financial decisions, realizing the potential of corporate venture capital, and learning from Silicon Valley.  

I received  the GSB MBA Distinguished Teacher Award, the highest award Stanford MBA students can bestow on a professor, and  the GSB MsX (Sloan) Teaching Excellence Award, which Stanford MsX (Sloan) students award to one Stanford professor each year.

Stanford Venture Capital Course

Angel and Venture Capital Financing for Entrepreneurs and Investors is a full-quarter course that covers the funding process of early-stage, high-growth companies, from seed funding to venture capital rounds to a successful exit. The course concentrates on how entrepreneurs and investors make and should make important decisions. Here are some of the issues we cover:

  • How entrepreneurs raise funding successfully.
  • The typical mistakes entrepreneurs make in raising capital and negotiating with investors.
  • How entrepreneurs pick between competing investors. The best way to pitch a project to investors.
  • How angels and venture capitalists (VCs) generate and process their deal flow and select companies.
  • How VCs are involved in business decisions such as recruiting talent and replacing CEOs.
  • The important (and unimportant) provisions of financial contracts between VCs and founders.
  • What founders and investors need to know about term sheets, as well as cash flow, voting, and control rights.
  • How to value early-stage companies and is it easy to become a unicorn.
  • How venture capital firms and funds are structured.
  • The economics of VC funds.
  • What limited partners (LPs) should care about in selecting and negotiating with VCs.
  • What determines the returns of angel and venture capital investors.

During the course, we discuss many of the nitty-gritty details that founders and investors (angels, VCs, LPs, company executives) must know to succeed. The class discussions and educational material include the most recent research and empirical facts, real-life cases, and illustrative examples. 

The course syllabus provides a detailed session-by-session description of the course. 

The course is co-taught with Theresia Gouw, a founding partner of Aspect Ventures.

Executive Sessions and Workshops

I actively work with business leaders at Stanford and around the world to help them and their organizations succeed. I present executive sessions and workshops, deliver keynote speeches, and advise companies and investors on a wide range of issues. The topics that I cover with executives at large corporations are those that are critical for today's business leaders to internalize and act upon: fostering and investing in corporate innovation, making better strategic financial decisions, realizing the potential of corporate venture capital, and learning from Silicon Valley.  I also work with large investors on issues ranging from the valuation of VC-backed companies to selecting managers and optimizing their investment portfolio.  At Stanford, I am the faculty director of the Emerging CFO Executive Education Program.

I developed an intensive course on innovation and venture capital for several executive clients (see a Sample Syllabus) that covers all aspects of the innovation funding ecosystem, including the decision-making process of angel and venture capital (VC) investors, the ins and outs of contracting between VCs and start-ups, the return patterns and economics of VC funds and the details of contractual process between limited partners and VCs, the valuation of early-stage companies, the corporate venture capital process, and the structure of the Silicon Valley ecosystem. The course, which utilizes the most recent developments, empirical evidence and research, is based on my Stanford Venture Capital course, but covers many topics in greater detail. 

Here is the description of several executive sessions/workshops/keynote speeches I gave recently to various groups of participants at Stanford and elsewhere:

Corporate innovation for company C-suite

Innovation goes global: How worried should we be and what to do

The innovation ecosystem of Silicon Valley

Stanford Finance Course

At Stanford we strive to provide fundamental principles to current and future world-class leaders. One of our core degree programs is MSx (also known in many quarters as the Sloan program), a one-year full-time general manegement degree program for experienced leaders. I have taught the fundamental principles of finance and financial decision-making to several cohorts of students in this program. 

The syllabus provides a detailed description of the course and sessions.