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SpaceX is the third company founded by Mr. Musk. Prior to SpaceX, he co-founded PayPal, the world's leading electronic payment system, and served as the company's chairman and CEO. PayPal has over twenty million customers in 38 countries, processes several billion dollars per year and went public on the NASDAQ under PYPL in early 2002. Mr. Musk was the largest shareholder of PayPal until the company was acquired by eBay for $1.5 billion in October 2002. Before PayPal, Mr. Musk co-founded Zip2 Corporation in 1995, a leading provider of enterprise software and services to the media industry, with investments from The New York Times Company, Knight-Ridder, MDV, Softbank and the Hearst Corporation. He served as Chairman, CEO and Chief Technology Officer and in March 1999 sold Zip2 to Compaq for $307 million in an all cash transaction. Mr. Musk's early experience extends across a spectrum of advanced technology industries, from high energy density ultra-capacitors at Pinnacle Research to software development at Rocket Science and Microsoft. He has a physics degree from the University of Pennsylvania, a business degree from Wharton and originally came out to California to pursue graduate studies in high energy density capacitor physics & materials science at Stanford.
Kim Smith is co-founder and CEO of NewSchools Venture Fund, which she established in 1998 to transform public education by supporting education entrepreneurs. In NewSchools, Kim created a new "hybrid" approach to investing in social entrepreneurs. NewSchools uses grants, loans and equity investments to support a portfolio that includes nonprofit and for-profit entrepreneurs who are building sustainable, scalable education ventures. Kim began her career as a consultant specializing in business-education partnerships. In 1989, she became a founding team member of Teach For America (TFA). She then put her TFA experience to work in the post of founding director of BAYAC AmeriCorps, a consortium of nonprofits in the San Francisco Bay Area working to develop young leaders in education. Kim's background includes marketing experience with Silicon Graphics' Education Industry Group, where she focused on the online learning industry, and her role as the founding director of a trade show venture. Kim holds a bachelor's degree in political science and psychology from Columbia College and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. In 2001, Kim was featured in Newsweek's report on the "Women of the 21st Century" as "the kind of woman who will shape America's new century." She is a member of the 2002 Class of Henry Crown Fellows of the Aspen Institute. Kim has also served on many education venture and advisory boards; these currently include EdVoice, the National Council on Teacher Quality, and the Stanford University School of Education.
Steve Jurvetson is a Managing Director of Draper Fisher Jurvetson. He was the founding VC investor in Hotmail, Interwoven, and Kana. He also led the firm's investments in Tradex and Cyras (acquired by Ariba and Ciena for $8 billion), and most recently, in pioneering companies in nanotechnology and molecular electronics. Previously, Jurvetson was an R&D Engineer at Hewlett-Packard, where seven of his communications chip designs were fabricated. His prior technical experience also includes programming, materials science research (TEM atomic imaging of GaAs), and computer design at HP's PC Division, the Center for Materials Research, and Mostek. He has also worked in product marketing at Apple and NeXT Software. As a consultant with Bain & Company, Jurvetson developed executive marketing, sales, engineering and business strategies for a wide range of companies in the software, networking, and semiconductor industries. At Stanford University, he finished his BSEE in 2.5 years and graduated #1 in his class as the Henry Ford Scholar. Jurvetson also holds an MS in Electrical Engineering from Stanford. He received his MBA from the Stanford Business School, where he was an Arjay Miller Scholar. Jurvetson also serves on the Merrill Lynch and STVP Advisory Boards and is Co-Chair of the NanoBusiness Alliance. He was honored as "The Valley's Sharpest VC" on the cover of Business 2.0 and chosen by the San Francisco Chronicle and the Examiner as one of, "The ten people expected to have the greatest impact on the Bay Area in the early part of the 21st Century." He was profiled in the New York Times Magazine and also featured on the cover of Worth and Fortune magazines. Jurvetson was chosen by Forbes as one of "Tech's Best Venture Investors"; by the VC Journal as one of the "Ten Most Influential VCs"; and by Fortune as part of their "Brain Tr
Stephanie Tilenius is vice president and general manager for merchant services at PayPal, an eBay company. PayPal enables any individual or business with an email address to securely, easily and quickly send and receive payments online. An eBay employee since early 2001, she is responsible for the strategy, growth, and financial performance of PayPal's merchant services group, the business unit providing payment solutions to small and large e-commerce merchants. Before eBay, Tilenius was senior vice president of sales and marketing for PlanetRx.com, a company she co-founded and took public on the NASDAQ in 1999. Previously, she was vice president of business and product development for Firefly, a software start-up that was sold to Microsoft Corp. in 1997. Early in her career, Tilenius spent several years as an investment banker at Deutche Bank Alex Brown, primarily focusing on software and telecom. In this capacity, she worked on the Initial Public Offering for America Online in 1992, and she subsequently decided to join its corporate development group where she managed mergers, venture investments and strategic partnerships. Tilenius graduated with high honors from Brandeis University where she earned both her bachelor's degree in economics and her master's degree in international finance. She also received her master's in business administration from Harvard Business School. Tilenius also spent time as a presidential management intern through a two-year fellowship with the U.S. government where she worked for Treasury Secretary Brady and Carla Hills on Japan-U.S. trade negotiations.
Turner is a producer at Electronic Arts specializing in action-hero titles. She is working on her second James Bond game and recently completed production on the Gameboy Advance version for release this November. Turner joined EA from another area of entertainment and technology: digital music. In 1999 she co-founded and led Gigabeat, a Kleiner Perkins company. Gigabeat provided music personalization and delivery technology and was acquired by Napster in 2001. Prior to Gigabeat, she worked on a series of projects in film and online music in Los Angeles. Turner holds a M.S. and B.A. from Stanford University.
A strategic overview of time management for entrepreneurs is delineated in this article by the co-founder of a consultancy that advises on the matter.
How do you know when it's time for life after entrepreneurship? Selling the most important asset in your life - the one you've poured heart and soul into - shouldn't be tied to the day Social Security kicks in. It should be a process started three to five years before the final event, as the planning for life after entrepreneurship is equally as important as your first business plan.
Regularly reviewing your business plan ensures that you meet the needs of a growing enterprise. This allows you to identify key growth areas that you want to target.
Peter Thiel is an American businessman and entrepreneur widely known as co-founder (with Max Levchin) and former CEO of PayPal. From San Mateo, California, Thiel is an avowed Libertarian. He studied 20th-century philosophy at Stanford University and continued at the law school. Interestingly, he once proposed that PayPal could be a catalyst for change in world politics. In 2002, Thiel sold PayPal to eBay for US$1.5 billion. Currently he is the Founder and Managing Member of Clarium Capital Management, LLC, a hedge fund managing over $250 million.
Dr. Donald Francis is currently doing research to develop a vaccine for HIV at Genentech, Inc. In February of 1992 he retired after 20 years in the U.S. Public Health Service. At the time of his retirement he was the Centers for Disease AIDS Advisor to the State of California and Special Consultant to Mayor Art Agnos in San Francisco. In the latter capacity he served as the Chair of the Mayor's HIV Task Force. Dr. Francis is a Californian having done his undergraduate studies at the University of California at Berkeley. He received his M.D. from Northwestern University and his Doctor of Science from Harvard. Before beginning his work on AIDS, Dr. Francis was involved in epidemic control around the world. He was instrumental in eradicating smallpox from Sudan, India and Bangladesh. He was also on the front line of the cholera epidemic in Nigeria in the early 1970's and the Ebola epidemic in Sudan in 1976. Dr. Francis also did some of the early developmental work on the hepatitis B vaccine, both in the United States and in the People's Republic of China. He began his work on AIDS in 1981. He was one of the first scientists to suggest that AIDS was caused by an infectious agent. As director of CDC's AIDS Laboratory Activities, he worked closely with the Institut Pasteur to prove that HIV was the cause of AIDS. He was also one of the earliest scientists to realize the impact HIV would have on the United States and has been an indefatigable advocate for a logical public response.
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