GRATITUDE for the opportunity to teach after a long entrepreneurial journey…

In 2012, Dr. Eric Shaqfeh, Chair of the Stanford University Chemical Engineering Department (my PhD alma mater), asked if I was interested in putting together a course on entrepreneurship for chemical engineers. I had just published the first edition of my book, Letters to a Young Entrepreneur, and he believed chemical engineering graduate students would benefit from the experience of “someone like them” who had chosen to dive deeply into the entrepreneurial life. While the Stanford Graduate School of Business offers many terrific entrepreneurship courses, they primarily focus on developing software companies. In the field of chemical engineering — especially in biotechnology and sustainable energy — the complex and demanding path of innovation is typically much longer than what we see in software development. Even after glimpsing scientific promise, the potential for technological viability may be unknown for many years, and achieving sustainable commercial success may lie decades down the road.

At first, I was both honored and daunted. I had spent a lifetime building and leading a highly successful company but had never taught at a university. On the other hand, the opportunity to share the lessons I had learned transforming from a post-graduate researcher into an entrepreneurial CEO intrigued me. When I expressed my concerns, Eric responded with the magic key (which he had probably had in mind all along). He suggested a co-teacher he felt would be a great partner: Howie Rosen who, after earning a Chemical Engineering MS from MIT and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business, had emerged as a highly successful biotech executive.

The rest is history. Our rapport was immediate and our experiences complementary. We put together an exciting course that covered the “nuts and bolts” of creating chemical engineering-driven ventures, as well as the unique challenges of being thrust into leadership following academic training that was largely scientific and technical. Over the next 12 years we taught a 3-unit course and had the pleasure and privilege to attract over 150 students from various  School of Engineering departments as well as MBA-Medical School students, and even a PhD candidate in Theoretical Nuclear Physics.

We divided our course into three main themes: I. Creating a Business, II. Becoming Leaders, and III. Implications for Career Decisions. We taught our last class in the Spring of 2024. My main responsibility was Part II, Leadership. You’ll find a glimpse into this section of the course in these PDFs, which include selected slides from two of my lectures:

• Session 11: The Anatomy of the Entrepreneur (selected slides))
• Session 12: The Anatomy of the Leader (selected slides)

Enjoy! If anyone is interested in conversing about this further, do not hesitate to contact me at wng2wng@stanford.edu