List of companies founded by Stanford University alumni
Summary
This is a list of companies founded by Stanford University alumni. This list is not exhaustive, as it only includes notable companies of which the founding and development history is well recorded by reliable sources. In particular, subsidiaries are listed with their owners in parentheses.
Stanford University is one of the most successful universities in creating companies, attracting funding, and licensing its inventions to existing companies.[1][2][3][4] It is often held up as a model for technology transfer.[5][6] Stanford's Office of Technology Licensing is responsible for commercializing developments.[7] The university is described as having a strong venture culture in which students are encouraged, and often funded, to launch their own companies.[8]
According to PitchBook, from 2006 to 2017, Stanford produced 1,127 company founders as alumni or current students, more than any other university in the world; and these founders created 957 companies, second only to UC Berkeley in the world.[9][10] In addition, according to a Stanford alumni survey conducted in 2011, some 39,900 companies founded by Stanford alumni were active, and companies founded by Stanford alumni altogether generated more than $2.7 trillion in annual revenue and had created 5.4 million jobs, roughly equivalent to the 10th-largest economy in the world (2011).[11][12][13]
In this list, founders of a company which merged with other companies to form a new company are counted as founders of the new company. However, founders of a company which later dissolved into several successor companies are not counted as founders of those successor companies; this same rule applies to spin-off companies. Finally, a defunct company is a company that stopped functioning completely (e.g., bankrupt) without dissolving, merging or being acquired.
Top companies by revenuesedit
Fortune Global 500 (2017)edit
This list shows companies in Fortune Global 500 founded or co-founded by Stanford alumni. The cut-off revenue for 2017 Fortune Global 500 companies was $21,609M in 2016.[14]
This list shows companies in Fortune 1000 (only for companies within the U.S.) founded or co-founded by Stanford alumni. The cut-off revenue for 2017 Fortune 1000 companies was $1,791M in 2016.[15]
*: Trader Joe's does not reveal its annual revenue. Its revenue is estimated by Supermarket News.
**: Merger of different companies, at least one of which was founded by Stanford alumni.
***: Yahoo! was acquired by Verizon in 2017 and is no longer an independent company.[17]However, it is still listed in Fortune 1000 by Fortune for 2017.
****:Bain & Company are not listed in Fortune 1000. Its revenue is provided by Forbes.
Former Fortune-listed companiesedit
For each company, only the latest rankings (up to three years) are shown in this list.
^Alphabet Inc. was created through a corporate restructuring of Google, Inc in 2015. Google, Inc. itself was founded in 1998. Google currently is an LLC subsidiary company of Alphabet.
Referencesedit
^"The billionaire factory: Why Stanford University produces so many". The Independent. July 12, 2013. Retrieved December 22, 2017.
^Thompson, Nicholas (September 11, 2013). "Stanford and Its Startups". The New Yorker. ISSN 0028-792X. Retrieved December 22, 2017.
^"The University Entrepreneurship Report – Alumni of Top Universities Rake in $12.6 Billion Across 559 Deals". CB Insights Research. October 29, 2012. Retrieved December 22, 2017.
^"Founders Funding And Exit Ranking Usa | GraphicSprings". Retrieved May 19, 2018.
^"The Making of a Licensing Legend: Stanford University's Office of Technology Licensing". www.iphandbook.org. Retrieved December 22, 2017.
^Timothy Lenoir. Inventing the entrepreneurial university: Stanford and the co-evolution of Silicon Valley pp. 88-128 in Building Technology Transfer within Research Universities: An Entrepreneurial Approach Edited by Thomas J. Allen and Rory P. O'Shea. Cambridge University Press, 2014. ISBN 9781139046930
^"Office of Technology Licensing |". otl.stanford.edu. Retrieved July 22, 2018.
^McBride, Sarah (December 12, 2014). "Special Report: At Stanford, venture capital reaches into the dorm". Reuters. Retrieved October 28, 2017.
^"Universities Report: The top 50 universities producing VC-backed entrepreneurs (2017-2018)" (PDF). PitchBook.
^ ab"Charles R. Schwab | About Schwab". www.aboutschwab.com. Retrieved April 13, 2018.
^ ab"Founder and Director Emeritus of Dolby Laboratories Dies at Age 80 - Inventor and Visionary Revolutionized the Experience of Sound". investor.dolby.com. Retrieved July 9, 2019.
^"History". www.gapinc.com. Retrieved April 15, 2018.
^"Doris Fisher". Forbes. Retrieved April 15, 2018.
^"Capital One CEO Richard Fairbank Just Became a Billionaire". Fortune. Retrieved April 13, 2018.
^Gross, Daniel (October 25, 2002). "Capital One, What's in Your Wallet?". Slate. ISSN 1091-2339. Retrieved April 13, 2018.
^"Richard Fairbank: "Nobody Wants to Work for a Phony"". Stanford Graduate School of Business. Retrieved April 13, 2018.
^ abc"Wellspring of Innovation: Spotlight on Cisco Systems". web.stanford.edu. Retrieved April 13, 2018.
^"The History of CISCO- Timeline". Exigent Networks. September 2, 2015. Retrieved April 13, 2018.
^Parrish, Charlie (September 20, 2014). "The PayPal Mafia: Who are they and where are Silicon Valley's richest group of men now?". The Daily Telegraph. ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved April 14, 2018.
^ abcd"The incredible story of Elon Musk, from getting bullied in school to the most interesting man in tech". Business Insider. Retrieved April 10, 2018.
^"Daniel Borel". Bloomberg.com. Retrieved April 17, 2018.
^"Pierluigi L. Zappacosta: Executive Profile & Biography - Bloomberg". www.bloomberg.com. Retrieved April 17, 2018.
^"NetApp Data Storage Company Executive Staff - Biographies and Photos". www.netapp.com. Retrieved April 13, 2018.
^"Dave Hitz - Founder, NetApp". web.stanford.edu. Retrieved April 13, 2018.
^"James K. Lau". Bloomberg.com. Retrieved April 13, 2018.
^"Who owns Netflix and when was it founded?". Metro. February 3, 2018. Retrieved April 14, 2018.
^"Netflix's Forgotten Cofounder Says Reed Hastings Is Lying About How He Came Up With The Idea For The Company". Business Insider. Retrieved April 14, 2018.
^"Reed Hastings". School of Engineering. August 12, 2016. Retrieved April 14, 2018.
^"Company History | NVIDIA". www.nvidia.com. Retrieved April 14, 2018.
^"Jen-Hsun Huang". Forbes. Retrieved April 14, 2018.
^"Alvy Pixar Myth 2". alvyray.com. Retrieved May 15, 2018.
^"Alvy Ray Smith | Computer History Museum". www.computerhistory.org. Retrieved May 15, 2018.
^"SparkNotes: History". www.sparknotes.com. Retrieved May 11, 2018.
^"OkCupid Compatibility Calculation". Artsy. March 18, 2015. Retrieved May 11, 2018.
^"How Peter Thiel and the Stanford Review Built a Silicon Valley Empire | Stanford Politics". Stanford Politics. November 27, 2017. Retrieved April 10, 2018.
^"Palantir Technologies Inc.: Private Company Information - Bloomberg". www.bloomberg.com. Retrieved April 10, 2018.
^"Alexander Karp". Forbes. Retrieved April 10, 2018.
^"Joe Lonsdale". Forbes. Retrieved April 10, 2018.
^"Obihai Technology Company Profile: Valuation & Investors | PitchBook". pitchbook.com. Retrieved April 8, 2018.
^"Company Spotlight: Obihai Technology Reinventing VoIP a Third Time". voxilla.com. Retrieved April 8, 2018.
^started as an experiment on SparkNotes earlier than 2001
^"OkCupid | About Us". www.okcupid.com. Retrieved April 8, 2018.
^"Sam Yagan - Chicago Ventures". Chicago Ventures. Retrieved April 8, 2018.
^Sacks, Ethan (July 27, 2016). "A star is born: How Omaze became a force for change for celebrities and their charities". New York Daily News. Retrieved April 24, 2018.
^Ellingson, Annlee (June 19, 2014). "Q&A: Meet Omaze, the philanthropic startup behind the 'Star Wars' fan experience". www.bizjournals.com. Retrieved April 24, 2018.
^"Skoll | Ryan Cummins". skoll.org. Retrieved April 24, 2018.
^"Matthew Pohlson". angel.co. Retrieved April 24, 2018.
^"Pandora didn't pay 50 employees for two years". Business Insider. Retrieved May 14, 2018.
^Garcia, Ahiza. "Robinhood co-founders want everyone in the stock market". CNNMoney. Retrieved April 10, 2018.
^"Robinhood co-founder Baiju Bhatt to talk fighting the establishment at Disrupt NY – TechCrunch". techcrunch.com. March 24, 2016. Retrieved April 10, 2018.
^"Baiju Bhatt". angel.co. Retrieved April 10, 2018.
^"Vladimir Tenev (Robinhood)". www.startupgrind.com. Retrieved April 10, 2018.
^Molloy, Mark (July 25, 2017). "Who owns Snapchat and when was it created?". The Telegraph. ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved April 10, 2018.
^Ang, Sarah. "11 Things You Didn't Know About Snapchat's Founders". Mashable. Retrieved April 10, 2018.
^"Evan Spiegel". Forbes. Retrieved April 10, 2018.
^"Bobby Murphy". Forbes. Retrieved April 10, 2018.
^Masunaga, Samantha (March 2017). "The guy who came up with the idea for Snapchat got $158 million and vanished from public life". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved April 10, 2018.
^ abc"Stitch Fix | Your Personal Stylist". www.stitchfix.com. Retrieved April 8, 2018.
^Vara, Vauhini; Berman, Dennis K.; Adams, Russell (January 11, 2007). "EBay-StubHub Deal a Boon to Start-Ups". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved May 27, 2018.