Stanford University has produced more entrepreneurs of mega-ventures than any other college. And success breeds success. The money people love to connect with anybody coming out of Stanford, and that helps Stanford get the best students, and so it repeats.
ReadWriteWeb will be reporting from the 15th Stanford Accel Symposium on February 25th. Hosted by Accel (the VC firm that funded Facebook, Etsy, and dozens of other companies we write about here) and Media X at Stanford, the event boasts some big name speakers, such as the CEOs of eBay and WPP.
You can join us by signing up here or, if your budget prohibits that, tell us in the comments what questions you would like us to ask the assembled luminaries.
Who Will Speak?
The keynote talks will be delivered by:
- John Donahoe, CEO, eBay Inc.
- Sir Martin Sorrell, Chairman and CEO, WPP
The speakers and panelists include:
- Jeremy Allaire, CEO and Founder, Brightcove, Inc.
- Adam Bain, President of Audience Network, Fox
- Jim Bankoff, CEO, SB Nation
- Matthew Barzun, National Finance Team for Barack Obama and former Chief Strategy Officer, CNET Networks, Inc
- John Battelle, Chairman and CEO, Federated Media
- Rob Bearden, former President, Jboss; President, Springsource
- Dave Berman, President of Worldwide Sales and Service, WebEx
- Tim Cadogan, CEO, OpenX
- Duke Chung, CEO, Parature
- Scott Dietzen, SVP of Communications and Products, Yahoo!
- Curt Hecht, President, Vivaki Nerve Center
- Chris Hughes, Facebook, and Architect of Obama’s Digital Campaign Strategies
- Bob Muglia, President Server and Tools Business, Microsoft Corp.
- Raghu Ramakrishnan, Chief Scientist for Audience and Research Fellow at Yahoo, Inc.
- Mark Read, Strategy Director, WPP
- Mike Schroepfer, VP Engineering, Facebook
- Quincy Smith, CEO, CBS Interactive
- David Thompspn, CEO, Genius Inc., former CMO, WebEx
- Jayshree Ullal, President and CEO, Arista Networks
- Zack Urlocker, VP of Products, Sun Microsystems
- Maynard Webb, CEO, LiveOps; former COO, eBay, Inc.
- Jeff Weiner, President, LinkedIn; former EIR, Accel Partners
What Will They Talk About?
Here are just some of the topics these big names will cover:
- The Obama Administration’s Impact on Innovation Sectors
- Digital Media Advertiser and Technology Priorities in a Downsizing World
- Trends in Data Center Infrastructure and Cloud Computing
- Will the Recession Strengthen Open Source or Destroy Profitability?
- SaaS Crossing the Chasm: Are We There Yet?
What Questions Would You Ask if You Were There?
Tell us in the comments. We will select the best questions and ask them at the conference and then report on the answers. Please be specific: ask a question that relates to one of the above topics; if you want, choose which panelist you would like us to direct your question to.
