Steve Oskoui is wrestling with something a number of Stanford University
students have faced over the years. Guys like, oh, John McEnroe, John Elw=
ay,
Tiger Woods. The luxurious dilemma: Should I stay and graduate from one o=
f
the nation's top universities--or turn pro and start cashing seven-figure
checks? You won't be seeing Oskoui in a Gatorade commercial, however. He
isn't an Olympic swimmer or a golden-footed field-goal kicker. His arena =
is
the Internet, where he already has started two companies and sold one. La=
st
spring, Oskoui, a 20-year-old computer-science major, says an Internet
portal company that he's not allowed to name offered him ''several millio=
n
dollars'' for a shopping-robot technology he and a buddy dreamed up as pa=
rt
of a computer-science project. After some agonizing, he turned it
down--mainly because the company insisted he would have to leave school a=
nd
come along with it. Now, another potential buyer has emerged, and the
hand-wringing starts again.
Call Oskoui and a growing list of his friends at Stanford's vaunted
engineering and computer-science departments the bonus babies--dot.com
style. Venture capitalists and entrepreneurs have long prowled Stanford's
bike paths, mainly looking for faculty members and grad students. Now,
they're romancing undergraduates. ''It's real,'' says Tom Kosnik, an
engineering school professor. ''We don't keep statistics as to how many w=
e
lose, and I think the real number is small. But Steve is not a blowhard, =
and
seven figures is not a lot of money these days. The biggest
[venture-capital] firms are putting money down way, way, way early to tie=
up
talent,'' says Kosnik.
KEEPING MUM. Bill Gates is high tech's dropout poster boy, of course--hav=
ing
left Harvard University after his freshman year to head down what was the=
n
the information dirt road. But Oskoui and his compadres were toddlers whe=
n
Microsoft Corp.'s chairman chucked his mortarboard. Their inspiration is
much closer to home, the procrastinating Stanford PhD candidates David Fi=
lo
and Jerry Yang, who dreamed up portal Yahoo! Inc. and became billionaires.
At least Filo and Yang were graduate students. In Scotts Valley, Calif., =
10
Stanford undergraduates, mainly from engineering and computer science, ha=
ve
pledged to drop out of school in the fall to work full-time on a startup
called Woosh! Inc. CEO Ralph Garvin Jr. says his backers won't let him
release any other details on his funding or product. He says, however, ''=
we
have promised one another we will all graduate--eventually.'' Leaving sch=
ool
''is like Cortez burning his ships. You succeed because you have to
succeed,'' he says. It struck me that secrecy's not a bad idea here: With
this youthful crew, a competitor could probably shut the whole operation
down by sending over a keg of beer and then calling the cops.
Meanwhile, a startup called College411.com is incubating at the San
Francisco venture firm Net Value Holdings. The team includes five Stanfor=
d
undergraduates who are trying to create a portal aimed at college student=
s.
''Everyone wants to do a startup,'' says Lawrence R. Gentilello, 20, who =
has
temporarily left his studies to handle corporate partnerships for
College411. Darr Aley, a director of Net Value Holdings who's on the boar=
d
of College411, insists: ''This is not a whimsical investment. These kids =
are
undying in their passion and the hardest working staff I've ever seen.''
STARTUP COMPETITION. All this frenetic action puts Stanford in a tricky
position. On one hand, the university has worked hard to set up exactly t=
he
kind of scenario that is in fact now unfolding. Decades ago, Engineering
Dean Fred Terman set the tone, backing David Packard and Bill Hewlett and
other early electronic pioneers. That created Silicon Valley. More recent=
ly,
Stanford has supported all kinds of entrepreneurial initiatives, from
classes to internships. Now in its third year, the spring ''Entrepreneur'=
s
Challenge'' business-plan contest, run by a student group, has taken on t=
he
drama of National Football League draft day. Students are invited to subm=
it
startup ideas and have them critiqued by some of the biggest venture back=
ers
in the Valley. The nominal prize is $25,000, provided by a local VC firm.
But venture capitalists routinely push business cards at students whose
ideas don't even make the final cut. ''If you have a good idea, you have
money available,'' says Kristen D. Growney, a business school student who=
se
''Summit'' team came up with a women-oriented E-commerce site idea that w=
as
a recent winner. She subsequently discussed financing ranging from $250,0=
00
to $1 million with Valley venture capitalists.
The prospect of students derailing their schooling with a long-shot start=
up
gives some faculty members pause. Tom Byers, one of the school's most
plugged-in profs and the brother of Brook H. Byers, a leading venture
capitalist at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, for example, teaches a
wildly popular undergraduate entrepreneurship course. Tom Byers acknowled=
ges
that ''the students are so much more mature in professional or
performance-oriented things than in lifelong character issues. That's a
dichotomy that's a little dangerous.''
''OVERWHELMINGLY POSITIVE.'' Byers says he's getting fed up with
entrepreneurs hounding him at parties to introduce them to students. At
least 10% of the students in his last class came to him to talk about
leaving school for startups. He pointed out they'll have 40 or 50 years o=
f
opportunities and completing their degree is important. Stanford official=
s
note that the university makes it easy for students to return to school a=
nd
finish their degrees, even if they've taken a few quarters off. Besides,
even when startup adventures flop and students come back to school, says
Senior Associate Engineering Dean John Bravman, ''all the students I've
talked to have been overwhelmingly positive about what they've learned.''
I was impressed that Oskoui followed the lead of Elway (who stayed to
graduate) and not McEnroe and Woods. ''I've often been the kind of studen=
t
who has been so into my work that I haven't invested in friends,'' Oskoui
tells me. ''I've grown since I've come to Stanford. I'm investing in my
social development.'' Oskoui's also learning a lot this summer at an
internship at chipshot.com, a red-hot E-commerce company selling custom g=
olf
equipment. It's run by 23-year-old CEO Amar Goel, a recent Harvard grad w=
ho
has already raised--hello--$21 million. I think Oskoui's maturity is rare=
r
than a manual typewriter in the Valley these days. But not everybody who
hears his story gets misty-eyed. I told a venture capitalist about Steve,
and she looked at me through narrowed eyes, incredulous that he wouldn't
take the big bucks. ''Are you sure the offer wasn't an I.Q. test?'' she
whispered. Ouch. Welcome to the big leagues, kid.
Tushar J. Mehta
email: [email protected]
voicemail: (206) 405-2335