I am a Professor of Management Science & Engineering at Stanford University, Co-Director for International Entrepreneurship at the Stanford Technology Ventures Program (STVP), and the W.M. Keck Foundation Faculty Scholar.

My research examines how institutional environments, industrial policy, export controls, and platform design shape entrepreneurial outcomes. Recent and ongoing work spans US export controls and the global reallocation of venture capital, the effects of the Inflation Reduction Act on cleantech entrepreneurship, China's industrial subsidies and prefecture-level entrepreneurship, the algorithmic financing of online misinformation (published in Nature), and a long-running collaboration with Bill Miller estimating the global economic impact of Stanford alumni-founded companies. My methods range from quasi-experimental causal inference to LLM-based text analysis of regulatory and policy corpora.

Through STVP's global programs I have taught and run field research across six continents, reaching more than 200,000 students. I teach MS&E 272 (Entrepreneurship Without Borders, co-taught with Vimbayi Kajese) and MS&E 379 (a PhD-level course on causal inference), and serve as faculty advisor to BASES, Stanford's largest entrepreneurship student organization.

Beyond Stanford, I am an independent non-executive director and Remuneration Committee chair at Vobile Group (HKEX: 3738), a Venture Partner and LP at Brave Capital, and an active angel investor. I co-founded NovoEd (acquired by Devonshire Investors/Fidelity), founded and ran Refuge Advisors, LLC — an independent investment advisory firm managing client portfolios on a discretionary basis using fundamental, bottom-up value investing (2016–2023) — and co-founded the Zhou & Eesley Family Foundation with my wife Lijie Zhou, supporting computer science training, entrepreneurship training, and mission-related investments for underserved communities globally. I'm also an annual rider for the American Diabetes Association's Tour de Cure and the National MS Society's Waves to Wine.