Talks & Media

Invited Seminar: Guanghua School of Management, Peking University

September 15, 2026. Likely presenting Subsidizing the supply side: Industrial policy, firm entry, and innovation in China's battery manufacturing sector (with Guankai Zhai).

Session Organizer: INFORMS Annual Meeting, San Francisco

"Empirical Research on Engineering Entrepreneurship, Policy, and Capital Allocation"

November 1–4, 2026. Organizing an invited session co-sponsored by MSOM Technology, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship and TIMES (Technology, Innovation Management, and Entrepreneurship). The session brings together empirical work on how U.S. export controls, the CHIPS and Science Act, the Inflation Reduction Act, and the evolving U.S.–China technological decoupling have reshaped where engineering ventures form, who funds them, and which technologies receive capital. Papers draw on administrative micro-data, longitudinal alumni surveys, and quasi-experimental designs across the semiconductor sector, advanced manufacturing, clean energy and climate technology, and underrepresented founder populations.

Invited Seminar: Ross School of Business, University of Michigan

Friday, November 20, 2026. Host: Cheng Gao. Strategy / entrepreneurship seminar series.

SCECR 2026, Tokyo: Industrial Policy and Venture Capital Allocation

Two papers presented at the Symposium on Statistical Challenges in Electronic Commerce Research, Tokyo, Japan, June 21–24, 2026: Industrial Policy Reshapes Venture Capital Allocation and Growth Trajectories in Climate Technologies, and When External Shocks Attract Capital: Export Controls and Venture Capital Allocation in China.

Subsidizing the Supply Side: Industrial Policy, Firm Entry, and Innovation in China's Battery Manufacturing Sector

Paper presentation at the 14th Annual Strategy Symposium on Emerging Markets, Rice Business, May 14, 2026 (with Guankai Zhai). Evidence that supply-side subsidies without capability screening attract more entrants, but the marginal firms are short-lived, non-innovative, and exit at elevated rates even in thriving battery clusters.

National Academies: GUIPRR Workshop

Government-University-Industry Research Roundtable, Washington, DC, April 2026. Presenter on the macroeconomics of research investment.

JEC Republicans: Congressional Briefing

Joint Economic Committee staff briefing on industrial policy, export controls, and U.S.–China technology competition. Washington, DC, March 13, 2026.

UNLV Troesh Research Conference

Conference on national competitiveness and regional innovation ecosystems. Las Vegas, January 29–30, 2026.

Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

Invited seminar, January 2026, on industrial policy and venture capital allocation under cross-border policy shocks.

Smart Technology Global Trends Forum: Kaohsiung Smart Technology Innovation Park (KSTIP)

Invited speaker at the Smart Technology Global Trends Forum (智慧科技全球趨勢論壇) at the Kaohsiung Smart Technology Innovation Park, sponsored by Taiwan's Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI). Part of the long-running ITRI–Stanford partnership on advancing technology ventures and Taiwan's deep-tech innovation ecosystem.

Keio Management Society Seminar, Tokyo: AI Strategy and Entrepreneurship

Keio University Mita Campus, Tokyo, June 22, 2026 (hybrid). Hosted by the Keio Management Society. On how AI, institutional design, education systems, and policy environments shape entrepreneurial strategy, venture formation, and innovation outcomes.

Four Paradigms for AI-Enabled Social Science Research

Lightning talk at the FDS Workshop on AI for Social Science Research Methods, Yale University, May 22, 2026 (with Guankai Zhai; Chuck presenting). On how generative AI is reshaping social-science research design, from automated coding and synthetic experimentation to LLM-based content analysis of regulatory corpora.

Stanford Innovation Study: The Economic Impact of Stanford Entrepreneurship

Findings from the alumni survey with William F. Miller on the economic impact of Stanford-founded companies, the foundational study showing that companies founded by Stanford alumni generate trillions of dollars in revenue and millions of jobs globally. Stanford eCorner, 2012.

Entrepreneurial Impact: The Role of MIT

The MIT alumni-impact study with Edward B. Roberts (Chuck's doctoral advisor), and the methodological forerunner of the Stanford Innovation Study above. Found that companies founded by MIT alumni would, if grouped as an independent nation, generate roughly $2 trillion in annual worldwide sales, the 11th largest economy in the world at the time. Kauffman Foundation report, 2009.

Are You Experienced or Are You Talented? When Does Innate Talent versus Experience Explain Entrepreneurial Performance?

Using the MIT alumni dataset, this paper separates the part of entrepreneurial performance attributable to innate talent (selection of who becomes a founder) from the part attributable to accumulated experience (learning across ventures). The answer turns out to depend on context: experience matters more in environments where the playbook is established; talent shows up more sharply in novel, uncertain settings where there isn't one to copy. Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, 2012 (with Edward B. Roberts).

Awarded the Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal 2026 Best Paper Prize. The prize is presented at the Awards Recognition Ceremony of the 46th SMS Annual Conference in Berlin on 17 October 2026, also honoring the contributions of the late Edward B. Roberts to the work.

The Economic Impact of Entrepreneurial Alumni: A Case Study of the University of Virginia

The third in the alumni-impact trilogy (after MIT 2009 and Stanford 2012), applying the same methodology to UVA. Survey of more than 135,000 UVA alumni (22,757 valid responses) found that the school's entrepreneurial graduates have launched roughly 65,000 companies, employing 2.3 million people worldwide and generating an estimated $1.6 trillion in annual global revenues, with disproportionate impact on the Virginia state economy. UVA Darden Batten Institute, 2014 (with Michael Lenox, Andrew King, and Asif Mehedi).

Through the Mud or in the Boardroom

Activist tactics and how firms get targeted for social change, when secondary stakeholder pressure tactics succeed in shifting firm behavior, and when they don't. Strategic Management Journal, 2016 (with Katherine DeCelles and Michael Lenox).

Born into Chaos

How founding conditions shape whether ventures survive or thrive through environmental change. Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, 2023 (with Motley and Koo).

Founding Team Composition and Venture Performance

Survey of 2,067 MIT alumni-founded ventures showing that all-technical founding teams have a 12.8% greater likelihood of favorable exit in cooperative business environments, challenging the conventional wisdom that diverse business skills always matter most. Strategic Management Journal, 2014 (with David Hsu and Edward B. Roberts).

Do University Entrepreneurship Programs Promote Entrepreneurship?

Survey of 27,783 Stanford alumni asking what the Stanford Center for Entrepreneurial Studies (CES) at the GSB and the Stanford Technology Ventures Program (STVP) at the Engineering School actually did to their entrepreneurship rates. The sobering finding: CES participation had a negative-to-zero effect on entrepreneurship rates and STVP participation had no effect, but CES participants saw lower startup failure and higher long-term firm revenue. Strategic Management Journal, 2021 (with Yong Suk Lee).

The Persistence of Entrepreneurship and Innovative Immigrants

Stanford alumni survey examining how entrepreneurship rates differ by ethnicity and nationality, drawing on the 2011 Stanford Innovation Survey of more than 140,000 alumni. Asian American alumni are more entrepreneurial than white American alumni, but non-American Asian alumni are substantially less so, and parental entrepreneurship turns out to be a strong predictor regardless of group, with intergenerational persistence highest among non-American Asians. Policy implications for both U.S. immigration and how Asian countries pursue entrepreneurship promotion. Research Policy, 2018 (with Yong Suk Lee).

How Entrepreneurs Leverage Institutional Intermediaries in Emerging Economies

How founders in emerging economies use incubators, accelerators, and business associations to acquire public resources they couldn't otherwise reach. Strategic Management Journal, 2017 (with Armanios, Li, and Eisenhardt).

Entrepreneurial Strategies During Institutional Changes: Evidence from China's Economic Transition

What China's regional economic transition tells us about which entrepreneurial strategies pay off when institutions shift. Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, 2022 (with You (Willow) Wu and Delin Yang).

The Dark Side of Junior Stock Exchanges

Market catalysts, incubators, science parks, junior stock exchanges, are designed to stimulate venture creation. Analysis of 19,000 firms in Japan shows they can produce unintended negative consequences: more competition and information asymmetry, ultimately fewer quality IPOs and less economic growth. Stanford eCorner conversation with Bob Eberhart on their Strategic Management Journal paper, 2018.

For Startups, Adaptability and Mentor Network Diversity Can Be Pivotal

Evidence from a randomized experiment on the NovoEd MOOC platform, what kinds of mentor connections, and what kinds of adaptability, actually predict whether early-stage ventures succeed. MIS Quarterly, 2020 (with Lynn Wu).

Learning-by-Advising? Startup Learning as an Advice-Giver in Accelerators

Randomized field experiment embedded in an online accelerator program in Thailand, a five-year collaboration with AIS (Advanced Info Service) and KBank (Kasikornbank), testing whether providing structured peer evaluations benefits the advice-giver, not just the receiver. With 166 early-stage startups across multiple cohorts (2021–2023), treatment teams gained an average +0.217 points on independent pitch-quality scores and +0.108 points on idea usefulness; no significant effect on idea novelty. Working paper, December 2024 (with Zhuoxuan Li and Jungyun Han).

Technology Entrepreneurship, Stanford E145

Course preview for the flagship Stanford technology entrepreneurship course Chuck has taught since 2009.

The 27-lecture video collection on the Stanford YouTube channel was recorded for the online version of the course, which ran free for five years and reached more than 200,000 students worldwide, seeding many companies in its wake. The platform built to deliver it spun out as NovoEd, later acquired by Devonshire Investors / Fidelity.

Raising Investment in Emerging Economies: E145 lecture segment

Lecture segment from Stanford E145 / NovoEd on what's actually different about raising capital in emerging markets, the missing institutions investors in mature ecosystems take for granted (collateral systems, credit history, exit routes, follow-on capital networks), what credible substitutes look like when those institutions are thin, and what the empirical research on Chinese, Indian, and African venture financing has surfaced about which interventions actually move outcomes.

Recorded as part of the E145 MOOC offered free via NovoEd for five-plus years, this segment was also part of the inspiration for MS&E 272, Entrepreneurship Without Borders, the graduate course Chuck later created (co-taught with Vimbayi Kajese) to give engineering students a fuller treatment of cross-border venture formation that a single MOOC lecture couldn't cover.

The Future of Entrepreneurship Education at STVP

MS&E 25th Anniversary, May 2025. Opening vision for STVP and closing reflections, bookending a fireside chat between Steve Blank and Riitta Katila.

• 0:00  , Opening vision (Chuck Eesley)
• 9:59  , Fireside: Steve Blank with Riitta Katila
• 45:06, Closing on the future of STVP and MS&E (Chuck Eesley)

Angel Investing 102: Thriving in a Disruptive World

Stanford Angels & Entrepreneurs United, December 2021. A data-driven session for Stanford alumni angel investors, traits and behaviors of successful angels, historical analysis of past performance and returns, and what the institutional environment around technology entrepreneurship actually rewards.

Research Insight: Entrepreneurship Education Is About More than Startup Creation

ETL podcast, September 2021. How entrepreneurship education affects students who never found a startup.

JoJo Garden: Stanford Professor Charles Eesley

JoJo Garden, February 27, 2026. Ninety-minute long-form conversation with award-winning television host JoJo Zou on entrepreneurship, AI in education, AI in social impact, and the Zhou & Eesley Family Foundation's work to level the playing field for underserved communities globally. Chinese-subtitled. JoJo Garden was credentialed as self-TV media in APEC and at the White House; the program features Nobel laureates and leaders across fields.

On Stanford, Silicon Valley, and the Innovation Virtuous Cycle

郝会DAILY interview series, July 2025. Conversation with Hao Yang (郝杨), Chairman of the Shenyang Fund Association (沈阳市基金业协会), on how Stanford and Silicon Valley grew up together, the talent magnet effect, the Google / PageRank licensing story, Lean Launchpad and Stanford's entrepreneurship pedagogy, the cultural tolerance for failure, the venture capital model and the pay-it-forward ethos, and the current openness questions around AI and immigration.

"Stanford's Startup Prof"

Angel Invest Boston with Sal Daher, Episode 82. On the MIT / Ed Roberts lineage, NovoEd, and what makes ecosystems work.

Mezcal Negronis and the Economics of Misinformation

Creative Distillation podcast (Episode 78), CU Boulder Leeds School of Business, March 2025. Conversation with Rob Hahn (founder of Avanti) on the algorithmic financing of online misinformation, AI-era venture diligence, and what the institutional environment around founders actually shapes.

Innovating for Social Impact

ETL, April 2022. Conversation with Irma Olguin Jr. and Morgan Simon on high-growth startups and impact investors. Podcast and full-talk video.

Notre Dame AI & Labor Policy Workshop

Keough School of Global Affairs (Washington, D.C.), March 11, 2025. Chuck participated in a panel of AI developers and adopters at this Notre Dame workshop convening government, civil society, and private-sector experts on AI's impact on workers and on the policy interventions that could help workers adapt. Insights to be synthesized in a forthcoming white paper.

Strategic Immigration Reform

Innovation Movement / Declare Innovation, January 2013. Short advocacy statement on the immigrant-entrepreneur findings from the Stanford Innovation Survey, about 44% of Stanford alumni entrepreneurs are immigrants, with about 15% staying in the Bay Area and contributing to the regional economy. Pre-publication framing for the institutional argument that later became the Research Policy 2018 paper with Yong Suk Lee on the persistence of entrepreneurship and innovative immigrants.

Entrepreneurship and Racial Justice: ETL panel

Stanford eCorner / STVP Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders, November 4, 2020 (Season 16, Episode 6 · 50 minutes). Panel moderated with Jessica Norwood (founder of RUNWAY, closing the racial wealth gap through pre-seed capital for Black-owned companies) and Rodney Sampson (CEO of Opportunity Hub, a multi-campus entrepreneurship center for under-tapped communities). On how to address racial disparities in startup funding and what it takes to build a more equitable entrepreneurial community. The shorter A Lens of Racial Equity micro-episode immediately below was excerpted from this conversation.

A Lens of Racial Equity

ETL micro-episode, December 2020. Reflections on entrepreneurs' responsibility to build a more inclusive tech ecosystem.