Steven Blank

Biography

Mr. Steven Blank, also known as Steve, is an Advisor at Engineering Capital, LLC. Mr. Blank served as an Advisor at Aktana, Inc. He is retired eight-time serial entrepreneur-turned-educator and author. His worked at E.piphany. Prior to E.piphany, Mr. Blank served as the Chief Executive Officer at Rocket Science. He is a Co-Founder at Ardent Computers, Mips Computers. He also held senior management positions at SuperMac and Convergent Technologies. He Co-Founded LaunchPad Central, Inc. in 2012. He serves on the boards of Macrovision and Immersion. Mr. Blank serves as Member of Advisory Board at FreeWire Technologies, Inc. He has been a Member of Advisory Board of Core Mobility, Inc. since October 2001. He served as a Director of CafePress Inc. since May, 2004. He served as board member of California League of Conservation Voters (CLCV), Audubon California, Peninsula Open Space Trust (POST) and Startup Weekend. He served as a governor's appointee to the California Coastal Commission. He is widely recognized as a thought leader on startups and innovation. Over the 35 years, Mr. Blank has co-founded or been part of eight Silicon Valley startups, spanning semiconductors, video games, personal computers, and supercomputers. These include Zilog, Rocket Science, SuperMac, Convergent Technologies, ESL and E.piphany. He has authored two entrepreneurship texts: The Startup Owner's Manual and The Four Steps to the Epiphany, latter being credited with launching the Lean Startup movement. He teaches entrepreneurship at the Haas School of Business, and his Lean Launchpad classes are conducted at University of California, Berkeley; Columbia University; NYU; Stanford University Engineering School, and UCSF. His Innovation Corps classes are conducted for the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health and Department of Energy. In 2009 he was awarded the Stanford University Undergraduate Teaching Award in the department of Management Science and Engineering, and 2010 he was awarded the Earl F. Cheit Outstanding Teaching Award at Berkeley's Haas School of Business. In 2011 the National Science Foundation adopted his Lean Launchpad class as the U.S. standard for commercializing basic and applied research via the Innovation Corps.

Research Interest

Electrical & Electronic Systems