Stanford University has a long entrepreneurial history, helping to give birth to organizations such as Hewlett-Packard, Google, and Instagram. President Hennessy addresses the complementary roles of industry and universities, with industry identifying critical problems and universities offering disruptive thinking. In addition to being places of invention, universities are also the curators of the past and the ageless questions about what it means to be human.
John L. Hennessy has been president of Stanford University since 2000, though he has announced plans to step down in the summer of 2016. A computer scientist and entrepreneur, he has long been a champion of online learning and educational innovation. To learn more about Hennessy’s transformational leadership, see this article from Stanford University: Stanford President John L. Hennessy to Step Down in 2016.