Teaching Team
Steve Blank
Steve Blank is an Adjunct Professor at Stanford University. Steve created the customer development method that launched the lean startup movement, a methodology that recognized that startups are not smaller versions of large companies, but require their own set of processes and tools to be successful. He teaches courses on Lean Startups, innovation, entrepreneurship, defense, and international policy. Blank served four years in the U.S. Air Force, was part of/co-founded 8 startups and is considered the "father of modern entrepreneurship." Blank’s book The Four Steps to the Epiphany launched the Lean Startup movement.
His Lean LaunchPad class ENGR 245 was adopted by the National Science Foundation to become the NSF I-Corps, now taught in 98 colleges and universities. His Hacking for Defense class MS&E 297 (co-authored with Joe Felter and Pete Newell) was adopted by the Department of Defense and is now taught in 40 universities. His talk, The Secret History of Silicon Valley is the canonical history of how the DOD and intelligence community helped start Stanford's and Silicon Valley's innovation ecosystem.
Joe Felter
Joe Felter is an educator, researcher and entrepreneur with over 30 years of organizational leadership and management experience including 15 years working at the nexus of Stanford University and Silicon Valley.
He maintains teaching and research appointments at Stanford’s Center for International Security and Cooperation, the Hoover Institution and Stanford Technology Ventures Program. From 2017 to 2019, Dr. Felter served as US Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for South and Southeast Asia. Joe is also the co-creator of “Hacking for Defense,” a defense-innovation focused academic curriculum that was developed and piloted at Stanford in 2016.
A retired US Army Ranger and Special Forces officer, Joe served in a variety of special operations assignments with combat deployments to Panama, Iraq and Afghanistan. He received a B.S. from the United States Military Academy at West Point, MPA from the Harvard Kennedy School, Graduate Certificate in Management from the University of West Australia, and Ph.D. from Stanford University.
Mike Brown
Michael Brown is the Director of the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) at the U.S. Department of Defense. DIU, established in 2015, fields leading-edge commercial capabilities to the military faster and more cost-effectively than traditional defense acquisition methods. With offices in Silicon Valley, Boston, Austin, and at the Pentagon, DIU is embedded in key innovation ecosystems across the country and builds direct relationships with organizations that strengthen our national security innovation base.
Previously, Michael served two years (2016-2018) as a White House Presidential Innovation Fellow at DoD. He is the co-author of a Pentagon study on China’s participation in the U.S. venture ecosystem, a catalyst for the Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act (FIRRMA). FIRRMA was signed into law in August 2018 and provided expanded jurisdiction to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS). Additionally, he led the initiative for a new Defense Department-sponsored investment vehicle, National Security Innovation Capital (NSIC) to fund dual-use hardware technology companies.
Teaching Assistants and Course Administrators
People
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Gordian Knot Center Liaison
