Young Alumni and Student Founders: Pathways to Entrepreneurship

Session Speaker Bios

Panel Discussion: 

The panel features four outstanding young founders, two alumni and two students, who are creating and scaling sector-leading startups. One of the companies has reached a $1B valuation in a few short years, another is revolutionizing the data analytics space, a third is navigating the seed/series A fundraising process, and a fourth is now integrating the company into a larger one that just acquired it.

• Justin Zhen '10(link is external), Co-Founder and President, Thinknum(link is external)
• Patrick Wendell '11(link is external), Co-Founder and VP of Engineering, Databricks(link is external)
• Changxiao Xie '21(link is external), Co-Founder and CTO, Empowerly(link is external)
• Raya Ward '22(link is external), Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer, Adora(link is external)
• Moderated by Jared Crooks '11 *15(link is external), Manager of Science Investments, Schmidt Futures