1.) Hennessy's technological experience at MIPS link Stanford to Silicon Valley

2.) San Jose Mercury News Editorial: New Stanford President Gets High Marks

3.) Hewlett Group Gives Stanford $400 Million

4.) Hewlett Foundation's $400-Million Gift to Stanford Is Largest Ever

Hennessy's technological experience at MIPS link Stanford to Silicon Valley

By JULIANA LIU
STAFF WRITER
The San Jose Mercury News

When Provost John Hennessy takes over Stanford's
top spot this fall, he may be
Stanford's first president to embody the
convergence of scholarship and entrepreneurship.

During a sabbatical in the early 1980s, Hennessy
transformed a University research project
into MIPS Computer Systems. MIPS, which is an
acronym for millions of instructions per
second, was renamed MIPS Technologies. The
company is now publicly traded and
partially owned by Silicon Graphics Inc.

MIPS has a $2.1- billion stock market value, with
$71 million in sales last year, according
to The San Jose Mercury News. As one of Silicon
Valley's earlier start-ups, MIPS has
experienced the kind of longevity to which many
dot-coms now aspire.

Many of Hennessy's business associates have said
that its success is due to Hennessy's leadership.

"One of John's greatest contributions to MIPS is
establishing the culture of company,
allowing people to believe in the company
themselves, to feel responsibility for the
company," said James MacHale, a director of
marketing at MIPS. "It's that kind of culture
that allows an organization to have a long and
fruitful life instead of being just a flash in the
pan."

Many publications, including The San Jose Mercury
News and Newsweek, believe
Hennessy's entrepreneurial experience and ties to
Silicon Valley's elite could make
Stanford the university of the new economy.

"In the coming decade, Hennessy could turn
sun-drenched Stanford into the information
age's must influential breeding ground," B.J.
Sigesmund wrote in Newsweek.

 Startup dreams

The ideas that formed the basis of MIPS's
innovations were actually developed in a
research project at Stanford, Hennessy said.

At first, Hennessy and his team had no intention
of commercializing the technology.

"Only when we were coaxed by a famous computer
designer, Gordon Bell, and saw that
industry was going to either ignore or be quite
slow in adopting the ideas, did we decide to
start MIPS and try to do it ourselves," Hennessy
said.

In 1984, Hennessy took a sabbatical to found the
company with Edward Stritter, now the
chairman of the Board of Clarity Wireless.

"I spent considerable time at Stanford, since I
still had an active research group,"
Hennessy said. "I didn't teach, and I missed
teaching very much."

The dramatic shift from academia to business
taught Hennessy a few lessons in
administration.

"Probably the biggest benefits [of the
experience] are that I learned a different range of
leadership challenges and leadership approaches,"
Hennessy said. "I learned an
appreciation for the business world that helps me
talk to people in business and discuss
how universities work in comparison."

MIPS history

In 1991, MIPS came out with R4000(tm), the first
commercial 64-bit microprocessor.

The microprocessors based on Hennessy's research
help computer chips to be faster and
more efficient.

Silicon Graphics, Inc. was one of MIPS'
customers. It specializes in computers that can
display three-dimensional graphics, and it opted
to buy MIPS out of concern that the
smaller company would not have the financial
resources to stay in front in the chip-design
 race, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

In March 1992, MIPS and SGI announced a merger
valued at about $400 million,
according to the Financial Times.

MIPS sales fell as customers questioned whether
the company, after the merger, would
keep supplying chips on favorable terms,
according to the Chronicle. After the
announcement, MIPS reported disappointing
first-quarter earnings and its stock price fell
sharply.

Partly to reflect MIPS's poor performance in the
first quarter and the dissolution of a
computer consortium that would have further
promoted MIPS products, SGI and MIPS
renegotiated the terms of the merger. SGI bought
MIPS for about $200 million, half the
value of the original deal.

In 1998, MIPS made an initial public offering of
5.5 million shares. The company's
strategy is to focus on high-growth, high-volume
markets and to continue to build on its
strengths in traditional embedded markets,
according to the MIPS Web site.

Back to the Farm

Perhaps more interesting than the decision for a
professor to launch a startup is
Hennessy's leap from business back to academia in
the fall of 1985.

"I have always felt that people should do what
they love, especially if they are good at it,"
Hennessy said. "I love both teaching and
research, and, for me, students are the best part
of teaching and research."

Hennessy resumed his work at Stanford while
continuing to collaborate with MIPS and
many other technology firms. He said his
experience off the Farm has enriched his
teaching.

"It has certainly affected the way I teach ?
especially in how I relate principles and ideas to
the real world," Hennessy said. In research, it
taught me team building and motivational
insights that are helpful for leading larger
research projects."

Despite the successful foray into the business
world, Hennessy was confident about his
decision to come back to Stanford.

Hennessy said he has no regrets, "not this week,
not ever. "I have had the best of both experiences, and I
am where I most want to be," he said.

Valley ties

Hennessy "understands Silicon Valley from the
inside and appreciates the complicated
relationship between the University, the
high-tech business world and surrounding
community," The Mercury News wrote in an April 4
editorial. Many of the next president's business associates
agree, partly because Hennessy has not
only been observing Silicon Valley's takeoff but
has also been an active innovator in technology.

Hennessy "is the father of the RISC
microprocessor architecture," MIPS Director of
Human Resources Susan Raskin said.

RISC is the most popular microprocessor in
digital consumer appliances and networking
infrastructure systems, according to MacHale.

"[Hennessy] has a much bigger view of what's
going on [in the Valley] than any of us,"
MIPS's Director of Architecture Mike Uhler said.

Hennessy is chief scientist at MIPS and has an
honorary title of co-founder, said MIPS
Vice-President of Human Resources and
Administration Rena Creager.

MacHale said Hennessy spends half a day every
week at MIPS and has his own cubicle
there.

Hennessy also holds a board seat at another
company, T-span.

"Over time, I have had advisory roles with a
number of Valley companies, but I now have
only these two. A provost's life is busy!"
Hennessy said.

But not too busy for significant fundraising.

According to The Mercury News, when Netscape
co-founder Jim Clark, who was on the
faculty with Hennessy in the early 1980s, was
considering a substantial donation to the
university, Hennessy sent him a gift: a biography
of John D. Rockefeller. The book
includes a section on Rockefeller's conversion to
philanthropy after retiring from Standard Oil.

Last year, Clark gave $150 million to the
University's Bio-X program.

Although he has previously refused to say so,
Hennessy admitted that his long-standing
friendship with Clark influenced the contribution.

Hennessy the visionary

"He is very much a visionary," Raskin said. "He
has a very Socratic way with people,
asking questions that energize people's thinking."

If Hennessy has his way, Stanford will take
advantage of its proximity to Silicon Valley to
strengthen ties to entrepreneurship.

"Clearly, technology plays a bigger role now than
in the past, and I hope my
understanding can be used to Stanford's
advantage," Hennessy said.

"Similarly, I hope that we can build on the
relationships with the Valley, both as firms and
as individuals."

Colleagues at MIPS praised Hennessy's perspective
and interpersonal skills, saying his
years at the firm have proven his leadership
skills.Hennessy said one of his most important
duties is to lead the entire institution.

"This requires an appreciation of everything we
do, from the arts and humanities to the
Business School to the social sciences to
engineering, the sciences and the Medical
 School," he said.

"As a problem solver, I am a pragmatist, but
university presidents are also leaders, and
there I like to approach our challenges as an
optimist and a visionary."

San Jose Mercury News Editorial: New Stanford President Gets High Marks

THE next president of Stanford University is known as a world-class
scholar, a gifted teacher, a good
listener. He also understands Silicon Valley from the inside and
appreciates the complicated relationship
between the university, the high-tech business world and surrounding community.

Sounds like John Hennessy is the right person for the job.

The university trustees announced Monday that Hennessy, Stanford's provost,
will take over from
President Gerhard Casper Sept. 1. After a worldwide search, the trustees
chose the man who has been at
Casper's right hand since last July.

Hennessy has spent his entire career at Stanford. He joined the engineering
faculty in 1977, fresh out of
graduate school. He became a respected professor of electrical engineering
and computer science,
department chair and dean of the engineering school. He was appointed
provost last year.

But Hennessy did get a view of life off the Farm when he took a sabbatical
to turn a university research
project into a successful computer company. He has first-hand knowledge of
the link between scholarship
and entrepreneurship that has contributed so much to Stanford's success.

Stanford took an unusual step in 1992 when it hired Casper, who had no
previous Stanford connections.
With the university mired in a controversy over government research
funding, it made sense to bring in
someone without ties to the past.

This time, it makes sense to hire from within. Stanford's challenge today
is to maintain its pre-eminence
as a research university without sacrificing its commitment to
undergraduate education or exacerbating the
problems of congestion and overdevelopment in the area. Hennessy won't need
to get up to speed on
those issues, and he already has gained the trust of campus and community
leaders, who see him as
honest and fair.

We wish him well.

Hewlett Group Gives Stanford $400 Million

By JODI WILGOREN
 
 

n what is believed to be the largest gift ever to a university, the
Hewlett Foundation yesterday pledged $400 million to Stanford
University for undergraduate education and the study of arts and
sciences.

 The donation comes a few months after the death of William R.
Hewlett, a 1934 graduate of Stanford whose $538 partnership with
his college friend David Packard grew into one of the nation's
largest computer companies. Together, the Hewlett and Packard
families have already given about $400 million to the university,
much of it for the school of engineering.

 "Only Leland and Jane Stanford have played a larger role in
Stanford's success," said John B. Ford, the university's vice
president for development.

 The gift follows Stanford's most successful fund-raising year. The
university collected $580 million, more than any other, in 2000,
and now has an $8 billion endowment. The university has 14,000
students.

 As universities nationwide have enjoyed substantial endowment
growth over the last decade, the size of individual gifts has also
repeatedly broken records. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in
upstate New York received $360 million from an anonymous donor in
March; Furman University in South Carolina received 45 percent of
an estate worth hundreds of millions of dollars in January; New
York University inherited an Italian estate and Renaissance art
worth hundreds of millions of dollars in 1994; Vanderbilt got $300
million in 1998; and Emory received $295 million in 1996.

 But it is never enough. John Hennessy, Stanford's president, said
the Hewlett grant was seed money to raise $1 billion for the School
of Humanities and Sciences, the university's largest school, with
500 faculty members. About 75 percent of undergraduates major in
humanities and sciences fields.

 Three-quarters of the money will go to the School of Humanities
and Sciences, which has a $130 million annual budget and has had
little success in fund-raising. Much of the $300 million will endow
professorships and graduate fellowships.

 The remaining $100 million is earmarked for undergraduate
education.

Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company
 

Hewlett Foundation's $400-Million Gift to Stanford Is Largest Ever

By JOHN L. PULLEY
Thursday, May 3, 2001
 

  The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation has pledged
  $400-million to Stanford University, the largest gift ever to
  an American institution of higher education, university
  officials announced Wednesday.

  The money will bolster Stanford's endowment for humanities,
  sciences, and undergraduate education.

  Three-fourths of the gift will support Stanford's School of
  Humanities and Sciences in the form of unrestricted endowment,
  endowed professorships, and endowed undergraduate fellowships.
 

  The remaining $100-million pushes the university closer to the
  $1-billion goal it has set for a continuing campaign to raise
  money for undergraduate education. Half of that money has been
  designated for endowed undergraduate scholarships; the
  remaining $50-million will pay for new undergraduate programs,
  such as an effort to limit the size of seminars and a series
  of independent research projects, aimed at fostering
  partnerships between undergraduate students and faculty
  mentors.

  The gift is the 36th one totaling $100-million or more that
  has been pledged to a single college or university. All but
  three of those gifts have been announced since 1990. In 1999,
  the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation pledged $1-billion, over
  20 years, for scholarships that benefit minority students
  attending institutions throughout the country.

  The latest megagift is a "tribute" to William R. Hewlett, who
  established the foundation in 1966, said his son, Walter B.
  Hewlett, the foundation's chairman. The gift also reflects the
  elder Hewlett's "passionate belief in the value of a
  liberal-arts education," said Walter Hewlett, whose father
  died in January.

  In 1934, William Hewlett earned a bachelor's degree in
  electrical engineering from Stanford, where he met his
  lifelong friend and business partner, David Packard. They
  founded Hewlett-Packard in 1936. Not including Wednesday's
  pledge, the two men and their family foundations have given
  Stanford almost $400-million, said John B. Ford, the
  university's vice president for development.

  Wednesday's announcement confirms that Stanford's development
  office is on a roll. During the 1999-2000 academic year, the
  university raised $580.5-million, believed to be the most ever
  raised by a college or university in a single year. Stanford's
  take was almost $100-million more than the total raised by
  Harvard University, which typically sets the fund-raising
  pace.

  As recently as last month, though, Mr. Ford predicted that the
  university's current-year fund raising would fall short of
  last year's total by as much as $100-million, noting that new
  pledges began slowing in January. Fund-raising experts blame
  the downturn on a tepid economy and market doldrums created by
  the implosion, last year, of the technology sector.

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Copyright 2001 by The Chronicle of Higher Education