Bennett J. Lee

Graham Weaver, CEO of Alpine Investors, came to speak to my class at Stanford GSB for our class, “Managing Growing Enterprises”. Typically, we are assigned a case to read and discuss it in class. This class was different, he dedicated the entire class to a new topic: LIMITING BELIEFS.   Blog

Why I studied Bruce's journey Bruce Lee wasn't only an actor and accomplished martial artist; he was a philosopher and tremendously deep thinker. I remember seeing his movements, the speed, and the crisp attention to detail ...and then I remembered reading the profound thoughts behind them

It's been about 1 year since I started this blog. My original goal was to document my thought process and journey of starting my new startup, Veridian, but it took a few turns. After some foundational posts on where I started with venture ideation and then breaking down

In my previous articles, "Why People Do What They Do" and "The Golden Apple", I explored the frameworks for understanding human behavior and the power of narratives, particularly those centered around scarcity. These narratives shape our actions, drive our motivations, and, in many cases, influence our

We've been thinking about innovation wrong.  The VC/Startup ecosystem has recently diversified into hard technologies in industries that aren't easy to disrupt because it is now imperative. Recently, the maturation of the US Defense sector has also required innovation and disruption to compete globally in

Earlier this year, I enrolled in Managing Growing Enterprises with Professor Dave Dodson at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business, a course that alone made my business school investment worthwhile. My peers and I recognized Professor Dodson’s exceptional teaching by awarding him the MSx teaching award. Professor Dodson, a

In Greek mythology, the goddess Eris threw a golden apple into a wedding feast, with the inscription "to the fairest." This simple act sparked a chain of events that would ultimately lead to the Trojan War - one of the most epic conflicts in human history. The story

There was a point in my entrepreneurial journey when I had to accept a tough truth: I was terribly wrong at predicting what people were going to do. I had reduced human psychology to a utilitarian model as we're first taught in school. My model of what people

I'm obsessed with right-brained thinking techniques essential for creative problem-solving in entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurs are expected to maximize creative potential, yet existing innovation frameworks lack sophistication. Unfortunately, ineffective creative processes are often promoted, with shortcomings masked by their outcomes. Artists have proven processes for generating creative work. Actors have

The generational grand challenge for mankind has been to revolutionize the energy industry away from fossil fuels. This moonshot benefits from progress from the past. Admiral Rickover commercialized the first nuclear power plant after engineering atomic power systems for the United States Navy. Elon Musk proved that Electric Vehicles could

In climate tech, investors and entrepreneurs are faced with a new challenge: climate change can't be solved by apps. We are faced with a new frontier of having to not only create a new business, but also adapting the lessons of entrepreneurship and technology disruption in a new

When the quote arrived for what it would take to prevent climate change, it shook everyone. $100T with a capital T (some estimates even higher). To put that in perspective: * The United States GDP is $23.2T, * The market cap of the largest company in the world, Saudi Aramco is

After over a decade of continuously reviewing technologies for startups or engineering programs I've built, I developed a framework for finding great technologies. When I was 18, I interned for venture capital firms and researched opportunities in energy storage and nanotechnology. Later on I worked in IP &

After the events of 2020 and Covid-19, I realized the world had changed so much that I couldn't recognize it. In response to this shifting landscape, I took a year off to study at Stanford Business School as a Sloan Fellow. My objective was to understand what the

Starting a venture is difficult. What happens the second time? After a first venture, without a second one in mind, the journey for an entrepreneur is awkward yet common. For many entrepreneurs whose instincts tell them, “I would be much better on my second venture”, one problem remains: how do