StartX Names Joseph Huang as CEO and Renews Partnership with Stanford and Stanford Health Care

A new CEO, Chairman of the Board and Co-Founder

StartX is pleased to announce the appointment of its new CEO, Joseph Huang.

Huang was employee no. 3, 7, and 15 at a variety of startups before receiving his graduate degree in computer science from Stanford University in 2011, and is a StartX-educated entrepreneur who sold his first company to Apple. Joseph is a longstanding member of the community and has served in almost every role available to alumni: as a StartX founder, mentor, skills coach, community leader, and most recently as a staff member. Drawing on this experience, Huang will bring a fresh vision to StartX, where he plans to launch a series of new initiatives that will help deepen the organization’s connection to the community and push the bounds of what it means to be a founder community.

As StartX founder, Cameron will be moving from CEO to chairman of the board and will continue his role on the Stanford–StartX Fund and critical program initiatives such as founder sourcing and admissions. He will also be shifting some of his time towards his own startup, Founder.Center, which will further strengthen StartX’s mission, building tools to help entrepreneurs leverage their networks.

“Through the past seven years, StartX has achieved the first step in my vision toward becoming the world’s best life-long training ground for entrepreneurs. With StartX the healthiest that it has ever been, it’s a perfect time to take StartX into the next chapter of its story. Joseph has been our most engaged community member since his company joined the program in 2011 and we couldn’t imagine anyone better to lead StartX moving forward,” said Cameron Teitelman, founder and chairman of StartX. “We worked hard to develop a self-supporting network and have always planned for a StartX-backed founder to step in at the helm.”

We are also excited to have Stanford’s support in this transition: “Under Cameron’s leadership, StartX has seen remarkable growth from an idea to an organization that has supported more than 1,000 Stanford entrepreneurs,” said Randy Livingston, Stanford University’s Vice President for Business Affairs and Chief Financial Officer. “I am confident that Joseph will be successful in taking StartX to the next stage and enhancing StartX’s environment of education, collaboration, and innovation.”

Renewing our Partnership with Stanford:

Today StartX is also announcing that in June 2016, we renewed our partnership with Stanford University and Stanford Health Care. This partnership provides StartX with an annual grant and funds the Stanford–StartX Fund, which has invested $110 million to date in companies founded by StartX participants.

StartX is a very unique program that mixes serial entrepreneurs, growth-stage companies and first-time early stage founders to provide experiential education to all entrepreneurs who apply, including Stanford professors, students, and alumni. StartX has also been able to remain completely free and charges no equity to its entrepreneurs.

“One of the most important questions StartX asks each founder is ‘Why is this company right for you?’” says Garry Nolan, PhD, Professor of Microbiology & Immunology at Stanford. “They really do care about making sure founders are approaching entrepreneurship for the right reasons; and if it’s truly your calling, StartX is there with entrepreneurs and other startup veterans to support you at every turn. This is a very clear, natural extension of the culture we strive for — finding how your ideas can be seen as a window for another person’s opportunity. Stanford shows once again its commitment to innovation at every level — I am thrilled to be a part of this community.”

StartX alumni include more than 30 Stanford professors including Garry Nolan, Atul Butte, Ashish Goel, Dean Felsher, Monica Lam, Sebastian Thrun, et al. and companies such as Eero, Marco Polo, Life360, and Periscope. StartX staff alumni have also gone on to build great businesses including Evan Spiegel (CEO, Snap) and Divya Nag (Apple HealthKit and CareKit).

StartX is a 501(c)(3) non-profit that accelerates the development of Stanford-affiliated entrepreneurs. It has supported more than 400 Stanford companies to date, and its companies have raised an average of $5.1 million in capital, collectively representing $7.5 billion in market capitalization.