I was invited to judge a business plan pitching competition two weeks ago at Stanford, and walked away truly impressed by the skills and breadth of knowledge from the students.

The event was organized by a student group called ASES. I was involved with running its Shanghai Summit back in 2002, and was happy to re-connect.

Five teams were assigned an Internet company (see list below), and were given about 20min to research and develop strategy to enter the Mainland China market, and pitch to VC (me and another Stanford alum from Lehman Brothers) for funding.

I structured my feedback as food for further thoughts, rather than critic their presentation. I guess maybe only half a year ago I would react more like poking holes in front of them, and reminding them the real world across the Pacific is tough and unpredictable. But now I have learned to be more encouraging and supportive, thanks for all the people who have been treating me like that these days, from top tier VC to just another entrepreneur I run into on a networking event.

Just a little change on myself that I would love to cherish and keep.

List of companies that students worked on:

www.Doostand.com a job referral networking site

www.prosper.com micro-finance platform

www.ODEO.com podcasting

www.touchstone.com feeds service provider

www.openDNS.com service to improve the safety and speed of the Domain Name System.

周末翻了翻前惠普CEO Carly Fiorina的回忆录Tough Choices. Below are few talking points from this tough woman.

Leadership is not about title, position, size of your budget or size of your stuff. It is about a choice to make a positive difference, seeing leadership potential in other people and unlocking it, taking risk and overcoming resistance (which is the nature of change) and get a group of people to accomplish something that they think is impossible.

Success is about doing things make you happy and proud, knowing your soul and keeping it.

You cannot sell your soul. If you do no one will ever pay you back.