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John Hennessey is the president of Stanford University, U.S. News & World Report’s #4 university in the nation and voted one of America’s best colleges for entrepreneurs by Fortune Small Business. Hennessey is one academic who has an entrepreneurial legacy himself, as he transferred his important research in microprocessor technology to actual industry application by co-founding MIPS Technologies. Not to mention, he also sits on the boards of Google and Cisco.

At last year’s Entrepreneurship Week, President Hennessey described how teaching entrepreneurship does five important things within our society:

1. It increases people’s creativity and willingness to think outside the box
2. It encourages individuals to follow their passion and excel at what they do
3. It creates a community which embraces and leads change
4. It encourages people to have a “glass half full” attitude and approach problems as potential opportunities, and…
5. It increases students’ willingness to take on and overcome new challenges by building excellent teams!

The entrepreneurial spirit is definitely prevalent throughout Silicon Valley, and perhaps universities like Stanford are to thank for it. It certainly is home to many people who refuse to let the fear of failure prevent them from pursuing their BIG dreams! Remember, as Wayne Gretzky says, “You’ll always miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.”