Steve Blank

Mr. Blank is a retired serial entrepreneur with over 34 years of experience in high technology companies and general management as a founder and executive. He has been a founder or participant in eight Silicon Valley startups since 1978. His last company, E.piphany, started in his living room in 1996. His other startups include two semiconductor companies (Zilog and MIPS Computers), a workstation company (Convergent Technologies), a supercomputer firm (Ardent), a computer peripheral supplier (SuperMac), a military intelligence systems supplier (ESL) and a video game company (Rocket Science Games).

Concurrently, Mr. Blank teaches at the Haas Business School at UC Berkeley and at the Columbia Business School. There he created the "Customer Development in High Tech Enterprise" course. He is the author of the course text "The Four Steps to the Epiphany"

In 2009 the San Jose Mercury News listed him as one of the 10 Influencers in Silicon Valley.

Steve is on the board of California Audubon (its past chair), Peninsula Open Space Trust (POST) and was appointed by the governor to the California Coastal Commission.

He blogs regularly at http://www.steveblank.com