About Steve Blank
A retired eight-time serial entrepreneur-turned-educator and author, Steve Blank has changed how startups are built and how entrepreneurship is taught around the globe. He is author of the bestselling The Startup Owner’s Manual, and his earlier seminal work, The Four Steps to the Epiphany, credited with launching the Lean Startup movement. His May 2013 Harvard Business Review article on the Lean Startup defined the movement. Steve is widely recognized as a thought leader on startups and innovation. His books and blog, www.steveblank.com have redefined how to build successful startups; his Lean LaunchPad class at Stanford, Berkeley and Columbia has redefined how entrepreneurship is taught; and his Innovation Corps class for the National Science Foundation forever changed how the U.S. commercializes science.

Steve and Columbia are well acquainted.  He is an adjunct professor at Columbia Business School, where he has taught his pioneering Lean Launchpad Course since 2012.  Steve has hosted several University events, including talks on The Secret History of Silicon Valley, The Inflection Point When LeanLaunch Methodologies Take Hold, and most recently in January, 2015 a talk on Corporate Innovation with Columbia Business School Professor Sheena S. Iyengar. 

Pixar, Artists, Founders and Corporate Innovation

Posted on October 27, 2015 on Steve Blank’s Blog

I’m still surprised when I find unexpected connections with innovation in different industries.
In a recent workshop with a large company focused on the Innovation@50x process, I mentioned that founders and intraprenuers operate more like artists than accountants – on day one they see something no one else does. One of the innovators in the room said, “It sounds like you’re describing exactly what Ed Catmull the CEO of Pixar wrote in Creativity, Inc.” creativity inc
Say what? I kicked myself knowing that I should have thought of Pixar.  Read more.