Steve Blank

JULY 30, 2012

I really didn’t have much of a resume – four years in the Air Force , building a scram system for a nuclear reactor , a startup in Ann Arbor Michigan but not much else. When I got my first job in Silicon Valley it was through serendipity (my part) and desperation (on the part of my first employer.)

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Silicon Valley Michigan IP Architecture 315

Steve Blank

JULY 12, 2010

The Vietnam War had just ended and I was out of the Air Force back in college living in Ann Arbor Michigan. Civilian life was good, the government was paying my tuition and I got a college work/study job in the University of Michigan physics department. There was only one job that I quit when I feared for my life. Life Is Good.

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Michigan Vietnam Phoenix Green 255

Steve Blank

MARCH 1, 2016

Brandon teaches entrepreneurship at the University of Michigan Center for Entrepreneurship. “I’m a scientist in the University of Michigan. A tech entrepreneur and inventor, Brandon McNaughton was entrepreneur in residence for Detroit Innovate , an early-stage venture fund. Steve : What would you say? Brandon : Yeah.

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Cofounder Entrepreneur Michigan Detroit 120

Steve Blank

JUNE 11, 2012

And to our new teaching teams at University of Michigan and Georgia Tech – It’s your turn. And thanks to the venture capitalists and entrepreneurs who volunteer their time for their country; Jon Feiber from MDV, John Burke from True Ventures, Jim Hornthal from CMEA, Jerry Engel from Monitor Ventures (and the U.C. Lessons Learned.

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Lean Incubator Business Model Georgia 248

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 2, 2018

When I got out of the Air Force after Vietnam, I lived in Michigan and I installed process control systems in automobile assembly plants and steel mills across the industrial heart of the Midwest. Janesville, tells the story of laid-off factory workers of a General Motors factory that’s never going to reopen.

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America Restful Vietnam Michigan 116

Steve Blank

JUNE 2, 2011

The University of Michigan is a possible first test.) Jon Feiber at MDV is going to try investing in startups emerging from Universities with great engineering schools outside of Silicon Valley that have entrepreneurship programs, but minimal venture capital infrastructure.

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Silicon Valley Business Model Early Stage Venture Capital 281

Steve Blank

MARCH 15, 2011

Fred Ford (MSME, Mar 2011) Senior Eng for Mechanical Systems on Military Satellites, BS Aerospace Eng (U of Michigan). Joe Bingold (MBA, Jun 2011) Head of Product Development for Naval Nuclear Propulsion Plant Control Systems, US Navy, MSME (Naval PGS), BSEE (MIT), P.E. in Control Systems.

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Business Model Nebraska Peru Germany 236

Steve Blank

AUGUST 17, 2009

Other universities doing classified ELINT and Electronic Warfare work attended including University of Michigan, Georgia Institute of Technology and Cornell. By early 1950’s Stanford started holding a two day meeting for contractors and the military. Over a hundred government contractors reviewed Stanford’s work on tubes and systems.

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Silicon Valley RSS California Government 142

Steve Blank

MARCH 28, 2009

After been stationed at three fighter bases in Thailand ( Ubon , Udorn and Korat ) and working on Electronic Warfare suites on F-4’s, A-7’s, F-105’s and AC-130’s, I got orders to report to a Strategic Air Command (SAC) B-52 bomber base in Alpena Michigan. Imagine how hot, humid and unbearable the weather was in Thailand. Reply Ben C. ,

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Silicon Valley Thailand RSS Michigan 195

Steve Blank

JULY 20, 2015

Steve : … If I remember, you and I brought on Georgia Tech, and then University of Michigan and then how many more? We brought on more schools. …. Errol : The group after that is in NY it’s CUNY, NYU and Columbia.

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Government Channel Southern California Lean 120

Steve Blank

AUGUST 19, 2016

Somehow I figured out how to apply to school in Michigan. Pre-infinite information on the Internet about colleges, I picked Michigan because I saw them play football on TV, but I ended up applying to the wrong school in Michigan – my first time around I ended up in Michigan State not the University of Michigan.

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San Jose Silicon Valley Michigan Miami 173

Steve Blank

AUGUST 19, 2016

Somehow I figured out how to apply to school in Michigan. Pre-infinite information on the Internet about colleges, I picked Michigan because I saw them play football on TV, but I ended up applying to the wrong school in Michigan – my first time around I ended up in Michigan State not the University of Michigan.

San Jose 120

San Jose Silicon Valley Michigan Miami 120

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 1, 2009

William Durant died managing a bowling alley in Flint Michigan in 1947. His board (led by the DuPont family) tossed him out of General Motors (for the second time) in 1920 when GM sales were $567 million (about $6 billion in today’s dollars.) But the spirit of Billy Durant would rise again.

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Silicon Valley United States RSS Customer Development 156

Steve Blank

JUNE 29, 2009

I packed up my life in Michigan and spent five days driving to California to start work. You’re Hired, You’re Fired. My first job in Silicon Valley: I was hired as a lab technician at ESL to support the training department. Driving across the U.S. is an adventure everyone ought to do.

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Agile Silicon Valley RSS California 245

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 24, 2009

I decided to go to Ann Arbor Michigan to see my girlfriend. One day I was in the middle of Thailand and the next I was hopping space-available military flights to snow-bound Michigan. Halfway through my tour of duty I got to go on vacation – what the military called R&R (rest and recreation.) So This is Christmas.

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Thailand Michigan Vietnam California 150

Steve Blank

MAY 18, 2009

The Rust Belt – (Skip this Section if I’m Boring You) Out of the Air Force, my first job out of school was in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in the mid-1970’s installing broadband process control systems in automotive and manufacturing plants throughout the Midwest.

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Founder Silicon Valley RSS China 297

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 6, 2012

We taught the first two classes of 25 teams each, and then in March of 2012 trained faculty from Georgia Tech and the University of Michigan how to teach the class at their universities. Georgia Tech and the University of Michigan faculty then taught 54 teams each in July of this year and will teach another 54 teams in October.

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Lean Georgia Michigan Business Model 317

Steve Blank

MAY 9, 2017

I lived through the time when working in my first job in Ann Arbor Michigan we had to get out a map to find out that San Jose was not only in Puerto Rico but there was a city with that same name in California. I’ve spent my life in innovation, eight startups in 21 years, and the last 15 years in academia teaching it.

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Restful Silicon Valley Puerto Rico San Jose 222

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 21, 2020

But when you get strategies that are built with bipartisan support, as Senator Vandenberg , a right-wing conservative Republican was asked in Michigan 1949, how could you work with that terrible left wing, President Truman, he answered very bluntly, “politics stops at the water’s edge.”

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Technology China Artificial Inteligence Silicon Valley 278