Yiting Daniela Cai, GMBA Class of 2016

Time flies. The Stanford Tsinghua Exchange Program already has a history of 10 years. Over the span of the last decade, both universities have endeavoured to narrow the distance between China and the U.S. by connecting their students through this unique experience.

After hosting Stanford GSB (Graduate School of Business) students in Beijing at the end of November 2015, Tsinghua students were given the opportunity to fly to Palo Alto, the tech centre of the U.S., to experience Stanford students’ lifestyles and continue forging enduring cross-border relationships. Our GSB MBA counterparts, who ensured that Tsinghua students’ stay was both extremely pleasant and incredibly interesting, welcomed us enthusiastically during the week’s academic activities, company visits, and social activities.

The adventure at Stanford GSB was truly unique; the academic activities were inspiring and fascinating. This year, the Stanford GSB STEP team not only organised lectures around topics such as Management of Organisational Conflicts, American Economic Policy, Venture Capital in Silicon Valley, and Strategic Thinking, but also welcomed us to attend core MBA classes, such as The Paths to Power, High Performance Leadership, Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital, and Managing Growing Enterprises. 

Tsinghua MBA students enjoy time with their Stanford MBA counterparts on a local site visit .

The academic lectures were all given by remarkable professors, who were able to provide deep and insightful analysis of the current American and global markets: Prof Ge Wang, Co-Founder of Smule, shared his research, which includes programming languages and interactive software systems for computer music, mobile and social music, new performance ensembles (laptop orchestra and mobile phone orchestra) and paradigms, and musical visualization. Professor Lindy Greer, who teaches Organizational Behaviour, focused her lecture on the impact of team composition on intra-group conflict and team performance. She has a strong interest in how start-ups are composed in terms of power, status and leadership structures. Lecturer Keith Hennessey, who spent more than 14 years in economic policy roles, advising senior elected U.S. officials, explained American economic policy and the policy-making process. Professor Robert A. Burgelman, whose research is focused on the role of strategy-making in firm evolution, demonstrated the importance of strategy-making processes for companies that enter into new businesses and exit from existing ones to secure continued adaptation. Lecturer Robert E. Siegel, General Partner of XSeed Capital, discussed his VC firm and its investment areas, which include enterprise software, business operations and computing platforms.

With respect to company visits, since Stanford is close to Silicon Valley, going to companies such as Facebook, Google or Uber was a “must do”: THU STEPers met with Facebook’s Growth and Corporate Development teams at its new headquarters; they talked about go-to-market strategy, customer acquisition and retention.  With the Uber Growth team, we learned about international expansion and regulation. We had the chance to see the balloon-based Internet service (Project Loon) at Google X. Tsinghua students also visited AXA Lab, which is the digital innovation-sourcing unit of AXA, a French global leading insurance firm founded in 1817. AXA Lab has the goal of accelerating the digital transformation in its group. The last but not least stimulating company visit was at StartX, which is a non-profit organisation with the mission of helping Stanford’s top entrepreneurs and their start-ups by charging zero fees, taking zero equity and offering customised programs.

Despite the full schedule of lectures and company visits, thanks to GSB students as guides, THU students were also able to enjoy San Francisco and experience life in Palo Alto: we went to see an NBA basketball game at the Oracle Arena, where the Golden State Warriors were playing a home game (and won); we went sightseeing at San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf and walked through the Golden Gate Bridge; in Palo Alto, we experienced GSB student life by having small group dinners hosted by GSB peers, which is a typical social activity that most GSBers do every week in the first year of their MBA.

In the Town Square is inscribed a quote that invokes the spirit of GSB, which reads: “There comes a time in every life when the past recedes and the future opens. It’s that moment when you turn to face the unknown. Some will turn back to what they already know. Some will walk straight ahead into uncertainty. I can’t tell you which one is right. But I can tell you which one is more fun.” – Philip H. Knight, MBA 1962. THU students felt inspired by STEP 2015, and after this adventure they all knew not only their right path, but also “which one is more fun”.

Tsinghua SEM is looking forward to hosting GSB STEPers in the fall and for many more years to come.