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We partner with entrepreneurs in emerging markets to build thriving enterprises that transform lives

The Stanford Seed Transformation Program, a one-year, (online in 2020 & 2021) business and leadership program that supports established founders and CEOs as they scale their businesses, create jobs, and lead their regions to greater prosperity.

10/08/2026

Grande nouvelle : des épisodes du podcast ‘Grit & Growth’ de la Stanford Graduate School of Business arrivent en français. / Big news: episodes of Stanford Graduate School of Business’ ‘Grit & Growth’ podcast are coming to you in French.

Chaque fondateur ou dirigeant d’entreprise fait face à des défis : lever des fonds, préparer une succession familiale, faire preuve de leadership ou encore gérer l’adversité. ‘Grit & Growth’ réunit des entrepreneurs d’Afrique avec des professeurs de Stanford University et des experts internationaux pour discuter de ces moments, et de bien d’autres, animé par Darius Teter, directeur exécutif de Stanford Seed.

Les épisodes en français utilisent le clonage vocal par IA pour recréer les voix réelles de nos interviewés en français. Chaque episode vous apportera un regard neuf et des enseignements concrets pour faire grandir votre entreprise

Écoutez dès maintenant la bande-annonce, « À la découverte de Grit & Growth avec la Stanford Graduate School of Business », pour un aperçu de ce qui vous attend, et restez à l’écoute pour de prochains épisodes.

Disponible en français :
https://open.spotify.com/episode/0LzcnNQCDAp1oxtmGRgyBK?si=dZgw5V49R5OjbpfzfnF3-Q
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/%C3%A0-la-d%C3%A9couverte-de-grit-growth-avec-la-stanford/id6814899462?i=1000791143455

— In English —
Every founder and CEO faces challenges, from securing investment and planning family succession to mindful leadership and managing in adversity. ‘Grit & Growth’ brings entrepreneurs from Africa together with Stanford University faculty and global experts to talk through these moments and more, hosted by Stanford Seed Executive Director Darius Teter.

The French episodes use AI-powered voice cloning to recreate our interviewees’ real voices in French. Each one will leave you with fresh insights and actionable takeaways to help you grow your business.

Listen to the trailer now for a preview of what’s coming, and stay tuned for the release of more episodes.

Listen in English: https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/introducing-grit-growth

10/07/2026

How do people reach consensus without perfect information?

Stanford GSB Associate Professor Douglas Guilbeault and his coauthors ran experimental games to find out.

In one, groups of 24 to 96 people were shown a picture of a face and asked to name it, with no way to communicate. Every group settled on a shared name in 20 to 30 rounds, regardless of group size. A follow-up found that consensus could be overturned once opposition to it reached 25%.

The researchers found the results followed the Tolerance Principle, an equation from linguistics originally used to explain how children learn grammar. In their experiments, the same principle also predicted how adults learn shared social conventions. Once enough group members signal a pattern, others recognize it and shift toward it.

Guilbeault argues this is a mechanism humans rely on constantly, and one that current AI models don’t.

“There might be something powerful about some of these simple rules that end up working really well at allowing us to find common ground and coordinate despite that information gap,” he says.

Read the full research: https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/mysterious-process-human-learning-machines-cant-copy

Image credit: iStock/DrAfter123

09/29/2026

Where do breakthrough ideas actually come from?

Stanford GSB Professor Amir Goldberg used AI to analyze millions of texts across business, law, and politics going back decades. He found that ideas that were ahead of their time were far more likely to come from the edges of a field than from its center.

In business, the smallest companies were eight times more likely to produce those breakthrough ideas than the largest companies.

Why? Coauthor Paul Vicinanza , PhD ’23, says startups have less to lose. A big company reshaping its business model risks real pain. A small one testing something new can pivot at low cost if it doesn’t work.

Read the full story: https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/discover-breakthrough-ideas-look-outsiders

Image courtesy of iStock/dickcraft

09/24/2026

Ten years ago today, the Seed Transformation Network launched in Nigeria.

By the end of 2016, there were three chapters and 120 members. Today, the Network is 14 chapters and 1,700+ business leaders strong, and it welcomes more than 250 new members each year as participants complete the Seed Transformation Program.

Every chapter plans its own events, by members and for members: masterclasses, workshops, visits to fellow members’ companies, and more.

These events are where members find their tribe: a CEO can bring a hard decision to peers who’ve faced the same one, and a founder can pick up what’s working in someone else’s market and apply it to their own business. New partnerships form, too. Each year, over a third of Network members report doing business with each other.

None of this happens without the Network’s more than 50 chapter leaders, who give their time and energy to keep their chapters strong.

We’re proud of what this community has built. To every member who’s made the Network what it is today, and to everyone shaping what comes next: thank you.

Pictured:
Launch of the Seed Transformation Network in Nigeria, 2016
Global Summit, Nairobi, 2018
Global Summit, Mumbai, 2023
Global Summit, Cape Town, 2025

09/22/2026

If you never fail, you're probably not working hard enough. That's David M Rubenstein's take on leadership, and he's lived It.

Rubenstein, co-founder and cochairman of the The Carlyle Group Group, was a White House advisor to President Jimmy Carter when he lost the 1980 election. The job ended, and Rubenstein struggled to find his next one. He went back to practicing law, but it didn't stick.

After reading about a leveraged buyout that turned $1 million into $80 million in 18 months, he set out to build something similar. In 1987, he co-founded what became one of the world's largest private equity firms, choosing to base it in Washington, D.C. instead of New York, and turning what looked like a disadvantage into an edge.

His view on leadership: The people who get anywhere rarely go in a straight line. They fail, then get back in the game.

Read the full story: https://Inkd.in/ewc8kCxs
Image courtesy of David Rubenstein

09/17/2026

What if profit and purpose aren’t in competition?

Hemant Taneja, managing partner and CEO of General Catalyst, doesn’t frame responsible innovation as a moral argument. He frames it as a business one.

The companies that compound value over decades, he believes, are those built around profit and purpose together, not one at the expense of the other. Looking ahead, Taneja says the businesses that will matter most are the ones known for both.

Listen to the full conversation: https://lnkd.in/eH3-Be_G

09/08/2026

Not all failure is the same, and Amy Edmondson says treating it that way is a mistake.

Edmondson, professor of leadership and management at Harvard Business School, breaks failure into three types on this episode of Think Fast, Talk Smart with Stanford GSB lecturer Matt Abrahams:

- Basic failures come from a single mistake.
- Complex failures happen when several factors line up the wrong way, a kind of perfect storm where no single factor alone would cause a problem.
- Intelligent failures are the undesired result of a genuine attempt at something new, where no existing playbook could have told you what would happen.

As Edmondson puts it, entrepreneurs and technologists routinely work in that third category. They have to be willing to experiment, because there’s no other way to make progress in uncharted territory.

Listen to the full episode: https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/embracing-failure-how-make-mistakes-work

09/03/2026

This summer, 10 Stanford student interns joined Network companies across five countries in West Africa to work on projects designed to help the businesses grow and scale.

In Ghana, three interns — Ryley Mehta, Linda Z., and Serena Young, recently sat down for lunch with the Seed team at Starbites X, owned by 2026 Seed Transformation Program participant Deborah Andoh, to share their experiences and talk about the work ahead.

We’re grateful for all of our interns’ work this summer, and we look forward to seeing the impact they made on our Network companies: TransNumerik Group, Kinaya Ventures , Innovarx Global Health, ACCENTS & ART Ltd, Beaver Health , KAD Manufacturing LTD, Adcem Pharmaceutical Limited, Sunhive Ltd, Diass Industries Sarl, YUX Design, Ro&Partners .

09/02/2026

Entrepreneurs walked in ready to talk about AI. They walked out with a challenge to think differently, embrace innovation, and lead with greater purpose.

The Southern Africa Chapter of the Seed Transformation Network hosted the masterclass on Human-Centered Innovation in the Age of AI, facilitated by Stanford Seed lecturer and the director of entrepreneurship and management programs Rajan Patel, in collaboration with De Beers Group.

Network members and their management teams spent the day exploring how design thinking and AI can work together to build solutions rooted in real customer needs.

We’re grateful to Rajan for bringing the energy and insight that helped this group see their businesses differently, and to everyone who showed up.

08/28/2026

What if being a generalist is actually a strength?

Daniela Amodei, co-founder and president of Anthropic, made that case in a recent View From the Top conversation at Stanford GSB.

Amodei isn’t a computer scientist. She doesn’t have a business degree. She calls herself a generalist, and she thinks curiosity and cross-disciplinary learning are underrated.

“The ability to be curious and learn across a lot of disciplines, and to have a strong foundation of wanting to have impact regardless of the area that you’re working on, I think that’s an underrated quality.”

Amodei’s career reflects that idea. She now leads one of the world’s biggest and most influential AI companies, alongside her brother Dario. Asked what she’d study if she could do it over, she said literature. “I know that sounds crazy,” she acknowledges. “I like to read.”

Listen to the full conversation: https://lnkd.in/eVRVBVnG

Image courtesy of Anthropic

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