[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 191 (Monday, November 1, 2021)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1175-E1176]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        TRIBUTE TO STEVEN BLANK

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. ANNA G. ESHOO

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                        Monday, November 1, 2021

  Ms. ESHOO. Madam Speaker, I rise to honor Steve Blank, an 
entrepreneur who has inspired thousands of innovators to solve some of 
the world's most pressing problems.
  Steve Blank was born in New York City to immigrant parents and 
attended the University of Michigan for one semester. He then served 
his country for four years in the U.S. Air Force, repairing fighter 
planes in Thailand.
  Steve Blank was fortunate to return to Silicon Valley in the exciting 
1970s. He worked for 21 years in high tech, and founded many companies, 
including Zilog, MIPS Computers, Convergent Technologies, E.piphany 
(now Epiphany) and retired in 1999. In the mid-1990s, he created the 
Customer Development model that focused on distinguishing between 
companies that execute business models as opposed to startups that 
search for them, thus launching the LeanStartup movement.
  In 2011, Mr. Blank created the LeanLaunchPad experiential 
entrepreneurship class at Stanford University, Columbia Business 
School, and UC Berkeley. The LeanLaunchPad changed the way 
entrepreneurship is taught by giving students hands-on experience in 
what it takes to start a company instead of having them write business 
plans. Also in 2011, the National Science Foundation adopted Mr. 
Blank's LeanLaunchPad curriculum for its Innovation Corps (I-Corps), in 
order to help the nation's leading scientists and engineers learn how 
to take their tech ideas from the lab to the marketplace. The NSF I-
Corps is now the standard for how scientific research is commercialized 
in the U.S. It has been adopted by other federal research agencies 
(including NIH, DOE, HHS, and NSA), and has trained 1,900 teams, and 
launched over 1,000 startups.
  In 2016, Mr. Blank, Joe Felter, and Pete Newell created Hacking for 
Defense (H4D) at Stanford University--the first in a series of mission-
driven entrepreneurship courses to provide a new platform for national 
service and change the way critical national security problems are 
solved. H4D is supported by

[[Page E1176]]

Congress and taught at 48 universities in the U.S. and at universities 
in the United Kingdom and Australia. H4D also gave rise to several 
sister courses that are accelerating mission-driven entrepreneurship in 
other sectors and policy arenas. These courses include: Hacking for 
Diplomacy, Hacking for Oceans, Hacking for Cities, Hacking for Energy, 
Hacking for Homeland Security, Hacking for Recovery, and Hacking for 
Climate and Sustainability.
  As a result of Mr. Blank's work, hundreds of students at universities 
across the U.S. are engaged right now in a new form of national 
service, helping to create a pipeline of innovation for our nation as 
they solve real problems at startup speed. As a result of their 
experience in a LeanLaunchPad or ``Hacking for X'' courses, many of 
these students are choosing careers in the public sector.
  Steve Blank has written many books, teaches entrepreneurship at 
Stanford and other distinguished institutions, and has earned numerous 
accolades for his innovative work. He was listed as one of the Masters 
of Innovation by the Harvard Business Review and one of the 30 Most 
Influential People in Tech by Forbes. He won the 2013 Silicon Valley 
Visionary Forum award, and with his wife was honored with the 2013 
Environmental Leadership Award. He has often been a commencement 
speaker and his speech at Philadelphia University was ranked one of 300 
best commencement speeches in the last 300 years by NPR.
  Madam Speaker, I ask the entire House of Representatives to join me 
in honoring Steve Blank on the occasion of the 10th Anniversary of the 
LeanLaunchPad and the 5th Anniversary of H4D. Steve Blank has made our 
students wiser, our environment cleaner and our country stronger. He is 
a national treasure.

                          ____________________