It was a great honor to recently come back to my alma mater, Rice University, to give the opening keynote at the Rice Alliance for Technology & Entrepreneurship’s 14th annual Energy & Clean Technology Venture Forum.

My first experience with entrepreneurship dates back to a presentation I gave in May 2000 at the Rice Alliance — then their 6th venture forum— on a startup idea that two classmates and I had developed for the monitoring & control of industrial process flow lines. It was called EJP Technologies, though you’re unlikely to find it on the web.

After work at Microsoft and Google, and four startups later — not counting the ill-fated EJP Technologies — it was fun to come full circle and sit before the next batch of young entrepreneurs. In the 16 years since I graduated from Rice, its commitment to entrepreneurship has only increased, as has the quality of the presenters and startups.

The talk was not videotaped, but I’ve put a link to the slide deck here for those interested.

Thank you Rice Alliance for giving me this opportunity, and for admitting me into your ranks 20 years ago.