Russell Siegel

Russell Siegelman is a Lecturer in Management at Stanford University's Graduate School of Business. He holds a B.S. in Physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1984) and an M.B.A. as a Baker Scholar from Harvard University (1989). With over thirty years in business and technology, Siegelman has excelled as a manager, investor, and director. His early career included work as a software engineer at Applied Expert Systems, developing artificial intelligence applications for financial services, and as an engineering consultant. From 1989 to 1996 at Microsoft, he reported directly to Bill Gates, serving as the first employee, General Manager, and Vice President of the Microsoft Network (MSN), which he helped develop and launch, achieving over one million paying members. He also oversaw the Slate project, recruiting editor Michael Kinsley and managing it until 1996. Subsequently, from 1996 to 2007, Siegelman was a Partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB), investing in consumer and technology sectors such as software, electronic commerce, web services, semiconductors, mobile systems, media, and telecommunications. He continues to serve on boards of several KPCB companies and has personally invested in more than 50 Silicon Valley technology start-ups as an angel investor.

At Stanford GSB, Siegelman teaches courses including Startup Garage, Product Launch, and Starting and Growing a Social Venture, the latter of which he co-developed. He is a Faculty Affiliate of the Center for Entrepreneurial Studies and the Center for Social Innovation, mentoring many GSB entrepreneurs. Beyond academia, he chairs the board of the Global Innovation Fund, a $200 million impact investment fund supporting social entrepreneurs addressing global development challenges. Previous roles include board memberships at Innovations for Poverty Action (2010–2014), advisory board for Jameel Poverty Action Lab at MIT and USAID's Global Development Lab, Positive Coaching Alliance, Nueva School, Lucille Packard Foundation for Children’s Health, and as Chairman of Sustainable Conservation (2000–2014). In 2012–2013, he received the MBA Class of '73 Lecturer award. Siegelman has co-authored numerous case studies, such as Adalat AI: Justice at Scale (2026), Fram Energy and Launching Virta Health (2024), Atticus: The Search for the Ideal Investor and SIRUM: Scaling a “Tech-for-Good” Medication Donation Platform (2023), Byteboard: Reinventing the Technical Interview (2021), Esusu: The Missing Link in Credit Reports (2021), and others including Blue River Technology (2013) and Young 1ove: Scaling in Botswana (2016). His contributions have shaped entrepreneurship education and impact investing practices.