Brown is one of the most entrepreneurial schools in the country, and here’s why
The founder of Grey Goose and Jägermeister is just one of our many entrepreneurial alumni
Forbes voted Brown the 7th most entrepreneurial school in the country. Besides MIT and Cornell, the only schools that beat us were California-based, with their proximity to Silicon Valley greatly assisting their student start-up culture.
Brown is the top of the Ivy League schools for entrepreneurial spirit.
We looked into what made Brown the entrepreneurial student capital. The result? Brunonians. Brown students, by nature, are creative team players who make up the rules as the go along, a perfect recipe for starting our own businesses.
Here’s a look into the lives of some of our alumni, faculty and students.
The Alumni
Victor Bartash
While at Brown, Victor founded a brewing company. After its demise, he joined VFA, passionate about helping students enter the start-up world.
According to Victor: “The very nature of the Brown curriculum encourages students a to find structure where this is none, build a scaffold from scratch, kinda like starting your own business.”
Sidney Frank
“Everyone loves sex” – Sidney Frank.
Famous for his velvet suits and cigars, Sidney Frank is the billionaire who founded of Grey Goose vodka and Jägermeister. Not only is he is fantastically stylish and wealthy, but also a philanthropist. Frank is the university’s single biggest donor. He went to Brown as part of the class of 1942 and dropped out because he could no longer afford tuition. He then made it his life-long ambition to ensure no student had to leave Brown for financial reasons again. He made a gift of $100 million to the undergraduate scholarship fund, the largest donation in the school’s history to date.
The gorgeous Life Sciences building was another one of Frank’s extravagant donations.
So splash that extra cash on fine liquor this weekend, in honor of our most lavish Brown business alumni.
The Faculty
“You teach at Brown only if you love life, that is the single unifying factor amongst the faculty” – Teacher.
Barrett Hazeltine
The legend of Brown returns to The Tab.
Hazeltine’s influence has extended far beyond the wonders of Engn 9. Brown has not always been so entrepreneurial. In fact, “the university historically shied away from business-related things… Barrett seemed to find what they were really interested in.”
In many ways, he was responsible for this shift in university culture, empowering students to think for themselves and imaginatively create solutions for real-world problems.
The Students
Valentin Perez
Lead organizer of Startup@Brown.
Nico Enriquez
Nico in Nantucket, the home of Farmer Willie’s.
Following Sidney Frank’s legacy, Nico and his co-founder, Max Easton created an alcoholic ginger beer, and it’s DELICIOUS.
No business school? No problem.