Ernestine Fu, 20, is taking off her pants. It's 8:35 p.m., and the venture capitalist is changing back into a college sophomore in the rear seat of a borrowed white Prius. After attending two social mixers on Palo Alto's Sand Hill Road, she removes her sleek black pantsuit and heels, leaving a royalblue ruffled blouse that transforms into a short dress. "Amazing articles of clothing can really help in terms of time management," Fu says as she slips on a pair of flats before heading to meet a friend at CoHo, a Stanford University coffeehouse.
Like a superhero, Fu prefers to keep quiet about her off-campus identity as an associate at San Francisco venture capital firm Alsop Louie Partners. The firm was founded in 2006 by Stewart Alsop, an early investor in
Fu, who describes herself--inaccurately-- as "pretty relaxed," claims she usually gets seven hours of sleep a night. But this is so-called Dead Week at Stanford, in late May, when students are still attending classes, writing final papers and cramming for exams. She is also negotiating a deal she brought to Alsop Louie, $1.3 million in seed funding for Qwhspr, a social media search engine founded by two Stanford Ph.D.s.
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As a potential backer, what does Fu look for in promising student-entrepreneurs? Passion, "because people who love what they are doing create the best products"; flexibility, "to deal with the ups and downs of a startup"; and optimism, or "thinking big and having high expectations." She focuses on personal qualities rather than business particulars--" looking at the entrepreneur as opposed to the idea or company." Traditional business plans and entrepreneurs with M.B.A.s are "red flags" in the whirling-fast technology world where Alsop Louie likes to invest.
After stepping into a hallway to take a call from a lawyer, Fu apologizes for appearing sleep-deprived. If this is her low-energy incarnation, it's tough to imagine the well-rested version. During her 9 a.m. hourlong structural engineering class she sends 20-plus e-mails, works on a class paper and takes meticulous notes in outline form on her MacBook Air. When professor Martin Fischer asks a question, Fu's is the first hand of 27 students' to go up.
Fu claims her Chinese-born parents, who immigrated to Northridge, Calif. in the 1980s, didn't pressure her to excel. She also says it was her choice to cover the $52,000-a-year cost of room, board and tuition at Stanford without their help. Her father, now retired, had socked away enough as a computer programmer at Great Western Bank. Asked about her motivation, she simply says, "I feel like I've always been an independent type of person." Before starting her freshman year she had secured more than ten merit scholarships.
Her (estimated) $35,000 salary at Alsop Louie helps make up the difference. Fu landed the job after meeting Alsop at a Stanford get-together in October. Soon after starting in March, Fu pitched the Qwhspr deal and wound up working 40- and 50-hour weeks pushing it through.
Will she stick with engineering, venture capital--or philanthropy? (At age 15 Fu founded a nonprofit to bring the arts to homeless shelters, orphanages and senior centers.) She says she'll definitely stay in school and probably apply for an M.S. in engineering. "I see myself as having a lot of different career paths," she says.
"If she decides to become an entrepreneur," predicts Tom Kosnik*, engineering and entrepreneurship professor at Stanford, "she's going to come up with something that will astonish us all."
*In the print edition of Forbes' August 22, 2011 issue, we misspelled Prof. Kosnik's name as "Kosnic." We regret the error.
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