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Shaping the Future with a Venture Mindset – Stanford Professor Ilya Strebulaev at TU Wien

At a landmark event co-hosted with WU Wien and VERBUND Ventures, TU Wien brought together academic leaders, venture capitalists, and policy experts to explore how European universities can become engines of innovation—featuring a keynote by Stanford's Ilya Strebulaev on the principles behind entrepreneurial success.

Group photo with four people on a roof terrace. Blue sky and the rooftops of Vienna in the background.

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from left to right: Franz Zöchbauer, Jens Schneider, Ilya Strebulaev, Alex Dang (co-author “The Venture Mindset”)

[Translate to English:] Person with dark, curly hair during a lecture. He is wearing a white shirt and dark blue jacket and is leaning slightly against a bar table

© TUW

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Ilya Strebulaev

Lateral view of the audience and the speaker

© TUW

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On April 29, 2025, TU Wien had the honor of welcoming Stanford Professor and best-selling author of The Venture Mindset, Prof. Ilya Strebulaev, for a keynote and panel discussion on the core principles behind entrepreneurial success. The event, organized in collaboration with WU Wien and VERBUND Ventures, gathered influential voices from academia, venture capital, and innovation policy.

In his opening remarks, TU Wien’s Vice-Rector for Research, Innovation, and International Affairs, Peter Ertl, underscored the importance of a dynamic spin-off culture to the university’s new fuTUre fit-strategy. “These principles resonate with our goals at TU Wien, as we strive to empower our researchers and students to think boldly and act decisively,” he stated.

The Nine Principles of Venture Thinking

Prof. Strebulaev’s keynote, titled “The Venture Mindset and the Era of Disruption”, explored the transformative impact of venture capital on global innovation. Drawing on his extensive research, he presented nine key principles that define a successful venture mindset—highlighting risk-taking, founder-centric decision-making, and long-term vision as central elements. He illustrated these ideas with real-world examples from high-growth sectors such as AI, biotech, and public-sector software.

The keynote was followed by a panel discussion moderated by Franz Zöchbauer of VERBUND Ventures. The panel focused on the role European universities can play in fostering innovation ecosystems. Panelists included Alexander Schwartz (Partner, xista science ventures), Christian Hoffmann (Senior Advisor for Innovation, TU Wien), Rudolf Dömötör (Managing Director, WU Entrepreneurship Center), and Ilya Strebulaev. The conversation examined structural differences between the U.S. and European venture landscapes and explored how universities can adopt a more entrepreneurial mindset to support founder-led innovation.

A Vision for Entrepreneurial Universities

In addition to the public event, Ilya Strebulaev met with members of the rectorates of TU Wien and WU Wien. He also toured the Archives of TU Wien, guided by Paulus Ebner, Head of the TUW Archive, where he viewed the university’s Patent Collection—inducted into the UNESCO “Memory of Austria” register in 2024.

Austrian universities—led by TU Wien—are increasingly becoming “exit forges” that help shape the startup ecosystems in Austria, Germany, and beyond. This shift is driven by a growing entrepreneurial mindset within academia, strong ties to industry, and a focus on translating research into real-world impact. Events like this highlight TU Wien’s ambition to rethink the role of research and position itself as a driving force for innovation, entrepreneurship, and long-term transformation in Europe.