When serial entrepreneur Shawnee Starr registered for the 2025 YPO Entrepreneurship Program at Stanford, she didn’t really have a specific goal in mind. She had heard generally positive reviews of the program, figured she’d gain connections with other YPO members from around the world, and would focus on finetuning her global defense consulting business, TechWise.
She now sees her time in Palo Alto, California, as less of a business refresher and more of a career revelation.
“I feel like in one week, I finally found the glue that’s been missing between my puzzle pieces,” she says. “After 30 years in business without an MBA, this program gave me the theory behind why what I’ve been doing works — and the inspiration to tweak and scale even further.”
Now, based on her experience with the program, she’s fast at work creating an entirely fresh business model, website and marketing plan for her other company, Longevity, a health-tech company that uses biomarker testing to help people live longer, healthier lives
Theory in action
Hosted at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, the YPO Entrepreneurship Program at Stanford brought together founders and CEOs from around the world for one immersive week in Silicon Valley. Designed by YPO entrepreneurs for YPO entrepreneurs, the curriculum focused on strategy with hands-on workshops, faculty insights and peer collaboration. Entrepreneurs explored everything from market opportunities and leadership to growth and culture, all guided by Stanford’s top faculty.
“I cannot articulate how spot-on the professors were. They were up-to-date, informed, accomplishedand totally in tune with our YPO audience,” Starr says. “It wasn’t textbook stuff or busywork; it was real, actionable advice from people who actually mentor top leaders.”
Whether attendees were launching, scaling or preparing to exit, every session centered on real-world challenges and featured of-the-moment case studies. Then attendees would split into forum groups each day to process what they’d learned.
“Because we’re all in YPO, we got deep quickly, sharing honestly and building trust in just a few days,” she says. “Hearing everyone’s take on the material — how they interpreted it, challenged it or planned to use it — turned each session into this kind of rapid-fire, real-world learning lab.
For Starr, that’s where some of her most significant growth happened. It wasn’t just theory; it was immediate implementation. By the end of the week, she says they’d not only learned from Stanford’s professors but from each other. Her group still connects regularly on WhatsApp, sharing insights, accountability and encouragement.
Simplify to scale
One of the biggest lessons Shawnee took from Stanford was also the simplest: less is more.
One lecture featured a discussion on how focus fuels growth, and that stripping away complexities can make a business more palatable for the consumer. “Simpler is easier to grow, easier to message, easier to sell,” Starr says. “It helps people actually understand what you do, and fast.”
Starr admits that she’s been guilty of overcomplicating things across her various businesses in the past. With Longevity in the health-tech space, her instinct was to highlight the complexities as their differentiator, to prove that they are, in fact, the experts with whom you want to work.
However, through the lecture and hands-on exercises at Stanford, Starr was challenged to rethink that approach, helping her identify where to streamline and clarify.
“You can’t make the world less complex,” she says. “But you can make your message and decisions simpler for your customers.”
This has meant a transformation of Longevity to Longevity Concierge Services, where Starr plans to target executives and is redesigning offerings so their clients make just three easy choices on the testing and membership they’d like. They are also planning to expand their Colorado-based brick-and-mortar to a nationwide virtual platform model.
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“I’m very optimistic about taking this to the next level and scaling it as we leverage technology a little bit more,” she says.
A real look at artificial intelligence
Another major theme that reshaped Shawnee’s perspective was artificial intelligence (AI). Sessions, including “What AI Can and Cannot Do” and “AI Agent Simulation of Human Behavior,” offered a grounded view of how to apply emerging tech responsibly. “It wasn’t hype,” she said. “It was practical advice about enhancing what humans do best without replacing them.”
Before Stanford, Starr says she had been experimenting with AI in her business, but she left with sharper clarity on how and when to use it.
“What I took away from it was that AI can be powerful, but it’s not infallible,” she explains. “You have to be looking for the red flags and errors. And while it can streamline things, you must have a good checks-and-balances system and some real oversight when it comes to AI.”
She says that she is cautious — health care and global defense are both delicate sectors to work within — yet optimistic and excited to experiment based on what she learned in Palo Alto.
From inspiration to implementation
With so much content to absorb, Starr says she appreciated the closing sessions that urged participants not to rush home with “37 things to change on day one.” Instead, she says, they should lead transformation intentionally.
“It was a great reminder that change takes strategy and patience,” she said. “There’s always fear around change, but it’s inevitable. With the right approach, it can energize rather than overwhelm your organization.”
She adds that while she could have pursued an MBA, her time at Stanford proved just as — if not more — beneficial to her career.
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“I feel empowered,” she says. “I made friends, built connections, joined WhatsApp and LinkedIn groups, and even started planning a collaboration with someone I met in the program. If you’re looking for real ROI on your time, this is absolutely it.”
