9 Incredibly Successful Startups That Were Born At Stanford

Thanks in part to its proximity to nearly every major tech company you could think of, Stanford University has become a sort of incubator for Silicon Valley itself.

Some of tech's most important figures have attended classes here, from Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard to Marissa Mayer and Peter Thiel.

But Stanford's campus is also known for being a great place to launch a new company, with top-notch engineering and business programs, an extensive alumni network, and even university-affiliated accelerator programs. Most of the Valley's most successful companies have some roots here, including Google, Sun Microsystems, Cisco, and Yahoo.

It makes sense that the California school was named the Best College In America.

We've highlighted some of the most successful startups to be born on Stanford's campus in the last two decades.