• BusinessWeek
• Business Exchange

Another Path to Riches

By Stephen Baker

As recently as a year ago, many Stanford grads could count on high-paid jobs at tech companies, banks, and consulting firms. Not so this year. With many companies scaling back hiring, the answer for some grads is to launch startups.

But many of these new entrepreneurs are veering from the traditional, venture-funded path to riches forged by the likes of Google (GOOG) and Yahoo! (YHOO). Dozens are focusing on clean energy, safe water, feeding, and nursing the poor—in short, doing good. "People want to build something that feeds their soul," says Matt Flannery, who founded microlending site, Kiva.org earlier in the decade as a Stanford student. "That trend is at a fever pitch."

A look at some of the Stanford philanthropic projects:

next slide previous slide