Thomas Stone

Stanford Graduate School of Business

“From powering submarines underwater to powering advanced tech on land. Energy systems are my thing.”

Hometown: Ellicott City, Maryland

Fun Fact About Yourself: My wife and I are from the East Coast, so we did a cross-country road trip to move to Palo Alto. We stopped at six national parks and made detours to eat at celebrity chef restaurants we’d been dying to try. It was one of my all-time favorite trips and really set the tone for my MBA experience.

Undergraduate School and Major: United States Naval Academy – B.S. Systems Engineering

Most Recent Employer and Job Title: U.S. Navy – Nuclear Submarine Officer

What has been the best part of living in the Bay Area and Silicon Valley so far? The entrepreneurial energy! Everyone is forward-thinking. Conversations center on solving our biggest problems. If you have an idea, people naturally encourage you to build on it. It’s awesome living in an environment that pushes your thinking and motivates you to do more.

Aside from your classmates and location, what was the key part of Stanford GSB’s MBA programming that led you to choose this business school and why was it so important to you? The opportunity for both breadth and depth when exploring new career opportunities. Leaving the Navy, I knew I had a lot to learn about the wide variety of careers available. I wanted to maximize my ability to test careers during my MBA experience, and GSB has the BEST resources to support career exploration. Leading VCs, world-renowned founders, consulting senior partners: they all come to GSB and share their experiences. Combined with the ability to get real experience, like VC-investing through the Impact Fund or leadership coaching through the Arbuckle Leadership Fellow program, I now have a much clearer understanding of how I want to plan my career.

What has been the most important thing that you’ve learned at Stanford GSB so far? Ever since I was 17, I developed a leadership style that allowed me to succeed in the Navy. At Stanford GSB, I’ve learned not to define myself by that style, but to see it as one tool within a broader toolkit. The ability to recognize the situation, assess what relational skills are needed, then leverage those skills is what leads to success. You can learn hard business skills at any school (and really learn them on the job). Understanding myself, others, and my ability to maximize interpersonal relationships has been the most important learning so far.

What course, club or activity have you enjoyed the most so far at Stanford GSB?

Course: Family Business and the Enduring Enterprise. The instructor repeatedly states “the problems of business are the problems of life,” and we get to explore this theme through the lens of family businesses. It’s helped me understand what it actually means and what it actually takes to sustain a successful business.

Club: Impact Fund. Going through the full early-stage investment cycle is an irreplaceable learning experience. Understanding both how investors think and the challenges operators face makes me a better business professional. The training and resources are fantastic.

Activity: Small Group Dinners. When you sign up for a small group dinner, you don’t know who’s coming. It forces you to make connections with people from wildly different life experiences. It’s really rewarding finding commonalities with someone from another country, an exited founder, or a PE analyst. These dinners really help me feel like a connected and valued member of the GSB community rather than a cog in a wheel.

Describe your biggest accomplishment in your career so far: Earning Junior Officer of the Year on USS CHEYENNE. When a submarine goes from deployed operations out at sea to maintenance operations in a shipyard, it’s a huge cultural change. You’re not this independent military asset that only relies on itself. You integrate into a much larger team with different cultural norms and different incentive structures. I’ve never been a part of a corporate merger, but it’s the closest thing I can equate the experience to. Helping to lead the crew of USS CHEYENNE through that transition and successfully begin our maintenance period was incredibly rewarding. It solidified how interpersonal leadership dynamics can be the differentiator between failure, mediocrity, and success.

Describe your biggest accomplishment as an MBA student so far? My biggest accomplishment has been successfully answering the very first cold call of the very first class at GSB. It was 8:15am on the first day of Autumn quarter. I settled into my seat in Managerial Economics class, ready to review the syllabus and do light introductions. Less than 5 minutes into class, I hear “Thomas Stone, Where’s Thomas? What’s the most common type of business entity in the United States?”

With classic military stoicism externally (and my heart skipping beats internally), I answered “Sole proprietorship.” The teacher was shocked I answered correctly, then quickly moved on to the next cold call. The last week before winter break, classmates were still coming up to me and telling me how I set the tone for the rest of the quarter. (Little do they know, I had no idea, I just answered confidently).

What has been your best memory as an MBA so far? My favorite memory was when our Dean of Admissions addressed the entire Class of ’27 for the first time during Week 0. She spoke of how the interests of other classmates complement each other. For instance, she mentioned how the oil painter should connect with the content creator and the filmmaker with the documentary enthusiast. The sourdough baker with the kombucha homebrewer (me). Hearing about my classmates was really awe-inspiring. I left that room genuinely excited and energized to get to know my class.

What advice would you give to a prospective applicant looking to join the Stanford GSB Class of 2028? The essay question “What Matters Most to You and Why” is not just a chance to highlight your biggest accomplishments or say what you think the admissions team wants to hear. It’s an honest invitation to reflect on your life, and explore the underlying current of thoughts, feelings, and motivations that have led you to apply to business school. Answering that question honestly will provide immense value, even if you aren’t ultimately admitted.

DON’T MISS: MEET THE STANFORD GSB MBA CLASS OF 2027

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