Stanford and Silicon Valley’s symbiotic relationship was on display yesterday when Stanford students meshed seamlessly with entrepreneurs at the MIT/Stanford Venture Lab’s “Young Leaders of Silicon Valley” event.

Entrepreneurial hopefuls joined five panelists, venture capitalists, donors and other business people in the GSB Arbuckle Lounge to network and to exchange information and ideas about Silicon Valley’s latest and future start-up companies. But although the speakers and Venture Lab (VLAB) spokespeople all expressed their desire to meet — and potentially to hire — students, Stanford’s undergrads were conspicuous in their absence.

According to Chiriro Taketomi, who volunteers on the executive committee of VLAB, the event’s organizers wanted to create an innovative forum for the exchange of business ideas. They also wanted to give students and young entrepreneurs an idea of the business world that start-up endeavors must understand and exploit.

“We specifically wanted to gather young attendees to give an idea of what it’s like to have experience in the real world,” Taketomi said. “It’s good to have people together in a casual setting. They can bounce ideas off one another.”

The event featured five panelists, all entrepreneurs who have succeeded in developing start-up companies now based in Silicon Valley. Garrett Camp is the unassuming founder of StumbleUpon, a company that markets toolbar features for web browsers. Angus Davis created the start-up Tellme — a company that at more than three hundred employees is enormous by entrepreneurial standards. Zaw Thet is the CEO of 4INFO, a company that sends information like sports scores to cell phones when prompted by text messages. Omar Hamoui is the CEO of AdMob, a company that places ads on “mobile” web networks. Seth Sternberg is the CEO of Meebo, which he calls the Hotmail of instant messaging. The discussion was moderated by venture capitalist Ram Shriram, the founder of Sherpalo Ventures.

Taketomi emphasized that one of VLAB’s major goals was to provide a forum simultaneously accessible to both businesses and students that could communicate the mistakes and workable solutions of entrepreneurial success-stories.

“The function is to bring together entrepreneurs, VCs, GSB students and undergraduates,” she said. “We always aim to get a lot of students involved.”

But although the panelists were willing and ready to share their experiences with students, the event was geared toward experienced business veterans who already have a certain amount of expertise.

Many of the forum’s attendees were full-time business professionals. Kiran Inampudu of My Ahaa said he attended the event as a break from his 17 to 18-hour work days.

“I want to meet like-minded people,” he said.

He was also looking for potential sponsors for his company.

VLAB is connected to Stanford mostly through its volunteers, many of whom are Farm alumni. Although VLAB claims the GSB’s Alumni Association as a sponsor on their Web site, the relationship is mostly informal, making it difficult for the organization to attract students through regular channels.

Taketomi, who is a GSB alum, noted that she hoped to get more students involved in the all-volunteer VLAB staff.

“We’re always looking for new people to help us with events,” she said.

The purpose of creating such a forum is really two-fold, the panelists said, described the purpose of creating such a forum is really two-fold, the panelists said, differing slightly from Taketomi’s assessment. On the one hand, it is to facilitate an exchange of ideas. And on the other hand, it is to assist small companies through the recruitment process, a reality that many find onerous and time consuming.

“When I was a student,” Sternberg told The Daily, “I had very little idea how to actually start a business. This is an opportunity to help.”

Hamoui added that the information exchange goes both ways.

“I’ve talked to a couple of insightful GSB students,” he said. “I think those types of interactions are really important.”

“Stanford is one of the most entrepreneurial of the schools out there due to the setting,” Davis added.

The reality of the recruitment and hiring process was emphasized by all five speakers during the panel discussion. They emphasized the importance of finding people compatible with a company’s culture who also have the requisite combination of innovative smarts and technical skills.

According to the panelists, Stanford is an extremely important source of Silicon Valley’s talent, and the GSB students and few undergraduates who attended were given a chance to meet top-level people in companies in the process of searching for new employees.

“Meebo is definitely looking to hire,” Sternberg told The Daily with a smile.