Armando Fox was denied tenure from Stanford’s highly-ranked Computer Science department in 2006. Prior to holding that position, he was rejected from several top-10 Ph.D. programs, after having been previously rejected from top Masters programs and from jobs and internships at Apple and other leading tech companies. In 2006 he returned to Berkeley, where he had previously obtained his Ph.D. without particular distinction. Since then he has had nearly 100 scientific papers rejected from leading conferences and journals, has been turned down for several major research grants, and has been passed over for almost every major research award, including Best Paper. He has founded or co-founded three startups, two of which folded, and advised several others, most of which have also folded. His other major passion over the last 35 years has been classical music performance and musical theater, in which he has obtained remarkably few distinctions despite serving as Music Director for dozens of musicals.

Short version for brief talk bios:

Professor Armando Fox was denied tenure from Stanford’s highly-ranked Computer Science department in 2006. He has been rejected multiple times from top graduate programs, passed over for positions at leading tech companies, failed to win several awards in his field, and had many papers rejected by leading conferences and journals. He has also co-founded or advised several startups, most of which have failed.

Inspired by Dr. Melanie Stefan’s article A CV of Failures.