Stanford University struggled financially after the death of Leland Stanford in 1893 and again after much of the campus was damaged by the 1906 San Francisco earthquake . Following World War II , Provost Frederick Terman supported faculty and graduates ' entrepreneurialism to build self-sufficient local industry in what would later be known as Silicon Valley . The university is also one of the top fundraising institutions in the country , becoming the first school to raise more than a billion dollars in a year
1906 San Francisco earthquake
1906 San Francisco earthquake
Stanford University