Zschau was born in
Omaha, Nebraska and was a
figure skating champion in his teenage years. Zschau graduated cum laude with an A.B. in philosophy from
Princeton University in 1961 after completing a senior thesis titled "Space Time and Geometry from
Kant to
Einstein." He also holds M.B.A., M.S. (statistics), and Ph.D. degrees from
Stanford University. During the 1960s, Zschau was for five years an assistant professor at the
Stanford Graduate School of Business, teaching courses in computer systems, management science, and business policy. In 1967–68 he was a visiting assistant professor at the
Harvard Business School, where he taught the required first year MBA course in managerial economics. In 1968 Zschau founded a computer company,
System Industries. Zschau served as CEO of System Industries from 1968 to 1981. In 1987 Zschau became a general partner of
Brentwood Associates, a Los Angeles-based venture capital firm, and in 1988, he was elected chairman and CEO of Censtor Corp., a company which had been founded by
Brentwood to develop advanced magnetic recording components for disk drives. He was recruited to be chairman and CEO of
AdStar, the
IBM Storage Systems Division, in 1993. Zschau is also the founding chairman, emeritus, and a member of the National Advisory Board of
The Tech Museum of Innovation in
San Jose, is on the board of scholars of the ACCF Center for Policy Research in
Washington, D.C., and is a fellow of the California Council on Science and Technology. He serves as
chairman of the board of NanoOpto Corporation, Princeton Power Systems, and StarTek, Inc. (NYSE), President of Polyera Corporation, as a director of
The Reader's Digest Association, Inc. (NYSE), and Washington Live, Inc. Zschau is currently a visiting lecturer with rank of professor at
Princeton University in the Departments of Electrical Engineering, Operations Research and Financial Engineering, and in the Keller Center for Innovation in Engineering Education. Prior to his current post at Princeton, from 1997 to 2000, he was professor of management at the
Harvard Business School and a visiting professor at
Princeton University. During his years at Princeton, Zschau was a professor and mentor to
Tim Ferriss. In the summer of 2019, Zschau accepted a pro bono position as Interim President of
Sierra Nevada University, in
Incline Village, Nevada.
Personal life Zschau and his wife, Jo, currently reside in
Nantucket, Massachusetts and
Los Altos, California. They have one son and two daughters. Zschau is skilled in playing the
ukulele and was known to some as the "singing congressman". == Electoral history ==