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About Stephen Turban

Stephen Turban is co-founder and a director of Lumiere Education, which pairs high school students with PhD mentors for one-to-one research projects. He and Dhruva Bhat started the company in 2020. Lumiere reports more than 7,200 students mentored since then, and it has grown without venture capital.

Turban studied statistics at Harvard College and worked as a consultant with McKinsey & Company in Boston and Beijing, and at Fulbright University Vietnam, before starting a PhD at Harvard Business School. He left the doctorate to run Lumiere full time. He also co-founded Leverage Assistants, an executive-assistant business he later sold.

On Founders in Motion with Thea Ngo, he explained why he chose Lumiere over his PhD and how the company grew to about 100 full-time staff.

In conversation.

1 episode

Go straight to the good bits.

Key moments from What Harvard Didn't Know: I Was Already Building an 8-Figure Startup | Stephen Turban, Lumiere Education.

  1. 1:10Derailing his PhD for Lumiere
  2. 5:00Research to Startup Mindset
  3. 6:30Focusing on a Niche
  4. 9:00Ageism, new kid on the block
  5. 11:15Why not raise money
  6. 13:20My Biggest Mistake: The Assistant Company
  7. 18:00Building a Controversial Public Persona
  8. 20:59Moving to a New Country
  9. 25:50Online vs Real Life Persona

Lumiere Education on Day One

Lumiere Education is an online education company that pairs high school students one-on-one with PhD mentors to complete independent research projects.

1 person · 1 episode

Across the network.

Spot something wrong? Suggest a correctionUpdated 29 October 2026

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