Budget and Auxiliaries alum here.

B&A is a boring-sounding organization which is the primary income sheet profit-center, which rakes in slightly more than tuition; SMC is balance sheet (aka investment) management.

Stanford is unlike most other universities in the fact that there is no pretense of firewalling business opportunity development from academic research. I think this pushes away some pure-research, money-is-evil people and attracts more entrepreneurial folks.