Author, Investor, Speaker, Mentor
I had the good fortune to attend Stanford’s most recent “Engineering Hero” lecture, featuring Andy Bechtolsheim, the legendary entrepreneur and investor. You know that you’re pretty darn amazing when founding and selling Granite Systems to Cisco Systems is only *third* on your career highlight reel, behind founding Sun Microsystems and making $1.7 billion as the … Continue reading The Great Andy Bechtolsheim
More notes from #theXEvent12 Payam Zamani, CEO of Reply.com (http://www.linkedin.com/in/payamzamani)Jacquelline Fuller, Director of Charitable Giving, Google (formerly of the Gates Foundation) (http://www.linkedin.com/pub/jacquelline-fuller/8/990/8b7)Leila Janah, CEO of Samasource (http://www.linkedin.com/in/leilajanah) Jacquelline: “The business model at Google.org is to attack a problem from all angles–funding NGOs, funding companies, advocacy, lobbying. There are more companies that want to give back, … Continue reading Embracing Entrepreneurship @ The Intersection
Here are detailed notes from Frans Johansson’s conversation with Ed Catmull of Pixar and Tim Brown of IDEO: PIXAR “The easiest way to make a movie is to do what worked in previous movies. But you won’t end up with an original result. The alternative is to go out into the world and learn from … Continue reading Pixar, IDEO, and Innovation
I like to tell people that when I was at Stanford, I studied the second and third best startup majors: Product Design and Creative Writing. (The best major of course is Computer Science. The worst is Political Science) Creative Writing is great for entrepreneurship, and not just because it lends itself so easily to business … Continue reading Disrupt (Book Review & Outline)
I’ve just completed reading Peter Sims’ new book, Little Bets. I’ll admit that I’m horrendously biased because 1) Peter is an old friend, and 2) he quotes me on page 75 of the hardcover edition, but I think that Little Bets is a great book. (Apparently the world agrees; Amazon has 17 customer reviews for … Continue reading Little Bets = Greatest Hits Of The 2000s
My old friend Frans Johansson, the author of The Medici Effect, is working with the city of San Jose to bring his innovation workshop to the Bay Area next week. The Medici Effect refers to the amazing innovations of the Italian Renaissance, sparked by the mingling of disparate cultures and experiences. I went to Frans’ … Continue reading Attend The Medici Experience San Jose on 9/24
If you want to be an entrepreneur, one of the skills you must learn is how to deal with authority. On the one hand, if you listen to advice from authority figures, you’ll never become an entrepreneur. Too risky. Too much of a long shot. On the other hand, if you decide that none of … Continue reading