Business

Technology should be leveraged to enhance the physical and human experience, not replace it. There is something magical about the physical retail experience that digital will never completely replace.

Founder and CEO of Farfetch, luxury fashion e-commerce platform

Slowly, over the course of a decade, we built relationships by proving we weren't there to destroy luxury's heritage and its 'unspoken codes of conduct,' but actually to protect them and enable this industry to thrive. We were fashion insiders, and we just happened to be coders too!

Founder and CEO of Farfetch, luxury fashion e-commerce platform

The mythology tells us that you come to the valley and forge your own path, but in reality young people come here and are asked to essentially create careers that are a daisy chain of gigs on mini-innovation projects within large corporations.

Elizabeth Holmes is the product of a culture that has brought up young entrepreneurs to say, and believe, that 'moving fast and breaking things' is cool, that disrupting now and worrying about the consequences later is fine and that breaking laws and regulations is something to be proud of.

Investigative journalist who exposed Theranos fraud through Wall Street Journal reporting

She channelled that culture, and felt entitled to do the same thing – only her device wasn't a computer, or software, it was a medical device that patients and doctors relied on to make important health decisions, some of them life-or-death decisions. With medicine, you simply can't fake it till you make it. Otherwise, you jeopardize lives.

Investigative journalist who exposed Theranos fraud through Wall Street Journal reporting

In Silicon Valley there's a sense that there are 30 individuals who are 10x more capable than most people, it's like a power law scaling of talent. If a founder has really succeeded and thrived, people think it's because of their brilliance and because they're at this super far-end of the spectrum. As a result, founders get immense leeway, capital rushes toward them and in some ways that's good.

Editor-in-Chief of Wired Magazine & Cybersecurity Expert

People think that life inside Silicon Valley firms is like life under an orange tree, where you suck on the oranges and everyone treats each other perfectly – but that's not quite right… people are ruthless, competitive… human.

Editor-in-Chief of Wired Magazine & Cybersecurity Expert

People think these founders are all brilliant and can't make mistakes, we've found that; there's a sense that they can fix everything or have the answers for everything… they don't, and they can't.

Tech Journalist & Co-Founder of Recode Media

I'm particularly obsessed by communications; and if you are committed to doing charitable things, and- of course- have your primary duty to ensure money is spent well and makes a difference – I think you may also have the duty to make sure that you try to affect the general attitudes people have towards the issues too.

British Film Director & Screenwriter of Romantic Comedies

I always tell people to not risk their own money, and to get venture funding. You should fail fast and spend as little money as possible to get your ideas validated.

Co-Founder and Former CEO of Infosys, Indian IT Pioneer

Scaling any business is about creating a model, debugging the model, making sure you understand the ingredients that need to be scaled up, and making sure you have a process to scale. All of this needs to be wrapped-up in a financial model that allows the scale to be funded.

Co-Founder and Former CEO of Infosys, Indian IT Pioneer

One of the common myths about setting up business in the UAE is that funding is challenging to obtain in the country. This couldn't be further from the truth. With UAE's pro-investment laws and a robust financing sector, new businesses find it very easy to secure funds through various channels.

Founder and Chairman of Damac Properties, major UAE real estate developer

Credentials don't always define who someone is, or who they're going to be. The only way to engineer virality and make a product work is to understand the consumer, and that changes from city to city, from country to country.

Founder and CEO of dating app Bumble, feminist entrepreneur

It feels to us that the festival is owned by the people, and me and my Dad are kind-of custodians of it. In that sense, it's a bit like a sailing ship… me and my Dad drive it, but the ship is made of a few hundred people – our key organisers and creatives, who build each part of the ship with their own vision.

Co-organizer of Glastonbury Festival with her father Michael Eavis

Firms like McKinsey are self-reporting that their people are 5x more productive in-flow than out of flow… 500% more productive. That means you can work Monday in-flow and take the rest of the week off – and you'd still get as much done as your peers. Work two days a week? You're now 1000% more productive than the competition.

Author & Researcher on Flow State & Human Peak Performance

This is a really exciting time for human space exploration, we have a lot to be hopeful about – and we have a whole bunch of private companies who have very credible strategies and vehicles. Like in so many other industries, the government has played a key role in kickstarting things – but to realise the full potential of this industry we'll need private industry to get involved seriously.

Astronaut and educator who conducted spacewalks on the Hubble Space Telescope