Business

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

From there; one thing led to another. I ended up doing a TV show that never saw the light of day, and then a series called Hum Paanch for about a year and a half. I got into a few attendance issues at college, and had to quit that – but ended up doing ads.

Indian actress known for critically acclaimed roles in unconventional films

Before we came to market, everything in retail was about how cheaply you could pay your employees- and unfortunately, particularly women. There was an attitude in retail that said, '... well, your female employees are just going to get married, have children at 23 and leave, so why invest in them?' The reality of the world was that 60% of university graduates were women- and most women were having children later, entering professional careers.

Founder of Lululemon Athletica, Canadian entrepreneur and philanthropist

Our number one instinct is survival, followed by reproduction. People started to realise that if they took care of themselves, they would live longer, have better sex and have healthier children. The mission of my family, which ended up being Lululemon, was for people to be able to live healthier, longer, and more fun lives.

Founder of Lululemon Athletica, Canadian entrepreneur and philanthropist

My fun statement is that if I see the same thing, three times in one week, from disparate news or information sources, I have to move quickly as it's a trend that's likely to happen.

Founder of Lululemon Athletica, Canadian entrepreneur and philanthropist

Until James DeGale won a World Title, no-one who'd won a gold medal for Britain in the Olympic Games had ever won a professional World Title, which is quite amazing when you think about that. Think of the guys that didn't even get to the Olympic Games like Naseem Hamed, Nigel Benn, Eubank, Joe Calzaghe, Tyson Fury, Ricky Hatton. Sometimes the greatest boxers get overlooked- or maybe it's because of whoever is picking the amateur team… or maybe there are politics involved…. Sometimes you may just come across guys who are hungrier!

Founder of PostSecret, anonymous confessions project & book series

I got into boxing promotion by accident. One of my cousins was a boxer, so I used to go watch him fight as an amateur and then when he turned pro. He had a fight, I went to watch it… he got beat and had a return match… he beat the guy… they had another match, but they wanted to pay them crap money. I went to the meeting, turned around and said, '…I don't need you, we'll promote it…' I don't know why I even said that! The next minute, I was in the promotion business and helping to get this thing together; I got bitten by the bug, and it went from there.

Founder of PostSecret, anonymous confessions project & book series