Business

Out of the 1,800 companies we measured, 250 created more environmental damage a year than profit. 600 created environmental damage of 25% or more of their profits. Together, the 1,800 businesses we researched created over $3 trillion of environmental damage in a single year.

Founder of Social Venture Network & Pioneer of Social Impact Investing

I became a venture capitalist because I wanted to help society by creating jobs at a time of high unemployment in the UK. As the years went by, I realised that while we were indeed helping people who came from nothing to make money, improve the lives of people around them, create jobs, financial value and wealth- the gap between rich and poor was getting bigger, not smaller.

Founder of Social Venture Network & Pioneer of Social Impact Investing

You can't be in both lanes; you have to pick one. If you are making a film and you go to Warner Brothers, they'll give you $50 million and a whole stack of notes that will make your movie worse creatively, but more successful from their commercial perspective so it can get through gatekeepers and return the investment.

Marketing Thought Leader & Author of "The Purple Cow

To have a career, you have to be able to break out of your ways of thinking about success, otherwise you'll just end up disappointed. Nobody has an upward trajectory all the time- there's undulations that go on.

British Pop Singer & "Murder on the Dancefloor" Artist

Cryptocurrencies follow a 3–4-year cycle that seems to repeat. We have 'crypto winter' which is when media interest is generally low, then sudden price rises that bring attention and cascading hype. I don't think of cryptocurrencies on the whole as being a bubble, but rather that they are bubbly-terrain depending on where we are in the cycle.

The potential for blockchain is to accelerate the digitization of financial markets. Blockchain gets everyone excited as it has the potential to convene these different parties together to reach the necessary agreements, in that sense it is a unique enabler, a coordination mechanism. That has massive implications on the structure of our financial markets.

We have turned life into a business model- and have somewhat forgotten the reciprocity we have with nature rather; we just see it as a resource. We have maintained societies for thousands of years based on a reciprocal relationship with nature, and we need to get back to that and need to have respect for our fellow earthlings rather than seeing them as products.

Canadian science broadcaster and host of Discovery Channel's Daily Planet

The story is told sincerely, but the cumulative effect is misleading – a subconsciously organised trick. The whole show is ultimately anchored around the wizard, a character who comes on stage one day to reveal how they got to the very top – they will tell a moving story often involving their mother, how they were taught about hard work, seizing opportunity and being resilient.

BitTorrent is the first time in history that people found a way to make decentralised infrastructure work better and more efficiently than centralised. Transferring files through BitTorrent is 100-1000% faster than centralised infrastructure.

Founder of TRON blockchain platform & cryptocurrency entrepreneur

If you speak to heads of states and corporations about the costs, that will be incurred to protect the environment, they will never invite you again. If you come and speak their language about job-creation and profit, they will welcome you with open arms and tell you to start implementing.

Swiss Adventurer & Pilot of Solar-Powered Aircraft Solar Impulse

If you have a national or multinational brand, your customers are as diverse as the human population. If you're smart, you realise that you need people in your business who can relate to all those different kinds of people. This is actually one of the smartest supports for diversity and inclusion in the workplace.

Psychologist who popularized the concept of emotional intelligence

Studies show that to get an MBA and to be a high-level executive you need to be a standard-deviation above the norm (have an IQ of 114 or more). After that, it turns out there's a negative relationship between IQ and leadership effectiveness. Perhaps because at that point people become narcissistic or egocentric.

Psychologist who popularized the concept of emotional intelligence

We don't necessarily hire the best CV, we hire the right CV. We try to hire the right people. If someone is 10/10 skills-fit, but doesn't seem interested in our long-term vision? I'd rather have the 8/10 candidate who's passionate about where we're going.

Founder and CEO of Gymshark, fitness apparel company

I wish I could sit here and say that a group of us built a strategy, formula, and tried to work it all out – but it was nothing like that. It was organic. It was reaching out to our heroes on YouTube to see if they liked our kit. They loved our kit, they started wearing it and we started to get to know them – and eventually invited them to our events. It was super organic.

Founder and CEO of Gymshark, fitness apparel company

At the beginning I literally started a business out of passion. I loved fitness- it changed my life- it changed my schooling, education and taught me skills that changed my life for the better. I just wanted to be in fitness. When we started the business- whilst the first 6 months were difficult- it started to gain momentum and started to feel like a real opportunity. That's when I had to grab the business by the 'scruff of the neck' and drag it to where I thought it needed to be.

Founder and CEO of Gymshark, fitness apparel company

As an entrepreneur you have to know your market. You shouldn't take too much advice, and you need to believe in your own ability and be ready to tackle problems. You also have to be prepared for the fact that it may not work!