Entrepreneurship

This is certainly something that is not without risk. We are pursuing an audacious goal, and we very well might fail. When NASA set the Moon landing challenge, it created a whole series of capabilities and technologies that we previously could not have imagined.

All of the research we've done exploring space has now allowed small teams- with modest funds- to do what it once took entire governments to do. The design and collaborative power of an individual engineer or technologist is more powerful than it's ever been. The tasks themselves are getting more accessible too.

They talk about Steve Jobs having a reality distortion field…. but all the entrepreneurs I met who achieved great things had that. They all had a wilful denial of reality… against all evidence to the contrary they had to believe they would succeed.. that's ultimately what entrepreneurs do.

From the guys who started Adobe to Steve Jobs, and everyone in between…. for the people I documented, money was secondary… They knew absolutely they would make money, but changing the world and doing cool stuff was the primary goal; that was their mission.

Don't make the mistake of confusing net worth and self-worth.

They took a relative view of risk… They had an understanding of the risks of something going wrong, but balanced that against missing an opportunity. When that opportunity exceeded the risk of going wrong? That's when they jumped…

Entrepreneurship means a constant willingness to keep learning. It's about maintaining that start-up spirit—where you're forever young, and forever in crisis. It's about always having your mind on the business: Lying in bed and constantly asking yourself, What should I do?

Founder and CEO of Baidu, China's leading search engine company

Opportunities generally arise from landscape change. But entrepreneurial ideas can come from anywhere. They can come from recognizing where the pain points, the bottlenecks, and the inefficiencies are. They can come from late-night conversations with friends, or from random eureka moments.

Founder and CEO of Baidu, China's leading search engine company

It was not wealth or fame that these people wanted… These individuals had, in their own minds, observed a particular customer need that wasn't being met. They were wired in such a way, that this need seemed obvious to them. Whether it led to a million or a billion? That was secondary.

80% of self-made billionaires we studied made their mark in mature, competitive markets. They weren't all 'exactly' new products that came out – they were maybe a variation of a business model or existing product that pleased the customer in a different way. Think of Howard Schulz with Starbucks, or Sara Blakeley with Spanx for example.

Don't aspire to be an entrepreneur. Aspire to create something that solves a problem. My message to young people with an idea is build a prototype and test it. Test it again and again, making the changes, learning from failure.

Inventor & Founder of Dyson Ltd, Bagless Vacuum Pioneer

Being an entrepreneur, an inventor, is about having ideas and having the doggedness to see them through… As an inventor your ideas should be based on creating a solution to a problem – a solution which focuses on function over form. Solving problems has been my life's work.

Inventor & Founder of Dyson Ltd, Bagless Vacuum Pioneer

Inventors shouldn't be afraid to take risks. They should embrace failure and learn from their mistakes. I created 5,127 prototypes of the first Dyson bag-less vacuum cleaner and only the last one was right! Not being afraid to fail is something I think all successful entrepreneurs have in common.

Inventor & Founder of Dyson Ltd, Bagless Vacuum Pioneer

One of the challenges in networking is everybody thinks it's making cold calls to strangers. Actually, it's the people who already have strong trust relationships with you, who know you're dedicated, smart, a team player, who can help you.

Co-Founder of LinkedIn & Venture Capitalist

I made a principled decision that none of my wealth will be passed on as inheritance, that my capital will work for philanthropic causes. In other words, philanthropy is the reason I make money.

Russian Oligarch & Owner of Norilsk Nickel Mining Company

there are no good musicians who do not have a good ear, no artists without a great imagination, no writers without an excellent command of the language. The same goes for our trade. It is not enough to know how to use a calculator or build sound financial models. You need to have vision. You should look at a business process as if it were a living thing; you need to sense its music. You know, a good chess player does not need to spend a great deal of time calculating – sometimes one look at the chessboard is enough to know if a combination is good or bad…

Russian Oligarch & Owner of Norilsk Nickel Mining Company