From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
If you don't have some failures continually, it is a signal that you have retreated into the conservative past. Most people still interpret failure as an unfortunate thing to get to success, but this isn't actually what it means.
The area under the curve over time is greater if you keep your prices low than if you jack them up to maximise revenue. I'd get kicked out of a business school for saying something like that, but it's true.
Entrepreneurial businesses innovate, change, evolve and meet customer needs… it's about creating things that people value and love.
Once you're able to reduce the human element, and automate the reporting of these statistics- you will be greatly reducing the potential for misbehaviour. This is where regulators can leverage technology, reduce their burden, and create a much more reliable system for all.
The digital world has democratized content – it's now available on every platform all the time – and we're going to see a whole raft of new stars, because talent can be rewarded.
Research shows that two-thirds of employees say that new ideas are greeted with skepticism or outright hostility and only one in ten employees genuinely feel they have the freedom to experiment with new methods, products and solutions.
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.
I was sitting on a train—the British invention that transformed trade and travel, and was embraced very early in the United States. In my hand was an iPhone – another revolutionary advance, this time created by Americans with its iconic appearance designed by an Englishman. There are countless examples like these.
Knowledge diffusion mediated by migrants tends to be intergenerational. When German chemists were expelled and moved to the United States, the people who really adopted their ideas and technology were from the next generation.
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.
You have to keep reaching, keep thinking about what the next-level is.
I see myself as the pioneering 'zero'—the inaugural integration of a human with technology, aiming for an autonomous growth trajectory. The introduction of zero transformed mathematics, art, physics, and more. Now, it's humanity's turn.