From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
I was 5 years old when I went to see it and when I came back, I remember thinking 'that's exactly what I'm going to do, I want to be a film-maker, I want to make people disappear, reappear, sing on screen and make beautiful love story.' That was the moment I decided, and I haven't looked back since.
In today's climate, and over the past 5-7 years, people have been building financial arbitrage machines not actual companies. Most people's behaviour is more predicated towards raising the next round of financing rather than building towards a profitable company. We're going to have a massive crash and 90% of the people will go back to working at Bank of America, Chase, GE and companies like that- and the people who are good enough will continue to build businesses.
Opportunities come, sometimes very subtly, gently floating by. The typical response is, 'Yeah, cheers mate,' and back to Middlesbrough you go. But if your antenna is up — if you're someone who listens, runs with things, and grabs hold of opportunities — they can lead somewhere.
Many entrepreneurs are deluded about their odds of success, that evidence is very clear. This creates problems… Should a government subsidise entrepreneurs who greatly over-estimate their chances of success?
Either as a startup founder or a venture capital investor, you should not care about what others believe to be exciting or overhyped. Do your own primary research and make up your own mind.
Most of the time, startup ideas don't work. Most of the time, the world stays as it is. The status quo has an advantage; it has a built-in upper hand. For a startup to win, it has to be not merely better than what's there; it has to propose something radically different, something that never could have existed before, something that can't be compared to anything that's happened.
It hurts to be on the stage, and it can be scary, and it can be really, really gut-wrenching. But if deep down in your heart the problem you're trying to solve is something that is so important to you, that will erase the noise of the millions of voices in the arena.
My wife Freada coined a phrase, distance travelled. We're very interested in where somebody started in life, and what hurdles and barriers they have already overcome in their journey – and how that grit has got them to where they are now.
Entrepreneurship is about taking risks and having the audacity to commit and persevere through all the obstacles and hurdles we have to overcome.
I do this thing- I say something out-loud–announce it to the public–and then I'm forced to do it because people are excited and I don't want to let them down.
How many times have we all heard someone say, 'I had a really good business idea, but then I found somebody else had already done it—so I gave up'? I'd say the opposite: fantastic! If someone's done it, is still in business, and it's working, that's proof you're onto a solid idea.
Are you the guy who wants to know what he gets at the end of the month? Or are you the guy who says I'll take my chances and will do very well or very badly. If you can make that distinction in your own mind, the rest is up to you. That's where entrepreneurship comes from; it means you can live with risk.