From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
There's a compelling mission—both because of the enormous economic opportunity it represents, if it succeeds, and because of the broader impact it can have on the world. The mission is defined by a stubborn technical challenge. It has to be hard. No one wants to work on something that isn't difficult, and in a sense, choosing the hardest problems becomes a moat.
For me, it's about the power of storytelling. Everything we do is rooted in story. People resonate with stories. I can't tell you how many times I've sat with some of the most famous or richest people in the world, and when you share a story, you can see them reflecting on their own families, their own experiences.
I remember at Netflix, after we went public, the parking lot changed from old Volvos and station wagons to Mercedes' and BMW's. That really made me happy; not the cars per-say, but the fact that all those families could now send their kids to school and college.
What the 1% of SMEs in a region that can really grow desperately need is local risk finance. We can think of this as venture capital. But we need venture capital that will work for SMEs, and that means it's got to be locally based. We've got a lot of venture capital, but it's nearly all in London and the Southeast.
You should try and copy everything you possibly can! It's just that if you run out of alternatives, if you run out of options to copy, you will realise that your entire life has conditioned you to not only be a great copier, but to hesitate when copying is no longer an option.
40% of the total number of products bought in fashion eCommerce are never used, what a total waste. Let's also be frank – the luxury fashion industry has some issues in terms of sustainability.
Despite being a perpetrator, Holmes began with a noble objective: to create a technology that would benefit society. We're well aware that her venture veered off course, but her initial intention was rooted in altruism. Perhaps the adage 'fake it 'til you make it' took on a life of its own in her case.
The great thing about film is that the capital structures allow you to pick where you want to be on the risk-return spectrum. If you're looking for lower risk, you can sit where the banks used to- advancing money against known collateral.
I walked into a club that I didn't even know had my record – thought it was a demo – the engineer who recorded it also happened to be a DJ, he'd been playing it for 2 weeks and it'd become the biggest song in the club, this unknown group called Chick or Cheek or whatever, he didn't even know what to call it.
The biggest mistake is thinking that some people at the top make strategy, while everybody else executes it. It feels intractable at this point, it's so ingrained in our way of thinking. You don't want people who sit there faithfully executing strategy, you want people who lead their part of the organisation and who engage in good communication.
When you choose not to raise funds... think of it in terms of stages or ladders. These years give you knowledge capital, valuable relationships both within and outside the company, and other vital assets. From there, think of bootstrapping like a multi-stage booster rocket, where each stage propels and prepares you for the next, and the momentum continues building.
In my experience, great advisors are the ones who give you the scaffolding to observe your gut-instinct from every angle and arrive at decisions which allow you to flourish.