From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
I don't have to outrun the Tiger, I just have to outrun you. When you look at many of the financial centres such as The City of London, Wall St, and their counterparts, they think of things in Economic terms.
Ultimately, we want to make it unnecessary to be a B Corp – we want it to be just the norm of how all businesses are run, but that means we have to change the rules of the game and the role of business in society.
Adversity is happening all around us at the individual level, it's happening at a company level, it's happening at industry levels; and we can either face it and learn from it or we can pretend it's not happening. And I think that is the key.
When you look at companies that survive growth, you are seeing the importance of people- not just ideas. One of the big surprises to young people when they show up in Silicon Valley... is that there are literally thousands of people just like that across Silicon Valley who were top of their class and have incredible ideas. Successful companies that scale stand out because of their people!
The platform of business is one of the most amazing ways to change society, but I am telling you this as someone who grew up not liking the platform.
Early stage investing is very difficult and financially risky meaning that a lot of what we invest in won't work. A lot of what we do is, in effect, pilots to see if individual projects or funds can generate some positive return.
The reality is we live in a very dynamic world that's full of risks and all we should really care about are risk drivers – both financial and non-financial. Alternatives may provide us with ways of hedging out or managing future risks better.
We adopted in Portugal a National Strategy for Entrepreneurship: Startup Portugal. A strategy that aims to make Portugal the ideal space to create, test, fail and try again.
Every business, in a way, is about harmony. If you don't have that sense of harmony and alignment in the pursuit of excellence and the vision, it's going to be tricky.
Scaling up is incredibly challenging; it's definitely been the hardest part of my own entrepreneurship journey. You might be familiar with The Peter Principle, which states that people are promoted to the level of their incompetence. It's exactly the same in the real world: if you're good at your job, it leads to advancement in your career, and then you don't get to do those things anymore that made you deserve that advancement.
If you are able to share the things you're scared people will find out? That's real transparency, and that's how you earn the trust that transparency can bring, but if it doesn't feel uncomfortable, it's just marketing.
Much jitteriness in this recent crisis has come down to 'flying blind' – where investors and risk managers have been caught somewhat unaware, and do not have the visibility to make decisions with support.