The roots of resistance to new technologies, why such resistance is not always futile and how 600 years of economic history show how the balance of winners and losers shapes technological controversies
By the time John Caudwell sold his company in 2006, the business was selling 26 phones a minute. It employed 10,000 people in the UK and abroad. It was turning over £2.25 billion. I caught up with John to learn more about his life in entrepreneurship and philanthropy.
“Can you hear me OK? It’s not a great line…” those were some of my first words to Frederik Paulsen, Jr. – the Chairman of Ferring Pharmaceuticals; a company he inherited as a small family concern (with revenues of around U$15 million), and which he turned into a global biopharmaceuticals company employing 6,000 people in over 60 countries (amassing himself a fortune estimated at U$7 billion).
In these exclusive interviews we talk to Dr. Vint Cerf (Vice President and Chief Internet Evangelist for Google, widely known as one of the “Fathers of the Internet”), Professor Robert ‘Bob’ Metcalfe (Co-inventor of the Ethernet, founder 3COM), Dr. Jeff Jaffe (CEO, W3C – The World Wide Web Consortium), Kevin Kelly (Co-Founder of WIRED) and Professor Luciano Floridi (Professor of Philosophy and Ethics of Information, University of Oxford). We discuss the essence of the internet, the most profound technological advance in the history of our species.
Authenticity is one of the most commonly uttered buzz-phrases at any management or leadership seminar, and while this ubiquity may banish it to the realms of ‘blue sky thinking’ (aka management-meeting-related-drivel), the truth is that authenticity is hugely important for entrepreneurs. A Philosophy Lesson In the classics, if we examine existentialist philosophy and aesthetics we see that authenticity is espoused as one of the highest virtues; it means your ‘work’ is faithful to your own…
In these exclusive interviews, we speak to Jeff Raikes (Founder, Raikes Foundation and former CEO of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation), Eli Broad (Founder of the Broad Foundations), Sir Ratan Tata (Chairman Emeritus, Tata Group), Anousheh Ansari (Trustee of the X Prize Foundation, and title sponsor of the Ansari X Prize), John Paul Dejoria (Philanthropist and Entrepreneur, Founder of Paul Mitchell and The Patrón Spirits Company), Craig Newmark (Founder, craigslist and craigconnects), Michael Holthouse (Entrepreneur & Founder of Holthouse Foundation for Kids & Lemonade Day), Robert Tjian (President, Howard Hughes Medical Institute), Baroness Eliza Manningham-Buller (Chair, Wellcome Trust), Harvey V. Fineberg, M.D., Ph.D. (President, Gordon & Betty Moore Foundation), Jacquelline Fuller (Director, Google.org) and Darren Walker (President, Ford Foundation). We discuss the fundamental nature of charity and philanthropy- looking at why these phenomena exist together with their role and impact on society. We also talk about their individual journeys in philanthropy, and how their organisations are aiming to tackle some of society’s greatest problems.
For many entrepreneurs, the billion dollar valuation or exit, is the non-negotiable target they set for themselves. As of 2015, there are just over 1,800 (known) dollar billionaires in the world, with a combined wealth of over $7 trillion-which is growing fast (the same list had a combined wealth of ‘just’ $3.6 trillion five years ago). Mitch Cohen (Vice Chairman of PwC) along with his colleague John Sviokla conducted the first-ever study on self-made billionaires,…
