If you want to succeed, you should strike out on new paths rather than travel the worn paths of accepted success.
I spoke with an investor recently who told me that 1,500 deals get funded / year in the US, 80 (5.3%) eventually sell for $50 million and only 8 (0.5%) eventually sell for $150 million or more.
Jeff, one day you’ll understand that it’s harder to be kind than clever.” What I want to talk to you about today is the difference between gifts and choices. Cleverness is a gift, kindness is a choice. Gifts are easy — they’re given after all. Choices can be hard. You can seduce yourself with your gifts if you’re not careful, and if you do, it’ll probably be to the detriment of your choices.
Intel founder Andy Grove wrote an excellent piece busting some myths on innovation, job creation, emerging markets and the role of manufacturing in a developed economy.
Today, manufacturing employment in the U.S. computer industry is about 166,000 — lower than it was before the first personal computer, the MITS Altair 2800, was assembled in 1975. Meanwhile, a very effective computer-manufacturing industry has emerged in Asia, employing about 1.5 million workers — factory employees, engineers and managers.
Fortunately, this is the best time ever for innovation,” said Carlson, for three reasons: “First, although competition is increasingly intense, our global economy opens up huge new market opportunities. Second, most technologies — since they are increasingly based on ideas and bits and not on atoms and muscle — are improving at rapid, exponential rates. And third, these two forces — huge, competitive markets and rapid technological change — are opening up one major new opportunity after another. It is a time of abundance, not scarcity — assuming we do the right things with a real national growth strategy. If we do not, it rapidly becomes a world of scarcity.
