VentureBeat | You don’t have to live in Palo Alto to become a software billionaire, though it can help.
The Facebook IPO will become the new standard for other Internet players trying to go public before the IPO window slams shut. If you’re a young Internet CEO — even if you’re directly competing with Zuckerberg — it might be worth it to wish for a big Facebook IPO this spring.
Monday marks the beginning ofGlobal Entrepreneurship Week — a seven-day worldwide event showcase for current and aspiring entrepreneurs.
“Vivek, do you notice something strange”, asked my wife, Tavinder, during a start-up awards event hosted by TechCrunch in San Francisco two years ago. The only thing that surprised me, I told her, was that technology celebrities were dressed in ragged jeans and t-shirts.
“No, Vivek, tell me,” she said, clearly wishing to be taken seriously, “Where are the women?”
Essentially, the social Web has become its own biggest advocate and, unsurprisingly, the entrepreneurs and their associates are its first adopters and the most adept at using it. The end result is a largely insular world of technology entrepreneurs using social media to reinforce each others’ beliefs in a virtual echo chamber that produces clone after clone of like “blank”-for-“blank”-style companies instead of breaking new ground.
Business incubators and accelerators are necessary components of a vital entrepreneurial ecosystem that drives job creation and wealth in this country. That ecosystem requires capital to fuel job growth. Black American and urban centers have historically been disconnected from that ecosystem. And, with millions of Black Americans sitting on the sidelines, we don’t need to look much further than ourselves for leadership in changing the equation and brightening the economic future for those who seek to compete in the new innovation economy.
Marty Nemko, holds a Ph.D. specializing in the evaluation of innovation from the University of California, Berkeley and subsequently taught in its graduate school. This is the first in a series on thinking outside of the box when it comes to the nation’s leading challenges. People on both sides of the aisle agree that the best way to create new, permanent jobs is to create more (and ethical) entrepreneurs. Here’s one way to create them: Replace one high school course with a course in entrepreneurship.
The Washington Post’s Vivek Wadhwa will debate PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel Wednesday evening regarding a subject the two have disagreed on for some time: Whether America’s youth should attend traditional colleges? Wadhwa argues that America’s next generation cannot afford to abandon the nation’s colleges and universities for customized, self-directed education. Thiel, who has offered 20 individuals $100,000 to drop out of college, argues that college has become overly expensive while providing students with few — if any — of the tools they need to become entrepreneurs.
But what do you think? Is it time to do away with the traditional college experience? Or, as countries such as India and China begin to see rapid expansion, is it time to push harder for more widespread, traditional schooling?
American policy makers worry about the dramatic increases in the number of academic papers being published and patents being filed by Chinese researchers. They believe that these will give China a formidable competitive advantage when it comes to innovation.
Our policy makers are right to worry, but they are worried about the wrong things.
