We all have a natural tendency to go straight for the money…

However, one thing I’ve learned from the wealthy is that there is something you have to do first if you want to not only become rich, but also stay rich.

I interviewed 75 successful entrepreneurs for the book Make Money, Live Wealthy, and person after person promoted the same message:

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Fluorescent-lit cubicles are so last century. The latest in corporate office design is about creating more than just a place for employees to sit and stare at their computers, and the Googles of the world aren't the only companies investing in awesome office spaces (though Google continues to build zany offices all over the world). More and more, companies are hiring designers to outfit their headquarters with sleek interiors and productivity- and happiness-boosting amenities for workers like running tracks, cocktail bars, and more. Check out some of the quirky, cool, and colorful workplaces we coveted most this year.

Image: http://www.fastcodesign.com

This year’s hottest startups were all about boosting our productivity and well-being. They seized the opportunities presented by open APIs, and they rode the ongoing shift to mobile devices. In so doing, these small, innovative companies improved our professional and personal lives in ways that mattered.

Pretty much all young adults—and a majority of people living in the U.S.—have a smartphone these days, which means that apps are an increasingly important part of everyday life. 

Apple’s 2009 ad slogan, “There’s an app for that,” is dated in only one respect: There’s no longer just one app for weather, or calorie counting, or instant messaging. There are dozens, which makes it harder than ever for new apps to stand out. That makes these apps that either debuted in 2014 or otherwise caught our attention all the more notable: The bar to success is higher than ever.

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A major issue continues to be how to attract and train the necessary talent to drive forward both individual businesses and the economy as a whole. This issue is being addressed in pockets (such as some nascent, innovative programs in Michigan), but not nearly at the scope that is needed.

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All successful technologies are alike, but every failed technology flops in its own way.

Success means a technology solves a problem, whether it’s installed on a billion smartphones or used by a few scientists carrying out specialized work. But many—maybe most—technologies do not succeed, typically because they fail to reach the scale of adoption that would make them relevant. The reasons for failure aren’t predictable. This year we saw promising technologies felled by Supreme Court decisions, TV cameras, public opinion, and even by fibbing graduate students.

The most important advances in materials this year could make cleaner vehicles and renewable electricity more affordable.

The best bet for low-cost electric-car batteries may be Tesla Motors’ “gigafactory,” which the car maker started constructing this summer in Nevada. The factory will use sheer scale to drive down the cost of batteries with fairly conventional lithium-ion chemistry—plans call for its annual production of lithium-ion batteries to match that of all other worldwide producers combined. However, radical changes in battery chemistry—solid-state batteries, and liquid batteries you can recharge in minutes by pumping in new electrode materials—also made encouraging progress this year.

As we're entering the New Year, I find it's always a great time to reflect on the past year before we start to plan for our business in the upcoming year.

As such, I've been reflecting on a theme I'm noticing quite a bit while conducting my personal branding for leaders training program for corporate employees. I also offer the workshop to entrepreneurs. And the difference is that a lot of corporate employees are looking for the workshop to help them find a new job, while the entrepreneurs see it as an opportunity to learn how to better serve their employees, customers and causes they're committed to.

Entrepreneurship programs are all the rage at business schools across the country. But with the high price tag of MBA programs today, many aspiring entrepreneurs wonder if it’s worth the cost and if these programs deliver real value. An MBA is not going to make someone an entrepreneur. But business school does teach some fundamental skills necessary to run a business, generate revenue, establish partnerships, manage people and generally avoid financial or legal issues. While the investment is significant, think if it this way: An MBA can be easier and cheaper than learning lessons the hard way through a failed startup or spending years toiling in a corporate job.

There are three qualities inherent in all successful entrepreneurs.

1. Adaptability  In most cases, what you start out to do will not be exactly what you’re doing when you are ultimately successful. As you roll out your enterprise, you’ll discover that things you expected to work well don’t work at all. You’ll stumble into things that you didn’t expect to work that will. You’ll see others in your industry doing things that will work well for your organization and you’ll copy them. You’ll have to be able to adapt.

Sergio Monsalve has backed such companies as Adaptive Insights and Motif Investing. He shares what he sees as major trends for the year ahead.

Each year I compile a list of predictions from a venture capitalist perspective—with the goal of providing a practical look into what to expect in the year ahead. With a lot of talk around a bubble and with companies in all sectors continuing rapid-scale and innovation, below are five mega-trends I anticipate will make a big impact in 2015.

The economic outlook for 2015 is, by most accounts, "slightly better than 2014." That, of course, depends on what industry you're in. For some, that outlook could be a lot better with an injection of good, old fashioned innovation. Here is my short list of five industries most ripe for innovation in 2015.

1. Commercial Aerospace: I may be biased because I've worked in this industry, but I've always considered the aerospace industry the most complicated and difficult of any. Think about the conditions that airlines, for example, work under. They're heavily regulated, union intensive, recession sensitive, fiercely competitive, fuel price sensitive, and operationally complex. Putting thousands of full airplanes safely in the sky everyday is no small feat. And it's not just the airlines that face challenges. The aircraft and engine manufacturers like Airbus and GE face enormous technology and business risk when building new equipment.

Come midnight on New Year's Eve, New Zealanders and Australians will be among the first to light up the skies with celebratory fireworks. The rest of the world will then follow, city by city as the countdown signifies the beginning of 2015.

The international celebrations continue for hours, from the Sydney Opera House to Times Square in New York. While the whole world commemorates the same new year, every location is different in how they choose to party.

Image: NIKKI SHORT/EPA 

Just after Labor Day, the Gluten and Allergen Free Expo stopped for a weekend at the Meadowlands Exposition Center. Each year, the event wends its way across the country like a travelling medicine show, billing itself as the largest display of gluten-free products in the United States. Banners hung from the rafters, with welcoming messages like “Plantain Flour Is the New Kale.” Plantain flour contains no gluten, and neither did anything else at the exposition (including kale). There were gluten-free chips, gluten-free dips, gluten-free soups, and gluten-free stews; there were gluten-free breads, croutons, pretzels, and beer. There was gluten-free artisanal fusilli and penne from Italy, and gluten-free artisanal fusilli and penne from the United States. Dozens of companies had set up tables, offering samples of gluten-free cheese sticks, fish sticks, bread sticks, and soy sticks. One man passed out packets of bread crumbs, made by “master bakers,” that were certified as gluten-free, G.M.O.-free, and kosher. There was even gluten-free dog food.

Image: ILLUSTRATION BY PAUL ROGERS

The U.S. Small Business Administration, Washington Metropolitan District Office is proud to announce we are accepting nominee applications for all the 2015 National Small Business Week Award categories.  Let’s show our support and appreciation of our local small business community by submitting nominees for the following award categories: 

In this information age, brains are supposed to be the most valued economic currency. For California, where the regulatory environment is more difficult for companies and people who make things, this is even more the case. Generally speaking, those areas that have the heaviest concentration of educated people generally do better than those who don’t.

Nothing more illustrates this trend than the supremacy of the Bay Area over Southern California in the past five years. Since the 2007-09 recession, the Bay Area has recovered all of its jobs, as has San Diego, but Los Angeles-Orange and the Inland Empire, although improving, lag behind.

If you’re looking for a sign of just how important tech has become in the lives of people everywhere, all you have to do is examine the boom in tech-related satire that we’re experiencing.

Of course, the bottomless list of fake products that get fake releases on April Fool’s Day is well-documented. What many people have missed, however, is that the creation of fake tech products has become a massive, year-round industry that generates trillions of dollars.

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How good of a year has it been for video games? Our collection of 14 staff and freelancer contributors made cases for 12 different entries in our 2014 Game of the Year voting. Only two games received a second vote for Game of the Year.

As we did last year, we’ve gathered all of these picks and included our thoughts here. You’ll see some of the big blockbusters, some indie hits, games that work on mobile, and even a Kickstarter project — a first for GamesBeat’s year-end voting.

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Venture capital exploded in 2014, with bigger deals and more eye-popping valuations than anytime since the dot-com boom. So what happens next, and which opportunities will define 2015? We asked several venture capital investors to reflect on the past year and give us their outlook for the next 12 months. Mark Suster, a partner at Upfront Ventures, talked about the new capital in venture, the creep of valuations and the venture cycle versus the economic cycle....

Entrepreneurship is hot – and Millennials everywhere are choosing to take the entrepreneur route than the more traditionally popular course into corporate America. According to data gathered in 2013 by Rasmussen College, of those Millennials currently at the typical 9-to-5 job, 71 percent desire to quit and work for themselves, with 60 percent claiming that they plan to leave within the next two years. These sentiments are reaffirmed in a more recent survey released by Bentley University last month, which conveys Millennials’ wants for flexibility, openness, and independence. But, of course, the mere avidity for entrepreneurship is wholly different from the experience of entrepreneurship itself – idea and reality are in vast opposition, with the latter being much harsher than the imaginings of the mind. Made by Many managing partner Leslie Bradshaw knows all too well the harsh realities that millennial entrepreneurs have to face and recently published “A Survival Guide for the Millennial Entrepreneur“ on Medium.

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