Peter Thiel, at turns smug, acerbic and brilliant, has opinions on most everything. I first met him a few weeks before I graduated from law school and after he had pulled off the sale of PayPal to eBay for $1.5 billion. Why did he bother to accept a random lunch invitation from a nobody?

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During yesterday's second annual NMTC-WIT Luncheon, a reporter in the audience asked the panelists if things were getting any better for women.

In an article published this year in Forbes, Geri Stengel predicted that 2014 would be the breakout year for women entrepreneurs. "While the number is still small --  nearly 20 percent of angels in 2012 invested in women-led businesses -- the percentage grew more than 40 percent from the previous year, according to the Center of Venture Research, which studies early-stage equity financing for high-growth ventures.

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While most of the evidence has been largely anecdotal, the idea that a mentor can help guide you along a better path in life is hard to argue against. Now, a large study from North Carolina State University seems to support the claim that, yes, having a mentor at a young age can lead to better, more-fulfilling employment later on.

The study culled data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health, which followed more than 12,000 people for six years, starting in their teens and early 20s. In this case, researchers asked them a simple question: Did you ever have a mentor?

The word “entrepreneur” is often misused in today’s culture. We tend to call any small business owner an entrepreneur, but let’s look at why this is not necessarily true.

The Oxford Dictionary defines an entrepreneur as someone “who organizes and operates a business or businesses, taking on greater than normal financial risks in order to do so.” The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) calls an entrepreneur “a person who organizes and manages a business undertaking, assuming the risk for the sake of profit.”

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London can make a strong case for currently being the global capital of entrepreneurship. The UK, once memorably described by Napoleon as being “a nation of shopkeepers”, is fast becoming a nation of seed-funded SME’s.

But why here, and why now? You could argue it’s a marriage of convenience. Both government and big-business have been forced to rethink how they administer their services. The draw of the corporate world is not quite what it once was. Many people have come to the conclusion that if you really want to get ahead, you’re better off doing it for yourself. Perhaps it’s a case of “if you can’t join ‘em, beat ‘em!”

One of the innovative products of the year is certainly going to be Lay’s Potato Chips and the wacky flavors that they came up with. Rather that should be phrased “the wacky flavors that their customers came up with”. Lay’s opened up a contest by which customers could submit their own ideas for different potato chip flavors that they company should produce. There was no lack of inspiration, and it helped the company launch four new flavors that are still currently on sale.

The last thing a new entrepreneur wants to think about for a new startup is how it will end. Yet one of the first things a potential equity investor asks about is your exit strategy. The answer you give can make or break your ability to get an investment, so you need to have the right answer ready before anyone asks. Here are three important reasons for the question:

Modi government's investment in technology for the year 2014-15 is an estimated $26 billion comprising of investment in digitization, infrastructural improvements, push for manufacturing and technology in healthcare & agriculture, says a report by market research firm Zinnov.

The report, which assesses first 100 days of the Modi government and highlights the impacts it has had so far. The new government plans to take digitalization to the next level by implementing the digitalization of agriculture & PDS data, enabling e-governance & m-governance, facilitating the National Rural Internet and Technology Mission, using IT for real time information gathering, and the digitization of all government files, the report states.

Image: The unprecedented mandate and the positive track record have instilled hope for an economic turnaround in citizens and investors, the report said. - Image: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com

Hiring the right person for the right job, whether a contractor or an employee, is a task that all employers will find themselves doing again and again. 

Here are some typical questions that might arise in handling staffing issues at professional services businesses, with my answers, based on my experience:

You cannot build a mobile app in isolation using just the native developer kit. Building an app requires that you have the right tools to deliver efficiently on every aspect of its life cycle.

Developing your first app can be a daunting experience, especially when you do not have enough knowledge of the tools available. Adopting these third-party tools will help you get to market quickly so that you can focus on getting the product/market fit for your app.

Two Washington-based entrepreneurs have set up a fund to concentrate on the seed stage companies which will focus on applications for mobile devices. The Kiwi Venture Partners fund also has a local Washington businessman as one of its founders. The fund, until now, has collected about $2.5 million from its 24 limited partners, including   12 partners from Washington itself. Approximate investment for Limited Partners starts at $25,000 and goes up to $500,000.

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We’ve all heard the story: Brilliant founder raises millions of dollars in venture capital and attains new heights of wealth and success. While this has been true in a few exceptional cases, I’m fascinated by how often this narrative is portrayed in today’s media. It has become commonplace in the tech industry for companies to be considered successful (or on a path to success) only if they have the validation of raising millions by venture capitalists.

That’s why, when I get asked, “When is the right time to take on VC funding?” my answer — “In a lot of cases, never” — is often met with surprise.

Reading an essay to an audience can bore them to tears. I recently attended a conference where a brilliant man was speaking on a topic about which he was one of the world’s experts. Unfortunately, what he delivered was not a speech but an essay. This renowned academic had mastered the written form but mistakenly presumed that the same style could be used at a podium in the context of an hour-long public address. He treated the audience to exceptional content that was almost impossible to follow — monotone, flat, read from a script, and delivered from behind a tall podium.

He would have done well to heed the words of communication professor Bob Frank: “A speech is not an essay on its hind legs.” There is a huge difference between crafting a speech and writing an essay. And for those new to public speaking, the tendency to mimic the forms of writing we already know can be crippling.

Getting people to work together isn’t easy, and unfortunately many leaders skip over the basics of team building in a rush to start achieving goals. But your actions in the first few weeks and months can have a major impact on whether your team ultimately delivers results. What steps should you take to set your team up for success? How do you form group norms, establish clear goals, and create an environment where everyone feels comfortable and motivated to contribute?

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Writing about health-related studies sometimes can get a bit, well, dry. Often, it's hard to tell what kind of progress a researcher really made tucked away in their university laboratory where they play — sorry, work — with molecules or cells. That very issue has become a problem in the field of science, a group of experts speaking at the Newseum said Thursday.

As a parent, Septembers were always filled with the chores of "back to school" -- books to be purchased, sharp pencils, the search for that perfect lunchbox..... As an angel investor, September also puts me in a "back to school" frame of mind. At Golden Seeds, I have the privilege of overseeing The Knowledge Institute, which houses our Investor Training Series. Our fall sessions in New York begin in September when members are back from summer vacations. In preparation for our training sessions, I am constantly looking for new resources, books, etc. to continue to enhance or improve our training materials.

My last post, How Successful People Stay Calm, really struck a nerve (it's already approaching 1.5 million reads here on LinkedIn). The trick is that managing your emotions is as much about what you won’t do as it is about what you will do.

TalentSmart has tested more than a million people and found that the upper echelons of top performance are filled with people who are high in emotional intelligence (90% of top performers, to be exact).

Q: I am an architect and a young entrepreneur. It’s fairly obvious that most of the world’s great entrepreneurs had issues with their early education. Why is this the case? -- Akosu Paul

This is a very good question, and one that I am often asked by students around the world as they weigh continuing their studies against starting up their own ventures and diving into the world of business. In addition, many also want to know how I was able to start my own career while I was a young student struggling with my schoolwork, and how I eventually got people to take me seriously as an entrepreneur.

With the U.S. economy reviving, birth rates may be as well: the number of children born rose in 2013 by 4,700, the first annual increase since 2007. At the same time new household formation, after falling precipitously in the wake of the Great Recession, has begun to recover, up 100,000 this June from a year before.

This impacts the economy strongly in such areas as single-family home construction, the supply of labor and consumer demand.

The number of companies that use their employees as brand advocates or brand ambassadors is on the rise, and it makes good business sense.

According to the Edelman Trust Barometer and Nielsen report respectively, everyday employees are twice as trusted as executives, and consumers are 77% more likely to buy a product when they hear about it from someone they trust.

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