Entrepreneurs inherently understand that they have to be the initial leader of their startup, but often they don’t have the experience or the training to know where their leadership competencies lie, or how to build a leadership team. For new entrepreneurs, leadership development efforts may be more valuable for achieving startup success than business skills development.

Marco Rogers loves interviewing engineers. Here’s a quick back-of-the-napkin showing just how much: he’s been an engineering leader and hiring manager for the last seven years. Over that time, he’s hired over 80 engineers.

While policy discussions about technology and innovation issues often focus narrowly on iconic places like Silicon Valley or Boston’s Route 128 corridor, America’s innovation-driven, high-tech economy is widely diffused—and every state and congressional district has a stake in its success.

As a nonpartisan think tank focusing on the rapidly evolving intersection of technology, innovation, and public policy, one of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation’s most important roles is to develop actionable insights and proposals that policymakers can trust to foster innovation, growth, and progress across America and in every congressional district and state. This report provides a menu of such ideas for the administration and Congress. 

As I’m already getting lots of out of office messages for people taking this week off, I thought I’d revisit an approach to how to deal with email after a vacation.

In 2011, Josh Kopelman of First Round Capital came up with what, at the time, was what I thought was the best email vacation auto-responder in the history of email. Now, I have no idea if Josh invented this, but I’m going to give him credit for it.

Since the first patent was awarded on July 31, 1790, to Philadelphia inventor Samuel Hopkins for developing a new way to make potash, the United States has granted patents for inventions ranging from the revolutionary, like the cotton gin and the electric light, to the whimsical, like Patent No. 6168531, a giant bowl of interactive simulated soup.

Image:  Jacob Turcotte/Staff

If you have a skill that’s in demand, chances are you’ve received more than one job offer. Money or a title may be tempting, but don’t jump at your first opportunity—you could be walking into a toxic work environment, says Piyush Patel, author of Lead Your Tribe, Love Your Work.

The General Electric story, of a long-proud initial member of the Dow Jones Industrial Average falling out of that index — and appearing to be in competitive free fall — provides a powerful illustration of two effects we see throughout today’s corporate world: clueless, but deep-pocketed, activist investors and mergers and acquisitions folks masquerading as strategists.

GE’s fall accelerated on October 25, 2015, with activist hedge fund Trian announcing a $2.5 billion equity investment in GE stock, one that made it a top 10 shareholder. GE stock was trading at $25.47 at the time of announcement, with a dividend of $0.92 per share.

2017 is often referred to as the year of the ICO. Yet a recent joint report from Crypto Valley and PWC found that ICO issuance in 2018 already exceeds that of 2017. A very similar trend is taking place with regards to more traditional venture-style investment in blockchain companies.

Stories abound about angel investors who made fortunes by putting money into start-ups. While more people than before can invest in start-ups, there are still plenty of risks and you’ll need to assess the start-ups carefully before you put money into them.

Very simply, angel investing is putting money into start-up companies set up by entrepreneurs.

Most entrepreneurs avoid setting up a board of directors for their new business unless or until they sign up an investor who demands a seat on the board. That implies that a board of directors has no value to the founder, and is just another burden that to be assumed for the privilege of attracting outside investors or going public. In my view, nothing could be further from the truth.

Image: https://blog.startupprofessionals.com

Bioinks containing stem cells are being used to 3D print living tissues that can be inserted into the body and provoke a damaged joint to heal itself. It’s a development that could reduce the discomfort and pain of the one in 10 people who will suffer from arthritis over their lifetime. Arthritis acts by breaking down the rubbery cartilage tissue found in joints, leading to pain, stiffness and swelling.

Image: https://horizon.scienceblog.com

Though we’re nowhere near machines taking over, artificial intelligence has a plethora of applications in healthcare. The oncology space is no exception.

The intersection of artificial intelligence and cancer care is up for discussion at the forthcoming MedCity CONVERGE conference in Philadelphia on July 11-12.

Jim Souza has blown a lot of things up in his day.

He’s the patriarch and chief show designer of the five-generation Souza family business, Pyro Spectaculars. First founded by his immigrant grandparents, the company is now known for putting on some of the biggest fireworks displays in the world. This Fourth of July, Pyro Spectaculars will put on over 400 separate events in one evening.

Some analysts argue that revenue drives growth, while others say user growth drives revenue. Both have worked. Google reached $1B in revenue within five years of incorporation, and now has a market capitalization of over $800B. Twitter showed no focus on revenue in the first five years, but was able to parlay 500M users into a $25B public company, now growing revenue.

In the end, it’s not the knowledge you accumulated that you’ll think about but rather the decisions you made.

I’ve taught graduate school for two decades. I’m always amazed at how one of the hardest things to teach is decision making, especially when it involves scenarios that are filled with uncertainty. Yet, all tough decisions are made in the absence of certainty. However, there is one way to frame nearly every hard decision so it makes the right answer abundantly clear.

Image: http://innovationexcellence.com

Combine the rapid rate of technological change with a globalized economy, and it’s evident that our cities are transforming at an unprecedented pace.

But while these fast-moving currents are found in pretty much every urbanized setting, not every city is doing well to navigate them. In an increasingly digital and global economy, cities must be able to attract high-end talent, foster innovation, and maintain competitiveness – and failing to do so can have dire consequences.

After many years as a mentor to aspiring entrepreneurs, and an occasional angel investor, I realized that new venture founders all seem to stumble on similar pitfalls, despite my best efforts to steer them to smoother routes. Of course, I would never say never, and passion does overcome many obstacles, but it still pays to learn from a few key lessons of others before you.

Image: https://blog.startupprofessionals.com

On Tuesday, news broke that Sequoia Capital has closed $6 billion out of what could end up being an $8 billion growth-stage fund with global scope. Crunchbase News covered that particular financing, but also found that Sequoia Capital is potentially raising billions more across funds focused on China, the U.S., and India, according to press reports and regulatory filings we examined.

As a general partner at Benchmark, Bill Gurley is a top Silicon Valley venture capitalist, and he's an investor in impressive companies such as GrubHub, Zillow, Uber, Stitch Fix and Glassdoor. He’s also ranked second on Forbes’ 2018 Midas List for the Top Tech Investors.

#Cloud computing, e-commerce, the mobile internet, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and the Internet of Things trigger changes in business models and blur the boundaries of industries. Genomics, nanotechnology and robotics question what is ideally described as the scientific method. The human being is subjected to upheavals of such magnitude in his double profile of man who makes and man who thinks. The first, the Homo laborans, questions the ‘how’ the mutations happen; the second, the Homo faber, the ‘why’. Are the two personalities compatible? Do the ‘how’ of making new things efficiently and the ‘why’ of ‘making thinking’ to transform the reality coexist in the same person?