One of the questions I get asked quite often, both at conferences and when coaching executives, is what type of personality is best suited for innovation so that they can optimize their hiring. Are technical people better than non-technical people? Introverts better than extroverts? Is it better to hire foxes or hedgehogs?

The first thing I tell them is that there has been no definitive research that has found that any specific personality type contributes to innovation. In fact, in my research I have found that there is not even a particular kind of company. If you look at IBM, Google and Amazon, for example, you'll find that they innovate very differently.

If you’ve ever played with a carbon footprint calculator and plugged in your flight history, you’ve seen how a trip just an hour or two away ballooned your total impact on the environment.

All that jet fuel takes a toll, but electric planes may swoop in and help — one day. Instead of those 176 pounds of carbon emissions for one measly roundtrip flight from San Francisco to Los Angeles, an emissions-free aircraft could fly that same distance. 

Image: Ampaire plans to retrofit a six-passenger plane, called TailWind. This rendering shows the plane high above the clouds. AMPAIRE

SALT LAKE CITY — After months of assessment, a pair of competing proposals now before Utah lawmakers are set to determine the fate of the Utah Science, Technology and Research initiative.

One reads much like a gallow's call and the other a reprieve.

Sen. Scott Sandall, R-Trementon, is the sponsor of SB212, which proposes to dissolve the USTAR governing board and move the agency's remaining programs, downsized over the past several legislative sessions, under the umbrella of the Governor's Office of Economic Development. The bill is scheduled to be discussed Friday morning by the Senate Economic Development and Workforce Services Committee.

Image: Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret News FILE - Mitt Romney speaks at the Utah Technology Innovation Summit in Salt Lake City on Wednesday, June 6, 2018. After months of assessment, a pair of competing proposals now before Utah lawmakers are set to determine the fate of the Utah Science, Technology and Research initiative.

When Amazon announced it would pull out of its HQ2 project in Long Island City due to local opposition, many were shocked. How could local residents oppose a deal that would generate 25,000 jobs and $27 billion in tax revenues for a relatively meager $3 billion in tax breaks? It just seemed illogical and bizarre.

Yet look closer and the concerns do not appear to be completely unfounded. You only have to look at the recent situation with Foxconn in Wisconsin, where massive tax breaks led not to prosperity, but to a string of broken promises, to see the perils. While the Amazon deal was vastly different, the pitfalls of these kind of transactions is very real.

To be an entrepreneur means to be someone who takes on challenges. It is absolutely synonymous. It also means you are a problem solver. Knowing what is ahead is half the battle.

The list below is compiled from the challenges that I have recognized from interviewing some of the most successful entrepreneurs on the DealMakers Podcast.

SAN DIEGO—Office REIT Alexandria Real Estate Equities reports it has launched a new product geared to providing post-seed-stage life science companies with turnkey, fully furnished office/laboratory suites.

Image: Alexandria Real Estate Equities has extensive holdings in the San Diego area totaling approximately 5 million rentable square feet, including its Alexandria at Torrey Pines property. 

New Enterprise Associates, the 41-year-old venture firm with offices in Menlo Park; San Francisco; Boston; New York; Chevy Chase, Md.; and Washington, D.C., is raising its biggest fund ever, shows a new SEC filing that shows target of $3.6 billion.

The fund, its seventeenth, is just slightly bigger than the $3.3 billion fund the firm closed in 2017, which was its biggest fund at the time. Indeed, NEA has been known for many years for raising among the biggest funds in the industry, though these once brow-raising amounts have become somewhat less remarkable in a world where venture firms routinely close on record-breaking pools of capital.

Female entrepreneurs have long known how hard it is to raise money from a roomful of men. “I would walk into these rooms of late-40s, early-50s dudes — potential investors — and they would just look at me blankly, like, ‘I do not get it,’” said Rachel Drori, the founder of Daily Harvest, a delivery service for produce-centric meals. “Sometimes, they’d say, ‘Can you send samples to my wife?’”

Image: Karen Cahn, the founder of iFundWomen, which provides female entrepreneurs access to capital, at the Wingable pitch night.CreditCreditDesiree Rios for The New York Times

Over the past year, we’ve written a lot about the rise of supergiant venture capital funds. Ever since the rollout of the $100 billion SoftBank Vision Fund, established VCs have been outdoing each other to raise ever-bigger funds.

But let’s not write the epitaph on smaller funds. U.S. venture fundraising data for 2019 reveals a lot of smaller, more focused funds closing on capital. Newcomers are rolling out fresh early stage funds, and even established VCs are opting in many cases to keep fund size constant or even a bit smaller.

Image: https://news.crunchbase.com

For many entrepreneurs, especially first-timers, business plans are daunting: Building a 50-page document that details every aspect of a theoretical business is no small task. It can be tempting to skip it, especially if you’re in a line of work like mine in which the path to profit might seem pretty obvious: good legal training = good legal services = paying customers. But I assure you, it’s not that simple.

Many business school graduates see the CEO job as the pinnacle of one’s career. As a result, they work hard to get there or, if they feel their path is blocked, leave the big company to become CEO of their own start-up, sometimes with huge success. Yet those who achieve that hallowed CEO status often face enormous unforeseen challenges that make them wonder whether it was all worth it. And with good reason, because these challenges tend to lead to increased stress. This, in turn, has a detrimental impact on their career and home life.

Success can feel mystical and mysterious.

But then again, if you're ignorant of the basic mechanics of the universe, so could gravity and the whirling of celestial bodies in the sky. But then physics mapped out the forces that cause apples to fall and the sun to set. Magic turned into simple equations.

Now in its 10th year, the Startup Outlook Report from Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) evaluates the innovation economy in the US, the UK, China, and for the first time, Canada, too. From the technologies that will shape tomorrow to the biggest hurdles faced by Canadian startup businesses today, the 14-page report gives a look at the state of startup culture in Canada as seen by those directly involved in it.

A total of 1,400 tech and healthcare founders took part in the survey, and overall 90% of Canadian respondents said they were optimistic about the outlook of the innovation economy in 2019. While 56% think conditions will be better in 2019, 31% believe conditions will stay the same., and 13% believe conditions will worsen in 2019.

There’s a common misconception that every startup founder is a natural-born leader.

While some successful entrepreneurs are, many founders simply take leadership skills for granted or never completely developed them. As a consequence, they’re unable to influence others, which makes it almost impossible to get their business off the ground.

While every entrepreneur has his or her own leadership style, these are proven ways that they can enhance their leadership.

The numbers don’t lie: women tend to live longer than men. The average American man will live to age 76, according to the latest CDC figures, while the average woman in America will live to age 81.

And a woman’s extra years tend to be healthy ones. The World Health Organization’s HALE index, which calculates the number of years a man or woman can expect to live without a major disease or injury, finds that American men can look forward to 67 healthy years, while American women will enjoy 70 years of “full heath.”

CHICAGO, Feb. 27, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Sixteen independent, primarily Midwest-based venture capital firms have established a consortium to serve Midwest-based start-ups' funding needs as well as investors seeking the Midwest's demonstrated exceptional venture capital returns. The consortium, with a combined $2+ billion in cash available for investment, is expected to accelerate Midwest venture capital activity by establishing a virtual one-stop venture capital shop for aspiring entrepreneurs.

Image: https://www.prnewswire.com/

Most board meetings are administrative updates that accomplish very little other than inform board members about the performance of the company since the last board meeting.

That’s certainly one function of every board but if your board is your “brain trust” and the people you can most use as a sounding board to help you make the toughest decisions in your company and if its the one group truly privy to your most confidential information and your hardest choices then it’s a shame if you don’t get more value.

Every month, three of 1,000 people in the U.S. leap into entrepreneurship and start a new business. But entrepreneurship isn't solely reserved for entrepreneurs.

Everyone needs to get involved to create a vibrant ecosystem, said Victor Hwang, vice president of entrepreneurship at Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. 

Gov. Charlie Baker filed legislation Wednesday that would support the building of 135,000 new housing units by 2025.

“Today, we have more people working in Massachusetts than at any time in our commonwealth’s history, and the need for substantially increased housing production – for residents across the income spectrum – is necessary to match Massachusetts’ booming economic growth,” Baker said in a statement.

Climate change is of great concern to the 53 Commonwealth countries, especially its 31 small and developing states which are often the least polluting, but the first casualties of climate change. At a Commonwealth Heads of Government Meetings in Malta and in the United Kingdom held in October 2018, Commonwealth leaders committed themselves to tackling climate change. This followed an examination by the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association on the global implications of climate change and its impact on the smallest nations and territories in the world.