When I finished school, I took my entire life savings - $5,000 - and invested it in a business. I was young. I was inexperienced. But I was an entrepreneur, and I was proud. And in six weeks, I was broke.
Seeing the world around you clearly is a critical step in developing an idea for a business, carrying out that idea, and then thriving with an ongoing concern. Through choice, predilection, lack of education, impatience, or other causes, the entrepre...
It is human nature, especially as we get older, to look for stability in our lives. But if you want to be a successful entrepreneur, you have to fight against that somewhat, as starting a business requires movement. You cannot stay still.
The Obama administration believes in experts and blue-ribbon panels. They believe in creating new agencies and boards. They believe in all that, but they just don't trust the entrepreneur's ability to grow her own business and to create jobs.
The fastest way to get kicked out of a venture capitalist's office is to say that you want to build a business that grows steadily, focuses on employees, and creates wealth over the long term. Entrepreneurs with such ambitions are considered pariahs.
As a kid, I always idolized entrepreneurs. I thought they were cool people in the way that I thought basketball players were cool people. It's cool that some people get paid to dunk basketballs, but I'm not one of those people.
There is a group of entrepreneurs pushing the envelope, government officials that are making significant changes despite the odds, and visionary writers, academics, and colleagues whose work confirms, amplifies, and stretches my own thinking.
Most great entrepreneurs I know are nothing like the other kids. They're almost like tangent lines - those lines that seem to go nowhere. Nothing connects them, until they get out in the real world. Then they connect just fine.
Intuit's mission, values, and culture of innovation set us apart as a great place to work. Our 8,000 employees are innovators and entrepreneurs that are inspired by the important work they do that is delighting customers and improving the financial l...
In December 1989, my mother died very suddenly, and that sparked a re-evaluation of what I was doing, and I realized I was mediocre at everything. I was a mediocre IBM employee, I was a mediocre entrepreneur, I was a mediocre artist. I decided that, ...
I think America is a hard nut to crack. But once you get a toehold, it's a great place for an entrepreneur because people are so enthusiastic, and you have the most enthusiastic audiences in world.
It's almost a cliche that great Silicon Valley entrepreneurs don't go sit on a beach when they make a lot of money; they get back to work building another company or at least investing in other people's companies.
I think the word 'social entrepreneur' is a really good description of what I am. What that means me to is that you have the entrepreneurial gift and spirit to create something out of nothing.
The United States is locked in a new arms race for that most precious resource - the future entrepreneurs upon whom economic growth depends. Substantial research shows that immigrants play a key role in American job creation.
An entrepreneur needs to know what they need, period. Then they need to find an investor who can build off whatever their weaknesses are - whether that's through money, strategic partnerships or knowledge.
Most successful entrepreneurs share their knowledge as a way of giving back. They do not demand compensation. Those who do are usually trying to take advantage of you.
The Internet has become an integral part of everyday life precisely because it has been an open-to-all land of opportunity where entrepreneurs, thinkers and innovators are free to try, fail and then try again.
For me, the most entertaining evening would be to go sit with entrepreneurs and talk with them about how they're building their companies and how we can help to make them better. That's the one thing in the world - well, I love doing that.
Increasingly, I'm inspired by entrepreneurs who run nonprofit organizations that fund themselves, or for-profit organizations that achieve social missions while turning a profit.
A true entrepreneur doesn't see an obstacle and thinks how long its going to take to conquer, they look at it and figure out how high they are going to jump and jump over it.
Entrepreneurs do not try and create new types of smartphone technologies now because they know it's pointless: They're going to get sued almost immediately.
