If you join a growth organization, you'll likely do different things in different roles throughout your career. It's excellent to learn and build with others. You'll meet people you want to work with.
If a new company is formed, it hires people and creates jobs in its community. As it grows, people's opportunities multiply and wages rise. Inequality diminishes as more people get pulled into good jobs.
Before Starbucks, there wasn't as much of a coffeehouse routine; we generally drank really cruddy diner coffee.
I meet young people all the time who say something like, 'I want to work in venture capital.' And I can see why. Who wouldn't want to be smart, well-paid, dispense large sums of money, and tell people what to do?
For most students at universities around the country, studying entrepreneurship is a pleasant intellectual diversion, not a professional choice, path, or commitment.
Online education and technology are doubtless going to change how we learn in the years ahead. Remote learning is inexpensive and brings down the cost of near-universal access.
I have started or run several companies and spent time with dozens of entrepreneurs over the years. Virtually none of them, in my experience, made meaningful personnel or resource-allocation decisions based on incentives or policies.
The vast majority of companies don't go public and mint dozens of millionaires. And most companies don't go around doling out stock options; private companies tend to be very tight about ownership.
One could argue that our national university system has become a de facto talent drain for much of the country. Many states and communities send their top students away to great schools, never to hear from them again.
When I was first thinking about what would become Venture for America, I was trying to figure out how to solve a problem - that our top young people were being driven to roles that did not, to me, address the needs of our time. That VFA would be a non-profit just seemed like the most efficient way to solve the problem.
Intellectual capital drives financial capital and growth.
Incarceration and recidivism rates high? Providing people an incentive to stay out of jail while also providing them some level of economic security while they get back on their feet - both accomplished by a UBI - sounds like a great way to solve that problem.
Asking the government to fix our economy is like asking an editor to fix a movie, but in this case, the editor's not even of one mind.
When I was growing up, I'd study for days trying to get good grades. When I'd get an 'A,' I'd feel elation for about 30 seconds, and then a feeling of emptiness.
Most Americans agree that technology is going to eliminate many more jobs than it is going to create.
I would not outlaw or eliminate private health insurance. But if we do a good enough job, with a robust public option, there really should not be as much of a need for private insurance in the market.
In a professional service environment, you often work on one engagement or deal after another, with one ending before the next begins.
Freelancers generally want as friction-free an engagement as possible.
Every entrepreneur doesn't need to be technical - there are plenty of opportunities out there for people who aren't coders.
It's hard to get started as a young entrepreneur - often much harder than one would ever realize.
