Entrepreneur

  • Everyone knows the smiley face: the egg-yolk circle, the black oblong eyes, the curved grin. It has pervaded pop culture since the 1960s, when hippies stickered it onto VW buses and screened it onto tie-dyed T-shirts. It guest-starred in the 1994 movie “Forrest Gump,” when the titular character “invented” the sunny symbol. Generation-Xers will recall…

    Read More

  • There’s almost always an element of “fake it ’till you make it” for a successful, disruptive startup. Some companies just push their luck a little too far.  There are lessons here for anyone raising money from investors. 1. Theranos Raised $1.1 billion Theranos claimed to have developed a proprietary blood testing technology, the problem was…

    Read More

  • Today would have been my brothers 71st birthday. I’m thinking of you today mate.  When we were in San Francisco a couple of weeks ago, we couldn’t help but notice people sitting at desks in the street where you would normally see cars parked. And the extraordinary thing is that it is almost impossible to find…

    Read More

  • Over the weekend we were in Silicon Valley at the incredible Google campus. I hope this is the future of workplaces.  It encourages you to work hard, be dedicated to your employer and provide you with exceptional amenities in your workplace. They provide free food, coffee shops, child care, animal facilities, rec rooms, music and…

    Read More

  • Employees at Pinterest, which had its initial public offering last week, are each reported to have an average of $700,000 in company stock.  Pinterest, an image-sharing site, has 1800 employees. After its IPO it closed at $24.40, up 28 percent from its $19 pricing, taking these staff to within a whisker of being millionaires. The…

    Read More