Entrepreneurship Archive

TechCrunch / Could a Nobel Prize-winning innovation have almost been overlooked by Silicon Valley?

  •   By Vinod Khosla   •   Entrepreneurship, Innovation, Sustainable energy

I want to congratulate Shuji Nakamura (pictured above), the founder of Khosla Ventures portfolio company Soraa, and his fellow collaborators who were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics yesterday. They join an esteemed group of Nobel laureates that includes Albert Einstein, Marie Curie and Niels Bohr, all of whom have changed the course of human history. Read More

TechCrunch / The case for intelligent failure to invent the future

  •   By Vinod Khosla   •   Entrepreneurship

The world is changing at an increasingly rapid pace. In the past, experts with spreadsheets and econometric models or social scientists with subscale studies and linear models may have been useful. These so-called experts extrapolated from what came before, but as the rate of change has increased, looking to the past often is no longer meaningful – especially in a world driven by new technology. Read More

Fireside chat with Google co-founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin

  •   By Vinod Khosla   •   Artificial Intelligence, Big Data, Entrepreneurship, Innovation, KV CEO Summit, Leadership, Social impact

At the annual KV CEO Summit, we were fortunate to have both Larry Page and Sergey Brin sit down to discuss a wide range of topics including the acquisition that never was (although not for lack of trying!), why computers today are still pretty bad, their partnership over the last 16 years, the future of Google, government 2.0 and how machine learning and technology will shape our future of abundance. Read More

A dozen things I’ve learned from Vinod Khosla

  •   By Tren Griffin   •   Entrepreneurship

This post originally appeared on Tren Griffin's website 25iq, where he blogs about business models, investing, technology and other aspects of life he finds interesting. Tren works for Microsoft and previously was a partner at Eagle River, a private equity firm. This post is part of a series, which includes "A dozen things I've learned from... Marc Andreessen, Reid Hoffman and about marketing, distribution and sales." Read More

Outlook Business / Make a great company and the money takes care of itself

  •   By Vinod Khosla   •   Entrepreneurship

How has the Valley changed since you came here? The biggest change is that the culture of experimentation has become very accepted. In fact, if someone has been at a big company such as Hewlett-Packard or Cisco for very long, we consider that a negative. Nobody wants to hire somebody who has worked with big companies. Here, it’s all about trying new things. Failure has become a badge of honor. Read More

TechCrunch / Venture assistance: A philosophical view of what boards should and should not do

  •   By Vinod Khosla   •   Entrepreneurship

Most VCs pitch their venture firms as value added to a company’s entrepreneurial founders. Personally, I think leading VC firms do a pretty good job of being supportive of their companies, and most entrepreneurs funded by good funds like their investors. But, on the question of “value added,” most venture capitalists, even among the leading firms, are pretty passive and ineffective when it comes to assisting companies. Read More

TechCrunch / Do you need to be a jerk to be a successful entrepreneur?

  •   By Vinod Khosla   •   Entrepreneurship, Leadership

I recently read Ben Austen’s WIRED article about Steve Jobs, which prompted me to put together my thoughts about the tradeoffs of being a successful entrepreneur. Austen’s article draws a caricature of Jobs and puts forth a series of false choices. After reading it, you might be convinced that you can either be a jerk and successful or decent and mediocre. Read More

The New York Times / Maintain the Silicon Valley vision

  •   By Vinod Khosla   •   Entrepreneurship

Some people seem to think that getting acquired should be the highest aspiration for an entrepreneur in Silicon Valley. I disagree vehemently. In fact, I think that mindset does a disservice to the entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley and around the world. This is exactly the wrong way to think about building a start-up not only because it develops the wrong company culture, but on a large scale it can poison the unique and innovative ecosystem that has developed in Silicon Valley over the past 40 years. Read More