The Sunjay Times

An entrepreneur is someone who dares to dream the dreams and is foolish enough to try to make those dreams come true. Innovative bottom up methods will solve problems that now seem intractable- from energy to poverty to disease. Science and technology, powered by the fuel of entrepreneurial energy, are the largest multipliers of resources we have to solve our many social problems.

– Vinod Khosla, founding CEO of Sun Microsystems, former partner at Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers, partner at Khosla Ventures

An interview of Vinod, from iinovate. I found this podcast by accident from browsing the iTunes store after purchasing my new iPod nano. I’m impressed by it, and I love having access to the audio and video podcasts on the go. It’s like having a small TV on demand wherever I go. Do watch the video clip below, and visit iinovate

Here are some of my notes that to me are the key takeaways:

• On persistence: Part of entrepreneurship is persistence. When you run into an obstacle, you either plough through it or you give up (and do something else). Vinod was rejected from the GSB several times, but he re-applied, persisted in calling up the GSB, despite already started school at Carnegie Mellon — he got accepted and moved to the valley.
• On failure: Entrepreneurs don’t mind trying things that might fail. Big companies don’t like that. Failing in large companies means taking a career hit. The freedom to fail (the freedom to experiment) is a competitive advantage for startups.
• On problem solving: You don’t solve all problems before you jump into a new situation. You just believe in yourself, and say, “I’ll figure it out, one way or another”. Vinod had no idea how he was going to pay for fees and rent when he got accepted to the Stanford GSB. To me, this is the “leap of faith” advice entrepreneurs talk about. You just got to jump. *See below for my advice on how to make this easier
• On self-defeating behavior: It’s all about goals, targets, and mindset. Don’t think “a startup”, think instead, “a zero billlion dollar company”. Vinod has seen many good ideas utterly wasted, because the team limited themselves in their thinking and just couldn’t think big enough. He says, “most of the entrepreneurial limitations are self-imposed. People don’t realize it when they do that, but that’s what happens”.
• On funding startups: The right person is key. A random person with an idea? Tough luck. Right person with just an idea, that’s okay. Self-awareness is important. It’s important to realize and admit your limitations. VC’s can help where you’re lacking. Large market open to disruption is the next key. Technology breakthrough is the third key.
• On passion, mission, delusion: Entrepreneurs must have a maniacal belief in the mission that they have set out for themselves. The zeal, the religious belief that they will succeed in the mission is must.

Vinod’s final parting advice to entrepreneurs: “I always say, whether you are successful or not, dream the dreams and then be foolish enough to try and make your dreams come true. That may not work for everybody; it did work for me, this was sort of the approach I used; never was rational, it never made complete sense”.

And here’s a picture of the back of my new shiny iPod. Can you see read the engravings say? I got this idea from Tina Seelig’s talk: What I wish I knew when I was 20.

*My advice for making it easier on taking leaps of faith? Go canyoning in beautiful Interlaken, Switzerland. It will put things in perspective in relation to life, making this leap of faith in entrepreneurship seem a lot easier. I was just there 3 weeks ago, and there was a point where I had to jump off one rock, bounce my back off another rock, and slide down about one story high into deep freezing water from the Alps. Was I scared? You bet. You only had one chance to get it right, no practice. After the initial jump, it’s all gravity. Did I jump? I did. It was a leap of faith that I would survive. My life flashed me by as I leaped ..

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 7th, 2007 at 11:42 PM and is filed under changing the world, innovation, passion, people i like, perseverance, quotes, stanford, startup, things to remind myself. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.