Startups add an average of 3 million jobs in their first year, while older companies lose 1 million jobs annually. (ref) Without startups, job growth in the US would be negative 1.2 percent. (ref) Angel investments created 370,000 U.S. jobs in 2010, nearly half of the private sector jobs created that year....

A friend recently commented to me that he was really excited about a new business he was about to undertake, but then added almost apologetically, “I know it’s not much of a social enterprise.” This seemed odd to me because in my experience Jason is as...

In what turned out to be the most popular TED talk of all time, Ken Robinson asked us to wake up and smell the coffee: our system of education is stuck in the Industrial Revolution where it was invented.  Moreover, it’s killing creativity, crushing spirits, and preparing students, not for success and...

[NOTE: I updated this post with more detailed examples] Background: part 3, part 2 and part 1. In the interview with Jon Gunn in Part 3, I mention that I’ve been thinking of what “version 2″ of the Personal Investment Contract might look like.  Here’s the model: Investment Amount...

For the background to this post, start with part 2 and part 1.  The follow up is part 4. I get a lot of questions from folks who are interested in learning more about Personal Investment Contracts and so I felt it was time to synthesize some of the most common ones and give you some answers. Who is the...

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”  (Margaret Mead) “Be the change you want to see in this world” (Gandhi) There is an idea virus within American culture that has the power to destroy....

When I was in Silicon Valley in the 90′s the joke was that you couldn’t go on a first date without having your love-interest sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement; after all, they might be working on a competitive venture. These days when I’m hit with the “I’d love to talk to you...

What in the world do I mean by that?  Of course I think the dollar and euro are broken, but what’s the alternative?  Gold?  Maybe, but it won’t last.  Tyler Cowen partially touches on information classification in his book, but does he make the link to currencies in their traditional...

Today, Rafe and I launched new angel fund aimed at for-profit social entrepreneurs. It’s called Presumed Abundance and it’s going to make people think about what it really means to invest in people. Have a look. Let us know what you...

“Less expensive, lower-quality innovations abound in every economic sector—except medicine” This is by far the most constructive article on healthcare, because it clearly identifies the fundamental issue in healthcare – our internal conflict.  Here are the excerpts, but read the whole...

A way to browse the web using pattern recognition and abstraction as opposed to links.  Is this how understanding and self reflection emerge in the first place??  Why not speed that up too! (via DataMining) TED Feb 2010 – Live Labs Pivot demo and the world beyond facebook: One way to put it, is to...

Inspired by the X Prize, Y Combinator’s “Startup Ideas We’d Like to Fund” and Kickstarter, I am offering a $100K prize in three parts: $10K for Crowdsourced X Prizes Platform Allows anyone to offer a cash prize for achieving a goal they want achieved Allows anyone to pledge...

Rick Bookstaber, author of “A Demon of Our Own Design” and Senior Policy Adviser at the SEC has hit the nail on the head as far as the bank reform goes – Breaking the Banks (via Infectious Greed): “It is not the case that the largest banks are the same as other banks, just bigger“ “The largest...

This is the first in a four part series.  The other are here:  part 2, part 3, part 4. Imagine you are in your early twenties, out of college several years and your best friend, who recently came into an inheritance of $300K cash told you they could think of no better way to invest the money than to...