Vivek Wadhwa
Vivek Wadhwa
Vivek Wadhwa is an American technology entrepreneur and academic. He is a fellow at the Rock Center for Corporate Governance; the Director of Research at the Center for Entrepreneurship and Research Commercialization at the Pratt School of Engineering, Duke University; and the author of the 2014 book Innovating Women: The Changing Face of Technology...
NationalityIndian
ProfessionBusinessman
CountryIndia
The IPO is no exit for the entrepreneur; it's the start of purgatory.
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When my generation grew up, our only sources of knowledge were books, teachers, parents and friends. The encyclopedia was an item of luxury. We faced big limits in what we could learn, where we could be and who we could reach.
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You have to live in Silicon Valley and hear the horror stories. You go and hang out at the cafes, and you meet entrepreneur after entrepreneur who's struggling, basically - who's had a visa problem who wants to start a company, but they can't start companies.
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The most valuable lesson I learned in dealing with the ups and downs was to invest in my employees - to do all I could for them when the times were good.
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During the dot-com days, one could take just about any company public and reap fortunes. All you had to do was to make sky-high projections for growth, say you were in the Internet space, and go along with unscrupulous investment bankers and their analysts.
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If you don't have savings, and your co-founders are as poor as you are, and if Mom and Dad won't loan you money, then your best bet is to find people that know you - your friends. If they, too, won't help, then you're stuck seeking out angel investors.
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After my health suffered due to the stress of running my second company, I had to switch careers. But I still didn't want to go back to the corporate world. So I became an academic.
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Ask any venture capitalist, and they will tell you that they consider the experience and completeness of the founding team to be a more important factor in their investment decision than the technology that is being built.
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My message to students is that if you want to become an entrepreneur and save the world, definitely don't skip college. But go to a school that you can afford. You'll be freed from the chains of debt and succeed on your own ambition and merit.
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When I became an entrepreneur, I had the knowledge to develop and manage budgets, market products and review legal contracts.
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Despite what some investors say, older age is an advantage in the startup world. You know more about industries and markets, and have ideas for products that the world actually needs and a better ability to motivate and manage than a kid out of school does.
The fact is that you are never too old to innovate.
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I have no doubt that my M.B.A. from New York University's Stern School of Business was one of the best investments I ever made. It helped me climb the corporate ladder and become an entrepreneur.
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In the U.S., PC-makers have no incentive to lower prices because it kills their profit margins. They keep adding new features like high-end retina displays and faster processors to justify their high prices.