In my view, it's irreverence, foolish confidence and naivety combined with persistence, open mindedness and a continual ability to learn that created Facebook, Google, Yahoo, eBay, Microsoft, Apple, Juniper, AOL, Sun Microsystems and others.
Imagine the world of mobile based on Nokia and Motorola if Apple had not been restarted by a missionary entrepreneur named Steve Jobs who cared more for his vision than being tactical and financial.
First, you should take money and have plenty of money fueling your tank. But money becomes dangerous if you assume it's going to keep coming. Make sure you can get your burn rate to a sustainable level if you hit the brakes hard, within 90 days.
We love serious technology innovations, and there is a strong bias towards large technology innovations that are sort of disruptive to the current market.
You take something like RingCentral. It doesn't need any more money or financing: it is relatively mature, recurring revenue business - not really worried - but you know, we could sell it tomorrow. We have not been in a rush to sell it. We don't care about exits as much. We care about building fundamental value.
Our focus is not on exit. In fact if you talk to any of my entrepreneurs, I'm generally saying, 'Don't sell the company,' when other investors want to sell. I'd much rather focus on building long-term value in building companies rather than worrying about exits.
My life is full of way more mistakes than successes.
Germany has a lot of solar power. In fact, in 2005, some 55 or 57 percent of worldwide installations were photovoltaics in Germany. That's 57 percent of all worldwide solar photovoltaics. Because of the high feed-in tariff, they have a way of allowing you to produce electricity and ship it into the grid at very high prices.
There's a big difference between needs and requirements for grid-based electricity versus those for distributed rural homes or remote locations, or even rooftop solar, where photovoltaics do OK. The more economical a technology is, the faster we'll see adoption.
The bulk of the utility industry today believes that coal and nuclear are the only solutions we have. Nuclear is greener but has the other issues. Coal, they think, can be transformed into the so-called clean coal technologies.
Environmentalists get in the way. They often ask the right questions, but they're chasing the wrong answers - often hypothetical or uneconomic solutions.
I challenge anybody to claim that clean tech done right is a disaster.
Hopefully, I can advise entrepreneurs to avoid mistakes. But you can never be sure if you're trying something new and unreasonable.
I've failed at more things than anyone I know. No one remembers the failures.
I believe a board in a small startup company should never vote on anything.
Nobody who comes in once every six weeks while you're working 80 or 90 hours a week is qualified to make a decision.
One thing about technology is that there's always a win, place, and show, and everyone else goes under.
Did Google know much about media? Or Amazon about commerce? Tesla about cars? SpaceX about rockets? EBay about classifieds? What did I know about computing when I started Sun Microsystems? We should celebrate these entrepreneurs, not pillory them for fighting entrenched incumbent industries that have political influence and money.
