A Kauffman Foundation site

Entrepreneurship in the News

Should we let wunderkinds drop out of high school?
5/21/2013 1:14:55 PM
It's one thing to say tech geniuses don't need degrees. After all, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg all dropped out of college. But now we've got David Karp, who doesn't even have a high school diploma. Karp, 26, founded Tumblr, the online blogging forum, and sold it to Yahoo for $1.1 billion. Which raises the question: When is it OK for a wunderkind to drop out of school?
Coding Skills Combine With Civic Consciousness to Improve Government
5/21/2013 7:58:15 PM
Making cities work better through high-tech innovation,that's the ambitious goal of one San Francisco startup.
The devil you know: entrepreneurs prefer current ventures to new ones
5/21/2013 11:26:47 PM
Entrepreneurs are subject to many of the same biases that cause people to persist with their investments, and don't necessarily behave to always maximize outcomes when presented with lucrative new opportunities, a new study says.
VCs should pump up their startups with data
5/22/2013 7:37:09 AM
Giving startups the tools and resources they need to compete on analytics would give investment firms and their startups a huge competitive advantage. Startups would grow revenue faster, reducing their level of technology debt.
Nobody puts baby food in a corner
5/22/2013 7:58:28 AM
As a health nut and foodie, 36-year-old Shazi Visram had a problem with processed baby food. Namely, it was gross, and people felt bad about feeding it to their kids.
For the 50+ market, it's about quality of life, not cool technology
5/22/2013 9:43:55 AM
Representatives from AARP and Geisinger Health System make no pretensions: They’re not into technology just because it’s cool. While the 50+ population and doctors appear to be dissimilar markets, selling to either requires a deep understanding of customer needs rather than just a sense of having “the next big thing.”
The New "Handmade"
5/19/2013 10:04:49 PM
Amid grumblings of a “general fatigue” when it comes to software-based startups, a potentially transformative technology called 3D printing is poised to reach critical mass and mainstream awareness.
Why Ireland is the number one place to start up in Europe
5/20/2013 3:02:42 AM
Ireland may seem like an unlikely choice of location to start up a new business, but within the debt-stricken country, a new hope of entrepreneurship is emerging from the ruins of the Celtic Tiger.  
The Experimental Nature of Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh
5/20/2013 5:59:09 AM
How the serial entrepreneur is betting on startups to revitalize Las Vegas with his $350 million Downtown Project.
Tapping the Entrepreneurial Potential of Grassroots Innovation
5/15/2013 4:22:00 PM
Instead of treating poor people as a sink of public aid and assistance, we should view them as a source of new ideas and innovations.
Why Inventors Should Become Entrepreneurs
5/15/2013 4:30:08 PM
Innovative entrepreneurs are likely to keep inventing, says Daniel Spulber, a professor of management and strategy at the Kellogg School.
This Cloud Startup Is Hiring Away Google And Facebook Engineers To Solve Enterprise IT Headaches
5/15/2013 7:07:16 PM
Nutanix, a cloud startup that has poached top engineers from Google and Facebook , is using the talent to make data centers easier to manage. Nutanix's flagship product is a hardware and software appliance that's installed in a rack in a customer's data center.
Why High Schools Should Treat Computer Programming Like Algebra
5/15/2013 7:43:16 PM
And 5 other cool ideas from The Atlantic's Technologies In Education Forum.
You call Google Glass wearable tech? Heapsylon makes sensor-rich fabric
5/16/2013 9:15:42 AM
Three former Microsoft employees believe clothing will be the computer, and to that end they invested three years of their lives building a sensor-infused material that they promptly turned into ... a pair of socks.
How Entrepreneur Friendly are the Top 10 Startup Hubs?
5/14/2013 10:44:18 AM
Before you pack your bags and head off to Silicon Valley, check out how the top startup ecosystems rank when it comes to ease of starting a business.
I Screwed Up: How 3 Famed Entrepreneurs Learned From Failure
5/14/2013 10:44:27 AM
Barbara Corcoran, David Mintz and Fran Tarkenton reveal their biggest business mistakes and the lessons they learned.
The New Sexy (at Least to VCs): Mobile Business Apps
5/14/2013 8:49:34 PM
A year ago, employees at computer giant Hewlett-Packard Co. used to stuff 100-page contracts into FedEx envelopes and mail out thousands of them to customers, distributors and suppliers all over the world -- daily.  . . . Today, all that shuttling of paperwork has been replaced by an app from startup DocuSign Inc., which allows people to digitally send, receive and sign documents on a phone, tablet or PC.
Russians attempt to topple Google in Vietnam
5/15/2013 2:22:27 AM
Vietnam's booming Internet scene is littered with failed startups that tried to take on Google and other entrenched U.S web companies. That's not deterring a newly launched Russian-Vietnamese outfit which believes it can unseat the American search engine in this fast-growing Asian market and also contend with a jittery, authoritarian government seeking to clamp down on freedom of expression online.
So you want to be a Fortune 500 company...
5/15/2013 5:27:53 AM
Most businesses never make the revenue threshold, which is just over $4.8 billion this year. But the few that do share five crucial traits.
The Single Biggest Factor VCs Look For In Startup Founders
5/10/2013 12:00:00 AM
As a venture capitalist, I’m asked all the time what will help a company get funded. The reality is, there are a lot of factors, and no two companies – or founders – are the same. Sometimes we bet on the horse or the race (the product or market), but when we’re betting on the jockey (a founder), we put all our chips on one thing.
Using Investing Acumen To Put Dollars Into Impact
5/10/2013 2:00:36 PM
Bill Ackman is very wealthy. He’s trying to put that wealth to good use not through charity, but through investing it in high-impact organizations. The trick is finding the ones that both give returns and make a difference.
The Latinos of Silicon Valley
5/11/2013 12:00:00 AM
What’s most striking about the emerging Silicon Valley Latino community is how it challenges one of the most prevalent cultural stereotypes:  that Latinos have little to do with one of the principle engines of the 21-century economy.  While disparities in education (STEM) and employment exist, the conventional wisdom obscures the reality that Latinos are emerging as a force in technology.
The Bitcoin Buzz and How Young Entrepreneurs are Cashing in
5/11/2013 4:15:13 PM
You can't open a website or newspaper these days without reading about Bitcoin, the digital currency that was invented in 2009 by a mystery person who goes by the name of Satoshi Nakamoto. The latest news is Fred Wilson's Union Square Ventures just agreed to help fund a $5 million round of investment into Bitcoin wallet Coinbase. .
Moms spur family tech boom
5/13/2013 7:12:26 AM
At the place where motherhood meets entrepreneur and play dates collide with iPads, a new market for parent- and kid-friendly technology is exploding.
Credit Pinch for Small Business Impedes U.S. Job Growth
5/10/2013 10:18:25 AM
Jim Brown, owner of JWB Properties LLC, says community banks called him almost every day in 2006 trying to lend him money. Now, his homebuilding business in Atlanta can't get a loan.
Obama Wants More Open Government Data for Entrepreneurs
5/9/2013 12:06:23 PM
The Obama administration today unveiled a new "Open Data" initiative that calls on the feds to make sure that, going forward, data is collected and created in an open and machine-readable format.
As Tech Giants Scramble For Talent, It's Buy Or Die
5/9/2013 9:04:44 PM
The writing's on the wall. Mobile is the future, and it requires different skill than the web. Entrepreneurship is more fetishized than ever, making standard hiring tough. The result is days like today where Yahoo, Twitter, Salesforce, and Box all bought startups, and Facebook and Microsoft were reported to be in talks for major acquisitions. Big is a scary thing to be right now.
Russell Buckley Joins UK Government To Bring About Silicon Valley In The UK
5/10/2013 7:50:06 AM
Today in interesting moves comes the news that serial entrepreneur-turned-investor Russell Buckley - who co-founded AdMob (which sold to Google) is joining the UK government to accelerate its policies around startups, mainly funding. Specifically, he's joining the UK Government’s Venture Capital Unit.