Health care costs blunt the competitive edge of American entrepreneurs from the auto industry to internet start-ups.
Here in Silicon Valley I have taken part in hundreds of conversations trying to convince people to dive in and become entrepreneurs. All too often innovators with good safe jobs are unwilling to put their family's access to health care at risk by walking away from company-backed medical insurance.
There is much that public policy can do to support American entrepreneurs. Health insurance reform will make it easier for entrepreneurs to take a chance on a new business without putting their family's health at risk. Tort reform will make it easier to take prudent risks on new products in a number of sectors.
I don't have any problem with government helping entrepreneurs and businesses.
History tells us that America does best when the private sector is energetic and entrepreneurial and the government is attentive and engaged. Who among us really would looking back wish to edit out either sphere at the entire expense of the other?
We believe that the government has an important role to create the conditions that promote entrepreneurship upward mobility and individual responsibility.
The United States is locked in a new arms race for that most precious resource - the future entrepreneurs upon whom economic growth depends. Substantial research shows that immigrants play a key role in American job creation.
The link between my experience as an entrepreneur and that of a politician is all in one word: freedom.
Entrepreneurs always pitch their idea as 'the X of Y' so this is going to be 'the Microsoft of food.' And yet disruptive innovations usually don't have that character. Most of the time if something seems like a good idea it probably isn't.
Famous pivot stories are often failures but you don't need to fail before you pivot. All a pivot is is a change is strategy without a change in vision. Whenever entrepreneurs see a new way to achieve their vision - a way to be more successful - they have to remain nimble enough to take it.
Successful entrepreneurs find the balance between listening to their inner voice and staying persistent in driving for success - because sometimes success is waiting right across from the transitional bump that's disguised as failure.
Our educational system is not preparing people for the 21st Century. Failure is an essential part of entrepreneurship. If you work hard you can get an 'A' pretty much guaranteed but in entrepreneurship that's not how it works.
The attributes for entrepreneurs cut both ways. You need the ability to ignore inconvenient facts and see the world as it should be and not as it is. This inspires people to take huge leaps of faith. But this blindness to facts can be a liability too. The characteristics that help entrepreneurs succeed can also lead to their failure.
Entrepreneurs are risk takers willing to roll the dice with their money or reputation on the line in support of an idea or enterprise. They willingly assume responsibility for the success or failure of a venture and are answerable for all its facets.
We will have bigger bureaucracies bigger labor unions and bigger state-run corporations. It will be harder to be an entrepreneur because of punitive taxes and regulations. The rewards of success will be expropriated for the sake of attaining greater income equality.
Take your message of equality of achievement take your message of economic dependency take your message of enslaving the entrepreneurial will and spirit of the American people somewhere else.
About half my work in education is U.S. political reform around school districts and charter schools and creating more room for entrepreneurial organizations to develop. And about half on technology which I look at as a global platform.