As people around the world wonder if innovation at Apple stopped with Steve Jobs, we wanted to share with you a snapshot of the genius’s life.
Source: Funders and Founders
How Bill Gates Started – Infographic
Bill Gates’s father was a lawyer. A very successful one. His mother a teacher. Reading business magazines in middle school, Bill Jr. had a different dream – to open a company. You could say that’s how he started – with a childish dream. Many kids have dreams, though. How was he different?
Source: Funders and Founders
7 Tips On How To Be More Productive from Elon Musk
Elon Musk gets a lot done.
The 46-year-old entrepreneur and CEO is revolutionizing the spaceflight industry with SpaceX, transforming the world of the electric car at Tesla, and pushing neuroscience and transportation forward at Neuralink and the Boring Company.
As SpaceX COO Gwynne Shotwell said at the 2018 TED Conference, Musk’s goals are a lot to keep up with.
“When Elon says something, you have to pause and not blurt out ‘Well, that’s impossible,'” she said. “You zip it, you think about it, and you find ways to get it done.”
Recently, Musk reportedly announced to Tesla employees that he wants to adopt a 24/7 shift schedule to get production for Tesla’s Model 3 electric car on track. In an email obtained by Jalopnik, Musk explained a number of changes in the works for Tesla.
He’s asking for quite a lot, so at the end of that email, he offered employees a list of his own productivity recommendations. From those tips, it’s clear that Musk is clearly not a fan of meetings, bureaucracy, hierarchy, or any system that impedes immediate communication. He prefers people apply common sense to the task at hand.
He also told employees that if they had any ideas for making work at Tesla better and more efficient, they should let him know.
Here are the seven productivity tips Musk offered in the letter, in his own words.
1. Large-format meetings waste people’s time.
“Excessive meetings are the blight of big companies and almost always get worse over time. Please get [rid] of all large meetings, unless you’re certain they are providing value to the whole audience, in which case keep them very short.”
2. Meetings should be infrequent unless a matter is urgent.
“Also get rid of frequent meetings, unless you are dealing with an extremely urgent matter. Meeting frequency should drop rapidly once the urgent matter is resolved.”
3. If you don’t need to be in a meeting, leave.
“Walk out of a meeting or drop off a call as soon as it is obvious you aren’t adding value. It is not rude to leave, it is rude to make someone stay and waste their time.”
4. Avoid confusing jargon.
“Don’t use acronyms or nonsense words for objects, software, or processes at Tesla. In general, anything that requires an explanation inhibits communication. We don’t want people to have to memorize a glossary just to function at Tesla.”
5. Don’t let hierarchical structures make things less efficient.
“Communication should travel via the shortest path necessary to get the job done, not through the ‘chain of command’. Any manager who attempts to enforce chain of command communication will soon find themselves working elsewhere.”
6. If you need to get in touch with someone, do so directly.
“A major source of issues is poor communication between depts. The way to solve this is allow free flow of information between all levels. If, in order to get something done between depts, an individual contributor has to talk to their manager, who talks to a director, who talks to a VP, who talks to another VP, who talks to a director, who talks to a manager, who talks to someone doing the actual work, then super dumb things will happen. It must be ok for people to talk directly and just make the right thing happen.”
7. Don’t waste time following silly rules.
“In general, always pick common sense as your guide. If following a ‘company rule’ is obviously ridiculous in a particular situation, such that it would make for a great Dilbert cartoon, then the rule should change.”
Written By: Kevin Loria
Source: Business Insider
Nine Characteristics of Successful Entrepreneurs
Have you ever thought about striking out on your own? After all, being your own boss can be an exciting prospect. However, owning a business isn’t for everyone. To be a successful entrepreneur, you must have — or develop — certain personality traits. Here are nine characteristics you should ideally possess to start and run your own business:
1. Motivation
Entrepreneurs are enthusiastic, optimistic and future-oriented. They believe they’ll be successful and are willing to risk their resources in pursuit of profit. They have high energy levels and are sometimes impatient. They are always thinking about their business and how to increase their market share. Are you self-motivated enough to do this, and can you stay motivated for extended periods of time? Can you bounce back in the face of challenges?
2. Creativity and Persuasiveness
Successful entrepreneurs have the creative capacity to recognize and pursue opportunities. They possess strong selling skills and are both persuasive and persistent. Are you willing to promote your business tirelessly and look for new ways to get the word out about your product or service?
3. Versatility
Company workers can usually rely on a staff or colleagues to provide service or support. As an entrepreneur, you’ll typically start out as a “solopreneur,” meaning you will be on your own for a while. You may not have the luxury of hiring a support staff initially. Therefore, you will end up wearing several different hats, including secretary, bookkeeper and so on. You need to be mentally prepared to take on all these tasks at the beginning. Can you do that?
4. Superb Business Skills
Entrepreneurs are naturally capable of setting up the internal systems, procedures and processes necessary to operate a business. They are focused on cash flow, sales and revenue at all times. Successful entrepreneurs rely on their business skills, know-how and contacts. Evaluate your current talents and professional network. Will your skills, contacts and experience readily transfer to the business idea you want to pursue?
5. Risk Tolerance
Launching any entrepreneurial venture is risky. Are you willing to assume that risk? You can reduce your risk by thoroughly researching your business concept, industry and market. You can also test your concept on a small scale. Can you get a letter of intent from prospective customers to purchase? If so, do you think customers would actually go through with their transaction?
6. Drive
As an entrepreneur, you are in the driver’s seat, so you must be proactive in your approaches to everything. Are you a doer — someone willing to take the reins — or would you rather someone else do things for you?
7. Vision
One of your responsibilities as founder and head of your company is deciding where your business should go. That requires vision. Without it, your boat will be lost at sea. Are you the type of person who looks ahead and can see the big picture?
8. Flexibility and Open-Mindedness
While entrepreneurs need a steadfast vision and direction, they will face a lot of unknowns. You will need to be ready to tweak any initial plans and strategies. New and better ways of doing things may come along as well. Can you be open-minded and flexible in the face of change?
9. Decisiveness
As an entrepreneur, you won’t have room for procrastination or indecision. Not only will these traits stall progress, but they can also cause you to miss crucial opportunities that could move you toward success. Can you make decisions quickly and seize the moment?
Written By: Ruchira Agrawal
Source: Monster
How Mark Zuckerberg Started – Infographic
At the young age of 10, Mark was already bored with school. His father noticed and introduced him to the computer. Together they wrote a program that connected the computer at home with the computer at his father’s office. And the rest, as they say, is history.
Source: Funders and Founders
How Jeff Bezos Started – Infographic
Jeff Bezos is one of the world’s wealthiest people. But he was born poor. He wanted to start a business right after college, but didn’t. So how did he start?
Source: Funders and Founders
5 Amazing Tech Advances in Healthcare
In the healthcare industry, innovation is more than a buzzword. The right innovations in the right hands at the right time can, in fact, ensure life triumphs over death. From high-tech sensors and drones to bacteria-quashing light bulbs, technological advances are pushing healthcare into new, exciting directions, providing heightened levels of care and improving quality of life.
Consider these promising developments:
1. Ingestible Sensors
While wearable sensors continue to gain mainstream appeal, ingestible sensors could have a sizeable impact on healthcare and digital medicine.
Health systems are starting to implement ingestible sensors in patients to record medication adherence, which is one of the key components of improved health.1 The sensor—powered by gastric fluids and about the size of a grain of sand—communicates with a skin patch, which captures the medication and the time it was ingested along with personalized data such as heart rate, activity, and rest. This information is then relayed to a mobile app, where the data can be shared with healthcare professionals to help drive medication compliance and personalized treatment.
2. Telehealth
For individuals in remote locations or underserved communities, easy access to healthcare providers can be scarce or nonexistent. However, continued advances in telehealth are making remote point-of-care more accessible, more dynamic, and more personable than ever. Telehealth services, for example, offer video conferencing for live consultations, built-in dashboards for in-field data capture and analysis, and hardware to ensure orderly, coherent interaction between patients and healthcare providers.
3. Drones
While drones are known for delivering frozen yogurt and burritos, their most meaningful impact could come in the healthcare space. Consider these very real possibilities:
- In remote areas, drones can deliver critical medical supplies such as blood or vaccines to enable treatment.
- Following a natural disaster, drones can distribute in-demand medical supplies to first responders or victims.
- On a medical campus, drones can transport medicine, blood, lab samples, or even organs from one unit to another to expedite care.
- A researcher at the University of Illinois, meanwhile, aims to help elderly patients age in place by testing the use of small drones with manipulator arms to complete simple daily tasks such as bringing medication or cleaning a spill.2
4. Bacteria-killing Light
Healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) are the most frequent adverse event in healthcare delivery worldwide.3 Tech innovation is minimizing this problem.
Light fixtures providing continuous environmental disinfection technology are helping hospitals improve their infection-prevention efforts. One solution uses safe, 405nm visible light that reflects off walls as well as hard and soft surfaces to penetrate harmful bacteria in a given area and reduce bacteria up to 70 percent.4
5. Remote Patient Monitoring
With remote monitoring programs, digital technologies collect key patient health data such as vital signs, heart rate, and blood pressure, and communicate the information to healthcare professionals.
With such key data in professionals’ hands, health problems can be detected earlier, which can reduce hospitalizations and prevent manageable problems from becoming more severe ailments. Remote monitoring can improve patient outcomes and access to care, while also reducing costs—a key concern among the U.S. populace and healthcare systems alike.
Source: HP
[1] Forbes, Barton Health First To Offer New Digital Medicine Developed By Proteus Digital Health
[2] Inside Unmanned Systems, Drones Deliver Healthcare
[3] World Health Organization, Health Care-Associated Infections Fact Sheet
[4] Kenosha News, Bacteria-killing lights show promise
The Growth Of The Autonomous Car Market – Infographic
The autonomous car market is currently growing at an existential rate and many driverless vehicles are expected to be on our roads this year, and in large numbers. Let’s take a look at the growth of the autonomous car market.
Source: Get Off Road
How Elon Musk Started – Infographic
Elon Musk is now Earth’s most future-oriented person. How did such a person come to be?
Source: Funders and Founders
Wondering What the Next Decade Might Bring?
America is renowned for innovation – originating ideas that change the ways in which people live and work. From the cotton gin to the assembly line, the transcontinental railroad to the automobile, the telephone to the Internet, ideas and inventions have spurred America’s economic growth during the past two centuries. Here are a few inventions that are on the horizon:
- The Superman memory crystal: Imagine, a tiny piece of glass etched by a laser that has the capacity to save an enormous amount of data for more than 13 billion years, according to com. One tiny disc currently holds the Magna Carta, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and King James Bible.
- A transparent antipeep piezoelectric nanogenerator (TAPN): It may have a tongue twister of a name right now, but the TAPN could become as familiar as your phone charger in the future. All you’ll have to do is place a transparent film on the touchscreen of a smartphone or another device, and then every tap on the screen will generate electricity. Which begs the question: Could texting teenagers power the world?
- A braille printer: A 12-year-old used Legos to build an inexpensive printer for people who are blind or suffering from macular degeneration or other conditions that affect eyesight. It used a thumbtack to punch braille dots into paper. Newer prototypes don’t rely on thumbtacks, and are expected to translate words from a computer screen into braille very quickly.
- A fry pan that teaches cooking: Cooking will not become a lost art if a couple of hungry and cooking-challenged college students are successful. They’ve developed a smart frying pan. The pan transmits temperature data to the cook using a smartphone app that also lets the cook know when it’s time for the next step in a recipe.
The human brain is an engine for innovation, and innovation is a driver of economic growth. Let’s hope the outlook is good for brainstorms in the United States and across the globe.
Views From The Lake 
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