Student loan debt is the reason I don’t advise students who want to become entrepreneurs to apply to elite, expensive colleges. They can be as successful if they go to a relatively inexpensive public college. – Vivek Wadhwa
The goal should be to build a sustainable lifestyle business that does good for employees and customers – and that steadily builds wealth. – Vivek Wadhwa
In my first company, Seer Technologies, where I was chief technology officer, we shied away from the media. We watched every word and were guarded in front of journalists. – Vivek Wadhwa
Writing a book is usually a full-time job that takes years. I didn’t have years. So I decided to crowdsource content for the book. – Vivek Wadhwa
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. – Vivek Wadhwa
You will find that every successful entrepreneur has suffered many setbacks. These entrepreneurs just forget to mention these when they are doing interviews with the ‘Wall Street Journal’ or Bloomberg TV. – Vivek Wadhwa
The lesson is, because there will be many lemons in life, to learn to make the proverbial lemonade – and be open and honest. That’s the best way of doing damage control and positioning yourself for success. – Vivek Wadhwa
Once we increase the proportion of women in technical roles, the challenge is to retain them and ease the transition to senior positions. – Vivek Wadhwa
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. – Vivek Wadhwa
Innovation is all about people. Innovation thrives when the population is diverse, accepting and willing to cooperate. – Vivek Wadhwa
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. – Vivek Wadhwa
My advice to fledgling entrepreneurs is always the same: build a company that you plan to be with for the next 10 years – that is the best way to increase your chances of success. – Vivek Wadhwa
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. – Vivek Wadhwa
When I became an entrepreneur, I had the knowledge to develop and manage budgets, market products and review legal contracts. – Vivek Wadhwa
The mentor-mentee relationship is ideally like that of the guru and disciple: motivated by the desire of the guru to impart knowledge to the disciple. – Vivek Wadhwa
Big companies such as Google and Facebook buy startups at ridiculously high prices – not for their products, but for their people. – Vivek Wadhwa
Entrepreneurship is like a computer game in which you have to master every level before achieving success. Startups repeatedly stumble and have to go back to the drawing board. The best way to skip some levels and to increase the odds of survival is to learn from others who have already played the game. – Vivek Wadhwa
