In a recent post on startup ethics, I emphasized the fact that employee equity is an investment like any other, and it is unethical for insiders (CEOs, select investors, etc.) to structure deals in order to screw employees out of their equity shares. I also hypothesised that character traits...
Author: Helge Seetzen
I advocate a lot for student entrepreneurship because I think it is a unique way to have a real world impact and learn some really valuable skills before you are in full on career mode. I have explored in other posts some of the strategies for being a student...
Entrepreneurship
, People
Why Employee Equity is an Investment like Any Other: Entrepreneurship and ethics
There’s been a flurry of articles and a Hacker News Poll, highlighting entrepreneurs who despite, or maybe because of their success, turn around and screw their employees, collaborators, partners. Just look at the last few big deals this year: Zynga and its CEO (personally worth billions at the expected...
How To Spot Technology Trends
, Technology
How to Spot Technology Trends II: Replacing ‘Impossible’ with ‘Never Before Possible’
This is part 2 of a post on spotting technology trends. In the last post I explained that the best place to look for technology trends is my mother’s demographic (a mainstream demographic, with disposable income, that is not very technologically savvy). In this post, I describe the mindset required...
Spotting technology trends is a subject that is at the forefront of our minds at TandemLaunch. While I can’t offer any silver bullet solutions, this will be the first of a 2 post series on the subject. I look forward to some good discussion on the topic. When you...
A couple of weekends ago I witnessed a lively debate around the issue of racism in Silicon Valley (ok, ‘lively’ is an understatement). I’m a firm believer that racism has a devastating effect on innovation, but I think we are all prone to these kinds of biases, and need...
Recently there’s been a lot of discussion in both Canada and the US about an initiative called Startup Visa. The core of the initiative is a change to immigration policy that would allow entrepreneurs to be classified as a labour class and give them the ability to enter the...
For researchers working in technical fields, inventions are to be expected. Unfortunately, many university inventors receive little, if any, training on what to do once they have an invention on their hands. Our team has put together a handy FAQ to help orient inventors to the world of university-industry...
Entrepreneurship
, Tech Entrepreneurship
Invention, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship: Different processes, different people
Invention, innovation, and entrepreneurship are words frequently thrown around by politicians, theorists, and entrepreneurs alike to generally describe the act of bringing a product or idea into the world. While easy to confuse, each concept is distinct and requires specific skills. When it’s time to choose the right...
While traveling in the Valley I had a chance to catch up with a few local entrepreneurs and accelerators. Many of them are doing interesting work, but I noticed a disturbing trend: entrepreneurship has become “cool” for a whole generation. As a an entrepreneur who had gone through several...