Vivek Wadhwa — Tech Entrepreneur, Academic, Researcher, and Writer

Washington Post: Wearable tech and the futurists’ conundrum

April 23, 2013 8:20 pm
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The future is moving so fast that sometimes even the futurists are unprepared for it.

A student at Singularity University, where I serve as vice president of innovation and research, asked to wear Google Glass to class. Their request set off a lively discussion. The student inquired about using the device’s recording capability to document her experience.

The institution, home to some of the world’s most notable futurists, allows its students to record lectures for personal use when approved by the lecturer. But Google Glass adds a new dimension—any interaction at any time can be recorded without the knowledge of the people who are being recorded. On Monday, VentureBeat reported that it could be possible to take pictures using Google Glass with no more than a wink. California law allows consent to be obtained before aconversation can be recorded, but there is no restriction on recording video provided there is no audio. So, the school didn’t know how to respond. (more…)

April 19, 2013 8:04 pm
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They don’t prepare you for this in college or admit it in job interviews. The harsh reality is that if you are middle-aged, write computer code for a living, and earn a six-figure salary, you’re headed for the unemployment lines. Your market value declines as you age and it becomes harder and harder to get a job.

I know this post will provoke anger, outrage, and denial. But, sadly, this is the way things are in the tech world. It’s an “up or out” profession — like the military. And it’s as competitive as professional sports. Engineers need to be prepared. (more…)

April 5, 2013 11:20 am
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My Wall Street Journal article about why I discourage students who want to become entrepreneurs from doing an MBA provoked a far stronger reaction than I expected. The vast majority of the emails and comments were in agreement — including from business-school professors. What shocked me were the angry online comments, Tweets, and emails from a few MBA students—because of their lack of professionalism. So it is clear that this issue is highly contentious and deserves further discussion.

The fact is that most business schools are geared toward churning out corporate executives, investment bankers, and consultants — not entrepreneurs. There are some exceptions and some schools are evolving, but by and large, MBAs are not for startups. Just visit the recruiting booths on university campuses. All you see are big corporations; the finance and management consulting industry is overrepresented. (more…)

April 1, 2013 11:24 am
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WSJ 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. As a tech executive, I would readily pay a premium to hire B-school grad

I no longer advise startups to hire M.B.A.s and I discourage students who want to become entrepreneurs from doing an M.B.A.uates. I also used to advise tech startups to strengthen their management teams by recruiting professional managers from M.B.A. programs.

That’s because I have seen a growing mismatch between the skills that business schools teach and what fast-paced startups require. And corporate management isn’t the best path to entrepreneurship anymore—the best way is to work for a startup. (more…)

March 26, 2013 11:28 am
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On the flight back from Mexico, I started to feel a shooting pain in my left arm. It was as if electricity was passing through my veins. I ignored this — as I had ignored the back pain that I’d felt on the cruise to Cancún and the extreme nausea after climbing the Chichen Itza pyramid. After all, I was indestructible. I had just turned around my startup — which had run into trouble after the dot-com bubble burst in 2000 and the economic shock of 9/11.

My company was now on track for 200% annual growth rates and 25% profit margins. It would be as big a success as my previous startup, which we had taken public. Nothing could stop me.

I was wrong — my body could stop me. I wasn’t indestructible. (more…)

March 20, 2013 9:19 pm
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Silicon Valley entrepreneur Vivek Wadhwa discovers that the famed “meritocracy” of Silicon Valley is a myth and that women are systematically discriminated against there, despite the fact that they’re more productive, on average, than their male counterparts. He has a plan to change the Valley.

Paul Solman: Silicon Valley entrepreneur Vivek Wadhwa is a widely heard voice on the value of immigration for the U.S. economy. We first featured him a year ago in “Man v. Machine,” a story on the automation of work and did so again on this page last fall on the threat posed by a programmable robot named Baxter. (more…)

March 13, 2013 8:50 pm
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The one skill that everyone needs is something that college doesn’t teach: selling. Yes, I know that “selling” conjures up negative images of used-car salesmen peddling clunkers. But the ability to persuade people to believe in you is a necessity. That’s because selling is not just about exchanging things for money; selling is about life. Convincing the perfect soulmate to go out on a date is a sales job. Enticing your children to eat their vegetables is a sales job. Negotiating a raise with your boss is a sales job. And, yes, selling your company to Google is definitely a sales job. Each of these is a sales job in that you are listening to others, finding out what they want or need, and giving it to them in a form that they appreciate. And guess who the best salespeople in tech companies are? Your developers.

I didn’t always believe this. (more…)

March 5, 2013 6:56 pm
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Many people believe that the future of mankind is bleak because the planet can’t sustain its growing population. They fear we are running out of resources and that ageing populations and healthcare costs will bankrupt countries. George Mason professor Tyler Cowen says that America has consumed all the low-hanging fruits of land, labor, and technology and that we are at a technological plateau—“the trees are barer than we would like to think”. He talks of a “great stagnation”. Military planners in many countries are preparing for wars over diminishing natural resources.

In my view, these pessimists are dead wrong. That is because this is the most innovative period in human history. Technologies in a range of fields are advancing exponentially and making it possible for entrepreneurs to do what only governments and big labs could do before: solve humanity’s grand challenges. My belief is that we will go from worrying about scarcity to debating how we share and distribute the bounty that we create. Imagine a world with unlimited food, water, and energy—in which we prevent disease rather than cure it and in which our lifespans increase along with our wisdom and knowledge. This is what is possible, not in future centuries, but in the next two decades. (more…)

March 5, 2013 5:17 pm
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While researching Silicon Valley’s success as a technology center, I learned its most valuable secret: That it is one giant network. Yes, the Valley has a unique culture of openness, acceptance of failure and tolerance of diversity. Its ecosystem supports entrepreneurial experimentation and collective learning.

But what makes the magic happen in Silicon Valley is that it is a very open network — a giant social networking site working in analog before the concept of such a thing even existed. (more…)

March 4, 2013 3:32 pm
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This may come as surprise to people in Washington (or perhaps not), but the sequester is hardly a topic of discussion in Silicon Valley. Indeed, it’s not even a trending topic on Twitter. That is how unimportant short-term government decisions are to innovation. While lawmakers battle over taxes and fiscal cliffs, entrepreneurs are busy solving humanity’s problems so that we can go from debating how we distribute scarce resources to discussing how we equitably share the bounty we are creating.

In his bestselling book, “Abundance”, my colleague, XPRIZE Chairman and CEO and Singularity University founder Peter Diamandis, tells the story of how aluminum went from a rare metal to something we casually wrap our food in. When the king of Siam hosted Napoleon III in the 1840s, writes Diamandis, the people working for Napoleon were served with silver utensils. Those working for the king received gold. The king himself got aluminum-the rarest metal at the time. Aluminum was so valuable because it was extremely difficult to extract from bauxite-though it is one of the most abundant elements on Earth. Then came electrolysis technology, which used electricity to liberate aluminum from bauxite, driving down aluminum’s value. (more…)

February 27, 2013 3:25 pm
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The saying goes, “there’s no such thing as a free lunch.” But the Startup Act 3.0, in its third incarnation, is starting to look a lot like an exception to the rule. The bill, introduced in the Senate, promises to jump-start the economy through the creation of new businesses. It provides visas for 75,000 foreign students and skilled workers to start companies. Individuals, in order to qualify, must already be in the United States on temporary visas. Their companies must receive an investment of at least $100,000 and employ a minimum of two U.S. workers in their first year, and five by the end of the third year.

The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation analyzed data on firm survival and employment from the Business Dynamics Statistics of the U.S. Census Bureau, and skilled-immigrant company-formation data that my research team, with funding from Kauffman, had previously gathered. Kauffman conducted the analysis to estimate how much the Start-up Visa, if adopted in its current form, could boost the economy. They released a white paper with their results Wednesday. Kauffman estimates that, conservatively, within ten years, a Start-up Visa could lead to the creation of between 500,000 and 1.6 million jobs-a potential boost to the economy of between $70 billion and $224 billion a year. That translates into a rise in GDP of between 0.5 and 1.6 percent, as computed using a methodology employed by the White House’s Council of Economic Advisors. (more…)

February 25, 2013 6:39 pm
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Some people think I am a journalist. My friends ask how I can possibly write as much as I do, given all the responsibilities that I have. I write forWashington Post, Wall Street Journal, Forbes, ASEE Prism Magazine, Bloomberg BusinessWeek,and now this LinkedIn blog. I’ve just co-authored a book, Immigrant Exodus, which The Economist named a book of the year. And I am working on two more books: one about women in tech and another about how the U.S. can reinvent itself. Writing is just a hobby; my day job is as an academic and researcher.

I get so much feedback from my writing that I know that it is making an impact and is well worth the effort I put into it. It is the best way of sharing ideas and educating. That is why I do it and why I encourage others to write. And that is why I thought I should share some secrets about how a guy like me got into writing. It may motivate others to find their own path. (more…)