Business & Innovation Q&A for Young Entrepreneurs & Others (January 7, 2021)

The Stephen Wolfram Podcast

Stephen Wolfram answers questions from his viewers about business and innovation as part of an unscripted livestream series, also available on YouTube here: https://wolfr.am/youtube-sw-business-qa

Questions include: when did you start to have an entrepreneurial spirit? When you were little, did you work to get money? - If I could start a company today that is likely to make me a ton of money, or one that would let me do something I love, which should I chose? - What made you decide to go through with starting your own business and what did you think of Feynman's advice/letter at the time? - Do you think most academics lack business sense? - Do you think you could have started your companies without having a PhD? It feels as though one needs a PhD to get ahead in tech & business in general these days. - How does one learn to talk to people? - What would be better for a startup to get funds currently--venture capital, debt providers, IPOs, IEOs, ICOs, STOs, IDOs? - I am interested in starting a company but I am finding a hard time deciding on a niche market that is on the small scale max of 100 employee likely in the IT sector. Any suggestions? - What are the areas in which machine learning can be applied but in your experience people have never paid attention to? - I am 18 years old that is interested in science and being an academician is, therefore, appealing , but I recognize that a lot of problems that needs to be fixed couldn't be done from inside academia. What is your advice? - How can you possibly talk so long answering a single question? - How has being based in Illinois near UIUC instead of silicon valley, nyc, or boston impacted your company if at all? what convinced you to make this decision?