Kim Smith, New Schools Venture Fund Fixing problems in K-12 education School finance is inequitable between low- and high-income communities, says Smith. Is it better to try to fix the system or provide alternatives? New Schools funds projects for both options.
Kim Smith, New Schools Venture Fund The investor community for educational ventures Smith explains that fundraising is very hard in the non-profit sector. New Ventures typically co-invests in A rounds with other venture capital firms, typically newer groups that have an openness
Kim Smith, New Schools Venture Fund Scalability and Sustainability in non-profit sector Scale is very difficult in the non-profit sector, says Smith. The franchise model is not successful because there is no authority or ability to take away value if a franchise
Kim Smith, New Schools Venture Fund VC Values impact on education and non-profit world Smith talks about how the VC model allows for larger investments over a longer period of time. Also, the investment tends to be in organizational infrastructure rather than a service.
Kim Smith, New Schools Venture Fund Measuring success Smith explains that New Ventures measures success in four layers. The first layer of success is immediate outcomes for the kids served by current ventures. The second layer is the
Kim Smith, New Schools Venture Fund Funding for arts and sports Smith believes that extracurricular activities are essential. Funds are being cut currently because, in trying to achieve funding equity, everyone’s funding was reduced instead of simply increasing funding to those
Elon Musk, SpaceX Career Development Elon Musk, co-founder, CEO, and chairman of PayPal, shares his background: He was accepted into Stanford but deferred his admission to start an internet company in 1995. His company was
Elon Musk, SpaceX Founding of Paypal After his company zip2, Musk started exploring other opportunities on the web. He realized that money required low bandwidth and there was not enough innovation in the financial industry. Musk
Elon Musk, SpaceX Success Through Viral Marketing: PayPal Musk talks about how PayPal is a perfect case of viral marketing where one customer acts as a sales person by sending money to a friend and hence recruiting another
Elon Musk, SpaceX Selling the Company: Paypal to eBay Musk talks about how PayPal went public in 2002 February. Shortly thereafter a deal with eBay was struck, he says.
Elon Musk, SpaceX Opportunities in Space: Mars Oasis Early in 2002, Musk started doing some research on space. Every other sector where technology was used had improved dramatically but he did not understand why space exploration not done
Elon Musk, SpaceX Space Travel Today Musk talks about the problems with space exploration in the US in the 22nd century. The long term plans are to have something cheaper and safer. In Russia, it is
Elon Musk, SpaceX Positioning and Competition: Space Travel There is quite a lot of capital entering the entrepreneurial space sector, says Musk. He shares some models of competitor vehicles and talks about the differences between them and the
Elon Musk, SpaceX Startup Successes: Comparing Zip2 and Paypal Musk talks about the common themes between zip2 and PayPal. Both companies had software and internet technology at the heart, were in Palo Alto, CA, took similar approach to growing
Elon Musk, SpaceX Viral Marketing The essence of viral marketing is making one customer sell to the other, says Musk. Instances of this include Friendster, hotmail, PayPal. The customer must love the product experience to
Elon Musk, SpaceX Challenges in the Space Industry The space industry has a very complicated regulatory structure and this has been the biggest obstacle, says Musk
Elon Musk, SpaceX Why is Space Travel So Expensive? According to Musk, some causes of the high costs in space exploration are: The energy to launch a rocket into space is very high, all the calculations have to be
Elon Musk, SpaceX Customer Base: Paypal vs. SpaceX Musk talks about the difference in the customer base of PayPal and SpaceX: PayPal is a consumer product and SpaceX sells rockets, which have very few customers. SpaceX involves individual
Elon Musk, SpaceX Qualities of an Entrepreneur According to Musk, successful entrepreneur come in all sizes, shapes and flavors. Some things that are important are an obsessive nature with respect to the quality of the product, and
Elon Musk, SpaceX History of SpaceX Musk talks about how Space X is comprised of 30 people. They outsource all the heavy machining like welding etc. There are no lawyers at SpaceX and Musk explains why.
Elon Musk, SpaceX Career Development: To MBA or Not? Musk discusses the role that business school can play for an entrepreneur as well as the possibility of learning outside of school. According to him the, the important principle is
Elon Musk, SpaceX Reducing Company Costs: Paypal and SpaceX Musk talks about how SpaceX is reducing the cost of launch vehicles. The focus is on every element of the vehicle and this has involved hundreds of small innovations as
Elon Musk, SpaceX Patents and Paypal PayPal did have a few patents but nothing that really mattered, says Musk. He acknowledges the necessity of patents in certain industries but industries like software, where the lifecycle is
Elon Musk, SpaceX Space Mining vs. Human Space Flight Musk thinks that establishing a base on the Moon or on Mars is an enormous opportunity, on a trillion dollar level.