Billions Series Best Quotes

I am a scientist, and as such I am proud to say that being stupid at times is a very human thing. Be proud to be stupid, be proud to be fool. Being a fool is a billion times better than being blinded by the illusion of intellect. I admit I am a fool, but at the very least, with each passing day I do my best to get lesser fool.

Thousands of years ago, it was only kings, pharaohs, and emperors who had the ability to solve large-scale problems. Hundreds of years ago, this power expanded to the industrialists who built our transportation systems and financial institutions. But today, the ability to solve such problems has been thoroughly democratized. Right now, and for the first time ever, a passionate and committed individual has access to the technology, minds, and capital required to take on any challenge. Even better, that individual has good reason to take on such challenges. As we will soon see, the world’s biggest problems are now the world’s biggest business opportunities. This means, for exponential entrepreneurs, finding a significant challenge is a meaningful road to wealth. Ultimately, as I teach at Singularity University (much more on this later), the best way to become a billionaire is to solve a billion-person problem.

the best way to become a billionaire is to solve a billion-person problem.

To the extent that genomes can be thought of as compressed encodings of biological structures, they are spectacularly efficient. All the trillions of cells in the human body-not just the tens of billions in the brain-are guided in one way or another by the information contained in 30,000 or so genes. The best high-quality set of pictures of the body- the National Institutes of Health Visible Human Project, a series of high-resolution digital photos of slices taken from volunteer Joseph Paul Jernigan (deceased)-takes up about 60 gigabytes, enough (if left uncompressed) to fill about 100 CD-ROMs-and still not enough detail to capture individual cells. The genome, in contrast, contains only about 3 billion nucleotides, the equivalent (at two bits per nucleotide) of less than two-thirds of a gigabyte, or a single CD-ROM.

Photo posts and video posts typically get most engagement and organic boost; however, link posts can give you the best ROI on your ad spend in many cases. The reason for this is because the image in your link post will redirect straight to your landing page or offer, unlike a photo post or video post.

The U.S. government spends billions of dollars on disasters after they happen, but it pinches pennies when it comes to preparing for them.

This last question may seem innocuous, but think about it this way: In 2006, retail was booming. Sears was worth $14.3 billion, Target $38.2 billion, and Walmart a whopping $158 billion. Meanwhile, an upstart retailer named Amazon was at $17.5 billion. Now fast-forward a decade. What’s changed? Hard times hit Main Street. By 2017, Sears had lost 94 percent of its value, ending the decade worth $0.9 billion, before promptly going out of business. Target did better, finishing up at $55 billion. Walmart did the best, going up to $243.9 billion. But Amazon? The Everything Store closed out the era worth $700 billion (today $800 billion). And it’s a fairly safe bet that your life changed as a result.

the best way to become a billionaire is to solve a billion-person problem. In Bold, Steven and I offer a highly practical playbook for doing just

The Clauses that Can Screw You Having worked with a lot of investors over my last few startups, and having completed an exit as well, I can attest at first hand to the importance of understanding all the major legal and contractual details that will directly affect you, the control you have of your company and how much you will earn in the event of an exit. Here is a list of the most contentious clauses, what they mean and what to watch out for. It’s all quite legal – but you’ll be a happy person if you get these negotiated in your favour. •   LIQUIDATION PREFERENCE. This is one of those clauses you don’t need to get stung by. It’s standard for investors to get a 1x liquidation preference. •   ANTIDILUTION RIGHTS. Investors will ask for this in the Series A funding round. Basically it means that an investor has the right to maintain the same percentage ownership of your company automatically if the value of the company goes down. This is really tough on the founders. It means losing more of your company’s equity automatically in a down period. It’s unlikely that you will be able to remove this provision – but you need to be aware of it. •   NON-PARTICIPATING LIQUIDATION PREFERENCE. Liquidation preference determines how the pie is shared in a liquidation (or exit) event. A founder should always seek to have a non-participating liquidation preference for investors. Without going into too much detail, a ‘participating’ liquidation preference allows an investor to double-dip in terms of the slices of pie that they are entitled to. You’ll find a more detailed explanation on mybilliondollarapp.com. •   DRAG ALONG RIGHTS. This provision grants the investors the right to compel the founders (and other shareholders) to agree the sale, merger or liquidation of the company or block a sale, merger or liquidation. As a founder you do not want to be dragged along in this case. Ideally you should be able to negotiate that investors would only have the right to block the sale if the return was below a certain level. •   WARRANTIES. In investment agreements in Europe it is very common for founders to personally give basic assurances that everything the company is doing is proper and correct, these are known as warranties. In other countries, like the USA, founders don’t give warranties at all. Again, do check out mybilliondollarapp.com for more details, because this is definitely a complex area. That said, there are always going to be numerous details that are specific to your company and situation. The best possible advice here: make good friends with a few lawyers so that you always have someone to call on with a specific question.