Stephen Wolfram Livestreams

Business, Innovation & Managing Life Q&A (78 videos)

Biweekly ask-me-anything about business, innovation & managing life

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Business, Innovation & Managing Life Q&A:
Business & Innovation Q&A for Young Entrepreneurs & Others (Mar. 17, 2021) »

1 hour 40 minutes

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How did Champaign become the base of operations of the company? Why haven't you lived in Champaign for "three decades"? Is it a doable thing to work at a university and run a startup at the same time? Hi Stephen, at pre-revenue stage, should a company aim for reaching revenue faster at the expense of cash or for saving cash in order to survive little longer at the expense of time/market opportunity? How do you deal with employees who may be very talented and productive, but may find it hard to fit in with the rest of the team? I wonder if it's even possible for large companies to be agile. How do you plan a roadmap for your company? Does it just happen naturally or is there some deep thought that goes into what you want to make happen? What's your experience with management paradigms like SCRUM and agile? Can you recommend a 'general strategy'? Would you please elaborate on the distributed nature of your company? Should there be a limit on the maximum number of people on a project or in a meeting? Is there a suitable time period which one must devote to reading about previous innovations/developments related to the theme of a project, before actually jumping onto the implementation? Is it possible or practical to avoid mid-managers while scaling up the company by creating sub-founders who work just like the founder at the founding stage of the company? What are the most tiresome things in your job as a CEO? How do you stay so intense and focused after all these years when you could've retired much much earlier? View Less »
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Business, Innovation & Managing Life Q&A:
Business & Innovation Q&A for Young Entrepreneurs & Others (Mar. 3, 2021) »

1 hour 28 minutes

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Can you give us some insights into how you scaled up Wolfram, and what important issues/questions you had to tackle or what significant lessons you learned? Are there cultural biases that you have had to overcome for breaking any prior limits in the possibilities of your activities? How did you find your first employees? Did you have to go to a lot of places to find them? Partner vs employee is a really interesting distinction to discuss - employees complete tasks, partners identify tasks worth investing in? How do you deal with individuals who are strongly convicted that they are knowledgeable on a matter but actually have no idea what they are talking about? Jim Cramer talked on Lex about political games Steve Jobs and his people played, a kind of high level thing. What does that really mean? In the beginning, how many of your decisions about the company were gut instinct/market research/customer feedback/something else? Is it possible to earn money doing free software? What is "Open Source" good for from your perspective? How do you assess people to figure out their niche? View Less »
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Business, Innovation & Managing Life Q&A:
Business & Innovation Q&A for Young Entrepreneurs & Others (Feb. 17, 2021) »

1 hour 21 minutes

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Why did you choose to partner up with Ethereum and Cardano? What do you think of Cryptocurrencies in general? Have you ever meet Stephen Wozniak? How do Wolfram Research determine the prices of its products? Any tips for pricing products? Cryptocurrency is living a top of the demand that ransomeware generates. What are the biggest obstacles to using smart contracts in day-to-day transactions? Who taught you first about how to run a software company? Did your family taught you this, or some professor from your university? What they taught you? Who was the first person to buy your software? Who taught you first about how to run a software company? Did your family taught you this, or some professor from your university? What they taught you? Who was the first person to buy your software? Is it more difficult to start a new company and make it big or to enter a big company and climb the hierarchy? If I may ask, how important do you think advanced education (i.e. a PhD) is in starting a company? Do you think it is necessary if you're interested in a high-tech industry (quantum computers, synthetic biology, etc.)? Did you write your first piece of software in assembly language on a 386? How do you organize your ideas, projects, notes, etc.? Pen & paper, or electronic-based?? When is it the right time to put the books down, bite the bullet and start a company around your idea? It always seems like we don't know enough to start. How much knowledge/ understanding of economics and finance is needed to start a company, in particular in tech/ science? Couldn't they fork off an experimental company, to try the experimental billion dollar making way, without risking much of the millions of income? ​How did you find the best partners for your company? Did you find it among your friends from university View Less »
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Business, Innovation & Managing Life Q&A:
Business & Innovation Q&A for Young Entrepreneurs & Others (Feb. 3, 2021) »

1 hour 35 minutes

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What's your hottake on the gamestop saga? What's the most innovative prototype you've been shown that you're surprised didn't make it to market [or failed]...and do you know why? What business concerns does the R&D process entail? What is the process of inventing your own algorithm from scratch? How many algorithms in Mathematica were just created in house by wolfram research? Hi Dr. Wolfram, why does wealth inequality exist and is it necessary for a society to work well? Also will all this matter if we become immortal? Do you think your brain worked better when you were 20 or when you were 50? Jason Fried always talks about getting good at the individual skill of making money. Can you tell us what you've learned about the skill of making money over the years? What advice can you provide an entrepreneur who has lost their high tech business of 15 years due to bankruptcy. How can one overcome the emotional baggage of such a loss. Hi Stephen! You are obviously a man who has created a way to dive into a specific subject with great depth. How do you recommend that people keep their focus when it's easy to be distracted? I rarely finishes my projects. pls help me. Business sounds boring. I just want to do innovation and research. I think maybe business could be a consequence of a new innovative idea and successful project or something. Of course I could be a business person in the real world, since my projects/innovations are hobby and personal based. Is the fact that a lot of companies are pre-revenue (and some large companies don't even have a viable revenue stream) indicate a tech bubble? How did you deal with issues regarding scaling your systems as Wolfram grew? What's your take on the emerging space industry? Would you encourage/advise enterprises in that field? How to make someone fund for any company at ideation level? I have heard silicon valley investor's opinion that the best businesses begin operations in areas in which they are the only ones or part of a few, but with an horizon of big growth. Do you think math is in this horizon of growth, or is commited to a limit that paces the rate of growth in math and numerical analysis tools and solutions? You wrote on computational contracts some time ago. Is that on hold due to the physics project? View Less »
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Business, Innovation & Managing Life Q&A:
Business & Innovation Q&A for Young Entrepreneurs & Others (Jan. 20, 2021) »

1 hour 35 minutes

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What company would you start today if you grew up during these times? How much do you think your high scores in school/college influence your employees or your new employees? When do you decide to release a product, assuming that you never feel like something is ever completely "done" or "perfect" You value culture and flexibility why do you need to grow your team? Is it just not possible to outsource (via open source) a large amount of work to the people? What business principles are of the greatest utility yet are never addressed in university programs or courses? Do you think the current trend of high-value tech IPOs is reminiscent of the dot-com bubble of the late 1990s? What education do you need to receive to be able to research markets and design products if you are more from a technical side of things? Is it difficult to fire people? Do you think that with increasing power of monopolies, small tech start ups will still be able to held up? Is publicity magic, does it just happen, or is it well thought out some way? Are there any planned "wolfram ventures" startups that people can join and work for equity? Do you use version control in your company? View Less »
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Business, Innovation & Managing Life Q&A:
Business & Innovation Q&A for Young Entrepreneurs & Others (Jan. 7, 2021) »

1 hour 54 minutes

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Can't imagine having 800 people working for you Stephen, 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? View Less »
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