Tim Draper, Founder at Draper Associates/DFJ/Draper University

The Art of Entrepreneurship

According to Tim, regardless of the environment, truly passionate entrepreneurs make things happen for themselves. Successful leaders can drive progress forward by finding purpose, creating their own opportunities and having the vision of moving beyond the limits.

This is the same message I look to give in the program I teach at Kellogg about the intersection of creating the purpose combined with fun and money. If you are an entrepreneur or business owner, making a profit is the prerequisite for staying in business. But, as the saying goes, money doesn’t buy happiness. Focusing on money alone also won’t make your business the best it can be.

Tim says there are three pillars of being a successful entrepreneur: having a transformational vision, developing a great business model and having fun.

The Fuel Powering the Future of Venture Capital Entrepreneurs

“The pandemic has accelerated interest in remote work, telehealth, bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, VR, remote online education and in new forms of decentralized governance,” says Tim. “We live in a time where artificial intelligence combined with Bitcoin, the blockchain and smart contracts can fuel innovation.”

He says the future for venture capital seems optimistic and notes that as the world is going through rethinking, transformational change is now on the table. As a result, Tim says people are adapting to the new norms: bitcoins, smart contracts and artificial intelligence. On the contrary, he points out that the downside of any crisis is always a recession, as well as a tightness of cash and liquidity. The net result of this is job loss and uncertainty.

While the current global liquidity crisis has the potential to destroy some asset classes, in the short-term bitcoin and cryptocurrencies will prevail, according to forecasts says Tim.

COVID, he points out, has cut off some investment possibilities and suppressed the value of money. In the past, he notes, it was the promise of gold and silver fueled by faith and credit of the federal government, but now, people are beginning to questioning the value of money and losing their faith in credit.

As a result, more individuals have started favoring Bitcoin as a new form of funding – ‘whenever anything happens, investors and employees always get the amount of money they’re supposed to get through a bitcoin wallet’ Draper. Tim says as a result he believes the price of bitcoin could reach as high as $250,000 as soon as 2022.

As Tim says with societies no longer trusting their own currency and cryptocurrencies now being used to buy products, there is no longer a need for a trusted third-party in these transactions. Additionally, bitcoin is secured by thousands of software programs, all keeping track of records with no back interaction. The move will banks having to go through a total transformation as they adjust.