[MUSIC PLAYING]
People have a lot of ideas of what makes an entrepreneur.
Even the word in itself, if you think about it, is a bit hoity-toity.
It's a bit intimidating.
Most people can't even spell it.
Probably I can't even spell it, still.
So what is an entrepreneur?
By personal experience, I have found that entrepreneurship is often
driven not just by the desire to create value or generate wealth,
but also from the intense need, as a creative person,
to bring an idea to fruition.
An entrepreneur is somebody that's figured out the way
to get good product or their service to the audience
by figuring out what's in the middle.
I've been doing that kind of thing since I was a kid.
I didn't even realize that I was an entrepreneur.
| just wanted my music to touch as many people as possible.
When I was a kid and I was a musician and an artist,
I decided to press my own vinyl single.
And we took it around to the college radio stations
and they started playing it.
That was taking control and figuring out creative ways of making sure
that your music is seen the way that you want it to be seen,
finds the people that you want it to find, and makes the money
that you needed to make to keep making it.
What do you think is the biggest misperception
about entrepreneurs and about people who classify themselves as that?
I think the biggest myth about most founders
is that they have a plan, that they knew what they were doing.
People like to write history books with the benefit of hindsight
of how things worked out and say, oh, he got
to point x, he must've wanted to get to this promised land all along.
Whereas, almost every entrepreneur I come across changes courses
drastically early on.
And to paraphrase Darwin, only the adaptable survive.
And this adaptability is really what makes the entrepreneurs I see special.
Not the single-minded focus on getting the point x,
but knowing what to do next every day when you're faced with what's
in front of you.
For me, I think entrepreneurship really primarily stands for courage.
It's having that courage to either do what's right,
do something better, do something different,
and really to see the opportunity where most people see challenges.
For me, one of the strongest emotions about being an entrepreneur
is not about the buzz words and the fast company
and ink magazines and things like that.
That it's fashionable and cool to be an entrepreneur.
For me, it's about a level of irritation.
And that irritation really stems from the fact
that-- within food, particularly, I strongly
believe that it needs to be done very differently.
And for me, that irritation got me to a point
where I didn't believe that others were going
to conquer the task the same way that I believed I could.
And it was about, really, just putting together
the right team and the right systems in order to conquer that particular task.
I started to go into editing, which was initially from one tape deck
to another, just consumer tape deck-- well, that was really hard.
I did this 20 minute comedy video.
It took me 22 hours to edit this thing.
And I said, God, this is ridiculous.
And it was that moment, where I said, I am not
going to edit a linear editing system ever again.
And I didn't.
So I started Avid and Avid makes video and audio editing systems.
I think of both entrepreneurship and rock and roll as acts of defiance.
It's human to rebel against what is wrong.
That's what we do.
The core engine of humanity is entrepreneurship.
I believe the core engine of humanity is helping people
and that is at the core of any entrepreneurial endeavor.
Every person has entrepreneurial abilities in them, period.
Everyone.
Having the entrepreneurial spirit and curiosity and willingness
to interact with the world as the weaver of your own destiny,
as someone who wants to pull together lots of different pieces in new ways--
that mindset will serve you throughout your life,
whether you start a company or not.
Entrepreneurship is more than just an act of starting a business.
But in many ways, it's a way of relating and a way
of seeing the world that mirrors very much the creative process.
If you think of an entrepreneur as really not different
than the songwriter giving birth to a new song or a chef creating a meal,
or any other creative person bringing into fruition an idea
and making it real-- making it so real that other people
can feel it and taste it.
And that is fundamentally the job of an entrepreneur.
It's about shifting people's perceptions and adjusting
the world just a little bit.
Or to paraphrase Steve Jobs, putting your own little dent on the universe.