Want some morning Monday inspiration? Then here you go. These are the life lessons from “The Last Lecture” by the late Randy Pausch – the lecture that captivated the world and now inspires millions. Brick walls are there for a reason: they let us prove how badly we want things. Experience is what you get…
Happy 60th Birthday Oprah! There aren’t many people in the world who are instantly recognizable by their first names. Oprah is one of them. She celebrated her birthday today and in the course of her remarkable life journey has scored success after success in many different aspects of human endeavor. I know that from my…
How much are you worth? It’s a touchy subject for most business professionals no matter how many years experience you have under your belt. For some reason most people find establishing one’s salary with a prospective employer a difficult conversation to have. You may have negotiated multi-million-dollar deals. You may have worked with senior executives…
Success doesn’t come by accident. It comes from consistent hard work in pursuit of a dream. It comes from a passion that drives you, day and night. And it also comes from constantly and diligently employing some key habits that position you for greatness. Over the past three years my new venture,
As we enter 2014, advertising is shifting in many ways. One thing that is not changing, however, is ads themselves. Consumers are exposed to hundreds of ads per day across several touch points. Unfortunately, the majority of those ads are still of no interest to the consumer. This will be the year marketers learn how…
Nothing worthwhile in life comes easy. You will never see success without hard work, determination and the ability to make tough decisions. Sometimes you have to be ruthless for the sake of the company, your employees and, of course, yourself. But it’s equally as important to have a strong moral code and to conduct yourself…
The start of a New Year is as good a time as any to make resolutions. Every business leader should have new goals and make sure they achieve those goals on an ongoing basis, anyway. But the New Year gives us an annual opportunity to review our priorities and make fresh commitments. It provides us…
In his article on Facebook and the growth of mobile ads, Farhad Manjoo of the Wall Street Journal talks about the somewhat unexpected success of mobile ads over the past year and the growing tolerance that consumers (including himself) have for them. From where I sit, now on my third ad tech startup, I agree with…
In 2014, we’ll see brands and agencies harness digital advertising in a way that integrates seamlessly with people’s busy lives, whether through location retargeting on their mobile devices, predictive analytics or the intelligent automation of the ad buying process. Consumers send buying signals every day to advertisers and the brands that figure out how to…
One of the first crucial lessons I learned when I first went into business at the ripe old age of sixteen was how to listen. This was due to the fact that all of my business dealings happened on the phone since my ‘office’ was in fact my bedroom in my parents’ house. I was…
Mobile phones have quickly become the remote controls to our daily lives. Next year brands will begin utilizing location-based data to more effectively reach consumers and successfully convert customers across the web and mobile. eMarketer estimates that mobile ad spend will spike from $8.4 billion in 2012 to $37 billion in 2016. But in order for the…
Joel – The first company you created “Click Agents” was founded by you at the age of 16 and not long after that, it sold for $40 million. Nine years later you sold your second company “Blue Lithium” to Yahoo for $300 Million. Making close to half a billion dollars in the space of 9 years,…
If you want to start a billion dollar company, there are three things you should know: The odds aren’t good At the moment, there were only 39 companies in the United States that are worth over $1 billion that started within the last 10 years. But, about 50,000 new companies get funded every year, so…
In the course of my career, I have interviewed hundreds of prospective employees, and I’m always amazed by the way so many of them get the process so wrong. At the end of the day, the interview is really about one thing: Making the person across the table fall in love with you . Here…
We’re all aware how A-list actors such as George Clooney and Brad Pitt usually make about $20 million up front and then 10% of the back-end to appear in a new motion picture. But if a performer really believes in their ability to bring people into theaters, the smart ones take far less, sometimes even zero dollars for a…
People want others to fail because that is human nature. People will not gloat about success. They will gloat about failure. It’s just the fact of life. In the first stage of my company I had no money. I had no education. I had every reason to need to succeed, so I succeeded and I…
There are good addictions and there are bad addictions. Good entrepreneurs, serial entrepreneurs, become addicted to success where they want to challenge themselves from one step to the next step. A lot of the times people are only motivated by money and sometimes they have one hit and that’s it or sometimes they basically have…
At the age of 16 I dropped out to start my first company and I think the advantage that ended up happening at that time is when you’re young you really don’t have the concept of failure. You don’t really have the concept of fear. That’s why even when you’re younger than that you can…
The presidential election means big business for the ad industry, with a whopping $6 billion spent on 2012 election ads last year across all media according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Last year’s election broke records, both at the poll and in the boardroom, with recent figures confirming the 2012 election as the most expensive…
Marketers are accustomed to investing quite a lot of capital to build their core audiences. Until now, that’s mostly meant collecting mounds of data from multiple sources such as agencies, in-house metrics, marketing analytics companies and the social web, analyzing this data for trends and relevant insights before extracting the actionable information and deciding where…
I meet a lot of entrepreneurs that actually fall on the side of being perfectionists and perfectionists are those people that need everything to be tightened up, need everything to be coded correctly and need everything to look a certain way before they press the on button. In my opinion those entrepreneurs never succeed because…
At the age of 16 I dropped out of school to start my first company and I think the advantage that ended up happening at that time is when you’re young you really don’t have the concept of failure. You don’t really have the concept of fear. That’s why even when you’re younger than that you…
With the proliferation of real-time social technologies, marketing has quickly moved away from traditional display ad channels towards how brands can better harness “now” moments. The highly-anticipated release of Twitter’s ad API will accelerate this trend as brands learn to automate their Twitter campaigns and compare the results with what they are currently doing in…
Although startups and tech companies are widely known to be job creators, they can also be volatile due to the competitive industry in which they exist. Despite their innovative and often game-changing approach, startups function in a high-risk environment with the chance of being squeezed out at any moment. However, with that risk comes endless…
Advertising is one of the most dynamic and creative industries on the planet, and one that changes rapidly with each passing second. The field of ad technology, in particular, is constantly propelled forward by the introduction of new innovations and approaches for harnessing online intelligence to attract potential customers. For the first LinkedIn post on…
The ad industry is charging forward at a rapid pace and only those companies who innovate will survive. This past year, we witnessed many innovations in the advertising arena, including the launch of Facebook’s real-time bidding platform Facebook Exchange (FBX), the introduction of real-time hashtag targeting, and multiple acquisitions. Therefore, brands and agencies alike are working…
Hate isn’t something we understand when we’re born; it’s something we’re taught. Even the 2012 presidential election exposed the country to weakness by calling into question ethics, character and abilities. It’s embarrassing to realize some even questioned the birthplace and religion of our sitting president as even a topic. And on Election Day, instead of…
To achieve success, you have to go through an incredible journey of ups and downs. And once you do, you feel humbled. I’ve realized the beauty of the American Dream is that once you’ve seen it, you start to think about ways to give back. I’ve been fortunate to be part of three successful entrepreneurial…
Fear is your worst enemy – risk is your best friend. The best thing about the unknown is the meaning itself: If success were guaranteed, the journey wouldn’t be the same. And the journey is actually what inspires and shapes us to understand that success isn’t supposed to be easy, it’s supposed to be worth it….
It’s no surprise that startups and tech companies are the forerunners in job creation, and Silicon Valley startups are leading the pack. Silicon Valley startups create 11-percent more jobs than NYC startups and 38-percent more jobs than London startups. There is endless potential for innovation at startups in the valley, and these companies are looking for the best…
Gurbaksh Chahal has always known that business is the most primitive game in the world. Failure is always just around the corner, yet discipline and ambition drive us to overcome. The ladder to success isn’t as vertical as people imagine—it has the ability to reshape your life before you finally succeed. Business changes you. It…
Being a fish out of water drove Gurbaksh Chahal to make his own ocean. By the age of 26, he had built and sold two internet ad companies for a total of $340 million. G’s own ravenous appetite for success set him on the path, but hiring people as hungry as himself has kept his…
Below is the commencement speech I delivered to the graduating class at Evergreen College on May 28th, 2010. Thank you, Evergreen College, for asking me to speak here today. I feel honored. Everything starts with a dream, a particle of our imagination that teases us of what the future could be like, as long as…
Today is a very special day and marks an important day in history not only for myself but also for my family. I feel truly honored to be here. Eleven years ago, I made the decision to drop out of high school and pursue my love for business. Getting this award and an honorary doctoral…