13 Mistakes and 13 Brilliant Strokes

 There are two reasons I like this podcast.

1. I got to hear lessons learned from the successes and failures of someone who has both worked in major companies and successfully stared companies.
2. I learned why DNA sequencing could revolutionize healthcare.
   

"Hugh Martin, Chairman and CEO of Pacific Biosciences, looks back on the evolution of his career - from building computers to creating the future of medicine. Martin charts the lessons he learned working for large technology firms, as a leader in several successful start-ups, and while being courted by the VC community to launch a new wave in bioscience."

Audio Podcast:  13 Mistakes and 13 Brilliant Strokes ( also on iTunes)

Inside the Mind of a Reluctant Entrepreneur

The Stanford Technology Ventures Program has a podcast series called the Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders Series.  I realy enjoyed listening to "Inside the Mind of a Reluctant Entrepreneur" (also on iTunes) with Jeff Hawkins as the speaker.  Jeff Hawkins is perhaps best known for founding Palm Computing, creating the Palm Pilot, and then later founding Handspring. However, in this podcast he describes how he never really set out to start corporations and how he objected to the long hours typical of startup companies.

Jeff shares an interesting story about his long-time passion for studying the brain and figuring out how the brain works as a way to create a new way of computing.  Along the way, he also developed an early passion for mobile computing before computer, display, and battery technology really made it possible. 

Jeff finally realized his dream of studying how the brain works full time when he founded a non-profit, the Redwood Neuroscience Institute.  He later merged that institute into the University of California at Berkley and then founded a fourth organization called Numenta which is "creating a new type of computing technology modeled on the structure and operation of the neocortex."

Jeff authored a book about his work on how the brain works called  On Intelligence.

Crossing the Chasm

If you business has anything to do with high technology, you have probably heard the expression "crossing the chasm" which is used to describe the problem of moving a new technology from the early adopters to broader adoption.  That phrase was coined by Geoffrey Moore in his classic business book Crossing the Chasm which first came out in 1991.  Phil McKinney, the CTO of Hewlett Packard's Personal Systems Group, interviewed Geoffrey Moore on his Killer Innovations podcast.  There is some good conversation about how the situation has changed and what it takes to cross the chasm now. The interview is in two parts.  Check out part one and part two.  See also part one on iTunes and part two on iTunes.  The full show notes and partial transcript is posted over at thenextbench.com.