The How-To EntrepreneurThe Inspiration, Motivation and Success Blog

Steve Jobs delivering his commencement speech at Stanford

Here is “my” top 10 commencement speeches made by business leaders in colleges across America.

1) Steve Jobs – Drawing from some of the most pivotal points in his life, Steve Jobs, chief executive officer and co-founder of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, urged graduates to pursue their dreams and see the opportunities in life’s setbacks — including death itself — at the university’s 114th Commencement on June 12, 2005. Watch

2) Jeff Bezos – Amazon founder and CEO, Princeton Alum (Class of 1986) gave the Baccalaureate address to Princeton University’s Class of 2010.  Watch.

3) Oprah Winfrey – Global media leader and philanthropist, spoke to the Class of 2008 at Stanford’s 117th Commencement on June 15, 2008. Winfrey drew on experiences from a career that began in 1976 when she co-anchored a television newscast, and she shared three lessons about feelings, failure and finding happiness. Watch

4) Bill Gates – Harvard Alum Part 1, Part 2

5) Marissa Mayer – Google VP delivers the commencement address at the Illinois Institute of Technology on May 16, 2009.  Watch

6) Eric Schmidt – Google CEO delivers the commencement address at the University of Pennsylvania on May 18, 2009. Watch

Another commencement address by Eric Schmidt. This time at Carnegie Mellon University on May 17, 2009 Watch

7) Larry Page – Google Co-Founder delivers the commencement address at the University of Michigan on May 2, 2009. Watch

8) Charlie Munger – Great speech by Warren Buffett’s business partner at USC Law commencement, May 2007. Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5.

9) Michael Dell – Chairman and CEO of Dell Computer Corp delivered his commencement address at his alma mater, University of Texas at Austin on May, 2003. Here is the full transcript. Unfortunately, I could not find the video on the web. If you know, please share.

Bonus: Professor Randy Pausch – I know Professor Pausch was not a business leader. But his legacy is inspiring. At Carnegie Mellon University he delivered  an inspirational speech to the Class of 2008 at the Commencement ceremony on May 18, 2008. Watch. In case if you have not, also watch Randy Pausch Last Lecture: Achieving Your Childhood Dreams. It will change  your life. I know it changed mine.

1. This Week in Startups – Entrepreneur Jason Calacanis and a rotating group of guest experts bring you this weekly take on the best, worst, most outrageous and interesting stories from the world of Web companies.  Calacanis, a podcasting pioneer, gives you an insider’s look at what’s happening in the tech industry with his trademark blunt style and good humor.  Looking to start your own company?  Need strategies for improving your business of motivating your team?  Just want to catch up on what’s happening in Silicon Valley and beyond?  Your journey begins here.

2. Mixergy – Hosted by Andrew Warner, inspiring place where the ambitious learn from a mix of experienced mentors. The Mixergy Mission is to introduce you to doers and thinkers whose ideas and stories are so powerful that just hearing them will change you.

3. TED – well, no intro is needed here, unless you have been sleeping under the rock (since 1984). TED is a small nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. TED2011 is happening during Feb 28 – Mar 4, 2011, but already sold out Don’t worry, check out the website, they post new talks regularly. As far as attending live show goes, it is on my must-attend-someday list.

4. Mike on America with Mike Hegedus – Former CNBC Correspondent Mike Hegedus used to cover business stories for CNBC’s “On the Money”. He is now Executive Producer at McKinley Reserve and also works at CBS Chicago. I do not know if he is still producing business stories in video format, but here are the links from his past coverages. Link 1, Links 2, Links 3. Of course, follow him on Twitter @MikeHegedus. I have written about him before.

5. Startups Uncensored – Monthly town-hall style conversations with some of the most successful tech leaders hosted by Jason Nazar, Co-Founder and CEO, Docstoc.com (the premier online community to find and share professional documents). One of their earlier episodes is here.

LeadsCon - conference and expo dedicated to increasing the effectiveness of those operating in the online lead generation industry. Next event: LeadsCon East, July 26 – 27, 2010 Marriott Marquis, NYC.

The Power of eMarketing Conference and Expo - Industry event for advanced eMarketing techniques, processes and best practices. Next Event: October 20-21, 2010. Baltimore, MD.

The Mobile Marketing Forum – brings the entire mobile marketing ecosystem together under one roof.

OMMA Global – the world of online, media, marketing and advertising

OMMA Mobile

OMMA Metrics -

The Mobile Insider Summit – mobile marketing

The Social Media Insider Summit – social media marketing

The Search Insider Summit – This premier event for brand marketers and agency professionals is to share leading edge information and their experience on search marketing in a comfortable learning environment.

The Email Insider Summit – Brand Marketers and agency decision makers will come together in a tranquil setting to network, share ideas, discuss and debate technology, while working collaboratively to improve overall business of email marketing as well as their own email marketing efforts.

The Omniture Summit – Adobe’s signature event for its Online Marketing  Suite (Powered by Omniture) users.

PubCon - Social Media, Search, Affiliates

Search Marketing Expo – SMX – is the search engine marketing conference from Third Door Media, the company behind the Search Engine Land news site, Sphinn.com, and the Search Marketing Now webcast series.

Search Engine Strategies (SES) – the leading global conference & expo series that educates delegates on search engine marketing (SEM), including optimization (SEO) and advertising strategies, tactics and best practices.

eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit – Optimize the value of your online marketing. The Official Summit of the Web Analytics Association (WAA).

BlogWorld New Media Expo – One of the largest New Media Events.

The Online Marketing Summit (hosted by ClickZ)

Connected Marketing Week (ClickZ)

B2B Marketing Summit (Marketing Sherpa) – two days of immersive, hands-on instruction covering the latest marketing strategies and techniques. Topics include lead nurturing, list building, conversion optimization, social media marketing, search, marketing/sales alignment, lead scoring, analytics, email marketing, direct mail, telemarketing and more.

Email Marketing Summit (Marketing Sherpa) – Email Summit Awards & Expo brings cutting edge case studies, training and research that address variety of email marketing needs.

Hello world! We launched official twitter account of HowToEntrepreneur.com. Follow us: @HTEntrepreneur

I run this blog on WordPress.org Blogging software. Inc. magazine has a great article about WordPress’ founder, Matt Mullenweg.

“I like to read first thing in the morning. I’m addicted to the Kindle. I read a lot of business books, because I feel like I should figure out how to be a real businessman before someone figures out that I’m not one. I really enjoy reading classics as well, which I try to work in once every two months. Reading is my break. Otherwise, I go to sleep and wake up thinking about WordPress.”

“I do my best stuff midmorning and superlate at night, from 1 to 5 in the morning. Some people don’t need sleep. I actually do need sleep. I just sleep all the time. I’ll catch naps in the afternoon, or I’ll take a 20-minute snooze in the office — just all the time. Our business is 24 hours. Our guys in Europe come online at midnight. Sometimes, I will go out at night, come home from the bar at 2 or 3 a.m., and then go to work.”

Read the article.

Derek Sivers, Founder of CDBaby.com

Derek Sivers, Founder of CDBaby.com, website where independent music artists can promote their music has a a free e-book with his best advice for fellow musicians about how to be more successful promoting their music. I read it. I think it is the best piece of advice for anybody starting out in music industry.

Bob Parsons, GoDaddy.com

Inc.com recently published an article about Bob Parsons, CEO and Founder of GoDaddy.com, web domain registration and hosting company.

Excerpts:

“At my office, I’m almost never behind my desk. I have this cafeteria-style conference table, which I bought for $90 years ago, and a dozen or so chairs. That’s where I am most of the day, meeting with my staff. A few folks complained that the chairs were cheap and ugly, and they’re right. But they convey the right attitude: functional and cheap. You don’t spend your money on office furniture — you spend it where it’s going to impact your customers.

I manage everything from the 57-inch monitor that hangs from the ceiling in my office, which I can access with a wireless keyboard and mouse. I have it set to Go Daddy’s home page, and there’s a program we created that tracks our current market share and how many domain names we register each day. We register about one every second. The names show up on that screen in real time, like a ticker tape. It’s always on, so I can refer to it throughout the day. I can tell at a glance what’s going right or wrong.” READ MORE

Y Combinator, venture firm specializing in funding early stage startups, has a reddit-like website where folks interested in software/web development post links to interesting articles and websites. They call it Hacker News. Very interesting place. Check it out.

You must have heard about Zappos.com – one of the biggest online shoe retailers. I recently came across to this post written by one of the Fast Company founders – Bill Taylor. It is a great article that describes the great tools used at Zappos; they pay their trainees to quit. Great read. Definitely, check it out. Zappos brings home the idea how and why you should hire people who is right for the job.

After reading the article, I analyzed former jobs I have worked at. There were definitely some jobs where I’d quite after first week of training even if they have not paid me to quit.

T. Boone Pickens' book: The First Billion is the Hardest

June 2008 issue of Fast Company magazine published an interview with Texas Oil Tycoon T. Boone Pickens. For those who don’t know him, T. Boone Pickens is a corporate raider of 1980s, an American Billionaire, and founder of Mesa Petroleum.

Article mostly talked about his new $10 Billion Wind Farm venture. It is interesting to hear from a person who made his money from traditional energy sources such as oil and gas talk about alternative energy. He was honest to say that his purpose is to make money; environment is secondary. He is predicting demand for oil will keep going up and prices will follow. To the question why Mr. Pickens is turning his back on oil, he answered “Foreign oil is costing us $500 billion a year. In 10 years, $5 trillion goes out of the country. It’s the greatest transfer of wealth from one area to another in the history of the world”. Mr. Warren Buffett says about $2 billion is leaving the US everyday, so it will be $730 billion a year. If we attribute $500 billion of $730 to oil, I guess the rest is non-oil goods.

Regarding ethanol, he says ethanol is a political issue. Senators representing corn states want to keep their farmer buddies rich and happy, therefore they will always support ethanol (irrespective it is smart or dumb idea). Reminder: Mr. Charlie Munger said “turning food into gasoline is the dumbest idea ever”.

Buy T. Boone Pickens’  book “The First Billion Is the Hardest: How Believing It’s Still Early in the Game Can Lead to Life’s Greatest Comebacks.” from Amazon.