Technology, Entrepreneur | featured news

While Japan’s aging technology giants continue to falter, Japanese entrepreneurs are forming start-ups despite difficulties with financing and a culture that discourages risk-taking.

If money is the only thing stopping you from doing something good in the world, stop waiting and start doing some good! Nothing better symbolizes entrepreneurship than fundraising.  Social entrepreneurs are no different.

Hacker Dojo is equal parts shared office, lecture hall and after-hours salon for a variety of tinkerers, software coders and entrepreneurs who intend to reinvent the future. The idea for Pinterest was cooked up here. The makers of Pebble watches used the space as their West Coast headquarters. Today, however, it is threatened with extinction. City officials in Mountain View have ordered Hacker Dojo to comply with city regulations for offices or move out.

Sleep next to heaps of laundry; eat ham out of the package; work till 3 in the morning. Such is life at “hacker hostels,” where young digerati network and keep their expenses down.

Steve Jobs, the mastermind behind Apple's iPhone, iPad, iPod, iMac and iTunes, has died, Apple said. Jobs was 56. "We are deeply saddened to announce that Steve Jobs passed away today," read a statement by Apple's board of directors. "Steve's brilliance, passion and energy were the source of countless innovations that enrich and improve all of our lives. The world is immeasurably better because of Steve. His greatest love was for his wife, Laurene, and his family. Our hearts go out to them and to all who were touched by his extraordinary gifts."

We know about immigrant founders at large technology companies, such as Intel, Google and eBay. Less well known is how many immigrants and children of immigrants have founded other successful American companies. A new report from the Partnership for a New American Economy found more than 40 percent of Fortune 500 companies were founded by immigrants or their children. Eighteen percent (or 90) of the 500 companies had immigrant founders. The children of immigrants started another 114 companies.

I have been awarded a golden ticket to the heart of Silicon Valley: the Thiel Fellowship. The catch? For two years, I cannot be enrolled as a full-time student at an academic institution.

Consumer Internet entrepreneurs are like pro basketball players,” a venture capitalist told me recently while discussing the prospects for a thirty-something founder, “They peak at 25, by 30 they’re usually done.

Web entrepreneur Andrew Fashion made $2.5 million by the age of 21 helping people bling out their MySpace pages. He blew it all before he turned 22. Meet Andrew and learn where his money went.