Cover Interview
between the US and UK entrepreneurial scene? He tells me, “You know, I’ve definitely seen differences but just like in Silicon Valley, way back when Apple started in the 70’s, I also see here this super smart, inspirational community emerging.
“As a result of years of entrepreneurial activity there is an established infrastructure in the US that’s there to support entrepreneurs. These are employees, VC’s, banks, legal, accounting and others. “They understand entrepreneurial companies and their needs. This culture has been centered in a few areas like Silicon Valley and Boston but is now growing out everywhere across the US. New York, for example, is a really hot entrepreneurial area right now.
“In the UK you have a lot of people trying to get into an entrepreneurial company, but entrepreneurial companies aren’t for everybody. You have to be very driven, there’s long hours and usually the pay isn’t as high because in a ‘start up’ you’re working for the stock. There are different drivers that work out for some people and that don’t work out for others.”
On the topic of driven, hardworking individuals that thrive as entrepreneurs, Mark mentions his early interactions with Steve Jobs. He tells me how the two worked together while he was still CEO of Sybase and Steve was CEO of NeXT.
“Steve and I always had positive interactions, as at the time he wanted Sybase to support his hardware. He was a brilliant guy and had a reputation for being hard yet very driven with his own people.
“On Friday night’s at Sybase we had cheese and wine events. On one particular Friday, Steve came along and he took the role of cutting the cheese up for everybody. As we were setting up, one of our employees came up to him and said ‘You really look a lot like Steve Jobs.’
“Steve didn’t give the game away and his response was ‘Yeah, a lot of people tell me that’ - so he had a good sense of humour!”
Mark Hoffman will be speaking at the Entrepreneur Country Forum on Wednesday 27th February.
ticket date: 27.02.13
your forum click here
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