An interview on tips for success with MIT Professor Edward B. Roberts. Edward Roberts is the David Sarnoff Professor of Management of Technology, and the founder, chair and faculty director of the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship at the MIT Sloan School of Management. He is an expert in advanced technology management and entrepreneurship, a serial high-tech entrepreneur, and a leading angel investor.
During the interview, he describes the framework he uses to evaluate whether a founder is likely to be successful enough to merit his angel investment: (7:07)
- Intelligence: “I’ve been at MIT my whole life. I was there as a freshman and I’ve never left MIT… because of that, I really tend not to tolerate people who are not terribly smart. Every one that I see is terribly smart.”
- Motivation: “If someone does not have drive and motivation of an extraordinary nature from the beginning, they will fail. They will drop out. They will not be able to cope with the multiplicity of problems they will be encountering.”
- Time-Trust Relationship: “Building a company is a long-term proposition. Unless I’m prepared to consider a decade…a 10 year period going forward of a relationship, then I’m probably being foolhardy or naive.”
He also reviews the Kepner-Tregoe framework for three dimensions of effective leadership (43:27)
- Achievement Motivation
- Power Motivation
- Affiliation Motivation
Additional topics of interest include:
- The early days of Pillpack (11:17)
- The early days of Hubspot (13:23)
- The difficulty of discussing failure (23:58)
- Efforts to increase female entrepreneurship at MIT (35:33)
- Lessons on overcoming adversity from 8200 Israel’s top military intelligence unit (38:32)
- When should a founder consider a pivot (46:54)
Links:
- https://mitsloan.mit.edu/faculty/directory/edward-roberts
- http://mitsloan.mit.edu/shared/ods/documents/?DocumentID=2853
