Will.Cardwell@Aalto.Fi, Director

Enabling Black Swans – Entrepreneurial University, Start-ups, and the Innovation Ecosystem

German – Finnish Dialogues29th October 2010Berlin

EntrepreneurshipResearch

Entrepreneurship Education

Innovation Servicesand TechnologyTransfer

GrowthVenturing and

Start-Up Services

What is ACE Today ?

xES NoteCombo ofAcademic

AndPractice!

by 2020 Enormous impact on globally challenging problems

by 2015 Finland into the top ten high-growth communities in the world

2010-2011 Producing success stories and building confidence in Aalto community and beyond

The Vision of ACE

1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 20110

100000

200000

300000

400000

500000

600000

700000

Annual IPR Licences

2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 20110

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

5

7

10 10 10

7

45

11

14Spin outs

2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 20110

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

160

180

200

5066

8089

110

180

412 13 7

22

45

Inventions

priority applications

Invention Disclosures

TKK08 MIT08 TODAI08 Yissum08 Aalto 20110

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

18IP activity benchmarks

Inventions/100 researchers

priority filings/100 researchers

ACE Innovation Services in Numbers

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How Will We Do this?

By creating an environment friendly to

the emergence of positive Black

Swans…

And capturing a better share of the

value this time!

Caveats and Disclaimers• I AM saying:

– Finland/Europe needs to create MANY €100MM+ growth companies to make the demographic math of the future work

– We, as University communities, can lay the foundations for their birth and growth, but it is challenging and we must LEARN how to do that

• I AM NOT saying:– That everybody should tune their startup to try to be a Black

Swan– That the guys at the Black Swans will (necessarily) be the

richest, though hopefully so…– That we can even guarantee any Black Swans will emerge

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What’s a Black Swan in this Context ?• Defies Prediction• Makes a Massive Impact• We make up Explanations

Afterward

Have we ever had any, and why are they so important today?

The Counter-Intuitive Reality of the Black Swan

Link8

5 Conditions that must be present to raise the probability of Positive Black Swans

Plus, what it means for the Entrepreneur!

* Props to my friend and colleague Herve Lebret at EPFL for much of the research and thinking here, see his book ”The Startup Book”

1. On Passion…• Ecosystem: promotes and

rewards passion and ambition• Entrepreneur: Focus on huge,

game-changing problems

…and, lets not beat the billion euro ambition out of our founders !

Link10

2. On Risk-taking and Uncertainty…• Ecosystem: promotes

pioneering spirit embracing uncertainty, risk-taking and tolerating failure

• Entrepreneur: You must not fail! (but its OK if you do, keep trying!)

You just cannot have a Plan B !!Link Link

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3. On Youth and Energy…• Ecosystem: Attract founders,

who are ideally young, energetic and possibly migrants, and support them patiently

• Entrepreneur: Start early! Universities will probably drive the next Black Swan. And, DON’T BE PATIENT!

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Company Foundation Founder Age

Microsoft 1975 Bill Gates 20

Microsoft 1975 Paul Allen 22

Oracle 1977 Larry Ellison 33

Apple 1976 Steve Jobs 21

Apple 1976 Steve Wozniak 26

Cisco 1984 Len Bosack 29

Cisco 1984 Sandra Lerner 29

Sun 1982 Vinod Khosla 27

Sun 1982 Bill Joy 28

Sun 1982 Andy Bechtolsheim 26

Google 1998 Larry Page 25

Google 1998 Sergey Brin 25

eBay 1995 Pierre Omidyar 28

eBay 1995 Jeff Skoll 30

Yahoo 1995 David Filo 29

Yahoo 1995 Jerry Yang 27

Netscape 1994 Marc Andreesen 23

Intel 1968 Robert Noyce 41

Intel 1968 Andy Grove 32

Amazon 1994 Jeff Bezos 30

HP 1939 Bill Hewlett 26

HP 1939 David Packard 27

Dell 1984 Michael Dell 19

Founder Company Age

Hasso Plattner SAP 28

Dietmar Hopp SAP 32

Hans-Werner Hector SAP 32

Klaus Tschira SAP 32

Francis Bernard Dassault >36

Pier Luigi Zappacosta Logitech 30

Daniel Borel Logitech 30

Bernard Liautaud Business Objects 27

Denis Payre Business Objects 27

Jamie Urquhart ARM 32

Mike Muller ARM 31

Tudor Brown ARM 31

André Auberton-Hervé Soitec 31

Jean-Michel Lamure Soitec 44

James Collier CSR 40

Glenn Collison CSR 35

Mike Lynch Autonomy 31

Richard Gaunt Autonomy 28

Marc Lassus Gemplus 49

Daniel Le Gal Gemplus 37

About26

About34

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Cisco’s Growth

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4. On Customers…• Ecosystem: Innovation and

commercialization via a trial and error process, this includes customers !

• Entrepreneur: Get out of the office all the time – live and breathe with customers.

And customers: if you don’t pay, you are part of the product or

service, act like it!

Link15

5. On Teams…• Ecosystem: Freedom offered to

talent who should not be snatched from start-ups. Talent (and capital!) MUST be mobile!

• Entrepreneur: Bring in the best wherever they come from.

Link16

What are we trying to do at ACE to enable this?

• A Deep International Network– Bring world-class lecturers, practitioners and students IN– Send our community OUT to global hotspots.

• Support REGULAR bootcamps and events around key themes

• Create winning IP strategies• Raise the overall IMAGE of Growth Entrepreneurship• Collaborate fluently with our national and regional

ecosystem!

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aaltovg.comtwitter.com/aaltogarage

Its their world,we just live in it !!

Spin-offs from Aalto University

Is the nextBlack Swan in

this list !?!

Or here ??

Any Ideas? Invented Something?

Contact us directly:

Will Cardwell, Head, 040 514 1325

Pauli Laitinen team leader+ innovation manager, 050 338 0509

Panu Kuosmanen technology transfer manager, 050 384 1600

Tapio Mäenpää Innovation manager, 050 512 2485

Antti Aarnio, business development, 040 503 6634

Teemu Seppälä development manager TULI, 050 301 1192

Or looked at: http://ace.aalto.fi

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