Free Republic

Anybody who’s watched “Shark Tank” more than once will tell you he’s hooked on the Sharks, just as much as they are on the little fishies swimming around in the tank. The Sharks—a panel of billionaire investors ranging in expertise and net worth—scowl, laugh, cry, ridicule, and jest like a bunch of frat boys (and a sorority chick or two) on steroids, 30 years post-college. If “business is the ultimate sport,” as Shark investor, billionaire businessman, and owner of the Dallas Mavericks Mark Cuban said in an interview last year with Inc., Magazine, than every episode of “Shark Tank” is...

In the good old days, if they fell in love in B-school, got married and kicked off a career, the choices were predictable — if it was an MBA in marketing, it had to be a role in a consumer goods multinational (think Hindustan Unilever or Procter & Gamble or Nestle); if it was finance, the husband-wife duo inevitably found themselves at rival investment banks on Dalal Street. These days, it's a bit different. Many couples who met in school or college — not just B-schools — are taking the long and invigorating walk down the aisle of entrepreneurship. And,...

I grew up watching Star Trek and believing that by the time I became an adult we would all be using communicators, replicators, tricorders, and transporters. I was optimistic that the world would be a much better place: that we would have solved humanity’s problems and be exploring new worlds. That’s why my first career choice was one of astronaut. I thought it would best prepare me for Starfleet Academy. Needless to say, I was disappointed. I grew up into a world filled with hunger, poverty, and disease—in which we fight wars over dwindling natural resources. It is a world...

Ditch Brooklyn, millennials. The real place to be is Des Moines, a city with a blossoming culture scene, thriving start-ups, and urban beauty.(VIDEO-AT-LINK) DES MOINES, Iowa—This is too nice a place to spawn a war cry. But if the city had one, it would be the sentiment heard across a downtown populated by baristas, tech start-up founders, musicians, and nonprofit professionals alike: "It's Des Moines against the world." Young people here know what you think of this city. It doesn't need repeating. But ambitious minds are in the process of building a new Des Moines, a tech hub in Silicon...

If you want a reason to opt out of school, you’re not alone. And Angad Daryani might just be the inspiration you were looking for. Daryani, a 16-year-old Mumbaiker, quit school in the 9th grade, frustrated by rote learning. Soon after, he built India’s first 3D printer (and possibly the world’s cheapest 3D printer). In 2013, he developed an “eye-pad” for the blind with MIT. When he was younger, he set up a miniature solar-powered boat and created an automatic watering system for garden plants. He has a longer list of hobbies that you can see here. He calls himself...

The winner of the U. S. Minority Business Development Agency's (MBDA) Lifetime Achievement Award says the economic fate of America's Black community "hangs in the balance" because "we are a fourth quarter people". Michael Grant, president of the National Bankers Association and its foundation, says, "Unlike our Hispanic and Asian brothers and sisters, we had to spend the first three quarters just getting in the game...So you see, all things being equal, our ethnic counterparts came to the game with a different mindset, a different set of circumstances, a different self-image, and already with some capital from back home." Grant...

America isn’t just a bit more generous than your typical country. We’re an order of magnitude (and counting) more generous than most countries, including Germany and Japan. ... “American capitalism differs from all other forms of industrial capitalism” because it focuses "on both the creation of wealth (entrepreneurship) and the reconstitution of wealth (philanthropy). Philanthropy is part of the implicit social contract that continuously nurtures and revitalizes economic prosperity." ... nonprofits must learn that they are not in an “independent sector.” They are dependent not just on that abstraction known as the economy but also, horrors, on its heroic leaders,...

The American economy is less entrepreneurial now than at any point in the last three decades. That's the conclusion of a new study out from the Brookings Institution, which looks at the rates of new business creation and destruction since 1978. Not only that, but during the most recent three years of the study -- 2009, 2010 and 2011 -- businesses were collapsing faster than they were being formed, a first. Overall, new businesses creation (measured as the share of all businesses less than one year old) declined by about half from 1978 to 2011. The authors don't mince words...

A year after announcing a world record for crowdfunding for journalism, the editor-in-chief and publisher of De Correspondent shared their thoughts and lessons on start-up journalism.Last April, Rob Wijnberg and Ernst-Jan Pfauth raised $1.7 million in crowdfunding for De Correspondent, a new, online-only publication The idea was to go from 'the news' to 'the new'," said Wijnberg, De Correspondent's editor-in-chief, who was previously editor-in-chief of nrc.next. He and Pfauth, publisher of De Correspondent and former online editor of nrc.next, said they had tried to change the direction of their previous publication and failed. Instead, they took the ideas they had...

Nationwide — Economic activist, Devin Robinson, explains how blacks can live comfortably to 10% of their income and build mainstream businesses in his 8th book, Power M.O.V.E.: How to Become a Successful Entrepreneur. Robinson, a military veteran and network engineer, entered into full-time entrepreneurship after becoming frustrated with Corporate America. He ditched his $85,000 a year job for the risks of business ownership. Over the past decade, he has worked on many community economic initiatives that have resulted in thousands of entrepreneurs being trained and transformed, while hundreds went on to being put into full-time entrepreneurship. He said, “Entrepreneurship must...

At the House Republican retreat in Cambridge, Md., Thursday, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor called on GOP lawmakers to take a new approach to the nation's economic anxieties. Dividing his remarks into four categories -- Obamacare, jobs and economic growth, the middle-class squeeze, and opportunity -- Cantor's goal was to try to identify specific problems middle-class families are facing and spark discussion on conservative solutions that might help those families. "Ninety percent of Americans work for someone else," Cantor said, according to a source in the room. "Most of them not only will never own their own business, for most...

Crowdfunding Services, a digital agency offering solutions to project creators, showing the difference between a good idea, and a good idea brought to life. Crowdfunding Services, a marketing services company offering solutions to project creators, announces a milestone for its business and Facebook page – over 500 'likes' in 21 days. In the crowdfunding industry, social media is the name of the game, and can make the difference between getting funded and getting overlooked. www.crowdfunding-services.com is showing the difference between a good idea, and a good idea brought to life. That's not the only milestone of success. The Twitter account...

When it comes to gaining true freedom, the words and actions of our most revered Black authentic leaders emphasized economic empowerment. Unfortunately, many of those who spoke the truth and tried to establish an economic foundation for Black people were ostracized, caricatured, vilified, and even assassinated. Despite their sacrifices and refusals to back down from fighting for the most important collective aspect of true freedom, economic empowerment, the vast majority of Black folks either ignored them or chose to follow Black “misleaders” who took our people down the wrong road. Now in 2014, Black folks are still suffering from and...

President Raul Castro issued a stern warning to entrepreneurs pushing the boundaries of Cuba’s economic reform, telling parliament on Saturday that “those pressuring us to move faster are moving us toward failure.” Castro has legalized small-scale, private businesses in nearly 200 fields since 2010, but has issued tighter regulations on businesses seen as going too far or competing excessively with state enterprises. In recent months, the government has banned the resale of imported hardware and clothing and cracked down on unlicensed private video game and movie salons. …

We are often told that individuals are “stuck” in fast food jobs, as if there is no hope for advancement or development. But these aren’t dead end jobs for people willing to learn, grow, and work really, really hard. At Domino’s Pizza, over 90 percent of franchise owners started out as hourly employees, and the chain’s 5,000 locations are largely owned and operated by franchisees. Rob Cookston is one such owner who worked his way up. Cookston started delivering pizzas out of his cherry red Volkswagen Beetle 25 years ago. But, eyeing the store owner’s yellow Ferrari, Cookston knew that...

Remember when Obama told Americans “You didn’t build that”?

At our company, we work to fill our roster with “athletes.” I don’t mean this necessarily in the physical sense, although it turns out that quite a few of our members are literal athletes – we have a national-class triathlete, I have a personal interest in competitive and recreational bodybuilding, and there are multiple marathoners, bikers, soccer, and basketball players, CrossFit enthusiasts, etc. on staff. We also have a companywide interest in health and fitness, which we call “Fishbowl FIT.” But when I advise people to seek and hire athletes, what I am really referring to is the athlete traits...

<p>The creation myth of American wealth is almost always rooted in the entrepreneur.</p> <p>It's the two kids who start a computer company in their garage or dorm room. Or the former standup comic who creates form-shaping undergarments, or the South African immigrant who creates a new electric car and private space program.</p>

One hundred and fifty years after twin defeats at Gettysburg and Vicksburg destroyed the South’s quest for independence, the region is again on the rise. People and jobs are flowing there, and Northerners are perplexed by the resurgence of America’s home of the ignorant, the obese, the prejudiced and exploited, the religious and the undereducated. Responding to new census data showing the Lone Star State is now home to eight of America’s 15 fastest-growing cities, Gawker asked: “What is it that makes Texas so attractive? Is it the prisons? The racism? The deadly weather? The deadly animals? The deadly crime?...

Exactly the same reason Obama doesn't like  small business OR teen workers I guess... could contaminate the NEA's K-12 brainwashing As KGB/Soviet defector Yuri Bezmenov made clear, America's public education system -which demoralizes kids and keeps them pliable/stupid- has been infiltrated by low standards of achievement/morality + communist doctrine for decades now. The self-hating, unthinking drones it was meant to produce have already helped to elect Barack Obama -as dangerous a post turtle as there's ever been- to the most powerful office in the world, great. But 13 years of far-left indoctrination by the neo-Soviet zombies of the NEA are apparently...