Report for Ergonomic Solutions for Arthritic Workers

Question: Examine about theReport for Ergonomic Solutions for Arthritic Workers. Answer: Presentation What is Arthritis? The human skeleton is divided at a few spots for the achievability of development. The gathering purpose of two bones fit for development can be alluded as a joint. Joints differ in types as indicated naturally of the development required for the concerned piece of the body. These enunciations give solid association between the bones, teeth and the ligaments. Joint inflammation is normal clinical condition that includes specific kinds of scatters of the joint. It results in inflammated joints alongside indications, for example, expanding, torment and solidness of the concerned piece of the body. The condition isn't sex or age explicit, be that as it may, it is seen as increasingly predominant in ladies and more seasoned individuals. In UK around 10million individuals experience the ill effects of the condition (Nhs.uk 2016); the figure is increasingly serious in US with around 50 million grown-ups and 300,000 youngsters influenced with Arthritis (Arthritis.org 2016). Types and Etiology of Arthritis There are in excess of 120 sorts of joint inflammation influencing various joints of the body with various etiologies. Be that as it may, worldwide the most widely recognized sorts that are common among the populace are Osteoarthritis and Rheumatoid Arthritis (Valderrabano et al 2009). Osteoarthritis the more typical of the two as a rule happens in ladies and at a mature age. Ligaments, the adaptable connective tissues that line the finish of the bones shaping a joint, tear or erode in Osteoarthritis (Sakalauskien? also, Jaunikien? 2010). It causes expanded grinding between the bones and in the long run torment, growing and solidness. Expanded grating may prompt hard spikes known as osteophytes. In extreme conditions the patient may require a joint substitution when remedial intercessions neglect to give enough solace to have an ordinary existence. The most widely recognized zones influenced by osteoarthritis are knee, hand, spine and hips. Related hazard factors incorporate heftines s, family ancestry, age and injury to the concerned zone. On the opposite Rheumatoid Arthritis is an immune system issue where the insusceptible arrangement of the body demonstrations against the synovium of the body, fundamental for the creation of synovial liquid that greases up the joints and guarantees smooth development of the joints (Wegner et al 2010). It in the long run makes extreme harm the joints. The specific reason for the autoimmunity isn't clear, in spite of the fact that researchers have demonstrated that the most powerful hazard factors are hereditary inclination and ecological variables. In Singapore around 45,000 (1% of the populace) individuals in the populace experiences Rheumatoid Arthritis (Singhealth.com.sg, 2016). Difficulties for Arthritic Workers Examines show that working can assist an individual with a turmoil or medical problem contrasted with having a jobless life. As of now referenced, Arthritis isn't age explicit, it very well may be common among the populace who are at their working age and cause different scope of issues at their working environment, independent of their activity. Joint pain is the most well-known impairing plague with roundabout manifestations, for example, agony and weariness that can influence the efficiency of a laborer. Studies propose that work can ease the issues looked by a patient with joint pain, as the side effects will in general happen less as often as possible (Tang et al 2011). With proper observing of working hours and condition in the work environment work can end up being helpful for such patients. A few nations have Equality Acts with respect to work rights for representatives. On the off chance that the concerned individual qualifies as handicapped by the meanings of the Act, the b usiness needs to offer satisfactory help to its representatives by giving right devices and working conditions (Adamou et al 2011). Self-administration of ones condition is another angle, which is basic in such cases. Counseling the doctor to pick up proposals with respect to the administration of work can be of useful for the patients. A few difficulties are looked by laborers with joint pain in a work environment. In numerous events individuals are reluctant to reveal their condition in their work environment, dreading shame and embarrassment. Individuals are less mindful of the way that sharing the difficulties they face during work can cause their managers and associates to comprehend the circumstance and act in like manner. The businesses and the associates must be made mindful of what joint pain is, the means by which it influences the patients and how it tends to be overseen by rolling out proper improvements and changes. Numerous specialists with joint inflammation don't kno w about theirs privileges when they are being segregated at their working environment (Varekamp and Van Dijk 2010). The Equality Act has arrangement for individuals for handicap in portability, vision or hearing. It is the duty of the administration to address such specialists and make an appropriate domain for laborers with handicaps. As indicated by the laws it isn't even required for an individual to uncover their inability during enrollment or meeting of a vocation. They have to discuss their competency and qualification for the activity post (Lockwood, G., Henderson and Thornicroft 2012). Laborers experiencing joint pain must have a reasonable thought regarding their prerequisites and take the assistance of their advisor for rules and points that can assist them with dealing with their condition and permit a consistent profitability. Changes are required in the workspace for ligament laborers to adapt up to the difficulties effectively. Regularly the business doesn't give the n ecessary devices and alterations which presents serious test to laborers. Discoveries Any specialist who needs to play out an equivalent movement more than once or often is in danger of creating joint pain throughout the years. It can influence a various gathering of individuals from various areas. A laborer from a car fix organization was read with the end goal of this report. The specialist was 42 years of age and is working in this calling for about the previous 10 years. His working hours were from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., 5 days per week, with a one hour mid-day break at 12:30 p.m. The points of interest of the subject were gathered by meeting through poll group. The specialist experiences joint inflammation in the hands. From the ergonomic investigation led on the laborer it was discovered that he works in a standing stance or is required go under the cap and vehicle to make fixes of various pieces of the vehicle. He frequently encounters back torment because of working for such delayed hours in such stances. He utilizes different apparatuses like fastener, spanners a nd wrenches regularly and over extensive stretches during his working hours for fixing purposes. He He encounters repetitive periods of torment in the hands after just as during his working hours. His manager and associates ate ignorant of his condition. No progressions or extraordinary alterations are given to the laborer to decrease the side effects of his issue. As per him, joint inflammation causes a great deal of challenges in his working life, diminishing his profitability and expanding non-attendance because of uncontrolled agony now and again. Laborer X Recurrence Length Utilizing fastener, spanners and wrenches Moe than 40x 1 Hour Studies have indicated that different kinds of occupations can cause osteoarthritis in the work environment because of proceeded with movement of a joint (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2009). The rehashed mechanical weight on the joint may cause metabolic and physiological variations from the norm in the concerned area. Aggregation of microtraumas because of vibrations from utilizing devices at working environment is the most strong reason for the beginning of osteoarthritis in laborers. Consequently, laborers with such occupations are presented to the hazard factors contrasted with the ordinary populace. Thus in our specific contextual investigation, it is obvious that the regular and rehashed utilization of the referenced devices by the specialist has prompted his state of joint pain in the joints of the hands. The seriousness of the condition should be evaluated speedily and prompt changes must be made with respect to his activity, work courses of action and working hours. Conversation of Solutions and Anticipated Challenges Joint pain is a fluctuating illness that can be medicinally serious and genuinely imperceptible simultaneously. There are no physical ramifications of its side effects. Consequently the essential advance required to deliver the circumstance is to build the comprehension of the sickness and the particular needs of laborers who are experiencing it. In particular the businesses must have away from and satisfactory information on the issues an individual with joint pain at work environment may confront, all together for the specialist to stay utilized and keep up a solid profitability (Mancuso, Paget and Charlson 2000). The business needs to shoulder extra arrangements like wiped out leave and extra ergonomically planned gear reasonable for such patients. The worker needs to monitor the side effects of the ailment through clinical and helpful intercession. The vast majority of the normal side effects of joint pain including absence of portability, torment, irritation and solidness can be diminished with the utilization of fitting blend of medications (Gignac 2004). During the early period of determination the patient frequently loses enthusiastic and mental harmony because of the way that they are having an incessant long lasting infection. This frequently causes the patient to lose temper at work environment (Li, Gignac and Anis 2006). Businesses knowing about the condition can deal with such circumstances without breaking a sweat. With movement of time these side effects become control and the patient can keep filling in as typical. The businesses must be merciful with debilitated leaves to permit the specialist to make visits to the medical clinic or the doctor at whatever point required. Utilized individuals being determined to ha ve the condition need to concede downtime for the specialist until the side effects are balance out by the recommended drugs. The doctor has a tremendous task to carry out to empower the patient deal with his condition at work. They can explain how the patients condit

Music as a Medicine for Brain Essay Example

Music as a Medicine for Brain Essay Music is a general marvel spreading over all societies, and is the most social of expressions of the human experience. There is nobody definition to depict this term. Its term changes with each individual’s point of view. Some discover it as the musical vibrations of sound, some portray it absolutely as a work of art, some vibe it makes feelings and collaborates with the feelings we as of now feel, or, some partner it with the way toward mending. Music treatment, a biofeedback or an adapting procedure organized in the united wellbeing calling, utilizes music to advance recuperating and improve the personal satisfaction in patients. It has been utilized for a considerable length of time as an approach to treat neurological conditions, for example, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, Anxiety and even Depression [1]. There have likewise been endeavors to make an interpretation of EEG information into music [2]. Additionally, contemplates show that musicality of music tends animates cerebrum waves dependent on the beat, with a moderate rhythm advancing a quiet and thoughtful state. HISTORY OF MUSIC IN HEALTHCARE The remedial estimation of music has been perceived since antiquated occasions. We will compose a custom exposition test on Music as a Medicine for Brain explicitly for you for just $16.38 $13.9/page Request now We will compose a custom exposition test on Music as a Medicine for Brain explicitly for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Recruit Writer We will compose a custom exposition test on Music as a Medicine for Brain explicitly for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Recruit Writer Archeological proof demonstrating woodwinds cut from bones, recommends music went before language as an instrument for correspondence [3], [2]. Greek doctors utilized woodwind, lyres and zitters to recuperate their patients and utilized vibrations created by these instruments to help in absorption, incite rest and avoid mental aggravations [4]. Indeed, even the Greek thinker Pythagoras, who is viewed as the author of music treatment and geometry endorsed music to reestablish congruity of the body and soul [3]. Early Egyptians likewise, utilized melodic spells for the recuperating procedure. Local Americans and Africans utilized singing and reciting as a piece of their recuperating custom [5]. Robert Brown (1773-1858), a Botanist, depicted the Brownian development †Protoplasmic developments inside cells are irregular, cadenced and produce music [4]. With the approach of western medication, specialty of medication was supplanted by study of medication, consequently isolating music from recuperating. Be that as it may, end of nineteenth century, concentrates on the recuperating intensity of medication was again investigated. Florence Nightingale (1820-1910), a medical caretaker, perceived the intensity of music in emergency clinic wards to advance recuperating for warriors harmed in the Crimean war [3]. With the coming of phonograph, recorded music was presented in medical clinic settings. Music mediations were gradually being acknowledged in the social insurance setting. Besides, a gathering of specialists directed concentrated to show that music delivered a quieting impact on patients who were commonly tense and apprehensive, in this way diminishing patient uneasiness and agony. Studies announced impacts of music on physiological reactions, for example, heart yield, beat rate, respiratory rate and Blood Pressure. Diogel, a doctor from Paris in late 1700’s estimated circulatory strain and heartbeat pace of his patients while live performers were gotten to play. His investigations demonstrated that music brings down Blood Pressure, increments Cardiac Output, diminishes beat rate and generally speaking helps the parasympathetic framework [4]. MUSIC AND BRAIN Virtually every human loves to hear music, or if nothing else reacts with a feeling when music is heard. Music can bring back a memory so evident that you can practically contact it. Music can make us cry at the motion pictures or carry us to our feet at games. Music can make us experience joy just as carry tears to our eyes. Research in neuroscience is attempting to discover answers to these associations among music and human cerebrum. Information on the particular elements of the cerebrum was found from understanding the disappointment of the typical capacities following a stroke or a mishap. It is likewise accepted that infants react to music while still in the belly. An intriguing certainty is that at 4 years old months, noisy notes toward the finish of a song will make them wriggle and dismiss [15]. Such reactions give proof that music is wired into the cerebrum. Likewise, progresses in neuroscience and mind imaging are uncovering whats really occurring in the cerebrum as patients tune in to music or play instruments and why the treatment works. Electrical movement radiating from the cerebrum has been concentrated widely, through electroencephalograms (EEGs), attractive reverberation imaging (MRI) and all the more as of late, even utilitarian attractive reverberation imaging (fMRI) [2]. This most recent checking strategy (fMRI) is a cerebrum examine that gives an away from of which parts of the mind are working during some random action. It estimates blood stream to different pieces of the cerebrum after some time rather than demonstrating a static picture of the mind. X-ray can show the area in the mind that is increasingly dynamic while tuning in to music, and researchers are utilizing this procedure to steadily delineate territories in more noteworthy detail. New research utilizing the fMRI has demonstrated that the minds action changes with the music being played. It has been discovered that the region of the mind that is dynamic while handling music is likewise dynamic during memory recovery, thinking and keeping in min d that preparing feelings [14]. A human mind is partitioned into two halves of the globe, and the correct side of the equator is recognized as the seat of music thankfulness and the left side of the equator is the field of discourse. Likewise, cerebrum basically forms music and discourse independently, in spite of the fact that there is some cover [12]. For instance, a patient with dystimbria, a particular type of melodic issue, with deficient pitch segregation, portrayed music to sound as pots and container tossed on the floor had no issue with discourse [12]. Hence, impact of music is seen on the correct side of the equator of the mind; be that as it may, the expository parts of cerebral translation of music happens in the left half of the globe of the cerebrum [3]. Studies directed on melodic comprehension in individuals, who have harm to either half of the globe, just as cerebrum sweeps of individuals taken while tuning in to tunes; uncover that music observation rises up out of the exchange of action in the two sides of the mind [11]. Moreover, singing more than murmuring demonstrated extra right-lateralized enactment of the predominant worldly gyrus, substandard focal operculum, and second rate frontal gyrus which may offer a clarification for the clinical perception that patients with non-familiar aphasia because of left half of the globe sores can sing the content of a tune while they can't express similar words [9]. As indicated by Levitin, music is said to have certain properties and the cerebrum has a particular ability to remove every one of these traits to be specific; pitch, musicality, timbre, song, and resonation [16]. Nerve driving forces from the cochlea show up at the sound-related cortex of the mind and are first prepared to separate explicit classes of data. The correct side of the cortex is vital for seeing pitch just as specific parts of song, concordance, timbre, and mood. The left half of the cerebrum in a great many people exceeds expectations at preparing quick changes in recurrence and power, both in music and words. Such quick changes happen when somebody culls a violin string as opposed to running a bow across it [16]. Music is said to connect with many cerebrum capacities; feeling, memory, engine control, learning and pliancy, consideration, design recognition, symbolism and more [17]. Studies on stroke patients uncovered that recuperation of verbal memory and centered consideration improved altogether in the gathering of patients who tuned in to their preferred music regularly contrasted with patients who got no listening material [11]. To an enormous degree music enacts the delight inciting some portion of the cerebrum which is fundamentally, the limbic framework, and is viewed as the seat of human feelings. This territory is liable for autonomic or vegetative capacities, for example, breathing, craving, internal heat level, states of mind (e. g. , outrage, distress, love, contempt, bitterness, sympathy, and savagery). Serotonin and Dopamine are the essential synapses included that influence state of mind [17]. Tuning in to music not just expands blood stream to specific zones of the mind included creating and controlling feelings, yet it is additionally joined by a general increment and change of cerebrum enactment inside a circulated organize involving numerous territories of the cerebrum and the fringe sensory system [11]. Music is a transformative adjustment as depicted by Levitin, and he recommends mating and a few other potential purposes including social holding and improved subjective advancement [16]. The March 2009 issue of Smithsonian magazine reports that when two mosquitoes of the other gender approach one another, they orchestrate their wing beats to create an adoration two part harmony. In the event that the male cannot stay aware of the females musicality, he is dismissed by the female and becomes history. Sound AND UNHEALTHY MUSIC Many logical examinations, studies, and research ventures have been performed to attempt to find the degree of the intensity of music. One key part of music that makes it valuable is the request for beat [18]. Music can create just as diminish distressing conditions. We as a whole have an intrinsic melodic cadence called as Dominant Rhythm Style, DRS, recommended by Dr. Manfred Clynes, a neurophysiologist. These are considered as musical cycles that exist inside us just as around us. The human body resembles an instrument, communicating various frequencies and rhythms in a continually changing range of life. It reacts and reverberates in consonance with music, sounds, discourse and thought from the earth, and experiences changes of heart beat, breathing, blood science and flow of vitality in different vitality communities (Chakras) of the body

Interview with Alex Taussig from Highland Capital Partners

Interview with Alex Taussig from Highland Capital Partners INTRODUCTIONMartin: Hi, today we are in  Menlo Park,  in the Highland Capital Partners office with Alex. Alex, who are you and what do you do?Alex: Haha Hi, good to have you guys here. My name is Alex Taussig, Im a ventures capitals partner at Highland Capital Partners. We are a 26 year old venture capital firm with offices all around the world, and we invest in early stage technology companies. So, thats both enterprise companies, everything from infrastructure software to application software to consumer internet companies, market places, social media, all that kind of stuff. So, weve been around, as I said, for a while.In  Boston,  we have our offices where we started the firm. We also have our office out here, as well as in  Geneva  and in  Shanghai.Martin: Great! Awesome.Martin: Can you tell us a little bit about your background? What did you do before you started being a venture capitalist?Alex: So I have a bit of unconventional background in some sense. For a long time growing up, I thought I was going to be a professor. So I was on an academic track for the most of my life. Started labs when I was a teenager and did a lot different types of research expose into a lot of different technology in bioinformatics, computer vision. I ended up doing physics and materials engineering. Physics is an undergrad and then materials engineering as a grad student at MIT.It was some point during the grad school days, I got a little bit bored of research. Its a bit of a slower pace than we find in the startup world. And at the same time, Ive known a lot of folks that I went to college with at Harvard, who had come out to the Valley to start a companies or a lot of them at that point of time, theyre actually going to Microsoft and then come to the Valley. That would seem to be a lot of pattern. And I was at Harvard when Facebook started, so it was part of this generation of sort of new entrepreneurs and decided that I wanted to be part of that in someway. And at the time , someone had told me about venture capital, which is sort of this of interesting intermediary between people that make the technology and the financial markets. And having grown up in New York City, and been in around the finance community in my whole life, I thought it would be a nice marriage of my passions for sort of helping capitalized businesses and then also working with technologists to help bringing their stuff out of the lab, out of the confined of small, little dimly-lit rooms into the real world and serving customers. So I decided to venture capital, Id like to  learn more about what that was.So I ended up going to business school. I left MIT, got out of PhD program and decided to get a Masters instead, so I wrote my thesis. And then I went over to HBS,  Harvard  Business  School  and joined  Highland  out of business school.So Ive been with  Highland  for about 5.5 years now. And started working in our  Boston  office with one of our founders very closely. So that was sort of my apprenticeship, if you will. I worked very closely with him on a number of companies in the security software space, dataware housing. We invested in a robotics company, which I’m happy to talk about. Its pretty cool stuff.So we like really technically complex problems and really amazing engineering founders. And thats really what Ive been doing pretty much ever since. And I moved out here about 2.5 years ago to help build our West Coast office. And thats kind of what Ive been doing. But Im sort of a career venture capitalist and Im inspired by great innovations and great engineers. Id like to help them explore their transition from inventing great technology and moving it to the real world.Martin: Actually from my point of view, there are a lot of similarities between being a professor, entrepreneur or venture capitalist by building up hypothesis and testing them. The only thing is that, as a professor maybe you can only do the theoretical stuff, but as an entrepreneu r and a VC you also see the consequences.Alex: Well in a laboratory, you’re still isolated from the real world, you know. I worked on a project that was trying to create computer chips that ran on light. So, instead of electricity, the computer chip that runs on light. Thats a big idea, right. We were totally, I mean as a student I was totally unaware that Intel would just like totally control this market. Theres no hope for commercializing this technology as a small company.Had I known, had I come from the business background, I probably would have figured out earlier, right. But with that being said, you know, you do a lot of really cutting edge stuff in the lab, but you do it as sort of scale and with a sort of mentorship that doesnt really guide you down to the commercial route.  I think that we still have a lot of work to do on a model that transitions a laboratory research out into the real world. You know, Stanford over here has done a great job at it. MIT is doing a  good job, Harvard is doing a descent job, but there’s  still a lot of work to do. And I think coming from that world, I can I kind of walk in both pair of shoes if you will.I see some similarities, there’s a good amount of   hypothesis-driven testing you refer to, but the practicality is quite different. The emphasis here if its not valuable to customer, its not valuable to work on. Which is very different than academia.HIGHLAND CAPITAL PARTNERS INVESTMENT CRITERIAMartin: Let’s talk about Highland Capital Partners. What are the typical selection criteria for you to invest in a company? And maybe you can build some kind of matrix, depending on  ticket  size, industry, at what stage is the company, etc.Alex: Lots of different venture firms have different approaches. I think, we can talk about different stages of investing. At  Highland,  we are predominantly Series  A  investor. So were usually coming in as the first largest institutional investor in the company. Were usually the fi rst outside board director, thats not always the case, but its usually the case. We like to think that we have a mark on the early formation and growth of the company.  And at some point, more capital comes in and other board members come on board, but we like to be the trusted, kind of first person that makes a bet on a group of entrepreneurs.As such our criteria, different firms think about it differently. There are firms on this road here that focus a lot on market or they focus very much on the specifics of the product. I would say that my focus, and I think most of us here, tend to focus a lot on the team. We very much believe, that we want to be backing great founders who can really take it the whole way. So anytime, sort of a difficult exercise, cause youre thinking maybe 8, 9 years in the future, but we think that we have over 26 years to develop a decent pattern recognition on what makes founders really, the kind of people who can lead the whole way.  That doesnt mean that they always do, but we try to find those criteria. And if we look at our own history of our biggest wins as a firm, theyre usually the ones where the founders did go the whole way.So, what does that tell? For us, I think, in some sectors you need to bring to the table some sort of relevant expertise from that industry. Some sort of insight that you would have that a lay person thats walking into that business wouldnt have. I do think that having fresh perspective in some businesses is helpful. But if youre building a security software company, having a good history of knowing what features are valued by customers is really helpful because once you shipped your product, that  mission  is critical stuff, right.  So having the experience from the industry is very important.We often talk about magnetism, like with founders. Theres some people that, I dont know if youve met, but you just go, I really would love to work with that person. Theres a certain amount of optimism, a certain amo unt of what I call unflappableness. Someone who cant be taken off their path. And those types of people are very rare to find, but they believe in it so much themselves that other people are willing to take the risk and go with them on the journey. Thats something we look for.In some ways of shapes and forms that might be called leadership. But actually leadership has also some other characteristics as well. Leadership isnt just the ability to guide, get people to go on the journey with you, but its the ability to actually organize those people into a functioning organization.And so, even with very young founders, we look for people who have the ability to manage, who have the ability to partition the work and motivate and really help developed their employees.  This is not easy stuff. And its helpful if youve worked in a high function organization before and have seen these patterns, but even first time founders sometimes have a knack for that.If its a highly technical project, we look frankly for brilliant, world class engineers. The last company that I kind of let the investment for  Highland  is, the CTO is one of the guys who helped write Java. One of the other founders helped create MapReduce at Google. So we really look for people with world class technical talent, because what weve found is that there is, between a good engineer and a truly great engineer, theres like a whole order of magnitude in productivity. Its not just their productivity, its the other talent that they can attract to the team.  So when you back truly great people, they actually form this sucking sound in this industry where they get the best talent into that company. And that of course reinforces the companys success.Martin: How do you test this magnetism and on the other hand industry knowledge, given that you often times invest in companies that are trying to reshape an industry and which is most of the time you dont have direct insight in the industry as well?Alex: I mean the w ay we test the team aspect is, we do a lot of references. Ideally, the ideal situation is youve already worked for this person for 20 years, right. And you already have the evidence. It happens occasionally, every now and then. But a lot of times, teams come out of companies that were successful and start a new company. You may have known them by reputation, or you may know them socially, but youve never worked with them before.What we do there is, we do heavy, heavy deep reference checks. And we talk to lots of people that have worked with them, we talk to people that have work with them even like 20 years prior and we form in our own heads, a narrative about that persons career. And we try to understand what makes them successful, what are their strength, what are their weaknesses. And we form a thesis around the team.And, like I said, were not always right. But more often than not, we are. That often, when we are right, we actually find that those are the best companies. And so, personally when I go very deep on the team, and try to really understand, what theyre good at and what they need from us. And frankly, it helps us thinking about how we can be helpful as a partner. If this is a very strong technical team, but they dont really have a good business development sense, thats something we can try to bring to the table. We can try to find them someone. First of all, we can advice them on that. But we can also go try to find them someone to work in that function.So thats kind of how we  set that out.  I think the only thing you can do is, talk to people who have worked with them before and form an opinion about what they need.Martin: And how can you find out if some founder is really able to manage pivots? Like before, most of the time, the first year wont be the final idea when you execute a company.Alex: So that another great reason to back teams instead of  market sales. There is this idea that a great team will find a great market. The people that beli eve in the market say that, you could put Bill Gates and have him sell ice cream, and hell never build a 100 billion company because the market size for ice cream is only so big. Right.  So, its more of a religious  conviction,  but I think that great teams tend to find new opportunities.Weve had  companies in the past that started down on one direction and have made pivots into several, maybe several times, to the point where I think the good ones tend to stick in the same market, but they try to change the business model.So, a good example would be a portfolio company of ours called thredUP, which is an e-commerce company. When they started out, the idea was to basically to be able to exchange clothing with one another. So, you and I can trade our shirts, if we want to. That only has so much upside, because theres just not that many people whore willing to dig through other peoples closets and judge, I like that shirt has a little bit of stain on it, I really dont want that one, b ut Ill take that one. Its a lot of work for a consumer, right. And its actually a lot of work for a seller, because they have to figure out, they have to go take everything, photos and put it online.So, that company pivoted to become an e-commerce company. So meaning that theyll actually just buy things from you and they know what they can buy and what they shouldnt buy, and then they go sell it on the Internet. So for the consumer, it just looks like a normal e-commerce store. And for a seller, all they do is just put all their stuff they want to sell in a bag, and you send it in. They dont have to worry about it.  And thats when the business really took off. And thats when we invested.But the founders are 2 guys I went to business school with, and Ive known them for 5.5 years now. It took many years to really figure out what the right model was. But these guys, by the time they got there, they were experts on that market. There’s no one who knows that market better than these gu ys. And you have to be willing to support founders, while they figure that out because it sometimes not everything takes off right from the get go.We tried to back great people, who weve believed have the ability to figure what the right business is.Martin: Alex, Im very sure that you see so many pitches a year. Can you tell us a little bit about what makes a great pitch and then maybe tell us a little bit of some examples where you say, this was a great pitch because of X and this wasnt a good pitch because of Y?Alex: So any great pitch is a great story, right. The best pitchmen and pitchwomen are the best story tellers. So the best pitches Ive seen, have taken me through this opportunity. Youve got to get peoples attention right away. One of the things that kills me is, when people don’t tell you what the product is until half way through the deck. Tell me what youre building, tell me why youre building it, tell me why the world needs it. Take me on the journey, tell me who you are and why you guys are the most relevant people that actually go on this journey and convince me that its a journey worth going on together. And if you take that attitude as oppose to just kind of giving me a bunch of facts, I think that youre probably half way there. We of course, we decided if its a fit for us, but youll be surprised of how many people come in here and just regurgitate a bunch of facts about a market size and about product matrix  and stuff. And that works for later stage investors, whore more interested in just, I want to invest a dollar and get 3 dollars out.For us, were signing out for 8-9 years of work potentially, and we have to believe that this is going to change the world. We have to believe that any investment that we make is going to return our fund. Thats multi billion dollar company and to do that, you have to believe that its a generational type of opportunity. And for that, youll need to be able to tell us that story.Its not very specific feedback , but to be more specific, I think one of the most interesting thing Ive seen in the slide deck that I really liked, I really dont see this that often. It is the same company actually, thredUP. I remember when the CEO was pitching us, he said, heres what you have to believe to want to invest in my company. He said, if you dont believe these things you should not invest, and he listed them. And the interesting thing by doing that is, you kind of go through one-by-one, you go, Okay I believe that, I believe that, I believe that. And so like, then I should invest in the company.So he led me down this road and it was a very logical argument. I think more founders should take  that type of approach, where they are like, Look, theres a lot of risk in this venture. Heres what we believe. And if you believe what we believe, clearly theres a massive opportunity here. And it doesnt mean that were going to get there, we have to execute on it, but what we see is, look for is the optionality.Th ey look for, if the execution is good, can we actually have a huge opportunity? Its a huge upside. So thats what its all about. Its not about necessarily convincing them that theres no risk. Smart investors know theres risk. Its about convincing them that the upside is there. And for that, you need to believe in a certain set of things. If you dont believe them, youre not going to believe theres the upside.Martin: And when youre saying that, entrepreneurs tell you stories, do you mean that they should give you a big picture in terms of, Okay, in 5 to 10 years we would like to own that and that on that market, or do you want to say, This is what we want to do in the next 2 years?Alex: Theres the story, theres a combination, so heres what I say. Theres a 10 year road map. Like this is a 10 year vision, thats what I say. A 10 year vision and theres like a 6 month plan.  So youve got to believe in the 10 year vision, and you have to believe in the 6 month plan. Like whats the next logic al miles  from here to here.  So youve got to simultaneously sell both of those things.I remember when we have a company in our portfolio called 2U, which is an online education company that recently went public. I remember, the very first meeting with them, one of the founders said that, look theres plenty of online colleges you can go to, but they have the wrong incentives system. Like if you are, I dont know if you have this in Europe, but this for-profit education like  University  of  Phoenix, or Capella.Martin: Open university in the  UK, I guess.Alex: You borrow money from the government via Title IV, to go to school and then, so you load yourself up with debt as a student, and then you come out with a degree thats not that valuable actually, in a lot of cases. Or you may not even finish. Why is that an endemic problem? Well, its because they actually dont really have that much incentive for you to be a great, like have a great job and a great profession. Theyre kind of in a business of signing you up and covering their acquisition cost and then moving on to the next student. Thats how they make their money. And sure theyd like to keep paying your tuition, but if you ultimately not a successful in job market place, it doesnt really affect them.Whereas if you look at non-profit schools, like Harvard, or MIT or YALE or USC, or  Georgetown, whatever, great schools, theyre non-profits and their mission is just to educate people wholl go out into the world and have great careers. And they build their reputation on the fact that people are educated, and also can have a great career with the degree they get.And in particular with graduate degrees, its very, very tied to your career, because youve already graduated from college and youre going back to school because you want  to get to the next level in your career.So, instead of building another online school, lets go build a company that helps bring these non-profits on the internet, because then they can tak e their mission and take it global. You can go from being the number 10 program in your field to being the number 1, and we can help give you those tools to go online.  Were now align with our school partners. So to me, it was a very compelling vision of the future. I think in every vision of the future, where it actually ends up in retrospect working, its always a bit controversial when you first hear it.Like today, this was like 2009 or something when we first heard this. Today, online education is like, kind of going mainstream. Back then, it was not. So there was a lot of controversy. Will school sign up for this? Will school want online students coming to their universities? Will that dilute our brand? And it turns out, it was the best thing in the world for their brand. Because they basically, you know, there are students around the world that never heard of these guys and now theyre getting degrees and now theyre going into workplace and  people are seeing that on their resu me.So, its a transforming of a company but it was very controversial at the time, and require you to think differently, but the story made sense. If you believe this, if we can get there, this is a massive opportunity because were the first online education company that actually aligns with the students for outcomes.ADVICE TO ENTREPRENEURS FROM ALEX TAUSSIG In Palo Alto we talked with venture capitalist Alex Taussig about the investment process and investment criteria at Highland Capital Partners. Furthermore, Alex shares his learnings and advice for young entrepreneurs.The transcript of the interview is provided below.INTRODUCTIONMartin: Hi, today we are in  Menlo Park,  in the Highland Capital Partners office with Alex. Alex, who are you and what do you do?Alex: Haha Hi, good to have you guys here. My name is Alex Taussig, Im a ventures capitals partner at Highland Capital Partners. We are a 26 year old venture capital firm with offices all around the world, and we invest in early stage technology companies. So, thats both enterprise companies, everything from infrastructure software to application software to consumer internet companies, market places, social media, all that kind of stuff. So, weve been around, as I said, for a while.In  Boston,  we have our offices where we started the firm. We also have our office out here, as well as in  Geneva  and in  Shanghai.Martin: Great! Awesome.Martin: Can you tell us a little bit about your background? What did you do before you started being a venture capitalist?Alex: So I have a bit of unconventional background in some sense. For a long time growing up, I thought I was going to be a professor. So I was on an academic track for the most of my life. Started labs when I was a teenager and did a lot different types of research expose into a lot of different technology in bioinformatics, computer vision. I ended up doing physics and materials engineering. Physics is an undergrad and then materials engineering as a grad student at MIT.It was some point during the grad school days, I got a little bit bored of research. Its a bit of a slower pace than we find in the startup world. And at the same time, Ive known a lot of folks that I went to college with at Harvard, who had come out to the Valley to start a companies or a lot of them at that point of time, theyre actually going to Microsoft and then come to the Valley. That would seem to be a lot of pattern. And I was at Harvard when Facebook started, so it was part of this generation of sort of new entrepreneurs and decided that I wanted to be part of that in someway. And at the time, someone had told me about venture capital, which is sort of this of interesting intermediary between people that make the technology and the financial markets. And having grown up in New York City, and been in around the finance community in my whole life, I thought it would be a nice marriage of my passions for sort of helping capitalized businesses and then also working with technologists to help bringing their stuff out of the lab, out of the confined of small, little dimly-lit rooms into the real world and serving customers. So I decided to venture capital, Id like to  learn more about what that was.So I ended up going to business school. I left MIT, got out of PhD program and decided to get a Masters instead, so I wrote my thesis. And then I went over to HBS,  Harvard  Business  School  and joined  Highland  out of business school.So Ive been with  Highland  for about 5.5 years now. And started working in our  Boston  office with one of our founders very closely. So that was sort of my apprenticeship, if you will. I worked very closely with him on a number of companies in the security software space, dataware housing. We invested in a robotics company, which I’m happy to talk about. Its pretty cool stuff.So we like really technically complex problems and really amazing engineering founders. And thats really what Ive been doing pretty much ever since. And I moved out here about 2.5 years ago to help build our West Coast office. And thats kind of what Ive been doing. But Im sort of a career venture capitalist and Im inspired by great innovations and great engineers. Id like to help them explore their transition from inventing great technology and moving it to the real world.Martin: Actually from my point of view, there are a lot of similarities between being a professor, entrepreneur or venture capitalist by building up hypothesis and testing them. The only thing is that, as a professor maybe you can only do the theoretical stuff, but as an entrepreneur and a VC you also see the consequences.Alex: Well in a laboratory, you’re still isolated from the real world, you know. I worked on a project that was trying to create computer chips that ran on light. So, instead of electricity, the computer chip that runs on light. Thats a big idea, right. We were totally, I mean as a student I was totally unaware that Intel would just like totally control this market. Theres no hope for commercializing this technology as a small company.Had I known, had I come from the business background, I probably would have figured out earlier, right. But with that being said, you know, you do a lot of really cutting edge stuff in the lab, but you do it as sort of scale and with a sort of ment orship that doesnt really guide you down to the commercial route.  I think that we still have a lot of work to do on a model that transitions a laboratory research out into the real world. You know, Stanford over here has done a great job at it. MIT is doing a  good job, Harvard is doing a descent job, but there’s  still a lot of work to do. And I think coming from that world, I can I kind of walk in both pair of shoes if you will.I see some similarities, there’s a good amount of   hypothesis-driven testing you refer to, but the practicality is quite different. The emphasis here if its not valuable to customer, its not valuable to work on. Which is very different than academia.HIGHLAND CAPITAL PARTNERS INVESTMENT CRITERIAMartin: Let’s talk about Highland Capital Partners. What are the typical selection criteria for you to invest in a company? And maybe you can build some kind of matrix, depending on  ticket  size, industry, at what stage is the company, etc.Alex: Lots of diff erent venture firms have different approaches. I think, we can talk about different stages of investing. At  Highland,  we are predominantly Series  A  investor. So were usually coming in as the first largest institutional investor in the company. Were usually the first outside board director, thats not always the case, but its usually the case. We like to think that we have a mark on the early formation and growth of the company.  And at some point, more capital comes in and other board members come on board, but we like to be the trusted, kind of first person that makes a bet on a group of entrepreneurs.As such our criteria, different firms think about it differently. There are firms on this road here that focus a lot on market or they focus very much on the specifics of the product. I would say that my focus, and I think most of us here, tend to focus a lot on the team. We very much believe, that we want to be backing great founders who can really take it the whole way. So anyti me, sort of a difficult exercise, cause youre thinking maybe 8, 9 years in the future, but we think that we have over 26 years to develop a decent pattern recognition on what makes founders really, the kind of people who can lead the whole way.  That doesnt mean that they always do, but we try to find those criteria. And if we look at our own history of our biggest wins as a firm, theyre usually the ones where the founders did go the whole way.So, what does that tell? For us, I think, in some sectors you need to bring to the table some sort of relevant expertise from that industry. Some sort of insight that you would have that a lay person thats walking into that business wouldnt have. I do think that having fresh perspective in some businesses is helpful. But if youre building a security software company, having a good history of knowing what features are valued by customers is really helpful because once you shipped your product, that  mission  is critical stuff, right.  So having the experience from the industry is very important.We often talk about magnetism, like with founders. Theres some people that, I dont know if youve met, but you just go, I really would love to work with that person. Theres a certain amount of optimism, a certain amount of what I call unflappableness. Someone who cant be taken off their path. And those types of people are very rare to find, but they believe in it so much themselves that other people are willing to take the risk and go with them on the journey. Thats something we look for.In some ways of shapes and forms that might be called leadership. But actually leadership has also some other characteristics as well. Leadership isnt just the ability to guide, get people to go on the journey with you, but its the ability to actually organize those people into a functioning organization.And so, even with very young founders, we look for people who have the ability to manage, who have the ability to partition the work and motivate a nd really help developed their employees.  This is not easy stuff. And its helpful if youve worked in a high function organization before and have seen these patterns, but even first time founders sometimes have a knack for that.If its a highly technical project, we look frankly for brilliant, world class engineers. The last company that I kind of let the investment for  Highland  is, the CTO is one of the guys who helped write Java. One of the other founders helped create MapReduce at Google. So we really look for people with world class technical talent, because what weve found is that there is, between a good engineer and a truly great engineer, theres like a whole order of magnitude in productivity. Its not just their productivity, its the other talent that they can attract to the team.  So when you back truly great people, they actually form this sucking sound in this industry where they get the best talent into that company. And that of course reinforces the companys success.M artin: How do you test this magnetism and on the other hand industry knowledge, given that you often times invest in companies that are trying to reshape an industry and which is most of the time you dont have direct insight in the industry as well?Alex: I mean the way we test the team aspect is, we do a lot of references. Ideally, the ideal situation is youve already worked for this person for 20 years, right. And you already have the evidence. It happens occasionally, every now and then. But a lot of times, teams come out of companies that were successful and start a new company. You may have known them by reputation, or you may know them socially, but youve never worked with them before.What we do there is, we do heavy, heavy deep reference checks. And we talk to lots of people that have worked with them, we talk to people that have work with them even like 20 years prior and we form in our own heads, a narrative about that persons career. And we try to understand what makes them successful, what are their strength, what are their weaknesses. And we form a thesis around the team.And, like I said, were not always right. But more often than not, we are. That often, when we are right, we actually find that those are the best companies. And so, personally when I go very deep on the team, and try to really understand, what theyre good at and what they need from us. And frankly, it helps us thinking about how we can be helpful as a partner. If this is a very strong technical team, but they dont really have a good business development sense, thats something we can try to bring to the table. We can try to find them someone. First of all, we can advice them on that. But we can also go try to find them someone to work in that function.So thats kind of how we  set that out.  I think the only thing you can do is, talk to people who have worked with them before and form an opinion about what they need.Martin: And how can you find out if some founder is really able to ma nage pivots? Like before, most of the time, the first year wont be the final idea when you execute a company.Alex: So that another great reason to back teams instead of  market sales. There is this idea that a great team will find a great market. The people that believe in the market say that, you could put Bill Gates and have him sell ice cream, and hell never build a 100 billion company because the market size for ice cream is only so big. Right.  So, its more of a religious  conviction,  but I think that great teams tend to find new opportunities.Weve had  companies in the past that started down on one direction and have made pivots into several, maybe several times, to the point where I think the good ones tend to stick in the same market, but they try to change the business model.So, a good example would be a portfolio company of ours called thredUP, which is an e-commerce company. When they started out, the idea was to basically to be able to exchange clothing with one another . So, you and I can trade our shirts, if we want to. That only has so much upside, because theres just not that many people whore willing to dig through other peoples closets and judge, I like that shirt has a little bit of stain on it, I really dont want that one, but Ill take that one. Its a lot of work for a consumer, right. And its actually a lot of work for a seller, because they have to figure out, they have to go take everything, photos and put it online.So, that company pivoted to become an e-commerce company. So meaning that theyll actually just buy things from you and they know what they can buy and what they shouldnt buy, and then they go sell it on the Internet. So for the consumer, it just looks like a normal e-commerce store. And for a seller, all they do is just put all their stuff they want to sell in a bag, and you send it in. They dont have to worry about it.  And thats when the business really took off. And thats when we invested.But the founders are 2 guys I went to business school with, and Ive known them for 5.5 years now. It took many years to really figure out what the right model was. But these guys, by the time they got there, they were experts on that market. There’s no one who knows that market better than these guys. And you have to be willing to support founders, while they figure that out because it sometimes not everything takes off right from the get go.We tried to back great people, who weve believed have the ability to figure what the right business is.Martin: Alex, Im very sure that you see so many pitches a year. Can you tell us a little bit about what makes a great pitch and then maybe tell us a little bit of some examples where you say, this was a great pitch because of X and this wasnt a good pitch because of Y?Alex: So any great pitch is a great story, right. The best pitchmen and pitchwomen are the best story tellers. So the best pitches Ive seen, have taken me through this opportunity. Youve got to get peoples atten tion right away. One of the things that kills me is, when people don’t tell you what the product is until half way through the deck. Tell me what youre building, tell me why youre building it, tell me why the world needs it. Take me on the journey, tell me who you are and why you guys are the most relevant people that actually go on this journey and convince me that its a journey worth going on together. And if you take that attitude as oppose to just kind of giving me a bunch of facts, I think that youre probably half way there. We of course, we decided if its a fit for us, but youll be surprised of how many people come in here and just regurgitate a bunch of facts about a market size and about product matrix  and stuff. And that works for later stage investors, whore more interested in just, I want to invest a dollar and get 3 dollars out.For us, were signing out for 8-9 years of work potentially, and we have to believe that this is going to change the world. We have to believe that any investment that we make is going to return our fund. Thats multi billion dollar company and to do that, you have to believe that its a generational type of opportunity. And for that, youll need to be able to tell us that story.Its not very specific feedback, but to be more specific, I think one of the most interesting thing Ive seen in the slide deck that I really liked, I really dont see this that often. It is the same company actually, thredUP. I remember when the CEO was pitching us, he said, heres what you have to believe to want to invest in my company. He said, if you dont believe these things you should not invest, and he listed them. And the interesting thing by doing that is, you kind of go through one-by-one, you go, Okay I believe that, I believe that, I believe that. And so like, then I should invest in the company.So he led me down this road and it was a very logical argument. I think more founders should take  that type of approach, where they are like, Look , theres a lot of risk in this venture. Heres what we believe. And if you believe what we believe, clearly theres a massive opportunity here. And it doesnt mean that were going to get there, we have to execute on it, but what we see is, look for is the optionality.They look for, if the execution is good, can we actually have a huge opportunity? Its a huge upside. So thats what its all about. Its not about necessarily convincing them that theres no risk. Smart investors know theres risk. Its about convincing them that the upside is there. And for that, you need to believe in a certain set of things. If you dont believe them, youre not going to believe theres the upside.Martin: And when youre saying that, entrepreneurs tell you stories, do you mean that they should give you a big picture in terms of, Okay, in 5 to 10 years we would like to own that and that on that market, or do you want to say, This is what we want to do in the next 2 years?Alex: Theres the story, theres a combinatio n, so heres what I say. Theres a 10 year road map. Like this is a 10 year vision, thats what I say. A 10 year vision and theres like a 6 month plan.  So youve got to believe in the 10 year vision, and you have to believe in the 6 month plan. Like whats the next logical miles  from here to here.  So youve got to simultaneously sell both of those things.I remember when we have a company in our portfolio called 2U, which is an online education company that recently went public. I remember, the very first meeting with them, one of the founders said that, look theres plenty of online colleges you can go to, but they have the wrong incentives system. Like if you are, I dont know if you have this in Europe, but this for-profit education like  University  of  Phoenix, or Capella.Martin: Open university in the  UK, I guess.Alex: You borrow money from the government via Title IV, to go to school and then, so you load yourself up with debt as a student, and then you come out with a degree that s not that valuable actually, in a lot of cases. Or you may not even finish. Why is that an endemic problem? Well, its because they actually dont really have that much incentive for you to be a great, like have a great job and a great profession. Theyre kind of in a business of signing you up and covering their acquisition cost and then moving on to the next student. Thats how they make their money. And sure theyd like to keep paying your tuition, but if you ultimately not a successful in job market place, it doesnt really affect them.Whereas if you look at non-profit schools, like Harvard, or MIT or YALE or USC, or  Georgetown, whatever, great schools, theyre non-profits and their mission is just to educate people wholl go out into the world and have great careers. And they build their reputation on the fact that people are educated, and also can have a great career with the degree they get.And in particular with graduate degrees, its very, very tied to your career, because youve a lready graduated from college and youre going back to school because you want  to get to the next level in your career.So, instead of building another online school, lets go build a company that helps bring these non-profits on the internet, because then they can take their mission and take it global. You can go from being the number 10 program in your field to being the number 1, and we can help give you those tools to go online.  Were now align with our school partners. So to me, it was a very compelling vision of the future. I think in every vision of the future, where it actually ends up in retrospect working, its always a bit controversial when you first hear it.Like today, this was like 2009 or something when we first heard this. Today, online education is like, kind of going mainstream. Back then, it was not. So there was a lot of controversy. Will school sign up for this? Will school want online students coming to their universities? Will that dilute our brand? And it turns out, it was the best thing in the world for their brand. Because they basically, you know, there are students around the world that never heard of these guys and now theyre getting degrees and now theyre going into workplace and  people are seeing that on their resume.So, its a transforming of a company but it was very controversial at the time, and require you to think differently, but the story made sense. If you believe this, if we can get there, this is a massive opportunity because were the first online education company that actually aligns with the students for outcomes.ADVICE TO ENTREPRENEURS FROM ALEX TAUSSIGMartin: Alex, imagine a friend of yours or a friend of friend of yours comes to you and says, Alex, I would like to start a company. What would be the best advice that you would give him, in terms of financing the company or maybe setting up a team, or later on, after he finds a managing relationship with the board?Alex: First thing Id say is, why do you want to start a company. So starting a company is really, really hard. Its almost impossible to describe it, how hard it is to most people.I guess starting a venture backed kind of company is extremely hard. You have no resources, its incredibly difficult for people to hear your cause, its hard to get that initial traction, and you devote so much of your life to actually making this work. And you put yourself and your ego and all that stuff into it, your blood, sweat and tears. For something that will, you know, probabilistically not worked out. And by the way, if you are really good, youre probably leaving some job that was very high paying and some lifestyle that youre really accustomed to go and do this.So, its like a very, very difficult thing to do and I actually think that starting a company is not the right choice for most people. I don’t believe that most people are founders or have the ability to be founders. But I also believe, that in this culture we have right now, what seems to be very popular to romanticized people whove founded companies, that a lot of people think they are that person.So the first thing I tell people is just do a  gut check. Its just to basically say, am I willing. Here’s what I would tell people. Are you willing to work on this idea for 2 years with no traction. Like if youre willing to do it for 2 years with 0 traction, then you probably have the grid and the fortitude to actually make it the whole way. Because I have a lot of friends who have started a very successful companies, for which the first 2 years of that, they had nothing.What separates them from everyone else that went by the way side, was the fact they actually stuck with it. So youve got to be able to do that. If you can do that, youve a  higher chance of being successful. So thats the first thing I would say to them is, do you want to spend 2 years of your life on something that potentially have 0, 0 traction and still want to go for it. So thats what I would say.Martin : Okay. Great! And in terms of financing, what would you recommend to your friend? He is very young and he’s trying to set up a not that much capital intensive business.Alex: The first round should honestly, I mean, I had some good advice from a professor in business school. Business school is funny. You dont remember a lot of the stuff youre told, but every now and then, theres a little nugget that sticks in your head. And this one is always stuck in my head. Which was, the person who is likely to write you the first check, is not going to do it because of your business, theyre going to do it because of you.So theyre going to do it because they want to see you succeed. So I think the first thing you should do if you are financing a company, when youre just starting it, is go find the people who want you to be successful and will back you because its you. So get those people. Then, the next people you get, should be extremely high profile and have a great reputation in the industr y youre focused on.So instead of trying to go out and  raise money from like 100 random people, focus on like the 10 highly relevant people. Because it turns out the way fundraising works is once you get 1 or 2 of those people, everyone else will want to be in the round. So you spend 80% of your effort on the really relevant, highly visible people.  Once you get them, its like going bowling. All the other pins will just start to fall over.So thats usually the advice I gave people at that stage.I would honestly take money from as few individuals as you can and still be able to raise enough. The more people you add to the cap table, the more angry phone calls you have to deal with, Wheres my money? Oh, how you guys doing? Often times the most annoying ones are the angry ones, its the, Hey, how are things going? can I come and check it out? You dont want to manage a lot of, a lot of people. You want to have a low maintenance investors and have as few of them as possible, in my view.Ma rtin: Because you want to focus on the building the business and not on managing the investors relationship.Alex: Fundraising for most entrepreneurs is a nuisance. There are some that actually enjoy it. They tend to also be very good at it. But most people I know, really dislike fundraising and would prefer not to spend a lot of time on it. And I think thats probably right.When I meet people and interested in investing in the company, I tell them, look heres what I need to do to get to the point where were going to decide were going to make an investment, and I want to use your time as judiciously possible, because I know this is not the fun part. The fun part is building the business. And then when I go on the board, were going to have a long, long relationship to work together. So right now is the time where we need to fill each other out and I need you to answer some questions. So I think good investors will be judicious with their use of your time and bad investor will waste you r time.Martin: Alex, you have seen so many startups. What learnings or mistakes have you seen when young entrepreneurs are trying to scale the company?Alex: Ill tell you a couple of things.I mean theres the classic trying to scale your company before you’re really truly a product market fit. Investing a lot of dollars behind, say, a paid marketing campaign, when you really dont even know what your contribution margins are, or if thats not the relevant matrix, when you dont know the type of users youre trying to acquire. Doesnt make a lot of sense. Theres always, test you can perform but really scaling on those efforts prematurely that can burn through a lot of cash very quickly.  Ideally, when youre in that early stage, the cash youre spending is really should be going to support your team, not in much else.One other thing is, Ive seen is relying on business development to drive early traction. It turns out that other people are never going to be as good at selling you product as you will. If youre going to rely on channels or partnerships to push your product through, its really, really chunky and its really difficult to motivate those parties to actually work hard for you, because they have a ton of other parties as well.  So, Im not a big fan of channel businesses early on, Im not a big fan of businesses that are driven by business development partnerships early on. I think, you need to find a way as a startup to control your own destiny in some sense. Develop direct relationship with your customers or your users and figure out how to get those people to actually help you grow.So, Ive seen those mistakes probably most often with regard to scaling.Martin: Alex, thank you very much for your time. Next time you are pitching Alex, now you  know  how great  pitch looks like and please consider that. Thank you very much.

Arizona Law 1070 Free Essay Example, 1000 words

In its essence, Senate Bill 1070 requires from the state and local police enforcement to investigate the immigration status of anyone they reasonably suspect as an illegal immigrant. This investigation could be done only during lawful contact, meaning that police officers cannot conduct it based solely on anyone’s appearance. Parts of the law, the most controversial ones, were struck down by a Federal Judge Susan Bolton in late July. Her ruling does not allow police to check the immigration status of Arizona’s citizens in the course of enforcing other laws. The ruling, also, does not require individuals to carry the proof of status with them and it allows illegal aliens to apply for work and work in the U. S. Nevertheless, the question how to implement the law without possible racial profiling issues, keeps lingering and keeps fueling the debate that fascinates the whole country. Timeline of SB 1070 January 2010: State Rep. Russell Pearce introduces Senate Bill 1070.(Pearce’s son was shot and wounded by an illegal immigrant) February: SB 1070 passes Senate 17-13. April 13: Amended version of SB 1070 passes House 35-21. We will write a custom essay sample on Arizona Law 1070 or any topic specifically for you Only $17.96 $11.86/pageorder now April 19: Senate gives final approval to amended SB 1070 with vote of 17-11. Bill goes to governor. April 23: Brewer signs SB 1070 into law. April 29: Three separate lawsuits challenging laws constitutionality are filed in federal court. April 30: Brewer signs into law SB 2650, which makes changes to SB 1070. May 5 : Phoenix Suns wear their los suns jerseys. Few days before singer Shakira in Phoenix May 12: Phoenix excluded as an site for GOP convention June 3: Jan Brewer meets President Obama July 6: Justice Department files lawsuit July 28: Federal judge strikes down parts of law July 29: Arizonas new immigration law goes into effect. Voicing their opinions, along with politicians and lawmakers, are many advocacy groups. Since SB 1070 sparked many fears among legal immigrants and U. S. citizens of Hispanic origin that they will be hassled by police because the way they look, the most staunch opposition to the law comes from various Hispanic organizations. The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund and National Coalition of Latino Clergy and Christian Leaders Legal Defense Fund were just two that plan to challenge the law in court. So, the battle goes on. State of Arizona, as stated by Governor Jan Brewer is not going to quit, because this fight is the fight for America. President Obama and his administration are not backing down either.

Why Cancer Research Is Important. Essay - 1668 Words

e number of deaths from cancer continues to increase each year. Cancer is a disease has touched every family at least once. It is a disease that can kill you in a matter of years or months. There are several different types of cancer, some of which both men and women can be diagnosed with and some of which only one sex can actually be diagnosed with. Today researchers are finding more and more advances into what causes cancer. I myself am a cancer survivor and my treatment at the time in 1992 was considered experimental. My older brother who is now 32 years old was diagnosed with Childhood Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia, when he was 2 years old; he too was a part of a research study that he is still participating in today. Cancer research is†¦show more content†¦There is several different method of treatment for cancer. The Method that a patient would receive is based on the form of cancer and the patient. The main fact taken into consideration when determining the best treat is the severity of the cancer. What stage and the type of cancer are also considered when researching the best method of treatment. A patient’s age is also a big factor in what method a patient is considered for. Chemotherapy is the most commonly used form of treatment used to fight cancer. Over half of all patients that are diagnosed with cancer receive this form of treatment. There are several different methods that this drug can be administered. It can be given by IV, oral drugs, rectally or all three can be used at the same time. Many of the chemotherapy treatments lead to hair loss during the course of the treatment (www.medicalonline.com, 1997). One other major form of treatment would be radiation therapy. The method â€Å"zaps† the cancer from the body by focusing on the infected area. It damages the existing cancer cells and discourages new cells from growing. The method of treatment can be given to a patient externally exposing the affected area with high levels of radiations. There are also implants that can be placed under the skin thatShow MoreRelatedA Lecture And Readings Of The Screening For Cancer Unit1019 Words   |  5 Pagesfor Cancer unit were somewhat overwhelming but extremely important and fascinating to say the least. As I shared with some of my classmates in past courses, oncology is my second clinical passion as a physical therapist, after pediatrics. I worked for 11 years in a cancer hospital. I believe that professional experience impacted me as a clinician and at a personal level in ways that are almost impossible to describe. Currently, in our pediatric practice we have two children combating c ancer. WhenRead MoreSusan G. Komen For The Cure1157 Words   |  5 Pagesbreast cancers occur in women who have NO (make sure to emphasize) family history of breast cancer. This disease occurs mainly in women but men can also get it. b. Why should we care? According to (Bender, 2012) 40,000 women and approximately 390 men will die this year from breast cancer. Cancer does not discriminate; it could be someone you know. It could be you. c. d. According to breastcancer.org, Breast Cancer is the most common cancer among women worldwide and the second most common cancer overallRead MoreResearch Papet1558 Words   |  7 Pagescervical cancer. Those cells, called HeLa cells, quickly became invaluable to medical research-though their donor remained a mystery for decades. In her new book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, journalist Rebecca Skloot tracks down the story of the source of the amazing HeLa cells, Henrietta Lacks, and documents the cell lines impact on both modern medicine and the Lacks family. Who was Henrietta Lacks? She was a black tobacco farmer from southern Virginia who got cervical cancer when sheRead MoreOvarian Cancer : Cancer And Cancer988 Words   |  4 Pages Ovarian cancer is a disease in which malignant or cancerous cells are found in the ovaries. The ovaries are two small organs that are located on each side of the uterus. The way cancer develops is when cells begin to grow out of control. Cancer cells are different from normal cells because they continue to grow and instead of dying, they create abnormal cells that form into a tumor. Woman around age 35-74, ovarian cancer is the fifth leading cause of death. The earlier this cancer is treated theRead MoreIgnorance Vs. Intelligence : Animal Experimentation And Life Saving Medical Technology952 Words   |  4 Pagesto as animal testing, animal research, and/or biomedical testing. Albert Sabin, who developed the Polio vaccine said, â€Å"Without animal research, polio would still be claiming thousands of lives each year.† a nd Dr. Robert Palazzo, President of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) stated that â€Å"Americans are living longer, healthier lives and we owe much of that success to biomedical research.† (Forty reasons why we need animals in research, 2014). Animal experimentationRead MoreA Study On The Cancer Genome Atlas Project1544 Words   |  7 Pagestime. For example, cancer is a collection of diseases that has many types, and what it does is that cells in some parts of the human body starts to grow out of control. Also these cells are different form normal cells because cancer cells don’t die they keep growing and dividing. Most of the people around the world think of this disease as a terrifying disease, they also think of cancer as an untreatable disease that has no cure. Furthermore, people can also get diagnosed by cancer from developing aRead MoreCancer Is The Largest Revenue Generator Of American Traditional Medicine1180 Words   |à ‚  5 Pagesâ€Å"Cancer is now the largest revenue generator in American Traditional medicine. â€Å" (Garcia M.D.) Alternative medicines are more effective than chemotherapy and radiation with far better side effects. Not only has chemotherapy been proven non-effective on many cancers, and it also comes with deadly side effects. Chemotherapy has been found to be nearly as effective as spontaneous remission. According to the Scientific American Journal, studies as early as 1985 have proven chemotherapy to be only 3%Read MoreThere Are Numerous Holistic Sources That Claim To Be Healing1251 Words   |  6 Pagesto be healing cancer with varying degrees of success. A few of these report success greater than 90 percent of the time. I have spent years researching and finding the best information available, and have compiled a list of the most important considerations relevant to cancer. I present here a distillation of these factors, as well as a brief exploration of some approaches that would be more likely to fail so these can be avoided. This article will cover four basic areas: o How and Why the FDA hasRead MoreEssay about Alternative Cancer Treatment1011 Words   |  5 PagesAlternative Cancer Treatment Today, many psychologists feel that psychological therapy can give cancer patients’ a longer life. The first to take this stance was Psychiatrist David Spiegel M.D., of Stanford University School of Medicine, in a 1989 study Spiegel gathered patients once a week to discuss there feelings about the cancer and here they received support from other cancer sufferers. â€Å"When Spiegel followed up a decade later, he discovered that patients who had participated in the sessionsRead MoreA Research Field On My Life Career996 Words   |  4 Pages Research is a very important aspect of any professional field that many students fail to notice. As far as my understanding, backbone of any professional field consists of two important parts, the academic part; knowledge and practical aspect, and the research part. The academic part helps the professionals to apply the knowledge in the practical life, but the research part is the one that provides all the knowledge and does mostly all the behind the scene work. That is why it would be preferred

Steven Spielberg Free Essays

I’m Steven Spielberg and I was born in Cincinnati on December 18, 1947, but I was mainly raised in New Jersey and Arizona. When I was 12 years old I used my dads 8mm camcorder and made a movie. I continued to make films with the camcorder for five more years until I went on a trip to Universal Studios. We will write a custom essay sample on Steven Spielberg or any similar topic only for you Order Now I was 17 years old and I broke away from the main tourist group to see the sound stages. I bumped into the head of Universal’s editorial department, Chuck Silvers. We talked for about an hour and he wanted to see some of my 8mm films. When I showed them to him he said they were good but he could only wish me luck. So the next day I put on a suit and borrowed my fathers suitcase and walked in the front gate of Universal Studio’s like I did it every day. One reason I got away with this is because the guard thought I was the owners son. I bought some plastic name tags at a camera store and I found an empty office. Then I put my name in the building directory. Everyday that summer I hung out with directors, writers, and editors. After talking to all of these movie makers I found out that nobody really liked my movies. The next fall I asked some of the executives at Universal how I can get my films noticed. They said I hould put my films on 16 or 35mm film. So I did. I made a 20 minute movie about a boy and a girl hitch-hiking from the dessert to the Pacific. The day after it was shown at Universal, Sidney Sheinberg, the head of Universal’s T. V. production department, gave me a seven year contract to work on T. V. series. The first few years of the contract were fun, but after a while I didn’t want to direct T. V. shows. In 1971 I got a chance to make my first real movie. It was Called Duel and it was about a salesman who was harassed by a truck driver. Even though the movie didn’t make much money and wasn’t popular, it was my first ovie and I had a lot of fun. During the next 10 years I directed 4 of the top 10 movies ever made, including Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and E. T. which is number one. E. T. – The Extra Terrestrial made $720 million dollars worldwide in the theaters and over a billion dollars total with video sales. Some other movies I directed were, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Jurassic Park, Always, and The Sugarland Express. Even though my most famous movies I made I directed, I also produced quite a few movies, including Poltergeist, Gremlins 1 and 2, all 3 Back to the Futures, and The Goonies. After my success at the movie theaters, I wanted to do a program on television. I chose Amazing Stories which allowed me to put my childhood stories on T. V. The show didn’t get very good reviews and people didn’t watch it. So the series was canceled after 24 episodes, 20 short from what was planned. I’ve been very successful in my career. The films I’ve made in the past have been entertaining to both children and adults. I now plan to start making more adult films. I hope to continue to amuse and entertain my audiences for many years to come. How to cite Steven Spielberg, Essay examples

Potrayol of Gandhi in Waiting for Mahatma free essay sample

Vol. I, Writers Workshop,  Calcutta. p. 86). On page 123 of his  My Dateless Diary  Narayan  has recorded that a young American novelist, to whom he had given this novel to read, remarked that â€Å"we don’t learn anything about Mahatma Gandhi from it,† a view many Indian readers would perhaps readily endorse. For us Indians the mere mention of Gandhi’s name conjures up the vision of a â€Å"man of God† who â€Å"trod on earth†, as Nehru described him in one of his speeches after Gandhi’s death. He was  acclaimed  a  Mahatma  and worshipped as an  Avatar.Exasperated by  Narayan’s  handling of Gandhi in  WFM  my  teacher Prof. C. D. Narasimhaiah  had even suggested that  Narayan  would have done well to withdraw it from circulation  (The Swan and the Eagle. Indian Institute of Advanced Studies,  Simla. 1969. p. 155). There is no gainsaying at all that  WFM,  for all its readability, is  indeed  unsatisfactory and disappointing as a novel. We will write a custom essay sample on Potrayol of Gandhi in Waiting for Mahatma or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page But if we could see it for what it really is in itself, we would be able to arrive at a fair assessment of it as well as  Narayan’s  handling of the  Gandhian  motif in it.The first thing to note about  WFM  is that it is  not  a â€Å"Gandhi-Novel† as one is very likely to assume it to be. Uma  Parameswaran, for instance, has asserted: â€Å"It is aGandhian  novel.. . and the theme is  Gandhism. †Ã‚  (A  Study  of Representative Indo-English Novelists. Vikas  Publishing House,  New Delhi. 1976. p. 65) But  Narayan  has not written one such, although once again he uses with considerable subtlety the  Gandhian  motif in his later novel  The Vendor of Sweets  (1967). Nor is  WFM  a â€Å"political novel†, properly so called.Some of the strongest strictures against it have sprung from these assumptions. But the readers are not wholly to blame. For the title of the novel rouses several expectations, especially regarding the Mahatma, which unfortunately are belied. Had  Narayan  chosen a different and less assuming title without the Mahatma in it, the readers’ response would have been less  unfavourable, if only because many of the expectations roused by the present title and disappointed by the novel would not have been there at all.WFM  cannot be called a political novel, though several political happenings between the First World War and Gandhi’s assassination are referred to in the  course  of the novel. As is his wont,  Narayan  aims at telling a straightforward story of some people belonging to  Malgudi, the town of his mythical imagination. Briefly,  WFM  tells the story of two young people of  Malgudi,  Sriram  and  Bharathi. Sriram  is an orphaned young man brought up without a care by his pampering grand-mother, who makes over to him on his twentieth birthday a considerable fortune.He is shaken out of his life of complacency and stagnation when he gets to know  Bharathi, a  Gandhian  volunteer. She too is an orphaned  child. Her father had been shot dead white offering  satyagraha  against the British during the Non-Co-operation movement of 1920. She, who was just an infant then, was adopted and brought up by the  Sevak  Sangh, a  Gandhian  institution, as a foster-daughter to Gandhi. Sriram  and  Bharathi  happen to fall in love with each other. It is they who wait for the Mahatma at the  Birla  Mandir  in  New Delhi  to obtain his final consent for their marriage.Thus  WFM  is actually the love story ofSriram  and  Bharathi  told against the background of the  Gandhian  decades of  India’s struggle for freedom. It also tells how  Sriram’s  love for  Bharathi  sustains him throughout the ups and downs of his life since his joining the freedom struggle. This aspect of the novel has to be sufficiently  emphasised  to see it in perspective. Narayan  introduces into this fictional world Mahatma Gandhi as one of the characters and gives him considerable importance in it. In doing so  Narayan  was taking a very great risk.For Gandhi is too large a subject to be ushered into a small-scale novel. And there are other attendant problems for the novelist. Although  Narayan  attempted this novel some years after Gandhi’s, death, still he was much too close in time to Gandhi to view him with sufficient artistic detachment. The next major problem for him is one of balancing properly the  Sriram-Bharathi  motif and the Gandhi motif in the novel. It is a commonplace that  Narayan  as novelist is almost invariably interested in people who are average and ordinary and in studying their relationships.That is at once the strength as well as the limitation of his art. Sriram  and  Bharathi  of  WFM  are of this kind. The problem for the novelist is, what particular aspects of Gandhi’s life and person  should he  include in the novel to be at once historically authentic and aesthetically consistent with the rest of the novel. Gandhi was not only â€Å"a giant among men†, as  Radhakrishan  described him, but in the eyes of the millions of his countrymen a saint, a Mahatma, a living legend, inspiring veneration and worship.When such a character as this is introduced into the novel, inevitably he overshadows and dwarfs all the others in it, resulting in a thorough imbalance of interests. What is worse, it may even result in huddling together the sublime and the ridiculous. In spite of  Narayan’s  carefully devised strategy,  WFM  has not been able to escape wholly these lapses. Yet another problem confronting  Narayan, one peculiar to him, is the necessity of having to bring into the novel in a good measure the political developments of the  Gandhian  decades, although, to be sure, Gandhi was no mere politician.For, as  a  writer of  fiction  Narayan’s  interest in politics and political  ideologies has always been minimal. He himself has testified more tha n once that politics do not interest him as a creative writer. His studied avoidance of current politics as major themes in his fiction has given room for some dissatisfaction with his work as well as misunderstanding of it. But  Narayan  is neither blind nor indifferent to political happenings. The several incidental references to them in his works, early and late, demonstrate how observant he is.However, it is a matter of his artistic temperament that the vicissitudes of politics, which are ephemeral, do not engage his attention as much as the processes of life do. When he has to take note of them, as in  WFM,  he takes a deliberately detached and an ironical view of them. This may very well be one of  the reasons forNarayan’s  rather belated use of the  Gandhian  theme; long after novelists like  Mulk  Raj  Anand  and Raja Rao, contemporaneous with him, had used it even in the ’Thirties. To steer clear of  these hurdles  Narayan  has had to devise for  WFM  a narrative strategy consistent with his own artistic temper and intention. What he does is to focus attention mainly on the humane qualities of Gandhi, which had enthroned him in the hearts of his countrymen, in spite of his towering far, far above them in other respects. This device enables the novelist to avoid any detailed discussion, debate or elaboration of the politics of the day, which Gandhi guided. Thereby the chief Interest of the novel and of Gandhi in it remains human rather than political, and the novelist feels free to allow his comic irony to play upon events and people, as he does in his other novels. Therefore, in its essentials  WFM  is not political at all.