Defining the Global Entrepreneur Experience (GEX) — These days the word global is out of favor. The global village has been reduced to real estate development opportunities. Building bridges between nations is not a priority anymore. Supply chains are becoming increasingly localized. TikTok and other social media technologies are increasingly politicized. I believe Brexit kickstarted this period…

Book review: The Power Law: Venture Capital and the Making of the New Future — I previously wrote about Silicon Valley history and how the so called military-industrial complex made Silicon Valley what it is today. Some say that this narrative gives too much credit to the defence industry and its role in creating innovation. I recently re-visited the birthplace of Silicon Valley at 391…

The future is here, it’s just not evenly distributed — I co-wrote the following text with an AI using OpenAI’s text completion API. My prompt: “write a short blog post about riding a robotaxi in San Francisco.” Results: Riding a robotaxi in San Francisco is an experience like no other. Robotaxis are vehicles that are autonomous and self-driving, and their…

The industry needs a clear line between industrial R&D and pure R&D — Times are tough for startups that are not cash flow positive. It’s especially tough for startups in the self-driving industry since they are still years away from generating revenue, let alone becoming cash flow positive. These startups have burn rates that run into billions of dollars per year. I have…

Q3 2022 — This is a short round up of the news that caught my attention during Q3 2022, enjoy reading and let me know what else you think was significant! Deployments — AV products that consumers have some access to The most important event in Q3 2022 was a flurry of activity on both vehicle platform and geographic expansions. After their first…

I’m on vacation in Europe and a major question friends are asking me is how will AVs navigate narrow and complex rural roads such as those found in many old European villages? …

For global entrepreneurs interested in manufacturing — Since childhood, I was fascinated with the work of a factory owner. The Persian word for factory owner is “کارخانه دار”. Its literal translation is “house of work owner”. …

For global entrepreneurs: background material and thoughts on Silicon Valley — I’ve had the privilege of learning from different cultures by living, studying and working in Tehran, London, Paris, and Vancouver. Since 2015, I have travelled frequently between London and Silicon Valley to improve my startup investing skills. I plan to travel more and learn more. Many tech ecosystems still compare…

Part of Conscious Leadership series — I first read the book, The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership: A New Paradigm for Sustainable Success, by Jim Dethmer, Diana Chapman and Kaley Warner Klemp in early 2015 when it wasn’t even available on Kindle yet! At the time, I had just gone through a painful process of shutting…