Hiring for startups isn’t just about finding people who can complete generic, repetitive job tasks. Entrepreneurs must make sure these new team members are ready to dive into practically anything, and then stay in it for the long haul to help the company realize its vision.

But once the business is past the early stages, it’s time to delegate systems to managers. Hopefully, you’ve already hired some — they just don’t know they’re the ones to step up to the management plate.

Leaders from the business, foundation, NGO and government sectors came together in Chicago two weeks ago to find solutions that accelerate the economic recovery in the United States. They came to the Windy City for the third meeting of CGI America, an annual event that tackles a diverse set of topics including education, industry, healthcare and workforce development. I was invited to participate as a member of the Manufacturing Working Group and had the pleasure to facilitate a table discussion on how to accelerate innovation and strengthen the competitiveness of American manufacturing.

A venture capitalist who's been working in Silicon Valley since the early 1960s thinks the future technologies that we should be paying attention to are biogenetics and transportation.

In an interview with PandoDaily's Carmel Deamicis, Bill Draper said that biogenetics and "the whole field of the human body" are going to be important for investors to look at because they both make money and impact the world in a noticeably positive way:

Rich countries dominate a ranking of the world's most innovative countries released in the U.S. today. But the report also reveals what could be surprises in its examination of innovation by a variety of measures.

Switzerland, Sweden and the U.K. top the Global Innovation Index for 2013, the central ranking of an annual report. The U.S. was the fifth most innovative economy, according to the report, which is published by Cornell University, the World Intellectual Property Organization and graduate school INSEAD. Here are the top 10 most innovative economies:SwitzerlandSwedenU.K.NetherlandsU.S.FinlandHong Kong (China)SingaporeDenmarkIreland

Heterogeneous groups are valuable, but differences among members can weaken group identification. Weak group identification may be especially problematic in larger groups, which, in contrast with smaller groups, require more attention to motivating members and coordinating their tasks. We hypothesized that as groups increase in size, productivity would decrease with greater heterogeneity. We studied the longitudinal productivity of 549 research groups varying in disciplinary heterogeneity, institutional heterogeneity, and size. We examined their publication and citation productivity before their projects started and 5 to 9 years later. Larger groups were more productive than smaller groups, but their marginal productivity declined as their heterogeneity increased, either because their members belonged to more disciplines or to more institutions. These results provide evidence that group heterogeneity moderates the effects of group size, and they suggest that desirable diversity in groups may be better leveraged in smaller, more cohesive units.

What is it about an area that makes a venture capitalist want to open up his wallet an invest? Lots of high-skilled immigrants. Deep pools of technical, management and creative talent. Oh, and it doesn't hurt to be gay or lesbian.

A study by the Atlantic's Richard Florida shows the more open a metro area is to diversity, the more attractive it is to venture capitalists.

There's an unequal distribution of power in the venture capital industry: The best firms get the best deals and the best deals provide disproportionately higher returns.

The best deals are super competitive to get in to. Naval Ravikant has said VCs don't have proprietary deal flow, they have proprietary access. VC firms will compete for access.

Venture capital is actually a fairly competitive industry. It's a tough industry to be in if you're not at the top. But if you are, it can provide incredible returns.

Doctors have a new way of thinking about how to treat heart and skeletal muscle diseases. Body builders have a new way of thinking about how they maximize their power. Both owe their new insight to high-energy X-rays, a moth and cloud computing.

The understanding of how muscles get their power has been greatly expanded with new results published online July 10 in the Royal Society journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B. The Royal Society is the U.K.’s national academy of sciences.

Though Google reportedly banned mercilessly difficult brainteasers from its interviews and admitted the questions were useless to begin with, there are companies that continue to test their candidates' mental strength with crazy questions, according to Glassdoor.com users. Whether they test market-sizing knowledge, creativity, or stress-control, these questions could make anybody sweat.

A three-year effort to implement a state matching funds SBIR program gained enough traction this legislative session to win support from Rhode Island lawmakers. The measure was spearheaded by a group of leaders from 24 life science companies who advocated for a statewide program to encourage small business R&D and commercialization. Lawmakers appropriated $500,000 for the effort in FY14. Adding a workforce development component to the measure, a new bioscience and engineering internship also will be established to enhance the state's talent pipeline.

According to the Philadelphia Business Journal, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett has signed off on the creation of a new program, InnovatePA, which will auction off $100 million in tax credits to generate state revenue that will be invested in the funding of tech and biotech startups.

The state auction will sell off deferred insurance-premium tax credits to insurance companies that pay Pennsylvania's insurance-premium tax. The sale is expected to generate at least $75 million in funds, with credits not being sold below 70 percent of their face value.

Between FY03-11, the U.S. Department of Treasury's Community Development Finance Institutions (CDFI) Fund supported $26.4 billion in private investment through the New Market Tax Credits (NMTC) program, according to data released by the fund. The CDFI Fund helps economically distressed communities leverage private investment capital by offering investors a federal tax credit. During its first nine years, participating Community Development Entities (CDE) leveraged their NMTC allocations to invest in 3,499 projects related to real estate, business development, microenterprise finance and other purposes in mostly low-income communities.

Last month I moderated a panel featuring local entrepreneurs who chose to base their businesses in Greater Philadelphia. Why did they pick this area to call home? What attracts people to a place? 

The event, entitled "Voices of the Creative Economy: Why Does Place Matter to Creative Businesses?," was part of a half-day forum presented by the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission (DVRPC). 

Some $200 billion of new capital went to private equity (PE) and venture capital management partnerships globally in 2012. For the first time, 20% of that total -- some $40 billion -- went to fund managers in emerging market countries. Surprisingly, of that amount, only $15 billion went to the BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India and China). That leaves $25 billion that went into non-BRIC emerging markets, such as Columbia, Chile, Peru and Mexico. What's more, Sub-Saharan Africa has witnessed solid growth in fund managers and capital under management. Turkey also has emerged as a destination, as have Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam and Indonesia.

The 2013 Wharton Private Equity Review, sponsored by Ernst & Young, explores this major shift in articles based on the 2013 Wharton Private Equity & Venture Capital Conference. Also included are articles that look at: U.S. regulatory developments in PE; how one company helped to recapitalize a troubled Irish bank, and how PE helps to create value more generally. Finally, a piece on venture capital considers the challenge of generating consistent returns and the growing allure of New York City over Silicon Valley. Some of the articles included here were written by Wharton MBA students from the Class of 2013.

Preview: Stories of Innovation for the Millennial Generation

Foreword

Since the beginning of the development of language people have created and told each other stories. The point of stories is both entertainment and education and very often stories have a moral, a judgement about the goodness or badness of human action or behaviour.

Stories are also a very effective way of diffusing memes – behaviours or ideas that spread across a culture or society from person to person and vehicles for transmitting societal or cultural practices, concepts or ideas. In learning any subject the retention of the content is always an issue, with the half-life of retention of factual content being quite short. Stories are very effective ways of enabling students to retain knowledge longer. In this book Professor Formica uses fictional stories to convey both innovation lessons and to help students retain the lessons. I encourage you to read these learned fictional stories from one of the master innovation storytellers of our times. Generous sprinklings of Latin and Greek references connect us to core principles distilled and learned over centuries.

Fact can sometimes be stranger than fiction. Perhaps these stories will inspire you to turn your fiction into fact and to bring into being new innovations which can improve all of our lives.

Martin Curley

Vice President

Director, Intel Labs Europe

Preface

Stories of Innovation for the Millennial Generation make a virtue of anachronism and counter-intuitive context – so, in one chapter, we have Robinson Crusoe and Lemuel Gulliver, refigured as two start-up entrepreneurs, discussing the benefits of innovation networks. These are innovative stories for innovative people; the book itself emerges from a disruptive and transforming creativity. If we can borrow the long sight of Lynceus, the Argonaut, whose symbolic special gift sets him at the core of Stories for the Millennial Generation and gives it its subtitle, we should use it to gaze into the past as well as into the future. The true innovator works with connections that others cannot see.

John Edmondson,

Director, IP Publishing Ltd

Editor, Industry and Higher Education

Independent Scholar in Victorian Studies

London

June 2013

Amidst the hectic nature of early-stage startup life, I realized a few months ago that our startup had come to the point where we needed to officially form a company. I did not anticipate how long it would take me to decipher exactly what needed to be done, in what order, and at what cost. I spent the better part of a full week figuring this out. It was a somewhat frustrating experience and the time that I spent on this would have been better spent working on our startup itself.  In an effort to help other entrepreneurs avoid the time drain I went through, I created a Standard Operating Procedure document for startup formation and shared it with my fellow entrepreneurs in the Wharton Venture Initiation Program. Below is a summary of the key components in the process:

The Securities and Exchange Commission, which today in separate releases amended Rule 506 of Regulation D, Form D and Rule 144A under the Securities Act of 1933 to implement Section 201(a) of the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act and Section 926 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, is publishing for comment a number of proposed amendments to Regulation D, Form D and Rule 156 under the Securities Act. These proposed amendments are intended to enhance the Commission’s ability to evaluate the development of market practices in Rule 506 offerings and to address concerns that may arise in connection with permitting issuers to engage in general solicitation and general advertising under new paragraph (c) of Rule 506. Specifically, the proposed amendments to Regulation D would require the filing of a Form D in Rule 506(c) offerings before the issuer engages in general solicitation; require the filing of a closing amendment to Form D after the termination of any Rule 506 offering; require written general solicitation materials used in Rule 506(c) offerings to include certain legends and other disclosures; require the submission, on a temporary basis, of written general solicitation materials used in Rule 506(c) offerings to the Commission; and disqualify an issuer from relying on Rule 506 for one year for future offerings if the issuer, or any predecessor or affiliate of the issuer, did not comply, within the last five years, with Form D filing requirements in a Rule 506 offering. The proposed amendments to Form D would require an issuer to include additional information about offerings conducted in reliance on Regulation D. Finally, the proposed amendments to Rule 156 would extend the antifraud guidance contained in the rule to the sales literature of private funds.

Good morning. Just a second while I get this connection to work. Do I press this button here? Function-F7? No, that's not right. Hmmm. Maybe I'll have to reboot. Hold on a minute. Um, my name is Abe Lincoln and I'm your president. While we're waiting, I want to thank Judge David Wills, chairman of the committee supervising the dedication of the Gettysburg cemetery. It's great to be here, Dave, and you and the committee are doing a great job. Gee, sometimes this new technology does have glitches, but we couldn't live without it, could we? Oh - is it ready? OK, here we go:

YOU'RE IN A SLUMP, HUH? JOIN THE CROWD. TIME TO CRANK UP THAT STEREO, SHUT DOWN YOUR FACEBOOK WINDOW, AND THEN CATCH SOME ZS, TO GET BACK ON TRACK. BY:

So you're having trouble getting through the day in one productive piece.

Don't worry, you're not alone. We've all been there.

Staying productive is hard. Maybe you can't stop thinking about your grandmother's herring with potatoes and cottage cheese, or the long-awaited return of the Twinkie--whatever it is, it's not work.

It’s that time – you have to pitch in front of a prospective investor, convince them and get the necessary funds for your startup. This can be a great experience or your worst nightmare. Everything depends on how you prepare for it.

Let’s take a look at the points that can make the venture easier for a new entrepreneur.