Business & Innovation Q&A for Young Entrepreneurs & Others (January 7, 2021)

Stephen Wolfram answers questions from his viewers about business and innovation as part of an unscripted livestream series, also available on YouTube here: https://wolfr.am/youtube-sw-business-qa

Questions include: when did you start to have an entrepreneurial spirit? When you were little, did you work to get money? - If I could start a company today that is likely to make me a ton of money, or one that would let me do something I love, which should I chose? - What made you decide to go through with starting your own business and what did you think of Feynman's advice/letter at the time? - Do you think most academics lack business sense? - Do you think you could have started your companies without having a PhD? It feels as though one needs a PhD to get ahead in tech & business in general these days. - How does one learn to talk to people? - What would be better for a startup to get funds currently--venture capital, debt providers, IPOs, IEOs, ICOs, STOs, IDOs? - I am interested in starting a company but I am finding a hard time deciding on a niche market that is on the small scale max of 100 employee likely in the IT sector. Any suggestions? - What are the areas in which machine learning can be applied but in your experience people have never paid attention to? - I am 18 years old that is interested in science and being an academician is, therefore, appealing , but I recognize that a lot of problems that needs to be fixed couldn't be done from inside academia. What is your advice? - How can you possibly talk so long answering a single question? - How has being based in Illinois near UIUC instead of silicon valley, nyc, or boston impacted your company if at all? what convinced you to make this decision?