Your Window Into the Innovation Economy

I have been in and around company-building, technology, and venture investing for most of my life. I started my first company – a landscaping business named after my younger brother – in high school.

Food waste remains one of the world’s most pervasive issues.

If you’re going to change the way the government spends money, you have to change the way it looks at money. Zac Bookman, CEO and co-founder of OpenGov, understands this principle better than just about anyone.

Entrepreneurs and Princeton graduate program alums Sophie Kahn and Bouchra Ezzahraoui have found impressive success by following where life leads.

Great companies stand for something beyond the pure commercial value they create for the economy. Below, I list AVG’s three core passions. These are the things that provide meaning to our work at AVG and we use them to guide priorities, decision making, and commitments.

From astronauts to presidents, more than one iconic personality received part of their education at Princeton University. This includes many influential figures in business, including late index fund pioneer John Bogle, and former eBay and Hewlett-Packard CEO Meg Whitman. The entrepreneurial spirit is burning brightly among the next generation of Tigers as well. Check out these five alumni who started their journeys on the Princeton campus more recently.

Kevin Beckford is a Davenport College Yale grad and a Blue Ivy community member with a higher purpose, one driven by the inequality of opportunity for underprivileged youth. Chronic poverty and the school-to-prison path is all too common and a barrier preventing many from fully reaching their potential.

In 2004, Raaja Nemani graduated from Northwestern with a BA in Economics (cum laude), and, after a few years of working in the banking sector, he set off on a solo backpacking trip. He saw 30+ countries on six continents, and the experience reoriented his sense of how things are ordered — or not.

Brown University is only one of two Ivy League schools without a business school. While some might take that as an indication that the community lacks business chops, we’re happy to report that the entrepreneurial spirit is alive and well among Brunonians.

As an investor since 1986, I’ve seen the public stock market go through long bull runs, stark corrections (1987, 1990, 2000, 2008, etc.), times of excessive exuberance, and phases of emotional negativity. As my mom always told me growing up, “this too shall pass.”

Consider nearly every film you’ve seen that involves a cast of college students. Now count how many of them depict athletes and math students spending productive time together.