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Melinda Gates at Stanford - “Travel to developing countries when you get the chance. Once your eyes are opened, you cannot turn away.”

“You didn’t come to Stanford if you don’t like difficult. Figure out where your passion is and pursue it with vengeance.

Gather experts. Fill in your uncomfortable. Do something now. If you believe in innovation, there are things you can do.”

Today, at Stanford University, Melinda Gates ended her talk urging students to do something now. With innovation, she believed that we can change the world to make it a better place. This was my first time listening to her in-person and I was inspired by her deep passion to help others in need.

Audio podcast: http://ecorner.stanford.edu/authorMaterialInfo.html?mid=2997

“All lives have equal value”

Melinda Gates repeatedly emphasized the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s deep belief that all lives have equal value and everyone should be given the same chance.

It takes 10-15 years for drugs innovation to reach developing world. It should be within 1 year.

2 million children were dying from diarrhea years ago. Why were kids dying from simple illness that we could easily cure in developed countries just by going to the drug store? Innovations that we take for granted in developed countries take 10-15 years to reach the developing country. We need to improve the infrastructure to make sure innovations in developed countries can get into the hands of those people in need quickly.

40% of childhood deaths (in 2004) occurred within 30 days after birth.

We can help to significantly reduce childhood deaths with vaccines. However, to reduce babies deaths within 30 days of birth require behavior change. Mothers had to be taught how to keep their babies warm and that they should feed them breast milk.

Family planning can help avert 20 million unsafe abortions and prevent 3 million newborn deaths.

Contraceptive use in Sub-Saharan Africa is only 4 times less than the average developed countries. This causes a 45 times increase in maternal mortality rate.

This info graphic is really good: http://www.gatesfoundation.org/infographics/Pages/family-planning-saves-lives-info.aspx

Before we can even fix education in developing countries, we need to first make sure newborns can live healthily.

Health is the most important issue. Making sure newborns in developing countries can stay alive healthily is the number priority before other help can come in.

“Travel to developing countries when you get the chance. Once your eyes are opened, you cannot turn away.”

She recalled her story of going to South Africa for a tour to see the wild animals. But it was the people she met that had the most impact on her. “Once my eyes were opened,” she said, “I cannot turn away from what I saw.”

I think traveling more to different countries, to experience different cultures, see different lives, interact with different languages, is the best gift you can ever give yourself.

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A billion dollar software tech company is founded every 3 months *in U.S.

Ron Conway once said: “There’s a billion company created every 3 months. Now, it is every 2 months”. I finally got the chance compile “The Billion Dollar” list. I tried to limit this list to only software tech companies. I also included a couple of near billion dollar companies (~0.7 B and above).

Update: I should clarify that in the context of the quote, he was mostly talking about mostly software tech companies founded (or for the most part operated) in US. There will be plenty of companies outside US (especially China) that will make the list much longer.

He was mostly right. Kind of.

There are about 4 billion dollar software tech companies founded every year, with the exception of 2000-2002.

There was a drought in 2000-2002 because of the dot-com bubble crash. Things started picking up again in late 2003 (Skype in Aug). 2004 became the return of the dot-com era (Facebook, Palantir, Yelp, Evernote).

Update: After the new additions, it seems that 2002 was the drought year.

Look around you. A billion dollar company was born within the last 3 months.

This means that there are about 8 companies in 2011 and 2012 that will become the next big thing. They are not big yet, but we will realize their value in years to come. I have included some companies founded in 2009 and 2010 that I think have the potential. It is much harder to hedge my bets on companies founded in 2011 and 2012.

Update: Google Docs to update new companies. Thanks phreeza (HN)

Company	Founded	Market Cap/ Valuation*/ Acquired value^
SolarWinds	1998	3.9 B
NetSuite	1998	4.3 B
VMware	1998	37 B
OpenTable	1998 Jul	1 B
Google	1998 Sep	210 B
Rackspace	1998 Oct	8 B
PayPal	1998 Dec	1.5 B^
Zappos	1999	1.2 B^
SurveyMonkey	1999	1 B*
Opsware	1999	1.6 B^
SalesForce	1999 Mar	19 B
Shutterfly	1999 Dec	0.9 B
Netezza	2000	1.7 B^
ArcSight	2000	1.5 B^
ExactTarget	2000	1.3 B
BillMeLater	2000	0.9 B^
Pandora	2000 Jan	1.3 B
TripAdvisor	2000 Feb	4.8 B
SuccessFactors	2001	3.4 B^
Guidewire	2001	1.5 B
DealerTrack	2001	1.1 B
Jive	2001 Feb	0.8 B
Kiva Systems	2000	0.8 B^
LinkedIn	2002 Dec	10 B
ServiceNow	2003	3.7 B
Skype	2003 Aug	8.5 B^
Glam Media	2003 Sep	0.7 B*
Palantir	2004	2.5 B*
Splunk	2004	2.6 B
Kayak	2004 Jan	1.8 B
Facebook	2004 Feb	41 B
Evernote	2004 Sep	1 B*
Yelp	2004 Oct	1.1 B
Palo Alto Networks	2005	3.5 B
Box	2005	1.2 B*
Zillow	2005	0.7 B
Bebo	2005 Jan	0.85 B^
HomeAway	2005 Feb	2 B*
YouTube	2005 Feb	1.1 B^
Workday	2005 Mar	7.7 B
Millennial Media	2006	1.2 B
Twitter	2006 Mar	8 B*
Demand Media	2006 May	0.7 B
Nicira	2007	1.2 B
Gilt Groupe	2007	1 B*
Tumblr	2007 Feb	0.8 B*
Hulu	2007 Mar	2 B*
Dropbox	2007 Jun	4 B*
LivingSocial	2007 Jul	2.9 B*
Zynga	2007 Jul	1.6 B
Github	2008 Feb	0.8 B*
AirBnb	2008 Aug	2.5 B*
Yammer	2008 Sep	1.2 B^
Groupon	2008 Nov	1.8 B
Pinterest	2008/09	1 B*
Square	2009 Feb	3.2 B*
Storm8	2009 Mar	1 B*
Quora	2009 Jun	~
GetAround	2009 Sep	~
Fab	2010 Feb	0.7 B*
Instagram	2010 Mar	1 B^
Stripe	2010 Jun	~
Skillshare	2010 Nov	~

Market cap as a public listed company (Nov 2012)
*Rumored valuation based on “word on the street”
^Acquired value is the last acquisition value of the company (e.g. Skype was acquired multiple times)
~Included startups that I project to have a chance to be a billion dollar company
I cannot find all the exact founding dates for all the companies

Let me know if I missed any companies.

Updates: Added Github, Nicira, Workday, Splunk, ServiceNow, DealerTrack, Guidewire, SuccessFactors, ExactTarget, ArcSight, SolarWinds, VMware, Netezza, Millennial Media | Removed Vente Privee, Rovio, Spotify

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Social media is a multiplier. It makes customers’ voices louder.

— Economist

Life is not about practicality. Live life to enjoy it, not to survive it.

— My Motto