It's been 2 months. I messed up.

Today, George Kassabgi spoke at the weekly ACM speaker series at Northeastern University.

Bio: http://acm.ccs.neu.edu/?q=node/744

His presentation: http://tinyurl.com/GKnuTalk

Disclaimer: These are my remarks and my interpretation of his talk.

He compared entrepreneurs to explorers. Talking about how explorers had incomplete maps, directions, or answers. All these men knew is where they wanted to go. He claimed that to be successful none of these qualities are vital:

• Intelligence - It's never about knowing the right answers. It's knowing which questions to answer. He had an example of an anecdote where Einstein's student came to him exasperated that this year's final would be the same as last year. Einstein calmly explained that even though the questions were the same, the answers are completely different. George later elaborated that even though he had studied computer science and was asked similar or even the same questions, the answers are completely different.

  Success comes from "fast failure".

• Skills (e.g. most popular, smartest, ...) - Some are able to succeed in structured environments but that's untelling of future success in the chaotic world of entrepreneurship. He draws upon Darwin's research: "It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change."

  Success comes from being "most adaptable"

• Planning leads to success - He said that just as you would never conceive a baby and then start drawing up plans of which college they'll go to, what type of girl they'll like, what kind of house and mortgage they should get. Instead he suggested trying to channel your "inner child" and try things out. Very similar to a baby who wants to reach for something on a table will just go for it with everything they know, a startup should avoid long-term planning and just do it.

  Success early-on comes from knowing "near-term moves"

His biggest point of all is entrepreneurship is about a particular type of perseverance. Entrepreneurs need the tenacity and determination to succeed but that's drawn their optimism. Top entrepreneurs share that with others.

Obviously, there are times our optimism gets the best of us (aka delusion ;), but in that case he suggests "go until you're out of money and/or friends who want to start something with you." Otherwise, he says "how will you know when you're at your last pivot." Of course this goes back to an earlier trait of adaptability, if you see things are working differently than you thought then figure out how to make it work.