Books & Media
The Entrepreneurs
Entrepreneurs are among the primary shapers of our culture, yet their role in driving progress and influencing society has often been overlooked. As far back as we can trace human history, there have been entrepreneurs. Almost five millennia ago, copper tool manufacturers set up a factory in what today is southwest Spain, profiting for hundreds of years from trade around the Mediterranean. Papyri document the diverse investments of an ancient Egyptian businessman, from grain-yielding land to flax for linen cloth. What do these figures have in common with renowned modern entrepreneurs, and how do their similarities help us achieve a deeper understanding of entrepreneurship as well as the potential for a healthier, wealthier, and more equitable and sustainable future?
In this book I delve into the deep history of innovation to deliver surprising new insights into how entrepreneurs create value and bring about change. I tell stories of people from many different cultures over thousands of years that show how entrepreneurs transform the world through relentless innovation. The cumulative innovations of swarms of entrepreneurs expand the scale, scope, and range of products and services. By highlighting the fundamental qualities of innovation throughout history, this book provides valuable and practical new perspective on how entrepreneurship shapes our present and future.
Startup Leadership
Most entrepreneurs know the long odds: only a fraction of them will lead their enterprises through the rocky stages of growth to launch self-sustaining companies. Very few know how to outflank the failures that await them at every turn, including the most painful--being abandoned by key members of their team or getting pushed out by their board just as their business starts to generate real value.
Derek Lidow is on a mission to improve these odds and change these outcomes. Throughout his long career--as CEO, innovator, and entrepreneur--he has tested virtually every aspect of launching a business. Lidow now argues that success is far less dependent upon a firm's idea or any grand strategy than it is upon something more personal: leadership. Emerging companies have specific leadership requirements, stage by fast-moving stage. Few founders have been able to leverage the tremendous power of this under recognized reality--until now.
Startup Leadership demonstrates how founders can adopt the skills that are required at each stage of their journey. Whether you are at the idea stage or managing a more mature enterprise, you can start to recognize the fundamental conflict: how to balance your selfish drives with the more selfless leadership required by the organization at any given time. The book shows you how to achieve this balance.
Building on Bedrock
One of Fast Company's Best Business Books of the Year: A new foundational guide to entrepreneurial success from the author of Startup Leadership.
Here's an astounding fact: Over half the working population will try their hand at being an entrepreneur during their working career. They may be motivated by a desire for fortune or fame, by a longing for freedom and control over their lives; by the urge to innovate and create jobs. But how can you know whether being an entrepreneur will end as a dream come true or a nightmare from which you cannot wake?
Building on Bedrock helps answer that question. Based on research and revealed through the stories of American entrepreneurs Sam Walton, Walt Disney, Estee Lauder, Ray Kroc, and others, Building on Bedrock will help you understand the elements most essential to taking the entrepreneurial leap and making a company last. Was it luck, talent, passion, charm, a rich uncle, or something else that was the key to this person's success? Which might be the key to your success? What you learn may surprise you.
Poets & Thinkers Podcast
Poets & Thinkers explores the humanistic future of business leadership through deep, unscripted conversations with visionary minds—from best-selling authors and inspiring artists to leading academic experts and seasoned executives.
Hosted by tech executive, advisor, and Princeton Entrepreneurship & Design Fellow Benedikt Lehnert, this podcast challenges conventional MBA wisdom, blending creative leadership, liberal arts, and innovation to reimagine what it means to lead value-creating ventures in the AI era.
If you believe leadership is both an art and a responsibility, this is your space to listen, reflect, and evolve.
The Entrepreneurs Podcast
Our podcast brings together the audio versions of our sprints, recorded webinars, snippets from office hours conversations, interviews with fellow entrepreneurs and more. It’s the best way to learn and reflect “on the go”.
Every week, we bring you battle-tested sprints, exercises, and advice from our award-winning "Entrepreneurial Journey" framework. We interview founders in the arena. We share insights from our webinars and office hours with real entrepreneurs facing real decisions.
Most business podcasts give you either ivory tower theory or bro-ey motivation. We give you what actually works—because we've built it, scaled it, sold it, researched it and now teach it to the next generation of founders at one of the world's top universities.
Whether you're launching a coffee shop, inheriting a family business, or building the next unicorn—we've guided thousands through these exact moments.
No fluff. No generic motivation. Just proven tools to help you sprint, not stumble, through your startup journey.