Vivek Wadhwa

When I became an entrepreneur, I had the knowledge to develop and manage budgets, market products and review legal contracts.

A key to achieving success is to assemble a strong and stable management team.

What the tech industry often forgets is that with age comes wisdom. Older workers are usually better at following direction, mentoring, and leading.

In the technology world, you have to execute fast or you're out of business.

Ask any venture capitalist, and they will tell you that they consider the experience and completeness of the founding team to be a more important factor in their investment decision than the technology that is being built.

One of the biggest problems that software developers face is that technology changes rapidly. It is very hard to stay current.

I used to have an obsession with building businesses and forgot about building health. I was focused on the destination instead of the journey. I caution you to not do the same.

The mentor-mentee relationship is ideally like that of the guru and disciple: motivated by the desire of the guru to impart knowledge to the disciple.

The natives of Silicon Valley learned long ago that when you share your knowledge with someone else, one plus one usually equals three. You both learn each other's ideas, and you come up with new ones.

Entrepreneurship is like a computer game in which you have to master every level before achieving success. Startups repeatedly stumble and have to go back to the drawing board. The best way to skip some levels and to increase the odds of survival is to learn from others who have already played the game.

What you want in a mentor is someone who truly cares for you and who will look after your interests and not just their own. When you do come across the right person to mentor you, start by showing them that the time they spend with you is worthwhile.

No matter how well things are going, failure and disaster are just around the corner. So celebrate the good, but be ready for the bad.

An open-minded and diverse population that readily shares information, encourages experimentation, accepts failure and dispenses with formality and hierarchy is what makes Silicon Valley the successful hub that it is.