William Sahlman: Without overconfidence, I’m convinced entrepreneurship wouldn’t take place.

William Sahlman: If you view all problems as opportunities, and then you think about ways to re-engineer a process, then I think you find opportunity is absolutely everywhere.

We can train people how to get control of resources like money or to recruit and build teams, or to structure sensible strategies.

Why the kind of knowledge you get by asking the Universe questions about itself is the most valuable type of knowledge there is. “I’m also uncomfortable with dogmatic believers; to my […]

In the Human Genome Project, multiple countries and thousands of scholars proved how a “grandly large project” could be completed if it has “a very defined goal.”

In the Human Genome Project, multiple countries and thousands of scholars proved how a "grandly large project" could be completed if it has "a very defined goal."

If population growth was slower, then fewer people would have come up with all the great ideas that enhance your life today, whether it’s antibiotics or the electric light or […]

If the products and services of U.S. companies are seen as "compromised," technology executives worry that foreign consumers may abandon them in favor of "N.S.A.-resistant" products such as the blackphone that Big Think wrote about recently. 

We Earthlings have lots of growing up to do before we reach the shimmering standard of equality set by Starfleet and the United Federation of Planets. 

A startup called Elio Motors is preparing to launch a $6,800 car in 2015 that boats impressive efficiency – up to 84 miles per gallon for highway driving (49 miles per gallon for urban driving).

Horrible, horrible social injustices “I feel like a walking corpse.” BEIJING – Left picture: Gong Qifeng is traumatized and suffers from schizophrenia ever since the forced abortion of her second boy […]

Under the tremendous pressure and at the incredible temperatures of the Earth’s deep interior, there’s a thick layer of liquid: our outer core. But why is it so? “If you ever […]

Almost everyone these days uncritically accepts that the solution to antibiotic-resistant disease is to use fewer antibiotics. 

Richard Feynman: "Social science is an example of a science which is not a science… They follow the forms… but they don't get any laws."

Human brains are the sources of ideas and ideas multiply all other resources and make your life better. 

Highly effective impulse marketing strategies have been perfected for selling junk food. Obesity rates have skyrocketed. 

When Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque first brought Cubism onto the modern art scene in the first decade of the 20th century, the initial reviews were mixed. Like-minded artists and […]

"There is no end. There is no beginning. There is only the passion of life."- Federico Fellini (born on this date in 1920)

"The truth is in nature, and I shall prove it."- Paul Cezanne

"Falsehoods not only disagree with truths, but usually quarrel among themselves."- Daniel Webster (born on this date in 1782)