MY TOP 12 MOVIES ABOUT ENTREPRENEURSHIP

Watching movies is not regarded like an activity that can improve your skills and is seen by many as a waste of time, however there are movies that can be a real source of inspiration and motivation.
In today article I will present my top 10 movies that might be a source of inspiration for entrepreneurs. Despite it is not something that can guarantees you that will become entrepreneur 100 %. I made this ranking after I've seen those movies. Let's get started:

12  American Gangster 2007   produced by Ridley Scott with Denzel Washington and Russel Crowe

From the beginning you have to know that I not support criminality and other activities related to organize crime. This movie presents the evolution of Frank Lucas who smuggled heroin in US become one of the most important important drug dealer in US. This movie can be a source of inspiration for those who have entrepreneurship drive. Frank Lucas come  from poor black family and become one of the most important figure of New York organize crime.


11 Goodfellas 1990 produced by Martin Scorsese  with Robert De Niro, Ray Liotta and Joe Pesci

From the beginning you have to know that I not support criminality and other activities related to organize crime.  Classic movie about organize crime , this movie presents the rise and fall Henry Hill. This movie can be a perfect study case of how you can make money from scratch starting with smuggling and robbery.

10  The Godfather 1972 directed by Francis Ford Coppola with Marlon Brandon , Al Pacino and Robert Duvall

Voted one of the best movie all time. The story of this movie presents evolution of Corleone crime family. Al Pacino in Michael Corleone role can be a source of inspiration about leadership and negotiation.

9 The Social Network   2010  directed by David Fincher  with Jesse  Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield and Justin Timberlake

Facebook is the most popular social media channel. Many people are using are present on it. The story of this movie presents the evolution of Facebook from the beginning to present.

8 Arbitrage 2012  directed by Nicholas Jarecki with Richard Gere, Susan Sarandon

Hedge Funds are managing billion $ , the story of this movie represent the life of Robert Miller (Richard Gere) a successful fund manager who was involved in many scams investment scheme activities.

7 Wolf of Wall Street 2014 directed by Martin Scorsesse with Leonardo Di, Jonah Hill

For many people Wall Street is regarded like a place, where money are flowing every day. The story of this film presents the evolution of Jordan Belfort a stoke broker in New York, who have created the brokerage company Stratton Oakmont.

6 The Count of Monte Cristo 2002  directed by Kevin Reynolds with Jim Caviezel and Guy Pearce

Having the base the novel " The Count of Monte Cristo" written by french novelist Alexandre Dumas this movie is one of my favorite movie. The key figure is Edmond Dantes ( Jim Caviezel) who was imprisoned for 13 years on Chateau d'if. This movie can be a good source of inspiration for entrepreneurs .  In the life of every entrepreneur betray is very common , people who you trust one day can betray you letting you alone.

5 Gold 2016  directed by Stephen Graham with Matthew McConaughey, Edgar Ramirez

Gold will always be in demand no matter of how economy will go. What entrepreneurs can learn from this movie?  Every entrepreneur dream to create a company and to have a successful IPO ( Initial Public Offer) .

4 The boy who harnessed the wind 2019 directed by Chiwetel Ejiofor

I found this movie very interesting, the main character on this movie is William Kamkwamba a boy in a poor african family . One of the problem of Africa that is facing is drought. Coming from a poor family William Kamkwamba was able to create an improvised system of irrigation system by using wind as power generator.

3 Nightcrawler 2014 directed by Dan Gilroy with Jake Gyllenhall, Rene Russo

Louis Bloom ( Jake Gyllenhall) a psychopath who record violent events than happen in the night in LA. The story of this movie is how to create a video recording company.

2 The Pursuit of Happyness 2006 directed by Gabriele Muccino with Will Smith, Thandie Newton and Jaden Smith

I 've seen this movie recently and I found it captivating. The life is tough if you want to achieve your goals you need to make sacrifices. Chris Gardner (Will Smith) a person who was straggling financial was able to create a portable bone density scanner from his savings and got a job as stoke broker.

1 The Shamshak Redemption 1994  directed by Frank Darabont  with Tim Robins , Morgan Freeman

This is by far the my best movie. The movie is the story of Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins) a banker who was sentenced to life prison for the murder of his wife.

BAD BLOOD BY JOHN CARREYROU

Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup

If I need to make a movie recommendation for Netflix ,  I will choose the story of Theranos startup. ( A story of Theranos in on HBO) .  For many of us Silicon Valley is considerate to be the Holy Land of entrepreneurship. Silicon Valley is the place where many successful companies were born. Companies like: Google, Apple, Facebook, Airbnb, Tesla are few examples. Silicon Valley is regarded like a place where the success is 100 % guaranteed but reality is completely different, what we see today is the top of the iceberg and the bottom of the iceberg unseen part , where the important thinks are happening. Those companies that I've enumerated are the results of many hours of work, failure, lies and intrigue.

A company that is fitting in this shape is Theranos a company founded by Elizabeth Holmes. Elizabeth Holmes was seen by many as Steve Jobs of women, a college dropout who was dreaming to become entrepreneur. Theranos a biotech company who have created a device that analyze blood samples. Few drops of blood are taking out from a subject and transfer it to plastic cartridge the size of the credit card. The cartridge would slot into a rectangular box the size of the toaster. The box was called reader . It extracted a data signal from the cartridge and beamed it wirelessly to a server that analyze the data and beamed back a result.  The technology on the paper was a breakthrough technology that unfortunately dose not work.

The story of Theranos include elements like:

• how to create a product that dosen't work
• hiring the wrong people
• doing things that are not in your area of competencies
• Firing important people and installing a regime of terror among employess
• Financial reports manipulation in hope to raise money
• Misleading investors and spending their money
• Treating employees to not make any disclosure 

The first person who made public Theranos practices was John Carreyrou the book author . With his work the Theranos scam  shows up and now Elizabeth Holmes is facing criminal charges.

The Future of Humanity by Michio Kaku

Terraforming Mars, Interstellar Travel, Immortality and our Destiny Beyond Earth

It is the third book, written by Michio Kaku that I've read. Michio Kaku  become for me the favorite science writer, reading previous two books " The future of Mind" and  " Hyperspace"
The future of Humanity follow the same path almost , but goes more in deep regarding space travel.

Movies like: Star Trek, Star Wars and Space Odyssey are not fiction anymore. The technology of space travel existed for many years but was limited only to Orbit of Earth. Today mankind thanks to peoples like: Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson want more, to go beyond Earth Orbit.

To go to Mars and to colonize it, is not a fiction. Today Space X the company founded by Elon Musk aims to go to Mars and colonized it by 2025.  Richard Branson with his company Virgin Galactic wants to develop space travel for touristic purpose to be more affordable to people.

What actually those people want ?  According to scientific research the Earth has already sustained five major extinction in which up to 90 % of all life forms vanished from Earth. The concept of Multiplanet Species that lives among the stars is not something fiction.

The Future of Humanity book include elements of the fourth industrial revolution and fifth industrial revolution.

                           The fourth Industrial Revolution (Present)

• Artificial Intelligence
• Nanotechnology
• Biotechnology
• Space travel

                     
                        The fifth Industrial Revolution

• Nanoships
• Laser Sails
• Ramjet fusion machines
• Animatter engines

I'm not go deep in to them is to much information , I firmly recommend this book for those who want to get more insights about science and what kind of technologies we might see in the future.

FROM CORONAVIRUS TO ECONOMIC RECESSION HYSTERIA

The world is getting crazy, we are witnessing of potential outbreak of coronavirus who can it become a global pandemic . For long period of time I wanted to write about this topic and now I have the chance to do it.  On this article I will talk about coronavirus is not the subject of this article.

Since with the end of 2008 global financial recession when the global economy has started to recover many individuals so called financial gurus and planners came out with articles and theories that a new financial crisis is imminent . Regarding me I never wasn't intrigued when will be the next financial recession and what are the facts that have triggered financial crises. As person I always I am interested on personal development, how to improve my services, how to create good products and how to solve real world problems. With the beginning of 2020 many of economic articles have the headline " 2020 Economic recession or market crash" , but this headline I've seen in 2015, 2016, 2017 and nothing happen , I don't blame them this kind of content is getting a lot of interests and clicks.

Reading and analyzing what those people are saying I can draw some conclusions, I consider is very hard if not impossible to make predictions economic recessions or market crash. Of course I'm worried about some financial indicators, I'm worried about real estate and stock market that are at record high and make me feel a little bit prudent about my actions. However I admit I like this situation when a lot of hysteria is produced by media in general the psychology is playing an important role here. I remember what Warren Buffett  said years ago: " Be fearful when others are greedy ,by greedy when others are fearful" this statement is very representative for me and my philosophy of investing.

Back to our topic I have few simple questions to ask to those who make this claim that we are heading to a new economic recession:

1. When exactly the new economic recession will start ?
2. What exactly will happen ? (major bankruptcy the new Lehman Brother)
3. How can we protect ?

Those are few simple questions that I want to ask for those who make this statement. As you can see is very easy to make this affirmation but extremely hard to respond efficiently to this questions.
There are also people who come out with some strategies to protect more efficiently during market crashes. We  will analyze this in the following moment.

1 Save money

This is one of the stupid idea that I ever heard. What are the reasons why somebody work and save money. Back in the past in 1971 the US president Richard Nixon took off the us dollar after the Gold standards. This one dangerous economic decision ever took.  From that moment the us dollar become debt. Why somebody work and save money if FED can print as much money they can ? , by the way today US National debt is about 23 trillion $.  This situation will not apply only on US, almost all central banks are printing money. If you look to ECB (European Central Bank) , Bank of Japan have low interest rates and in some cases close to negative. To invest your money in to a saving account with this conditions is not a wise move.

2 Sell your assets

Is perhaps the most common financial advise given by so called financial planners . What are the reasons why somebody sell their assets ? It is well know successful people own assets, you can become wealthy if you don't own assets. As Robert Kiosaky said in his book "Rich dad poor dad" rich people don't work for money.  One of the advise that is giving by financial planner is " Sell your assets , keep money in cash and wait for new crash to come and buy new assets. This statement is partial true but not 100 % and I will explain why.

Imagine you have an asset ( real estate property) and you decide to sell that property today, you get an amount of money and you decide to put that money in a saving account hopping that one day a new crash will come and you can buy another asset at discount price. For those who believe this is a good strategy I will come with an different argument.  The Great Depression started in 1929 was one of the longest and deepest recession that mankind faced. In the last century we faced many recession but those which had a big impact I can enumerate Dot.com bubble started and 2000 and subprime mortgage crisis that has started in 2008. As we can see the crisis which a huge impact on real estate was the 1929 crisis and 2008. Back to present you decide to sell the real estate property and keep your money in a saving in the hope that recession is imminent and you can buy another one at discount price. As you can see the difference between to major economic recession is 79 years. What makes you think that we are in the economic recession. The economic recession dose not start from year to year or from five to five years. In our example you need to wait another 79 years to market to crash to hope to buy an asset at discount price ;))). It is not a smart strategy you miss a lot of opportunities if your are not holding that assets and getting monthly rental income. That source of income can compound over the time.

In conclusion economic crises are part of our life. Mankind has faced this from centuries. We should not fear them . With a little knowledge and skills, those crises can be handled, after all What is wrong if we are in recession ? . Recession means opportunities and that is the most important thing

The use of AI for security solution or threat ?

Yesterday I had the honor to be present to an event hosted by UCD having topic " The use of artificial intelligence in cybersecurity. Having huge interest on artificial intelligence field, I didn't want to miss this opportunity to be present to such an event.

Representatives from many organizations have gathered at Moli Newman House to listen the speakers:

• Dr Marguerite Barry - UCD School of Information and Communication Studies
• Dr Giovanni Russo - UCD School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering
• Dr Mathieu Sinn - IBM  Research Staff Member -Cognitive Data Science
• Ian Trinder-  PwC  Director Cyber Security

I will try to make a short description of the main points of this topic. Machine learning and Artificial Intelligence capabilities are growing at unprecedented rate. These technologies start to be used in absolute all domains. There are not fields in  which AI are not implemented or will be implemented soon or later.  However AI models can possess some treats which I will present in the following moment:

1 Malicious use of AI

Building machine learning and AI models rely heavily on big data. These models are incredible accurate if the data they are using are correct. To understand how important is data I will give an example.  A certain bank decide to implement a machine learning automation system to try to prevent credit card fraud detection system.  A system to be reliable must contain accurate data. We can imagine what will happen if the data contains errors, the system will automatically give errors because the models are trained to make predictions based on that data.

2 AI Regulation

Is not yet know, how artificial intelligence will be regulated . Wisely will be that regulators should collaborate with researchers to prevent or investigate potential malicious use of AI.

3 Digital Security

One of the reason why automation systems are implemented or will be implemented is that make our job more easy, more fast and better. The example that I gave with credit card fraud detection is representative.

4 Fake News

We are continuously bombarded with fake news and propaganda via media channels . AI systems will be able in somehow to make distinction between a fake news and a good one. However the expansion of automated tasks can lead to expand threats associated with social manipulation. Authoritarian states can take huge advantages using these tools in order to manipulate their own people.

The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg

                                      Why we do what we do and how to change

Playing video games, watching TV and spending time on social media are one of the habits that are popular among us ,which are considered bad. People are influenced by habits and become what they are because of their own habits. We can define a habit like the process in which the brain converts a sequence of actions into an automatic routine.

Having said this, we can ask few questions like: How do we know which are good and bad habits ? Can we change or replace them?  To find out answer to that questions I recommend the book " The Power of Habit" written by Charles Duhigg.

Charles Duhigg examine how habits can be ignored, changed or replaced in real life. In his book he has discovered why some people and companies are struggling to change despite years of trying , while others seem to remake themselves overnight. Creating new habits is not an easy process. One of the first person who explained how habits are created among consumers is Claude Hopkins.

                         Two basics rules of  how habits are created among consumers:

1. Find a simple and obvious cue
2. Define rewards

Figuring out how to spark a craving makes creating a new habit easier. New habits can be adopted to organizational structures. Starbucks is an amazing and well know company that discovered how to turn self discipline into an organizational habit. Facing problems like: customers complaints, screaming customers and long line cash register, Starbucks has introduced a set of rules of how to respond to specific cues. This is know like Starbucks " LATTE " Methotd
L- Listen to the customer
A- Acknowledge their complains
T- Take action by solving the problems
T- Thank them
E- Explain why the problem has occurred

Introducing this new set of rules, Starbucks not only changed the company habit, but also gave employee a greater sense of authority and how to use more efficient their intellect and creativity.
For an organization to become successful, the leaders must cultivate habits that create a real and balanced peace.

LATERAL THINKING SKILLS BY PAUL SLOANE

Unlock the creativity and innovation in you and your team

There are many reasons that business are failing in today environment, one of the reason perhaps the most important is the lack of innovation. Business owners must encourage themselves and empower their people to take creative and entrepreneurial approach to exploit new opportunities.

The best way to create value is to innovate your organization and to stay ahead your competition in order to create temporary monopolies where yours is the only in town.

Innovation can be bring in your team by harnessing the creative power of your people. The goal is to turn them into opportunistic entrepreneurs or lateral thinkers.

Lateral thinking is a new approach of doing business which is emphasized in Paul Sloane book " Lateral thinking skills". Lateral thinking means approaching business challenges from new direction in order to create better solutions.

According to Paul Sloane the key elements of creating a truly innovative and entrepreneurial organization can be summarized in the following steps:

1. Paint an inspiring vision
2. Build an open, receptive, questioning culture
3. Empower people at all levels
4. Set goals deadlines and measurements for innovation
5. Use creativity technique to generate a large number of ideas
6. Review, combine, filter and select ideas
7. Prototype the promising proposal
8. Welcome failure and manage risk
9. Analyze results and roll out the successful projects