Seniors take note: Timothy Forbes '76, chief operating officer of Forbes, Inc., encourages you to "follow your passions and dreams" because there's "plenty of time to make a living."
Forbes, a member of the Corporation's Board of Fellows, and Dara Khosrowshahi '91, chief executive officer of Expedia, Inc., addressed students and alums as the keynote speakers at the 11th Annual Entrepreneurship Forum, hosted by the Brown University Entrepreneurship Program.
The forum, held in Faunce House on Feb. 23, consisted of the keynote speakers' lectures, panels and roundtable discussions. Forbes, the first keynote speaker, began his speech by expressing his "surprise and delight" that Brown now has an entrepreneurial program, which was not present during his years at the University.
"It is evidence of a very wonderful change in the world and at Brown that this program exists here," he told The Herald after the speech. "As a student you are an entrepreneur in that you are responsible for your education."
Forbes advised the audience to look to the past for lessons on entrepreneurship - for example, that timing and purpose are instrumental to success in business. His grandfather, B.C. Forbes, used the booming economic climate of the 1920s, along with a little luck, to grow Forbes magazine, he said. In addition to his business savvy, B.C. Forbes was known for his motto that the origin of business was to "produce happiness, not to pile up millions," Forbes added.
Advocating optimism and courage, Forbes urged the forum attendees to take risks in order to succeed. "Try to always remember that every problem we face is someone else's business," he said, calling this phenomenon "creative destruction." While Forbes magazine could have lost many readers as the Internet gained prominence, the company instead was able to adapt, and actually grew. Forbes, Inc. made a profit and achieved international fame with the creation of its Web site, forbes.com, Forbes said.
Despite his current success in the company, Forbes never thought he would join the family business and originally planned on a career in Hollywood. "I'm surprised at what I'm doing," he said. "It's absolutely not what I thought I'd be doing when I was (students') age."
Forbes chose to focus his speech on the past to show the usefulness of the study of history, he told The Herald. "I was trying to convey how the attitudes towards different things ebb and flow and how changes in the world inevitably touch things you're going to be doing," he said. "History (is) a way of getting experience without living it."
"I liked his advice that you never know what you're going to be involved in 10 years from now," said Neil Parikh '11. "I thought that was really important for students in college who don't really know where we're going to end up in life."
Erika Gruppo '09 and Phyllis Yip '08, co-presidents of the Entrepreneurship Forum, said they enjoyed the speech because it showed entrepreneurship is relevant to all academic field. "The speech was very applicable to Brown and a liberal arts education," Yip said. "Why does Brown produce so many entrepreneurs?"
The forum also included the panels, "Going Green: Entrepreneurship and the Environment," "Media and the Arts" and "Startups: Lessons from Entrepreneurs." The panel leaders were professors and notable alumni from businesses including ApplyWise and Multimedicus.
Following the panels, the forum had roundtable discussions with representatives of finance, journalism and publishing, marketing, technology and non-profit companies.
The forum concluded with a second keynote speech by Khosrowshahi about maintaining an entrepreneurial culture in a large company like Expedia, Inc., Yip said. She added that he spoke about "how entrepreneurship is about taking risks, and then he gave examples of mistakes he made in the past."
Yip was pleased with the forum's speakers and discussions. "We wanted to show the campus that it doesn't matter if you're interested in business specifically, but entrepreneurship will apply to anything you do," she said.
