Morning Briefings

If America is to rediscover its mojo and grow its way out of debt and deficits–and not just pin the tail on the rich, or inflate it all away–it needs to liberate the new generation of Steve Jobses. Today, that challenge seems daunting. But the 1970s, the decade of Apple’s birth, offers hope that hardy seeds can take root in bad climates.

– Rich Karlgaard, The Wall Street Journal
Apple to the Rescue?

Most of the companies I admire in the world I think have a deeper purpose. I’ve met a lot of successful entrepreneurs. They all started their businesses not to maximize shareholder value but to pursue a dream.

– John Mackey, CEO and founder of Whole Foods Market, Inc.
in a Wall Street Journal interview

New figures out of the Census Bureau show that the rate at which Americans are starting new businesses is at a record low. That’s bad news for job seekers as well as entrepreneurs, with entrepreneurs creating 40% of all new jobs in the 80s but only 30% recently. These figures highlight the fact that despite the high-profile rises of the likes of Mark Zuckerberg and the increasingly loud buzz surrounding flashy, fast-growing tech start-ups, meat-and-potatoes small businesses spread throughout the country aren’t being created nearly as often as they once were.

– Inc. com
Start-up Fever? Actually, We’re in a New-Business Drought

Advising panicky white-collar criminals on what life is like behind bars is a bull-market business, what with all the arrests on Wall Street for insider trading. As America’s lockups have become more crowded, so has the prison-prep industry.

– Michael Rothfeld, The Wall Street Journal
School for Scoundrels: Doing Time in Prison Prep School

An entrepreneur is the creative force in economics. The entrepreneur is the person who comes and looks at a desert or a jungle or a wilderness and sees a garden; sees an opportunity to create new value.

– George Gilder from
The Call of the Entrepreneur

Whenever you ask a small business owner about their motivation when it comes to their business, invariably you will find that motivation comes less from a sense of wanting profit for the sake of greed, but from a sense of responsibility to their employees, customers and their family.

– Tom Markel, CEO, iBank
Small Business is the Key to our Financial Recovery

Slide into bed with an entrepreneur, and you wind up cuddling his business. At a certain point, the entrepreneur’s spouse has to answer the question: Are you in or are you out? In for Slide into bed with an entrepreneur, and you wind up cuddling his business. At a certain point, the entrepreneur’s spouse has to answer the question: Are you in or are you out? In for as long as it takes to succeed? In for what is potentially a lifetime of financial risk? Or out of patience, out of tolerance, out of your mind with stress and the bitterness of dreams deferred? The entrepreneur doesn’t pose the question overtly, but the spouse does answer it, by giving or withholding support, warmth and encouragement–the manifestations of love.

– Meg Cadoux Hirshberg, Inc.com
Balancing Marriage and Business: When your marriage is hitched to a business, life is one long test of allegiance

It’s easy to see how an idea like fighting poverty can be inspiring. But bringing a great product to market–a product that helps people communicate better, allows for the faster delivery of information, or facilitates family life–can be just as exciting. You can’t make goods that are truly good and services that truly serve without in some way enriching the human experience.

– Andreas Widmer
The Pope & The CEO

The success of economic freedom in increasing human prosperity, extending our life spans and improving the quality of our lives in countless ways is the most extraordinary global story of the past 200 years.

– John Mackey, CEO and founder of Whole Foods Market, Inc.
To Increase Jobs, Increase Economic Freedom

Business is a race to see who can be the first to bring a product to the customer, and inventions and ideas are often born simultaneously around the world by any number of unrelated individuals.

– Yvon Chouinard
Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman