Quotes from Vivek Wadhwa

If you don't have savings, and your co-founders are as poor as you are, and if Mom and Dad won't loan you money, then your best bet is to find people that know you - your friends. If they, too, won't help, then you're stuck seeking out angel investors.

Student loan debt is the reason I don't advise students who want to become entrepreneurs to apply to elite, expensive colleges. They can be as successful if they go to a relatively inexpensive public college.

I became an academic so that I could share my knowledge and experience with students.

My message to students is that if you want to become an entrepreneur and save the world, definitely don't skip college. But go to a school that you can afford. You'll be freed from the chains of debt and succeed on your own ambition and merit.

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

You have to live in Silicon Valley and hear the horror stories. You go and hang out at the cafes, and you meet entrepreneur after entrepreneur who's struggling, basically - who's had a visa problem who wants to start a company, but they can't start companies.

Hiring foreigners is more expensive and more difficult than hiring locals, because of the visa fees and long lead times for visa processing. And companies face a backlash by anti-immigrant groups for hiring foreigners. So they do it only because they have to.

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.

We live in the most amazing period in human history. We can have unlimited energy, unlimited food, provide education for everyone, clean water, all the things that have held mankind back.

We can either build a Star Trek future, in which our civilization rises to new heights, or descend into a Mad Max world. It is up to us.

The goal should be to build a sustainable lifestyle business that does good for employees and customers - and that steadily builds wealth.