Seriel entrepreneurs where you may not be looking | Patrick Dempsey | TEDxLivermore
so earlier Nick gave you a broader definition of Entrepreneurship I'd like to broaden that a little more so think of a serial entrepreneur who comes to M it's probably not somebody at a large company the government or even in a National Lab it's probably Somebody Like Richard Branson who at age 34 started Virgin airways has over 400 companies under his virgin brand now Forbes defines a Serial entrepreneur simply as somebody who finds a need and fills it I would add to that somebody with the passion to build and create and risk the status quo in order to make something better and by risk the status quo I mean think of something that you're passionate about that you're very close to you're comfortable with and change it to make it better that's what an entrepreneur does so I'd like to take a step back a little bit and think about what if we had serial entrepreneurs in large companies we need serial entrepreneurs in our large companies because they're the ones that create new opportunity I'd like to tell you a story that I think I hope illustrates this for you uh as a young child it was clear I like to create and build and repair things maybe even if they weren't broken recently was suggested that I'm a Serial entrepreneur and I thought how could that be I work at a large company a government funded company and I thought about it well I do like to build and create and I really do risk this status quo in order to make things better even my own job at times but I work at a large company as I said uh a National Laboratory and I've been there for 29 years I started as a mechanical engineer uh just out of college I've had 17 distinct jobs at this same company started four offices five companies run or organizations of over 500 people the first entrepreneurship opportunity came 3 years out of college senior operational managers knew it was time to modernize our our Utility Systems so they asked me to get involved and help lead a $100 million retrofit program to transform our Utility Systems from what some called Baghdad Power and Light into what became one of the most reliable in the nation he invested in people equipment equipment we really changed the way we had been doing operations for the past 40 years so then I moved on to another opportunity and this one was closer to some of the things I've learned in school uh engineering and construction and in this case we Lally took an organization and made an internal construction company out of it and we gave people broader responsibilities reduce the handoffs from person to person within the organization and result people reported that they enjoyed their jobs more at the same time we we cut costs by over $20 million a year so I was beginning to enjoy this this change in in entrepreneurship and I moved on to another operational opportunity which is a maintenance organization it had different kinds of challenges costs were going through the roof and we're doing thousands of jobs a year so it was wasn't really clear how you could control that and so this time I really needed to use my engineering background and dig into the data and I did and what I learned was that about 80% of the cost would result of less than 10% of the work when we focused people on that 10% costs went down by almost a third overnight so this was really starting to roll I was really enjoying myself and then came along a different opportunities it was different because my boss said okay here's a job this organization's running really well so you don't need to change anything just keep it running smoothly that's not what I do so I went ahead and started changing things and it didn't go so well the organization wasn't ready for it definitely my boss wasn't ready for it things went downhill quick and uh it was the first time I left the job not knowing where I was going to go it was a it was what I considered my biggest failure for the next year uh I spent in a in a staff position I was headed down a road where I didn't know I was going to end up but it turned out that became my biggest learning opportunity my biggest source of insight cuz then I learned that what I really needed and what I needed to search for was an opportunity where I could explore my passion where I could be an entrepreneur where I could build and change I needed to challenge and turns out challenge is what fuels me challenge is what fuels me in my personal life that's why I compete in Iron Man so I needed to look for the kind of job that allowed me to to challenge myself and that's what I did well it turned out our company was going through a challenge of its own it was transitioning from one contract to another for the first time in this 50-year history and I knew that the company needed somebody who understood operations well which I did and somebody who had a good business education which I did not so I spent the next two years getting my MBA at brookley in Columbia went back to school uh the company supported me they invested in me I invested in them so I spent the same time working full-time helping the company make this transition and it was a transformative experience for me especially the education and the students that I work with because they were all exploring creativity and Entrepreneurship in their own ways in many different ways I I was working with students that were in media in food in a parall entrepreneurship in Hollywood what I learned was that all these different people were had the same thing in common they wanted to risk status quo and create something better they gave me a broader Vision was no longer looking at how I could help the lab I was looking at how I could help my company help the world and it turned out the world was going through its own challenges at that time was about the time that the country was trying to pull itself out of the recession and the federal government had just invested over $800 billion in recovery at to help create jobs and improve the economy and they were asking National Labs to help by bringing technology to companies and helping them compete globally only problem was our lab was not asked to help so I proposed to change that and our directors agreed so that's how I found myself spending the next year and a half starting an office f focused on bringing technology to The Recovery Act program out of our laboratory in the process that helped build our energy programs which sustains to this day now I'm helping develop public private private Partnerships like like one with the California utilities we're bringing high performance Computing that's used on many of our challenges at the lab to the electric grid where there's a lot of data and a lot of technology that needs high performance Computing to analyze it also I also put together and I formed a collaborative I brought together people from the federal government state government industry Labs universities and we're focusing our efforts on improving California's manufacturing sector by bringing technology to small and medium-sized Enterprises with new technology that exists at universities and Laboratories and it's here I met some more creative people like I did in my NBA program exploring their creativity like Cameron Chen who built a 3D printer took a 3D printer modified in his kitchen and built this piece of mathematically generated artwork now that didn't take 8 seconds it took 8 hours that was a Time Lapse video but they're commercial companies that are using the same technology in very creative ways instance in the prosthetic limb Market uh there's a company that is using scanners and 3D printing to to create uh replacement limbs for individuals that aren't an exact replica of their remaining limb but something that embodies the creativity of the individual customized for that individual or companies that are giving away designs of prosthetic hands on the internet to anybody in the world who has a 3D printer and wants to print it and of course Technologies from the laboratory in the same additive manufacturing 3D printing space they're creating micro architect materials that are lighter and stronger than any known man will end up in our cars and planes someday so I'm grateful to the large company that I've work for that's allowed me to explore my creativity and Entrepreneurship within that company taken me down a road that served me and my company well it's like Richard Branson said there's no greater thing you can do with your life or your work and pursue your passion for the good of the world and of yourself what happens if we encourage the idea of Serial entrepreneurship in a large company change the language so that promotes this idea I think the sky is the limit because there are many of us and may not all look the same we have the same thing in common we like to build create and risk the status quo in order to make things better thank you