LESSON 3: BUSINESS AND ENTREPENEURS

People who start their own businesses from nothing

Examples: Jeff Bezos, Steve Jobs, Amancio Ortega

To be an entrepreneur you need:

Skills (Leadership, originality, risk taker, ambitious)
Money (it can be from investors, but you need to persuade)
AN IDEA

Linda Zhang (Video)

Entrepreneurship defined as the activity of setting up a business or businesses, taking on financial risk in the hope of
profit.
Linda Zhang states that entrepreneurs identify a problem and help people solve it because they are resourceful.
Entrepreneurial mindset → to transform problems into opportunities to create new solutions.
(1) To devise real solutions to real problems → solve problems that students care about.
(2) Mark Zuckerberg - “Entrepreneurship is about creating change, not just companies”. Entrepreneurship is about
creating changes not only enterprises. You have to find a problem and solve it, it’s just to act like an entrepreneur. You
don’t need to start your own million-dollar company.
(3) Your potential is not limited to your schoolwork. She realized that HS should not be to prepare students for exams,
but for life.
(4) Careers are an evolving set of opportunities to create new solutions.

Her parents were entrepreneurs. Her father was a text expert, so he noticed there was a problem in New Zealand that he
could solve setting a company. That´s what he did, and they created the second -best company

Entrepreneurial mindset: The ability of noticing a problem a coming up with a solution for that., which is a business
opportunity.

She says young people will have over the course of their professional lives 15 jobs in over 6 industries. /you’re going
to solve different problems, you need different skills

Her message is similar to Lisa G’s because they both talk about changing the way you learn, seeing a problem and
changing it (Lisa’s son and the entrepreneurial mindset)

VOCABULARY
Phrasal verbs
• Bring in: to ask someone to do a particular job.
• Bring on: to help someone to improve, especially through training or practice
• Bet on: To place a bet on someone or something
• Deliberate over: discuss
• Focus on
• Measured by
• Rooted in
• Trade up: to buy something, usually a house or car that is of higher value than the one you already have:

• Accelerators: Helps to grow faster

• Bonus (salary)
• Burnout: the cessation of operation, to stop producing
• Cash flow: net amount of cash and cash equivalents being transferred in and out of a company.
• Counterbalance: a weight that balances another weight.
• Core metric
 • Entrepreneurial mindset
• Endgame: the final stage
• Evolve or die
• FOMO: Fear of missing out. Reason why we go back to social media
• Futureproof their business: the process of anticipating the future and developing methods of minimizing the
effects of shocks and stresses of future events.
• Gamify: something that is contagious. Whitney says kindness is contagious. She uses gamify to express the idea
of companies setting policies that help reach the kindness in the social network
• Gender dynamics: the relationships and interactions between and among women and men (roles)
• Glass ceiling: The unseen, yet unbroken, barrier that keeps minorities and women from rising to the upper rings
of the corporate ladder
• Go mainstream: popularizarse
• Incubator: Helps an entrepreneur to grow
• IPO: Initial Public Offering. Act of offering the stock of a company on a public stock exchange for the first
time.
• Key metrics of success: business success metric is a quantifiable measurement that business leaders track to
see if the strategies implanted are being effective. For example, the number of views or use of your platform
• Nasdaq/ ibex 35
• Make a pitch: make a determined effort to get something or to persuade someone to do something
• Maximize engagement
• Net worth: Patrimonio neto
• Outcome
• Pre-pandemic work culture
• Prompt to do something: make something happen
• R&D: Research and development
• RRP: recommended retail price
• Run a business
• Run at loss: unprofitable
• Shares/ Stock
• Stake in a company: participación o acción en la empresa
• Standardized tests (2º, 4º, 6º).
• Take/ Have a week off
• Ticker symbol: letters representing specific assets or securities listed on a stock exchange or traded publicly
• Trade down: to buy something, usually a house or car, that is of a lower value than the one you already have:
• To soar: Remontar
• Upgrade: actualizar
• Upside: take the advantage of the situation
• USP: Unique selling proposition. It is the essence of what makes your product or service better than competitors
• (High stakes vs low stakes)

Problems with standarized:

- Teachers/ Students are not the same
- There is not flexibility

Course syllabus

Sth enable/ permit/ allow to do sth

Sth makes sth easier/ fun/ possible
Sth makes it easier/ fun to do
Sth lets someone do

BUMBLE
Man are expected to go after the women and women are to sit on their hands. Gender dynamics have been changed with
bumbles, as the woman makes the first move, she is in control. Women started to feel comfortable, so they used app for
more than looking for a relationship, that’s when the app developed the friend finder. Finally, the networking option.
Bumble allows the hyper locality; you can connect with people around you instantly, normalize behavior of meeting
strangers beyond dating. It is a company rooted in kindness and respect, that wants to grow in positive behavior. This
starts after she reported being harassed by its ex-boss and ex-boyfriend, that’s way she left Tinder and founded Bumble.
She filled a lawsuit against her ex-boyfriend.
In my opinion, nowadays everything is understood as a form of freedom speech, even things that are more a hateful
speech. Therefore, I believe the internet need a mechanism of control.
I think it might be because is a company that represents the values that are now been pursue, so people identify with
them, especially Gen Z as we have seen

JEFF BEZOS AND HIS ANNUAL SHAREHOLDER LETTERS

Jeff Bezos founded Amazon in 1994, whose set of core principles are:
- Don’t worry about competitors
- Don’t worry about making money for shareholders
- Company focuses on the customers
- Don’t worry about the short-term
-
Bezos’ philosophy of business, technology, and leadership is articulated in his annual shareholder letters, which he has
written since the company’s IPO in 1997:
1997: Bring on shareholders who align with their values
1998: Stay terrified of your customers
1999: Build on top of your infrastructure that’s improving on its own
2000: In lean times, build a cash moat
2001: Measure your company by free cash flow
2002: Build your business on your fixed costs
2003: Long-term thinking is rooted in ownership
2004: Free cash flow enables more innovation
2005: Don’t get fixated on short-term numbers
2006: Nurture your seedlings to build big lines of business
2007: Missionaries build better products
2008: Work backwards to customers’ needs to know what to build next
2009: Focus on inputs - the outputs will take care of themselves
2010: R&D should pervade every department
2011: Self-service platforms unlock innovation
2012: Surprise and delight your customers to build long-term trust
2013: Decentralize decision-making to generate innovation
2014: Bet on ideas that have unlimited outside
2015: Don’t deliberate on easily reversible decisions
2016: Move fast and focus on outcomes.
2017: Build high standards into company culture. If a company wants to stay competitive it must teach high standards,
you have to be able to recruit new people with high standards. Nowadays the customer is more empowered, so the
retailer is never safe from its competition. Amazon is especially at risk in this kind of environment because they need
to get technologically ahead of nimbler start-up competition. To stay competitive companies, need to ensure that
standards internally don’t stagnate (estancarse) and is constantly rise along customer’s expectations- High standards:
scope and recognition
2018: Wandering is an essential counterbalance to efficiency. Wandering away from the obvious, away from old ideas
is the key to Amazon’s success. When companies know exactly what needs to build, many companies can execute their
ideas, but when you don’t know this gets riskier but also a fertile and profitable territory for a business. The k ey to
staying innovative is constantly urging employees to wander, to pursue creative ideas. The bigger a company get the
more they have to lose, and the less tolerant to risk-taking you become.

NETFLIX

Their business idea was simply an upgrade to the DVD rental business and now it has become one of the biggest TV
and movie studios in the world
It uses as a way of saying that Netflix has been the brain behind several innovations in the industry
It is said it all started when the owner of Netflix rented a movie, and due to the late fees, the cost was of 40$, then he
thought there must be another way of renting films.
Netflix endgame was to decentralize entertainment and prime TV from the monopolistic group of Big Cable. DVD
rentals were an easy way for them to gain traction in a competitive market. The main difference between both was the
unique Netflix model, that sent the DVDs to people. Netflix was growing without people noticing it. It went from 900
titles to 5000 titles. They focus on a key metric that was the number of the movies the subscribers had watched that’s
how a new way of subscribing to Netflix came along ($15.95, 4 films at a time). In May 2002 Netflix went public. Due
to high operational costs. It started being profitable in 2006. The company have the best streaming tech, the largest
library tittles, the biggest subscriber base. Because they were able to take the opportunities by listening to their clients.
(Taking into account the subscribers opinions)

- Advise + noun

- Advocate + should+ verb

I empower you/him/her/them/us (not) TO listen to the clients

motivate
Recommend someone for something. Is not giving advice to that one

Relative clauses
My sister, who lives in NY, has two cats (1 sis → non defining)
My sister who lives in NY has two cats (2sis → defining)

The exchange students who/that don’t speak Spanish take classes → defining
The exchange students, who don’t speak Spanish, take classes → Non defining

Defining: includes information that is necessary to understand

Non- defining: includes extra information, it goes with comas

• People: Who/ that

• Things: Which/ That
• Possessions: Whose

Of which (things and places), of whom (people9

 • One, two, three
• Many / A few
• Some
• None
• Neither / Both
• The majority
• Fractions
• Percentages
• Half of
• Each of
• All of
What
Equals: The + noun + that
He was writing with something that looked like a Mont Blanc pen → He was writing with what looked like a Mont
Blanc pen
The company spends a lot of money developing the drugs that it sells → the company spends a lot of money
developing what it sells
The sector it specializes in is pharmaceuticals → What it specializes in is pharmaceuticals

REDUCE THE INFORMATION

1. Pau Gasol, a Spanish basketball player, has won two NBA championships.
2. Pau Gasol, who played for the Lakers, has won two NBA championships.
3. Pau Gasol, born in Barcelona, has won two NBA championships.

→Born in Barcelona, Pau Gasol, a Spanish basketball player who played for the Lakers, has won two NBA
championships.

The invisible relative clause

1. Passive verb + past participle
The regional manager, appointed by the president, is accountable to the Board of Directors
IMPORTANT: This transformation can only be done when the subordinate clause is a SUBJECT relative clause and
refers back to the preceding noun.

2. Active verb + Present participle

The company was divided into seven subsidiaries, each of which included previously existing divisions.
IMPORTANT: This structure cannot always be used.
 3. Adjective + adjective
Mr. Smith is the person responsible for maintenance
4. Reduced future relatives + to be/ -ing
The project, which will be presented at the worldwide meeting next week, will cost over $10 m. → The project to
be presented/ being presented at the worldwide meeting next week, will cost over $10m
TO BE can only be used if the original relative clause is PASSIVE.
5. That / who/ which has/ have → with + noun clause
The company, which currently has 2000 employees, plans to open a new subsidiary in August. → The company with
200 employees, plans to open a new subsidiary in August.

To add information, we have seen the following types of subordinate clauses.

1. Apposition: a nominal clause, no verb
Pau Gasol, a Spanish basketball player, has won two NBA championships.
2. Normal relative clause: can begin with that, who, which, whose, where, when. There are defining and non -
defining relative clauses.
Pau Gasol, who played for the Lakers, has won two NBA championships.
3. Reduced relative clause: always begin with a verb (past or present participle).
Born in Barcelona, Pau Gasol has won two NBA championships.
OF WHICH, OF WHOM
Spanish factories make 200 000 a year, 89% of which are exported
Designed in Japan in 1994 for the automotive industry, a QR code, a matrix barcode,