Famous Entrepreneurs

Steve Leach

Steve Leach was born in Forres, Scotland in the late 1960s. After attending local schools, he ventured into a lingerie business, called Silky Drawers at the age of 21. Steve held a job as a firefighter, and was a commercial pilot before making a permanent foray into his own internet-based business. After several other business attempts, in 1996 he looked at the possibility of an online business.

Randy Komisar

The Valley Absorbs Failure

Innovation is not a monopoly of Silicon Valley, says venture capitalist Randy Komisar. But entrepreneurship as a profession, he notes, is practiced best on KPCB’s home turf. Here, failure isn’t personal, and it is tolerated for approximately 70 percent of the businesses that launch here. The Valley offers a unique understanding that Plan A is often flawed and that failure is a necessity for true innovation, and thus it offers the space for smart and inventive people to reassess and move on to the next venture. This key difference that has evolved over the past 70 years, says Komisar, is what has made Silicon Valley thrive.