I'm very comfortable in the U.S. and Europe, but I feel completely out of place in the rest of the world, mostly because I never spent time outside the U.S. and Europe until I was in my 30s.

The quest for stability or homeostasis is silly. We should accept that we live on an incredibly dynamic planet in a rapidly changing environment, and do our best to have the most amazing experiences we can.

It’s not about having a Silicon Valley attitude—it’s about having an entrepreneurial attitude. It’s about partnering with other organizations in and around your area. It’s about thinking big with entrepreneurs that sit next to you in your coworking space. It’s about collaborating with tech gurus, social media wizards and community leaders at cool business events. It’s the people that make a community an entrepreneurial one—not the location—and it’s up to you to contribute.

I dislike reading business books, although I skim a lot of them.

Building a startup community is not a zero-sum game in which there are winners and losers: if everyone engages, they and the entire community can all be winners.

When everyone starts sounding the same, that's when you know the words and phrases have become clichés. Instead of speaking in clichés, I encourage people just to be themselves, let their passion burn brightly, and go work on things they love spending their time on.

I'm very comfortable in the U.S. and Europe, but I feel completely out of place in the rest of the world, mostly because I never spent time outside the U.S. and Europe until I was in my 30s.