There is much that public policy can do to support American entrepreneurs. Health insurance reform will make it easier for entrepreneurs to take a chance on a new business without putting their family's health at risk. Tort reform will make it easier to take prudent risks on new products in a number of sectors.

Customers don't care how much time something takes to build. They care only if it serves their needs.

Entrepreneurs always pitch their idea as 'the X of Y,' so this is going to be 'the Microsoft of food.' And yet disruptive innovations usually don't have that character. Most of the time, if something seems like a good idea, it probably isn't.

Start-up success is not a consequence of good genes or being in the right place at the right time. Success can be engineered by following the right process, which means it can be learned, which means it can be taught.

This is one of the most important lessons of the scientific method: if you cannot fail, you cannot learn.

Progress in manufacturing is measured by the production of high quality goods. The unit of progress for Lean Startups is validated learning-a rigorous method for demonstrating progress when one is embedded in the soil of extreme uncertainty.

If we stopped wasting people's time, what would they do with it?