In order to protect against being disrupted, startups also need to recruit employees that are committed to life-long learning. The skills that made your team members valuable may not be the skills needed to take your company to the next level or to compete in emerging markets.

New ideas for innovation grow out of the minds of each new generation. Having an institution of higher learning that can help young people put those ideas into action is critical.

Just as the music industry couldn't combat the financial impact of digital piracy, major corporations will have to rethink how to maintain margins when many of their most profitable items can be easily manufactured at home.

Your innovation can create new winners and losers; or at the very least, make existing companies look fresh and innovative by partnering with you. Everyone wants to align with market makers.

The Internet snark has zero effect on me.

There are lots of lessons to learn from Amazon. Never stop innovating or questioning the fundamentals of your business. Disrupt yourself before others do. Continually motivate employees so that they never get too complacent - see Yahoo, AOL and many other Internet companies for evidence of what happens when they do.

Alan Turing gave us a mathematical model of digital computing that has completely withstood the test of time. He gave us a very, very clear description that was truly prophetic.

Before social media, if I, as an individual wanted to publish something to the world, unless I could get some local TV crew to interview me, or I wrote an op-ed or took out an ad, I had no voice.