As a Chief Guest at a local TiE Young Entrepreneur (TYE) I felt compelled to gift each contestant with the bestseller, “Leonardo Da Vinci: The Biography by Walter Isaacson”. This is what every aspiring entrepreneur should read. It reads “The fifteenth century of Leonardo and Columbus and Gutenberg was a time of invention, exploration, and the spread of knowledge by new technologies. In short, it was a time like our own. That is why we have much to learn from Leonardo. His ability to combine art, science, technology, the humanities, and imagination remains an enduring recipe for creativity. So, too, was his ease at being a bit of a misfit: illegitimate, gay, vegetarian, left-handed, easily distracted, and at times heretical. Florence flourished in the fifteenth century because it was comfortable with such people. Above all, Leonardo’s relentless curiosity and experimentation should remind us of the importance of instilling, in both ourselves and our children, not just received knowl-edge but a willingness to question it—to be imaginative and, like talented misfits and rebels in any era, to think different”.
