“Alex Lazarow has provided us with an up-to-date map of the fast-moving world of innovation: how it works now and where it is headed. Out-Innovate is a must-read for all current and prospective entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and every business leader with a plan to grow.”
—Bill Draper, cochair and co-founder, Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation; founder, Sutter Hill Ventures; former President and Chairman, Export-Import Bank of the United States; and author, The Startup Game
“Alex Lazarow’s incisive and much-needed book tells a story that has long been ignored: Innovation is thriving globally, from Bangalore to Beijing, yet often looks different than in Silicon Valley. The global lessons in Out-Innovate are paramount for entrepreneurs everywhere.”
—Nandan Nilekani, Nonexecutive Chairman and co-founder, Infosys; founding Chairman, Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI)
“With vivid storytelling, Lazarow describes and defines how innovation occurs on the ‘frontier’—nascent urban and rural startup communities in developed countries as well as in emerging markets. A must-read for entrepreneurs and startup-community developers all over the world.”
—Nandan Nilekani, Nonexecutive Chairman and co-founder, Infosys; founding Chairman, Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI)
“As President Obama’s point person on entrepreneurship, I’ve seen firsthand diverse models, grounded in unique local strengths, for building innovation ecosystems and supporting entrepreneurial success. In Out-Innovate, Alex Lazarow provides an outstanding perspective on how startups and entrepreneurs can succeed no matter where they originate—in a mega city like Chicago or a more rural environment like Cedar Rapids.”
—Penny Pritzker, former United States Secretary of Commerce
“Some of the most exciting venture-investment possibilities over the next decades are sure to come from emerging economies. In Out-Innovate, Alex Lazarow illustrates this immense opportunity in great detail and explains the critical strategies necessary to capture it.”
—David Vélez, founder and CEO, Nubank (Brazil)
“Out-Innovate proves that frontier entrepreneurs face entirely different challenges than their Silicon Valley peers and that the canon of the Valley should no longer be taken as gospel. This book is a must-read for any entrepreneur building a business and any VC who doesn’t want to be left behind.”
—Linda Rottenberg, co-founder and CEO, Endeavor; author, Crazy Is a Compliment
“Startups are one of the most important forces for change. But far too many regions have fixated on the Silicon Valley model as the only way to build a startup ecosystem. Out-Innovate takes you on a tour of innovative entrepreneurs and companies around the globe, to provide a guidebook on how to successfully start and scale world-changing businesses wherever you might be.”
—Chris Yeh, coauthor, Blitzscaling and The Alliance
“Out-Innovate is replete with inspiring and instructive stories of innovation from around the world. Whether in middle America or middle Africa, it’s a go-to book for anyone with an idea for starting and scaling a business.”
—Diana Farrell, president and CEO, JPMorgan Chase Institute
“In Out-Innovate, Alex Lazarow has perfectly captured Silicon Valley’s ‘Detroit Moment’—the realization that Asia and other emerging markets aren’t simply generating local clones of American startups, but raising the bar for innovation and product quality on a global basis. Brilliant.”
—Nick Nash, co-founder and managing partner, Asia Partners; retired Group President, Sea Limited
“Silicon Valley is a source of inspiration for many tech entrepreneurs around the world, but innovation coming from emerging countries, Africa, and other locales beyond the Valley is now raising the game. In his captivating book, Alex Lazarow vividly describes this changing context and the strategies required to succeed within it.”
—Sacha Poignonnec, co-founder and co-CEO, Jumia
“The wide world of innovation does not always look and act like Silicon Valley. In fact, among rising markets in particular, there is a shared experience entrepreneurs and investors navigate—regardless of history, culture, language, or geography—where the Silicon Valley model is only part of the story. This important book articulates rich new models for local and global entrepreneurs looking to engage on those markets’ terms. This book could not be more timely.“
—Christopher Schroeder, co-founder, Next Billion Ventures; advisor and venture investor; and author, Startup Rising
“We need to move beyond the Silicon Valley ‘playbook’ for startup innovation. In this trenchant work, Alex Lazarow shows that there are new principles and practices that apply in quickly changing conditions of scarcity and adversity. In other words, wherever you are.”
—Vijay Shekhar Sharma, founder and CEO, Paytm
“Lazarow’s book will not only inspire you with its global stories of innovation, it will give you real models to follow. Wherever you are, if you have an entrepreneurial idea, you need to read Out-Innovate.”
—Mudassir Sheikha, co-founder and CEO, Careem
“If disruption is about moving fast and breaking things, Lazarow zooms us out of the Valley, beyond borders and buzzwords. Out-Innovate is the new global playbook for how to observe different and create different.”
—Scott Hartley, author, The Fuzzy and the Techie
“Alex Lazarow draws on his vast global experience to shed light on the models and practices of startups all over the world. In doing so, he articulates one of the great promises of today’s high-tech world: that access to innovation is no longer the exclusive right of a select few locations. Anyone, anywhere, who is interested in innovation will benefit from reading this book.”
—Yossi Vardi, one of Israel’s early entrepreneurs
