Scott Weiss

At the core, coaching authenticity is complicated - some might say impossible. Telling someone to be authentic sounds pretty low calorie, especially to a founder plowing through a list of product and operational goals. But it's important.

One of the rookie mistakes first-time entrepreneurs often make is to be too guarded about their idea - in fact, many will actually spend their first $25,000 on patent lawyers without ever fully vetting their product.

When my co-founder and I first had the idea for IronPort, an email security company, we triangulated a list of the 20 most relevant people in email - former CEOs, open source technologists, investors and thought leaders.

The acceptance of the facts of African-American history and the African-American historian as a legitimate part of the academic community did not come easily. Slavery ended and left its false images of black people intact.

I'm a complete globalist. I think like a global CEO. But I'm an American. I run an American company. But in order for GE to be successful in the coming years, I've gotta sell my products in every corner of the world.