Entrepreneurs talk about the perks and perils of mixing small business and friendship.
After 36 years at the helm of KKR, Henry Kravis and George Roberts have both earned a place among private equity's éminence grises. But their partnership began when they were 2-year-old first cousins vacationing in Marblehead, Mass. ("We remember that meeting. There was a PowerPoint," Roberts deadpans.) The pair were classmates at Claremont McKenna College, contemporaries at Bear Stearns, and cofounders of KKR with their mentor, Jerome Kohlberg, who retired in 1987.
Larry page loves moon shots, so it's fitting that as CEO of Google he has entrusted the company's most ambitious endeavors -- self-driving cars, for example -- to his closest friend, confidant, and collaborator, Sergey Brin.
Hosain Rahman and Yves Behar do what some say isn't done anymore -- they create high tech hardware, not software, in Silicon Valley. Vinod Khosla, famed venture capitalist and co-founder of Sun Microsystems, says as much: "Everyone was telling them they shouldn't do hardware, that it's a huge risk -- and it is. It takes crafting a whole new method of what works, which they did." Rahman and famed designer Behar are the "they" Khosla is referring to. Rahman is the CEO of Jawbone, Behar is the company's chief creative officer, and together they have made revolutionary Bluetooth headsets, the most popular wireless speakers in the category, and a new health wristband that can track steps and sleep patterns (among other things). How do they create? Constant vision, revision, and sweat.
You never know what you're going to get from the creative collaborations of Ron Howard and Brian Grazer. Their complimentary skills -- Howard is the cool, methodical half of the duo, Grazer the hyperactive ideas guy -- have led to an eclectic string of hits from Splash to Apollo 13 to 8 Mile to television's 24 and Arrested Development.
