I really like the story, which likes to tell the auto company founder, “Rolf” Sergei Petrov – one of his acquaintance, who lives in the village. When Petrov visited by this man, he begins to talk about the situation in the world and gives bold advice on how to build Russia’s foreign policy. Petrova is more concerned with something else: why can not establish a familiar private well, which is absolutely impossible to use.

Moral Petrova, people in Russia do not want to deal with the case. The founder of “Rolf” calls to forget the ambition to improve and even that is up to you at arm’s length. For this approach is often criticized businessman and even blamed the fact that he does not appreciate the Russian tradition. But Petrov is a strong argument – improving step by step the company, he built a business that until the crisis had revenues under $ 4 billion

When I read the business plans submitted to the contest Skolkovo Challenge, I always thought of Petrov. Many projects began with the words “Our technology will allow to overcome the problem of such and such on the planet” (or something of that spirit.) Further, very vaguely described the essence of technology and even more vague – a way to extract profit from it. All such projects, I, as a member of the jury, put a low score, because I believe that the ability to clearly express their thoughts and realistically assess the potential – the most important quality of a businessman. Excessive ambition, even worse miscalculation of profits. They are – a consequence of a system failure, lack of connection with reality.

I will not argue with the fact that Russia would not appear Tsiolkovsky and Mendeleev, if not moved them crazy idea – to fly into space or to explain the structure of the world on the same page. But let’s face it: most people do not shine to repeat their achievement. Their business – something more prosaic than the periodic table of chemical elements. Explain the nature of your technology. Assess the scale of the project soberly. Repair, at last, well.