You're listening to a special archive presentation of TED Talks Audio.

This talk features Idea Guy Bill Gross, recorded live at TED 2015.

I'm really excited to share with you some findings that really surprised me about what makes companies succeed the most.

What factors actually matter the most for

startup success? I believe that the startup organization is one of the greatest forms to make

the world a better place. If you take a group of people with the right equity incentives

and organize them in a startup, you can unlock human potential in a way

never before possible. You get them to achieve unbelievable things. But if the startup organization

is so great, why does so many fail? That's what I wanted to find out. I wanted to find out

what actually matters most for startup success. And I wanted to try to be systematic about it, avoid some of my

instincts and maybe misperceptions I have from so many companies I've seen over the years. I wanted to know

this because I've been starting businesses since I was 12 years old when I sold candy at the bus stop

in junior high school, to high school when I made solar energy devices, to college when I made loudspeakers,

and when I graduated from college, started software companies.

And 20 years ago, I started Idealab, and in the last 20 years, we started more than 100 companies,

many successes and many big failures.

We learned a lot from those failures.

So I tried to look across what factors accounted the most for company's success and failure.

So I looked at these five, first the idea.

I used to think that the idea was everything.

I mean, I named my company Idealab and how much I worship the aha moment when you first come up with the idea.

But then over time, I came to think that maybe the team, the execution, adaptability, that mattered even more than the idea.

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