Henry Kressel, a senior partner of Warburg Pincus LLC, has been responsible for investments in technology companies in the USA, Europe and Asia. He began his career at RCA Laboratories where he pioneered the first practical semiconductor lasers. He was the founding president of the IEEE Photonics Society and co-founded the IEEE/OSA Journal of Lightwave Technology. He is the recipient of many awards and honors, a Fellow of the American Physical Society and the IEEE, was elected to the US National Academy of Engineering and is holder of thirty-one issued US patents for electronic and optoelectronic devices. He is the co-author of three previous books, Semiconductor Lasers and Heterojunction LEDS with J. K. Butler (1977) and Competing for the Future: How Digital Innovations are Changing the World (Cambridge, 2007) and Investing in Dynamic Markets: Venture Capital in the Digital Age (Cambridge, 2010), both with Thomas V. Lento. He also edited Semiconductor Devices for Optical Communications (1987). Thomas V. Lento is founder and President of InterComm, a corporate communications consultancy specializing in technology companies. He has been a university professor, an ad agency executive and Director of Communications for Sarnoff Corporation. In addition to collaborating with Henry Kressel on three books, he was editor of Inventing the Future: 60 Years of Innovation at Sarnoff and co-authored Gregory H. Olsen's By Any Means Necessary: An Entrepreneur's Journey into Space (2009).

• List of figures; List of tables; Introduction; 1. Government: boss, financial partner, regulator - entrepreneurs in mixed economies; 2. Standing still is not an option - on promoting entrepreneurship and economic growth; 3. Electronic innovation and the government: David Sarnoff builds the RCA empire; 4. Global problem, golden opportunity: Ron Stanton profits from market disruption; 5. Speeding voice and data traffic worldwide: network microprocessors from RMI; 6. Building a world leader: SanDisk and flash memories; 7. Implementing information technology across the globe; 8. Three start-ups in China - entrepreneurs in a controlled economy; 9. Connecting the wireless networks of the world; 10. Building an economy: government planning vs. entrepreneurial innovation; Bibliography; Index.

'This unique book is a must read for innovators that increasingly live all around the globe. In the past the conventional wisdom was design it locally, manufacture it where appropriate, sell it globally; Henry Kressel and Thomas Lento argue in this book that products will be designed anywhere, manufactured anywhere, and marketed anywhere around the globe. Businesses starting up today are global in all dimensions, and competitors operate globally. Businesses need to understand the unique characteristics of each country they operate in, particularly the financial impact of local government financial incentives. Innovators ignore the lessons here at their own peril.' Bart Stuck, Managing Director, Signal Lake