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The co-founder of one of the world’s most high-profile artificial intelligence events highlighted the skills he thinks set successful technology entrepreneurs apart.
Charlie Muirhead, who helped come up with AI festival CogX, told CNBC’s Tania Bryer in an interview aired last week, that being an entrepreneur meant getting used to feeling like you’re “running through walls every day.”
Even in the face of these hurdles, Muirhead said it was important “to be able to pick yourself up, dust yourself off and get straight back into it.”
He added that it was also key to remember that failures are “just a stepping stone along the path to success.”
These stumbling blocks could range from a bad meeting to someone leaving your company, Muirhead said. “Sometimes it’s got something to do with you, sometimes it’s got nothing to do with you.”
“These little setbacks happen every single day, and you have to just build up this rhino skin and this kind of imperviousness to it,” he added.
“If you do that — whether you want to call it grit or determination — I think you have a huge chance of success.”
Muirhead and tech entrepreneur Tabitha Goldstaub started the CogX festival 2017 after founding the company behind it, CognitionX. The festival has attracted a range of big-name speakers over the years, from Hollywood actors Robert Downey Jr. and Matthew McConaughey, to iPod inventor Tony Fadell.
Prior to CogX, Muirhead founded software company Orchestream, content studio t5m and video rights network Rightster, now known as Brave Bison.
Muirhead reportedly even worked as a roadie as a teenager, for musicians like Prince, before he went university.
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