This billionaire entrepreneur shares 3 advices on how to keep inventing

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There’s a lot to learn from Tom Siebel’s personal and professional life. Founder of C3 IoT, Siebel was gorged by an elephant in Tanzania and underwent 19 surgeries to be able to fully walk again.
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Siebel founded Siebel Systems in 1993 and sold it to Oracle for $5.8 billion in 2006. In 2009, he founded C3 IoT, an IoT platform and applications company.

Soon after he founded the company, Siebel was gored by an elephant. But, this incident did not stop Siebel from inventing.

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In the Fortt Knox Podcast: rich ideas, powerful people, Siebel said one should always keep moving.

During the podcast, Siebel said he had 19 reconstructive surgeries and relied on an electric wheelchair to get around. He kept looking for a doctor who could help him to make real progress.

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"I would go visit physicians, and they would explain that they're going to have to remove my leg, and I'd say OK, you're fired,” he said.

After all the search, he called the maker of the device that was holding his leg together and went to a doctor who had experience in installing it.

There are multiple lessons to be learnt from Siebel’s life. Here are 3 most important takeaways from his podcast:

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1. Never give up:

1. Never give up:

If you have a goal in mind and you are focussed towards it, what may come, don’t give up. Like Siebel never gave up and did not let doctors cut his leg and instead found a solution; you can also find solutions. You have to be persistent, and talk to experts in that domain.

2. Work and learn:

2. Work and learn:

Before starting his own business, Siebel worked with Oracle and learnt a plethora of things. He learnt about sales, marketing, accounting, HR, etc. He also learn ‘trial and error’ and applied good practices in his own company.

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3. Don’t think what others say:

3. Don’t think what others say:

After touching around $1 billion in sales at Oracle, Siebel wanted to build an application and he took his idea to Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, who said no. But, this did not discourage him. Since Siebel believed in the idea, he went ahead on his own. We have to decide for ourselves and make our own career decisions. Listen to your gut feeling and if you believe you’ve got what it takes, go for it

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