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The 9 Skills Needed to Be a Super-Connector. Editor’s note: James Altucher is an investor, programmer, author, and entrepreneur.

He is Managing Director of Formula Capital and has written 6 books on investing. 10 Things Entrepreneurs Don’t Learn in College. Editor’s note: James Altucher is an investor, programmer, author, and entrepreneur.

He is Managing Director of Formula Capital and has written 6 books on investing. His latest book is I Was Blind But Now I See. You can follow him@jaltucher. I’ve written before on 10 reasons Parents Should Not Send Their Kids to College and here is also Eight Alternatives to College but it’s occurred to me that the place where college has really hurt me the most was when it came to the real world, real life, how to make money, how to build a business, and then even how to survive when trying to build my business, sell it, and be happy afterwards. Jack Dorsey: How I Balance Twitter AND Square. How To Get A Job At A Startup If You Have No Skills. Editor’s note: This guest post is by Justin Kan, cofounder of Justin.tv and TwitchTV.

You can follow him on Twitter and read his blog. Recently I had a conversation with a friend of mine who was interested in doing product management at a startup. Beyond Badges: The New Rules of Gamification. Foursquare does it.

Mint.com does. Even NBC and Warner Brothers do it. Like it or not, gamification is here to stay. Richard Branson: My Plan to End Occupy Wall Street. Testing a Start-up 8,000 Miles From Silicon Valley. Startups, Investing, And Daily Deals: Five Questions With Mark Cuban. Some think Mark Cuban is a genius, some think he’s lucky.

Either way, the guy has a knack for seeing value where others may not, for locating long-term investments, and for ending up on the right side of the deal. Some may disagree with his approach, but Mark Cuban is a billionaire, and while making money is a lot easier when you have stacks of it to play with, becoming a billionaire doesn’t happen by accident. (Lotto winners not included.) Exploring The “Labs” Trend in Consumer Startups.

Editor’s note: TechCrunch contributor Semil Shah is an entrepreneur interested in digital media, consumer Internet, and social networks.

Shah is based in Palo Alto and you can follow him on twitter @semil For those of us who studied (or suffered through) chemistry at some point in life, images from the chem lab inspire nostalgia (or dread). White lab coats. Protective goggles and gloves. Hot subjects in the Tech industry. Building For The Long Haul. Editor’s note: This post was written by guest contributor Aaron Levie, CEO and co-founder of Box.net.

His last post on TechCrunch was Competing Against The Big Guys. At a recent Startup School, Mark Zuckerberg made some very poignant comments about Silicon Valley’s lack of long-term focus. While the quick turnover of capital, people and innovation makes the Valley an incredibly attractive place for starting companies, it also produces an environment that’s almost hostile when it comes to building them for the long haul. Web Industry Topics. Tokyo Japan 2011: The Cambrian Explosion In Startups [Video] TechCrunch Tokyo Japan 2011: The Cambrian Explosion In Startups [Video] A massive number of species appeared and began evolving some 580 million years ago, forming the basis of modern life.

Now we’re in the middle of another “Cambrian Explosion,” Erick Schonfeld explains in the video above, where the internet is primed for new startups like Precambrian Earth was for rapid evolution. Lower costs for getting started and the prevalence of internet-connected devices make it more possible for new companies to create big changes in seemingly slow-growing industries like health care, education and transportation. Friend Count Up, Sharing Down: Path Only Works If You Reject Those Friend Requests. You’re going to be tempted, but don’t do it.

Don’t add all your friends on Path. Don’t come anywhere near the 150-friend limit. The Lean Finance Model Of Venture Capital. The venture capital industry is going through a ton of disruptions lately.

One of the better explanations I’ve heard recently of what is going on comes from Duncan Davidson, a managing partner at Bullpen Capital who gave a great talk on the subject at TechCrunch Tokyo last week. I interviewed him backstage on video, where he summarized his views. Just as there are now legions of “lean startups” which require less capital to build a product, Davidson argues that a “lean finance model” is also needed. “We are in the era of cheap. The whole concept is keep the company as lean as possible until the company validates its market, then you shovel the money in.”

Tech startups don’t need $5 million A rounds when $2 million to $3 million will do. In this view, we are not really seeing a Series A Crunch (where the growing number of seed-funded companies are failing to find series A money). The big-name VCs will still do okay. Spare Me From “Product Guys”