That’s so this year. What’s that? Silly Bandz? Twilight? As Mark Cuban writes on his blog, “Location check in is so 2010.” Cuban explains that he just invested in a company that, through video footage, determines how many people are in a given area at a time, ostensibly for security and traffic-pattern analysis. For now anonymity is given to crowd members, but Cuban wonders if adding facial recognition software would allow locations to forego checkin applications because “we would already know you are there.” Sound a little like Minority Report? TechCrunch thinks so. “It sounds like a future we’re inevitably headed toward.”

Behind the scenes at Gilt Groupe. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Alexis Maybank shares the story of how she and co-founder Alexandra Wilkis Wilson built Gilt Groupe, the online flash sales site for men’s and women’s luxury fashions. The company, founded in 2007, reported $170 million in revenue last year and now boasts three million members who shop for designer brands at up to 70 percent off retail prices. Maybank talks about the challenges of getting the word out there, signing up initial designers, and raising VC as a woman. She explains to the Journal that “it’s an old boy’s network, and that’s intimidating for a lot of women. So when explaining fashion to a bunch of men in khaki pants and blue button-down shirts, their response was always ‘Oh, let me see if my wife thinks if this is a good idea.’ But it worked.”

Our annual 30 Under 30 list. They’re running innovative companies, they’re building communities, they’re setting trends, they’re giving back–and they’re all under 30. Here’s this year’s winners, from Sprouter, to Agile Sports, to The Man Registry. Did we miss anyone? Let us know in the comments.

Foursquare is prowling for a partnership. Yet another 30 Under 30 winner is making headlines this morning as it attempts to snag a whale of a partnership. Foursquare, the game/ social network that recently raised $20 million in Series B funding, claims it is in talks with Google, Yahoo and Microsoft about deals involving their location-based data (via GigaOM). While the novelty of being the mayor of your local mall might gradually wear off it can still be a useful tool to make money for your business. Also, this type of partnership is what catapulted Twitter to profitability.

Facebook’s co-founder on the Facebook movie. When you’re trying to revolutionize social networking while you’re still at Harvard, you’re probably not thinking about how Aaron Sorkin might portray your life in a feature film six years hence. In SocialBeat, Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz, gives his take on the silver screen adaptation. In short: it overplays the sex and booze. “It is interesting to see my past rewritten in a way that emphasizes things that didn’t matter . . Other than that, it’s just cool to see a dramatization of history. A lot of exciting things happened in 2004, but mostly we just worked a lot and stressed out about things; the version in the trailer seems a lot more exciting, so I’m just going to chose to remember that we drank ourselves silly and had a lot of sex with coeds,” writes Moskovitz, who is currently working on a productivity startup Asana, backed by Benchmark Capital and Andreessen Horowitz. As for Zuckerberg, he adds, “At the end of the day, they cannot help but portray him as the driven, forward-thinking genius that he is.”

What financial reform means for angel investing. In a guest post at VentureBeat, Scott Walker, CEO of a law firm that specializes in entrepreneur representation, breaks down the impact of the financial regulation bill on angel investing. The verdict: it’s a mix of good and bad.

Renting a room to save a home. Today’s BusinessWeek explains how San Francisco-based startup AirBnB is helping homeowners escape foreclosure. The site allows people from 142 countries to rent out empty rooms and pull in a little extra income. One New Yorker tells BusinessWeek, “This has been our stimulus package…we were going to lose our house.” Founders Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia say they got the idea for the company when they were cash-strapped, themselves. After renting out space in their own home, they decided to turn the idea into a business, enlisting the help of their friend Nathan Blecharczyk. All three founders made it onto our 30 under 30 list this year, having seen a tremendous amount of growth since the site launched just two years ago.

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Aaron Patzer founded the online personal finance management site, Mint.com. Recently acquired by Intuit, Mint has revolutionized the idea of online banking. Come join in a live conversation Thursday, July 15th at 1:00pm.

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Okay, what are we boycotting this time? “Remember when we were all supposed to quit Facebook?,” asks TechCrunch blogger MG Siegel, drawing a parallel between the fleeting Facebook backlash and what he believes are unfounded rumors of a massive iPhone 4 recall. Despite the month-long outrage in May about Facebook’s privacy policy, the company pulled in 140 million unique visitors from the U.S. in June. Siegler’s takeaway: “Millions of people are going to continue to buy the iPhone 4, because it’s the phone they want.” The Washington Post sees things a little differently. For one, that’s not Apple’s only “reception” issue. The Post argues that “Apple’s apparent inability to take customer complaints seriously and respectfully,” is the real problem. First there was Steve Jobs’ “dismissive” email to customers. Then there was the “Letter from Apple Regarding iPhone 4,” which laid most of the blame on AT&T. More recently, when iPhone 4 users began complaining on Apple’s tech forums, the company systematically deleted the complaints. “The amazing thing is that this has gone on with a company as image-conscious as Apple,” the Post observes. “So why is it acting like it’s afraid to hear its customers out?”

Novel ideas. Here at Inc., we publish listings and reviews of the best business books, but what are the best business novels of all time? The Daily Beast lists the six best literary portrayals of the absurdity of the office grind, including books from Joseph Heller (Something Happened), Richard Yates (Revolutionary Road), and Hermann Melville (Bartelby the Scrivener). Check them out.

The most disruptive tech company you never heard of. Intel still dominates the PC chip market, but a strong competitor has crept onto the mobile microchip scene without setting off any alarms. ARM Holdings, though not a household name, now dominates the market for smartphone chips with designs used in 1.4 billion chips each quarter. The company’s business strategy is noteworthy–rather than manufacturing their chips, they simply spend their time on design and license out those designs to other companies. Business Insider explains it this way: “Think of ARM’s employees as a group of talented chefs that only makes recipes. They then sell those recipes to restaurants around the world. Each time a meal is cooked based on an ARM recipe ARM is paid. Continuing the metaphor, when a chef uses an ARM recipe, he can add his own garnishes, appetizers, and sides.” Check out our guide on how to outsource your own R&D.

Rethinking the Retweet button. Almost a year into Twitter’s “Project Retweet,” the the Big Money wonders whether the company’s solution (changing “RT” into a simple button) was worthwhile. Short answer: no. “The feature works in only one scenario: if you want to simply pass an idea around with no additional comment of your own.” In order to add your own comment or abridge the tweet, users have to resort to doing things the old way. That confusion, in turn, extends to third-party developers (like HootSuite and Tweetie) since the majority of tweets don’t come from the official twitter interface. Why kvetch about a minor function? Big Money argues that improving sharing is integral to Twitter’s future. The blog’s advice: take a page from the reblogging function on Tumblr, where the original post is automatically cited, but you’re free to add or edit as you see fit.

GE launches energy innovation contest. Have a breakthrough idea related to renewable energies, smart grid technologies, or eco-building? Well, General Electric may have some cash for you, reports The Huffington Post. The company announced that it has launched with several VC firms a contest that could result in partnerships between itself and some promising start-ups. “A lot of these energy ideas are never going to see the light of day because [the companies] don’t have the muscle to commercialize them,” GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt told the website. GE is hoping that the contest can help change that for the five winners. Entrepreneurs have 10 weeks to enter their ideas, with the entry receiving the most user-submitted votes getting a $50,000 award. A panel of judges will select five winners in total who will each receive $100,000 cash prizes and be considered for either an equity investment from GE or a partnership agreement to develop a product or company.

How to go into business with your spouse. The Wall Street Journal ran a piece today on married couples who have decided to start businesses together. The article cites a Kauffman Foundation survey which found that eight percent of U.S. small businesses started in 2004 and still operating in 2008 are co-owned by husbands and wives. By profiling several of these couples, the Journal finds that “financial stress, long hours and pet peeves can undermine a marriage in such set ups. Couples say they have to draw firm boundaries among work and maritl roles, schedule weekends away whenever possible, and, above all, keep a sense of humor.” Still not sold on the idea? Check out this article to help you weigh the pros and cons.

A 100 mpg car? That’s the goal of Edison2, a start-up collection of former race car mechanics, engineers, and drivers based in Lynchburg, Virginia. The company, with $5 million in investment, is creating what’s dubbed the Very Light Car, two of which are finalists in the Automotive X Prize, the competition seeking the world’s first 100 mph car that can go at least 200 miles before refueling. The prize? Five million dollars. Or, as The Washington Post notes, “the real payoff could be what’s discovered along the way – innovations that might one day help reduce the global consumption of oil and curtail greenhouse gas emissions.”

Hey, traveller. If you haven’t renewed your passport recently, you’ll owe the State Department $35 more for a first-time passport. Renewals are now $110, up from $75. The new costs are based on the results of a 2009 study to determine the actual costs of providing passport services, including producing the booklets, implementing new technologies, and providing emergency services to U.S. citizens abroad.

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Google makes a deal China, but at what cost? After months of tension, Google announced today that Beijing will renew its license to operate in mainland China. Google had previously refused orders to censor its search results and pulled some of its Chinese operations. Under the agreement, Google can keep offering limited services in China and send users to Google’s uncensored Hong Kong-based portal. The New York Times calls the license renewal a sign that Google “is determined to keep a foot in China,” which now has more Internet users that the U.S. Business Insider says Google blew it for censoring its entire list of web pages, rather than just the ones that China objected to. The Washington Post compares Google’s compromise unfavorably to against Yahoo and Bing, neither of which limited their operations to submit to Beijing’s rules. Adds the Post, “Google remains a for-profit company, and by pruning its domestic site to a stub of its former self–remember too that China can still block google.hk from its citizens–the company risks ceding a large chunk of the market to U.S. competitors and Baidu, a Beijing-based firm that dominates search in China.”

Rural sourcing is the new outsourcing. In some parts of the country the rising unemployment rates aren’t showing any sign of slackening. Enter rural sourcing, which some companies are turning to as a way to get less expensive labor and invigorate the domestic economy (via CNNMoney). “They’re moving people from fast-food to IT jobs and letting them use their brains,” enthused Mary Lacity, an information systems professor at the University of Missouri St. Louis. Curious about outsourcing but haven’t tried it yet? Here’s our guide to outsourcing your R&D.

Henry Blodget’s second act. Bloomberg Businessweek has a profile of the disgraced-stock-analyst-turned-media-mogul, Henry Blodget. He’s the founder of Business Insider, a serious business publication with a tabloid sensibility. (Think: Economic analysis and pictures of scantily-clad women.) The format has attracted controversy–Blodget has been derided as “The Hooters of the Internet”–and it has yet to turn a profit, but Businessweek says that Business Insider is on track to book $30 million in revenue this year.

Win a date with Intuit. Entrepreneurs and start-ups eager to get their products noticed by a major corporation may want to check out Intuit’s Entrepreneur Day contest. The company is offering a few dozen start-ups the opportunity to meet with Scott Cook and Inuit’s chief technology officer, Tayloe Stansbury, to hear what they are looking for from their partner companies. Winners also get the chance to go on a “speed date” with members of Intuit’s development team to pitch your company’s ideas in a private one-on-one session. The deadline for applications is July 16, complete details can be found here. For some more ideas on how to get your products noticed by the big guys, check out these sales tips from the world’s toughest customers.

What Foursquare wants you to remember. It’s a game. And that’s the company’s strategy going forward, Foursquare engineer Anoop Ranganath told The Big Money’s Disrupters podcast. Now that it has plenty of money to grow, Foursquare is talking strategy. Ranganath said: “we need to build a compelling product on top of check-ins,” and that a goal is “making the game more fun for users – drawing more people in.” What to look for in the future of Foursquare? More game mechanics, goals, and paths for users to choose to earn more achievements, like points and badges. It’s no stretch: Creator Dennis Crowley teaches at NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program, known for churning out super-sized urban games.

Threadless takes on laptops (and flip flops). Threadless, the crowdsourcing T-shirt maker, has signed deals to put their designs on some Dell laptops and Havaianas flip flops, the Chicago Tribune reports. And this could be just the beginning of an expansion into new products for the Chicago-based company. “Company executives also have had discussions about putting designs on water towers, beverage containers and integrating them into video games,” the paper says.

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Ad visionary ducks out. He built the hippest ad agency in the country, and now Alex Bogusky is resigning from MDC Partners. If advertising had celebrities, Bogusky would easily qualify, having been a founding partner of Crispin Porter & Bogusky, which Ad Age calls “one of the country’s most talked about – at times lauded and hated in equal measures – shops.” Even to those not in ad circles, Bogusky might be known for resurrecting the Burger King “king” figure, as well as Orville Redenbacher, and creating the anti-smoking “Truth” campaign. In 2008, Fast Company wrote: “There is no more adept a mechanic of cool, and Bogusky can give it – and take it away.” Now he’s stepping away from his unofficial role as chairman of cool to pursue his own projects, which recently have included books like “The 9-Inch Diet” and “Baked In.” Watch Bogusky talk about the 10 levers his firm uses to lead, rather than follow pop culture trends.

Buying the right keyword. Last year, 365 Inc., an online retailer based in Birmingham bet big that once the World Cup started people would search online to find out more about vuvuzelas, the horns blasting from the stands during the games. With minimal competition, reports the Wall Street Journal, they bought the keywords “soccer horn” and “stadium horn” and purchased several thousand horns, raising $240,000 in sales. But other small businesses, which spent a combined $5.4 billion on pay-per-click ads last year, don’t always make out as well. Anticipate what consumers will type into a search box to try to find your product while your competitors do the same is tricky. Modern Brands, another online retailer, had to buy “steak branding iron” instead of “branding iron,” if it wanted to attract grillmasters instead of ranchers. One search marketing CEO told the Journal that he stops buying the terms “AWOL” or “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” on behalf of his military law firm client when the terms are mentioned in the news because the prices get prohibitive.

What a Supreme Court decision means for start-ups. Patent reform supporters like Fred Wilson were hoping that a Supreme Court decision handed down this week would help limit the often vague “business method” patents and software patents that they say stifle innovation. That result did not come. “[T]he Supreme Court basically punted on taking any stand on business method patents,” Wilson writes on his blog, avc.com. “While patents are often thought of as protection for ‘the little guy,’” he continues, “the truth is most patents are owned by large companies and increasingly by patent trolls.” For sure, Wilson has a bit of an agenda as he admits that nearly a third of his portfolio companies are being attacked by what he refers to as “patent trolls.” He does, however, have at least one supporter in Congress. “[T]he justices needlessly left the door open for business method patents to issue in the future,” Senator Patrick Leahy said in a release, “and I am concerned that it will lead to more unnecessary litigation…and it is time for Congress to act.”

How to pay your employees when you’re just getting started. Founders might be willing to work days and nights unpaid to build their company. Employees–maybe not so much. Business Insider suggests five alternatives to compensate employees at a start-up when you’re strapped for cash, namely: offering them stock, tying raises to achieving milestones, hiring interns, hiring folks with a “cash cushion,” who might temporarily be willing to work for less, and sticking with independent contractors over full-time staff.

How to earn tax deductions while on vacation. On the eve of the long Fourth of July holiday weekend, the Los Angeles Times has an interesting article on how some vacation expenses can be written off as tax deductions. No, it’s not cheating. The trick is to incorporate some aspects of charitable work into your vacation plans. For example, the Times tells the story of an accountant who is an avid cyclist who was able to write off a weeklong bike-trip from Burlington, Vermont to Portland, Maine, since it was part of a charity ride for AIDS research. Sound too good to be true? As IRS Publication 526 explains, “The deduction for travel expenses will not be denied simply because you enjoy providing services to the charitable organization.” As with all tax issues, the devil is in the details, so it’s probably a good idea to discuss your plans with a tax consultant and keep meticulous records.

High hopes for clean tech IPOs. Venture capitalists’ fondness for the clean technology sector is nothing new, but news that first-day Tesla shares closed more than 40 percent above their original IPO price is bringing renewed optimism for additional clean tech IPOs. One industry executive told BusinessWeek that the Tesla IPO “is a real confidence builder, proving that things are moving in the clean tech sector and that there’s real deliverables,” in an otherwise bleak period for the IPO market.

iPhone 4 gets slapped with a suit. We all saw it coming. First came the slew of customer complaints about the iPhone 4′s faulty reception, then Apple’s scripted response to the phone’s inherent issues, and now, (another) class-action lawsuit. Gizmodo reports that two Maryland natives, Kevin McCaffrey and Linda Wrenn, are charging Apple and AT&T with, among other things, general negligence, breach of implied warranty, deceptive trade practices and fraud by concealment. The issue at hand is the gadget’s all-around antenna design. Holding the phone a natural way interrupts reception, and while consumers see this as a defect, Apple CEO Steve Jobs recently claimed users are just holding it wrong. Just days ago, another law firm that previously sued both Facebook and Zynga announced it is in the process of pursuing a similar suit.

Angel investing by the numbers. Culling data from the Kauffman Foundation’s Angel Investor Performance Project, peHUB sees grim returns for angel investors. With a focus on first round investments in early-stage high tech companies the post reviews 56 angels with exits from 112 companies. Of the angels in this data set 66 percent made less than what they invested and 45 percent saw no return at all. Though an angel will likely have a lot of questions about your company, here are 5 you should ask them and some tools to help you locate an angel.

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Hey, armchair app schemers. There’s plenty of help for bringing your idea to iPhone screens everywhere, the Los Angeles Times reports. App development firms, such as A-1 Technology of New York and Appsnminded, a three-mom shop in Calabasas, California, are armed to help aspiring micro-entrepreneurs build their app ideas into reality. The small shops generally charge a few thousand dollars to do the programming (which they mostly outsource to workers overseas) and hand you back your app. Others take a chance on ideas, and then take cuts of future proceeds.

Who’s standing in line for an iPhone 4? Apple’s been taking pre-orders for the iPhone since June 15th, but it’s finally in stores today. So who’s braving the heat? According to AllThingsD’s Peter Kafka, the line at Apple’s flagship store on Fifth Avenue in New York City is “sweaty, irrational, [and] male.” Business Insider is all over the release with a photo gallery of lines from Paris, Tokyo, and London, as well as a story about the owners of an iPhone repair shop who already broke theirs (as an ad for their business). Business Insider also claims the phone’s latest iteration loses reception when held in the left hand and reports that Mashable’s weekend editor Sam Axon was mugged while waiting in line at 3.40am in Chicago. In response to Axon’s misfortune, Frank Sennett quipped, “Couldn’t Jobs wait til he was in the store?”

Be careful when naming your business. Your business’s name is the first thing the public sees, so it is important to make it catchy, relevant, and easy to remember. Business owners need to take care, however, that their new moniker doesn’t bear too close a resemblance to an established company names. As the Wall Street Journal reports, a number of small businesses have run into legal trouble when choosing a company name that plays off a trademark owned by larger corporations. For example, a Kentucky adult-novelty store named Victor’s Secret received a cease-and-desist letter from Limited Brands, Victoria’s Secret parent company, less than two weeks after it opened. The Journal offers some tips to avoid an expensive lawsuit such as registering your company’s name with the Patent and Trademark Office and researching existing business names to keep from encroaching on a trademark.

Training the entrepreneurs who will revive Detroit. The New York Times profiles Bizdom U, a boot camp to aid aspiring entrepreneurs in establishing high-growth businesses in Detroit–an attempt to revitalize one of America’s most beleaguered cities. “Detroit is completely missing an entrepreneurial ecosystem,” Bo Fishback, vice president for entrepreneurship at the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, tells the Times. “Bizdom isn’t catalyzing an existing system; it’s trying to create something almost from scratch.” Boot camps are nothing new, but the program is unique in its focus on Detroit, and its founding principle that entrepreneurs are born, not made. “We dig deep by reviewing their past activities and behaviors to see if they were often drawn toward entrepreneurial pursuits,” says Bizdom’s founder. Candidates who make the cut spend four months immersed in Apprentice-like real world tasks and attend lectures by speakers like former basketball stars (and now successful businessmen) Magic Johnson and Dave Bing. “We wanted people to be living and breathing their businesses,” says Bizdom U’s executive director. “They learn by doing.”

A World Cup promotion spun out of control. Many businesses are hoping to use the World Cup to boost their brand but one Arizona restauranteur took that idea too far (via CNNMoney). Cameron Selogie advertised in an email blast to customers that his restaurant would be carrying lion burgers in honor of the festivities. One animal rights activist and outraged patron passed the news along to the local media and it soon sparked an international firestorm. Perhaps Selogie could use a lesson in PR damage control from the company that tried to revive AstroTurf.

YouTube wins lawsuit. YouTube prevailed in a lawsuit that had been filed against it by the media giant Viacom. The suit, which had been hanging over YouTube and its parent company Google since 2007, came to a head earlier this year when emails from co-founder Steve Chen surfaced that seemed to endorse piracy and when Google responded by claiming that Viacom itself was uploading videos to YouTube. (USA Today has a nice summary of the case.) Fred Wilson cheers the decision, calling it “a huge victory for entrepreneurs and the web.” He says that the threat of a lawsuit forced YouTube to sell itself to Google. As a result of this decision, “other user generated content services will not have to make the choice that YouTube had to make,’ he writes.

The case against hiring cheap. Just because job hunters are a bit desperate these days doesn’t mean you should change the way you pay. According to today’s Wall Street Journal, paying employees less than what they’re worth in a down economy will only make it easier for them to jump ship when a better-paid opportunity comes along. But in the interest of being competitive, it’s not wise to overpay employees just to keep them on board, either. The story recommends staying within industry norms, and if you can’t afford a pay consultant, use free resources like college career centers or the Bureau of Labor Statistic’s Occupational Outlook Handbook to find out what industry standards are.

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10 ways to boost productivity. What do Japanese author Haruki Murakami and Twitter creator Jack Dorsey have in common? They can teach you a thing or two about productivity. Over at The 99 Percent, they’ve distilled ten laws on productivity such as “create simple objectives for projects and revisit them regularly,” “prototype, prototype, prototype,” and “practice saying ‘no.’” For that last rule the post uses author Jim Collins as an example, noting how despite the high speaking fees he commands, he limits the number of engagements he takes on to focus on researching and writing his business books. For more productivity tips see our feature on America’s most productive CEOs.

Are some people born entrepreneurs? A new study out of Case Western Reserve University finds that some entrepreneurial tendencies may be inherited (via Wall Street Journal). There’s no single gene that makes people more inclined to become entrepreneurs, but researchers say entrepreneurs do share some personality traits that are believed to be hereditary. The author of the study, Scott Shane, says this new information could lead to educational systems that are tailored to people’s genetic makeup. “Instead of assuming everyone is equal and will respond to education the same way,” Shane tells the Journal, “we will be able to look at genetic predispositions and figure out what fits.”

Those damn horns!. The ubiquitous vuvuzela horns at the World Cup are doing more than just pissing off fans. They’re also driving demand for ear plugs. According to TMZ, two major South African ear plug suppliers–Ear Plugs Online and Sheppard Medical–have seen sky-rocketing sales since last week. EPO is up 121 percent with 10,000 sets sold and counting. Sheppard has moved 400,000 pairs since kickoff for a 20 percent increase. A non-profit, Uthango Social Investments, has also gotten into the game, manufacturing and selling earplugs to benefit poor African Villages. (via peHUB)

AOL loses $800 million on Bebo sale. It was just two years ago that AOL stunned the tech world by paying a whopping $850 million for the second-tier social network Bebo. As founder Michael Birch told Inc. that summer, he and his co-founder wife Xochi walked away with more than $500 million. Now, multiple news outlets are reporting that AOL has sold Bebo, with TechCrunch saying the purchase price was less than $10 million. Not $10 billion; $10 million. While Facebook gained momentum in Bebo’s home of England over the last two years, Bebo failed to make any sort of imprint in the U.S.

Groupon For Men? Do all those deals on Brazilian waxes and spa days make you want to unsubscribe? You’re not alone. Silicon Alley Insider’s Dan Frommer complains about the company’s lady-centric offerings to Groupon CEO Andrew Mason, whose startup offers one deal a day by newsletter. Mason says there’s no Groupon version of Gilt Groupe’s “Gilt Man” in the works. The company, which is growing like gangbusters, is sticking to its day-a-deal model, at the behest of its vendors who don’t want their deals to be lumped in with other discount sites. The company is also sidestepping the aggregator or “Kayak for Groupons” route that some competitors are offering to help consumers sift through the number of copycat now on the market. In the video interview, Mason reveals Groupon’s next steps: expanding into Latin America and drilling down to the hyper-local, so at least geographically-speaking, offers will be more relevant. His advice to Frommer? Try a facial, you might like it. Check out Inc.’s take on using Groupon to boost sales.

Overcoming Obstacles. With all the hurdles involved in starting and finishing a big project, it’s easy to avoid them, procrastinate, or quit halfway through. But Web Worker Daily has tips on getting past those four major hurdles: fear, avoidance, lack of motivation, and not having a map.

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Do entrepreneurs need a college education? Flickr and Hunch co-founder Caterina Fake may have argued that the best way to become an entrepreneur is to drop out of college, but Read Write Web profiles one college entrepreneur who disagrees. Jay Rodrigues is a 21-year-old University of Pennsylvania junior who secured Series A funding for his college-calendaring system start-up, DormNoise. “Don’t drop out of school, because for every Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg, there are hundreds of entrepreneurs who drop out and go nowhere,” he advises. “At least if you stay in school, you’ll have an education.” But it isn’t easy juggling his roles as CEO and college student–Rodrigues says he works about 16 hours a day. “Be 150 million percent sure this is what you want,” he says. For more on successful college entrepreneurs, check out our 2010 list of America’s Coolest College Start-ups.

How to stop being a control freak? Name a number two. For business owners who built their company from scratch, letting go can be hard. But the Wall Street Journal cautions that there are worse consequences than the fear of losing control, such as burnout or unexpected emergencies if for some reason you can’t be around to make sure things run smoothly. “Invariably an owner will hit a wall where they feel overworked and like a prisoner to their business,” says Daniel M. Murphy, co-founder of The Growth Coach. Ceding day-to-day operations to a number two can free you up to work on the big picture. Ideally, their skills and work style will be complementary to your own. What better time than now, adds Murphy, “There’s such great talent out there that’s affordable.”

The man who fired Steve Jobs. We told you last week about the dangers of saying no when the founder of Apple offers you a job. Now, the Daily Beast tracks down John Sculley, 25 years after he engineered a coup at Apple computer to oust Steve Jobs. Sculley, unsurprisingly, feels bad about the whole thing, telling the Beast that he should never have been the CEO in the first place. Meanwhile, the website digs up testimony given to an oral history project by Arthur Rock, a VC who was on the board when Jobs got fired, that hints at a culture clash. “I believe [Jobs] had a goatee and a mustache and long hair – and he had just come back from six months in India with a guru, learning about life,” Rock said. “I’m not sure, but it may have been a while since he had a bath.” For a glimpse at what Apple’s board was thinking back when they fired jobs, fire up the Inc.com time machine, and check out to this 1987 Q&A with Sculley.

How to build foot traffic. For one small business owner, the answer was bananas. Yep. Bananas. (Via the Los Angeles Times.)

Oh, AT&T. The sole U.S. provider of wireless service for Apple acknowledged yesterday that the e-mail addresses of more than 114,000 iPad owners had been uncovered by a group of computer experts through a security hole in AT&T’s website. Gawker Media first reported the security breach, calling it an “embarrassment” that exposed “dozens of CEOs, military officials, and top politicians.” Could the slip up further complicate AT&T’s rocky relationship with Apple? Well, Apple is staying mum on the issue, leaving it to AT&T to apologize and clean up the PR mess.

Which type of entrepreneur are you? Tech entrepreneur and UC-Berkeley professor Steve Blank has winnowed the spectrum of entrepreneurship down to four major types: small businesses, scalable start-ups, large companies, and social entrepreneurs. Although seemingly very different, Blank demonstrates that the four types of entrepreneurs are all searching for a sustainable business model and all have common characteristics such as resiliency, agility, tenacity, and passion. The differences are most notably seen in each group’s risk tolerance, size and scale of vision, and personal financial goals.

Hiring and firing deli-style. A CNNMoney contributor and small business owner herself, Vickie Elmer attended a crash course on SMB hiring and firing given by Zimngerman’s the Ann Arbor, Michigan-based deli with a cult-like following. There she picked up a few tricks she might apply to her own Italian ices business, Mity Nice. One of the hiring tests the deli employs is having most potential hires work a trial shift on a busy Saturday or what they call “Tilt-A-Whirl” in which they simultaneously interview multiple candidates. Other ideas came from the attendees such as asking job seekers to sell you a pen to gauge their sales ability. For more information, read our guide on improving your hiring practices.

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Apple – Steve Job – Facebook – Mark Zuckerberg – Caterina Fake

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