From the inner sanctum of Silicon Valley and short-term capitalism comes the story of a VC who lived it, then left it and found a better way to build great companies.

Based on Bo's book — co-authored with Dave Whorton was John Doerr's associate partner at high-flying Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers during Silicon Valley's big shift — this talk upacks how the VC industry pivot from a proven forty-year playbook of managing risk to something much more aggressive: "get-big-fast." Don't worry about profitability. Cash out and find another venture.

Learn how Whorton went on a journey to find a better way to build companies, a way focused on long-term stability and steady growth, funded through profitability; a way in which leaders were committed to a purpose beyond personal wealth generation, to putting their people first, and to setting up their companies to endure. They call these companies "Evergreen." This keynote combines that inspiring story with the Evergreen 7Ps framework, designed to guide more entrepreneurs and business leaders to follow his path.

Full of revelations, practical advice, and real-world examples of companies going Evergreen, this talk is as instructive as it is inspiring at showing capitalism at its best.

In the next 5-10 years, 1.36 to 2.0 million businesses will trade hands as the entrepreneurial Baby Boomers look to retire. That represents up to 10 trillion dollars in financial activity! And we can expect twice that level of activity over the next 20 years. In this new talk aimed at the millions of business owners who need to think about their exit strategy (even if it is far off), Bo Burlingham––Editor-at-large of Inc. Magazine and author of Small Giants––offers lessons to organizations of any size, and presents great tips for any executive looking to increase their company’s value. Bo’s presentation will profoundly affect the future of these millions of business owners.

A new class of great companies has been forming. These companies don’t fit comfortably into any of the three categories we normally put businesses in: big, getting big, and small. Some are tiny; others are relatively large. Most are growing, often in unconventional ways, but several have chosen not to grow at all, and a few have made conscious decisions to scale back their operations. Most of them have been recognized for excellence by independent bodies inside and outside their industries. Not coincidentally, they have all had the opportunity to raise a lot of capital, grow very fast, do mergers and acquisitions, expand geographically, and generally follow the well-worn route of other successful companies. Yet they have chosen not to focus on revenue growth or geographical expansion, pursuing instead other goals that they consider more important than getting as big as possible, as fast as possible. To make those trade-offs, the companies have had to remain privately owned, with the majority of the stock in the hands of one person, or a small group of like-minded individuals, or—in a couple of cases—the employees.