Thursday, March 15, 2018

1871 Welcomes Mayor Emanuel for Chicago Stories Live Podcast with 1871 CEO Howard Tullman























FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 18, 2018

CONTACT:
Mayor’s Press Office
312.744.3334

Mayor Emanuel Interviews 1871 CEO Howard Tullman Live on Chicago Stories Podcast

For the first live episode on Chicago Stories, Mayor Emanuel sat down with 1871 CEO Howard Tullman this week at Chicago’s leading tech innovation space to look back at Howard’s career of reinvention, 1871’s world leading expansion, and how Chicago became the global tech hub it is today.

Founded in 2012, 1871 takes its name not just from the Great Chicago Fire, but from what happened next — the period of intense innovation that combined engineers, architects, and investors to build the new city we know today.

It’s that spirit of innovation that led 1871 to be ranked the first in the world in the 2018 UBI Global List of Top University-Affiliated Businesses Incubators.

Howard’s own Chicago story began as a student Northwestern University, but his story as a Chicago tech leader began — of all things — as a trial lawyer and criminal defense attorney. He specialized in Federal litigation, and was even admitted to the Bar of the United States Supreme Court. But after a decade in the field, he focus was turning to technology.

“In the course of those 10 years the computer really came into existence as a business tool,” Howard said, “and at the end of the 10 years it was more interesting to me to manage the information using the computers that it was to continue to be a trial lawyer.”

So in 1980 Howard retired from his law career and reinvented himself as a innovator and entrepreneur by starting the first of a series of database and information-based computer businesses.

Since that time he’s seen Chicago transform itself as a hub of tech entrepreneurship and innovation, particularly over the last four years he’s led 1871.

Be sure to check out the full live podcast episode to hear Mayor Emanuel and Howard talk about the difference between learning from failure and learning from life, what makes Chicago’s tech community so unique, the importance of giving back, and the latest updates on Chicago’s Hyperloop and quest to land Amazon’s HQ2.

Listen and subscribe to Chicago Stories podcast on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud and Spotify.

ADDITIONAL QUOTES FROM HOWARD TULLMAN

“When we started, the core underlying idea was mobile was going to change the world. Today, everything is digital, every business is tech-enabled, so what’s the next set of hurdles? It could be and we’re building in blockchain, we’re building in augmented reality, we’re building in machine learning, we’re building in the Internet of Things downstairs on the fifth floor.”

“You take the good lessons and the bad lessons and you apply them.”

“Sticking to it beyond a certain point is not really the smartest thing or the best thing to do.”

“Everybody is not going to be successful at everything they do. The biggest thing is to decide if you’re digging a hole is when to stop digging and when to do something else.”

“You’re not going to move the needle in a city by building start-ups. You’re going to use and move the needle when those start-ups’ technology and disruptive innovations are adopted by large corporations, and that really is where the impact occurs.”


“Entrepreneurs do not look backwards. We call this ‘in-game amnesia.’ If you’re focused on what happened in the past, the shot you missed, or an opportunity that you missed, you’re not paying attention to going ahead, and so my focus has always been what’s next.”