The TED Talks lecture series continues to be one of the most exciting platforms for inspiring talks. Since its first conference in 1984, the series has hosted thousands of speakers on a wide range of topics from design and art to business and entrepreneurship.
To help you kick off the new year, we have selected 5 inspiring lectures to develop both your business and yourself this year.
- ‘The single biggest reason why startups succeed’
Bill Gross is an American serial entrepreneur. He has founded and incubated many startups through his company, Idealab. In his lecture, he looks at the factors that drive successful companies including the idea, team, business model, funding and timing.
Gross says it’s the timing of a product that is key to startup success. Too early, the market may not be ready for your product, which means you will have to educate your market and too late could mean you face too many competitors, he says.
Reasons to watch: Find out why on-demand rental service Airbnb launching at the height of the economic recession was critical to its success.
Watch Bill Gross’s talk on TED
- ‘How to get your ideas to spread‘
Sometimes success comes down to whether you can get your idea to spread, says American author and entrepreneur, Seth Godin. People that spread ideas, regardless of what those ideas are, win,” he says. Godin explores how brands can attract the attention of today’s consumers – who have more choices but less time.
The key to discovering whether your message is ‘spreadable’ is to ask: “Is it remarkable?” he says.
Reasons to watch: Find out why it’s being unique, not advertising, that ensures you stand out from the crowd.
Watch Seth Godin’s talk on TED
- ‘How great leaders inspire action’
Why has the tech brand Apple been able to achieve what it has? What made leaders such as American civil rights movement leader, Martin Luther King, Jr. and flight pioneers the Wright Brothers stand out from the rest? This is the question that Simon Sinek, a British author, answers in his lecture.
Sinek deduces that they had a quality that others with similar talents and abilities don’t. “There has to be something else at play here,” he says.
Reasons to watch: Find out what all inspiring leaders and organisations have in common and how that differs from everyone else.
Watch Simon Sinek’s talk on TED
- ‘Success, Failure and the Drive to Keep Creating’
Following the phenomenal success of her book ‘Eat, Pray, Love’, American author, Elizabeth Gilbert in her lecture reflects on the pressure she felt to write a book that would live up to the success of her proceeding one.
To overcome this, Gilbert says she went back to her original intention – doing what she loved. This is also the message of her talk, that you have to love what you do more than you fear failing at it.
Reasons to watch: Find out why both great success and failure can have the same disruptive impact, and ways to overcome both in order to return to doing what you love.
Watch Elizabeth Gilbert’s talk on TED
- ‘Try Something New for 30 Days’
It takes 30 days to add a new habit or to get rid of one, says Matt Cutts. The Google technologist put himself through a series of 30-day challenges. Cutts says the benefits of these challenges were that time become more memorable and he found that by completing more challenges and harder ones helped to grow his self-confidence.
Reasons to watch: Find out why it’s small, sustainable improvements that lead to greatness.
Watch Matt Cutts’s talk on TED
Originally published in January 2016. Updated September 2026. Two corrections. The speaker behind The single biggest reason why startups succeed is Bill Gross, the serial entrepreneur who founded the Idealab incubator, and not the fund manager of a similar name. Matt Cutts was still at Google when this was written. He resigned at the end of 2016 and went on to lead the United States Digital Service, stepping down from that role in 2021. Direct links to all five talks have been added, replacing embeds that no longer worked.
