Lesson 7 Entrepreneurial Spirit

Our guest today on ‘Songs of my life’ is the entrepreneur Martha Lane Fox, of the massively successful company lastminute.com. With her business partner, Brent Hoberman, Martha Lane Fox started lastminute.com in Brent’s living room. The idea was simple — a website selling late flights and late hotel bookings. The company grew very quickly and expanded from the UK into France, Germany and Sweden. They bought other travel companies, and after six years they had 1,400 employees. Lastminute.com went public in 2000, and the shares in the company increased their value by 40% in two days. Martha Lane Fox left the company in 2003. True to her entrepreneurial spirit, she wanted to start more new companies. Martha, it’s a pleasure to have you here in the studio…

 

Vocabulary 词汇：

entrepreneur 企业家

massively 巨大地

business partner 商业伙伴

living room 客厅

booking  预订

expand 扩张

employee 雇员

go public 上市

increase  提高，增加

entrepreneurial spirit 企业家精神