This is part of our coverage of the Japan New Economy Summit happening in Tokyo. See previous updates here.

Participants in the fourth session of the day, on the role of entrepreneurs and venture capitals, are as follows:

• Phil Libin (CEO, Evernote cooperation)
• Josh James (Founder and CEO, Domo)
• Derek Collison (Founder & CEO, Apcera)
• Katsujin David Chao (Co-Founder and General Partner, DCM)
• George Kellerman (Partner, 500 Startups)
• Moderator: Daisuke Iwase (Co-Founder / Representative Director, Lifenet Insurance Company)

15:24 – Phil: At Evernote we never set out to disrupt anything. We set out to make a second brain. We rejected the idea of business as a zero sum game, where there’s a winner and a loser. There’s much talk of business as a zero sum game, with sports analogies or fighting analogies — but I don’t think business or entrepreneurship has to be like a sport. More than anything else, it’s more like art or music. It doesn’t matter who came before you, there’s always something new you can contribute.

15:29 – Phil: We had maybe the world’s worst VC pitch at Evernote. I would say to VCs that we have a way to remember things, it was free, and please give me $10 million. And most would kick me out.

15:30 – Phil: At Evernote we were deeply inspired by Japan. About 20% of our users and 30% of our revenue comes from Japan. The Japanese aesthetic really influences us. We have said from the beginning that we want to make it a 100 year startup, and that was influenced by Japan. Japan understands this idea of long term thinking, and we hope to combine that with the best of Silicon Valley.

15:34 – James speaks some Japanese, then describes about building his company in Utah, saying that it was very difficult to build a Silicon Valley-like company. Maybe Tokyo is the same he says. In Utah 15 years ago, the VCs thought of themselves as better than the entrepreneurs. That made things very challenging, because it felt like they were taking advantage of you. The Silicon Valley is great because everyone is respected and viewed the same.

15:37 – For Domo, we raised $130 million, are building the company as fast as we can. … One thing that we figured out is that VCs want to be inspired. I want to be able to look back on Omniture as that cute little company we did before Domo.

15:41 – Derek describes being one of the few people at this conference whose company has not seen crazy growth yet. Describes driving out to Silicon Valley, living in his car, and getting a job. … What Silicon Valley offers is an environment where you have more reasons to try something than not.

15:49 – George talks a little about 500 startups, which has invested in 450 companies — 10 in Japan. People ask how did you invest in so many companies in so many countries. We have a global team.

15:51 – The challenge is around the accelerating speed of technology. If you have smartphone, anybody can quickly exchange information with people around the world. So the change in Japan should accelerate. You have to speed up. If you don’t speed up you will lose.

15:55 – Josh: Many people think the first thing they have to do is raise money, but there are lots of ways to do that. There are lots of customers that are willing to invest in your product. … I think my favorite word is ‘no,’ because it is so motivating.

15:58 – George: Many VCs in Japan have finance backgrounds, but elsewhere we’re seeing a shift to ones with operational backgrounds.

15:59 – Phil: We’ve gotten much value from our VCs and partners. Our initial investment came from Japan, from Docomo capital, and from Russia and from Canada. It was very non-traditional. What they all had in common was that they all loved Evernote. So when Silicon Valley VCs wouldn’t give us money, it was VCs elsewhere who loved the product. But later on when they came around, we could be very selective about the investors we picked, to ensure they had the same long term vision.

16:02 – I think the startup world right now is very different from 5 or 10 years ago. It’s a meritocracy. 10 years ago, the product wasn’t the most important thing. All the other stuff like contacts, connection, and marketing was important. Now all of that has changed. There is basically no friction left for great products.

16:04 – Try to think the way VCs would think. How are you going to convince them? They aren’t in the business of losing money just to lose money. It’s a business.

16:07 – David Chao: When I became a VC in the US, I thought VCs and entrepreneurs should be like a husband and wife, going through good times and bad times together. But as someone said before, you much have a shared vision.

16:10 – Phil: I’m super optimistic about Japan, it’s why I’m here, it’s why we invested in Japan. Japan has a giant disconnect between how the country perceives itself and how outside Japan sees the country. Everyone outside Japan, everyone thinks Japan is a magical place. I come to Japan, and all the conversation is about ‘What’s wrong with Japan’ — and there’s a big mismatch between that and how the world sees it. When people talk about China, there’s some good and some back, but when you go there, everyone is positive. For whatever reason, Japan is more negative about themselves than other people are. I think Japan is on the verge of an entrepreneurial renaissance. You don’t need so much money to startup these days. The most important thing is attention to design and details, and Japan does that well. The boundaries to export to the rest of the world are lower than ever before, so I think Japan is on the verge of a major renaissance, and that’s why we’re here — we’re betting on it.

16:21 – Phil: I’ not sure if Japanese entrepreneurs need to be more aggressive, I don’t think we need more assholes. Being an entrepreneurs is a quest, it has to be epic. The secret to succeeding is to get people to join with you, and to communicate why your idea needs to exist. In Japan sometimes people are a little less willing to express this. I do see a lack of passion in business. Japan should treat entrepreneurship with the same passion it shows to food, fashion, and culture.

16:25 – I spoke with Matz about Ruby, and I was talking about how talented the people in Japan were. I often ask people here why they don’t start a company, and they say ‘no no, I could never do that’. In Silicon Valley you run into people who think they can solve world hunger. I think that’s one thing that Silicon Valley does well, it’s an unrivalled optimism. And I think Japan is pushing to get to that place, and that’s a great thing.

16:30 – George: The success of Japan matters to us. George asks entrepreneurs in the audience to stand up. Asks everyone sitting down to look at these people, says these people are the future of Japan. “You really must celebrate them.” Says these people are the nails that get beaten down, so support them!

The Japan New Economic Summitis kicking off in Tokyo this morning. We plan to bring you some updates throughout the day [1]. So stay tuned.

• Opening Speech: Hiroshi Mikitani (Chairman and CEO, Rakuten, Inc.)
• Keynote Speech: Andy Rubin (former SVP, Google)
• Niklas Zennström (CEO, Atomico / Co-Founder, Skype)
• Ben Silbermann (Co-Founder and CEO, Pinterest)
• Jack Dorsey (Co-Founder and CEO, Square / Co-Founder of Twitter)

9:09 -Opening remarks from Rakuten CEO Mikitani. [Plays video message from prime minister]

9:15 – Mikitani: We need to be leading in innovation. We know we have great technology in Japan, but we have not been able to implement that as products. … We want to connect Japanese technology with global entrepreneurship.

9:20 – Mikitani introduces session 1, with Andy Rubin, Jack Dorsey, Ben Silvermann, Niklas Zennstrom.

9:23 – Andy Rubin on stage.

9:23 – Andy speaking about investor presentation for his Android company way back in the day. Their first VC presentation was a platform for digital cameras. In the beginning, the team was mostly engineers, with a product idea.

9:26 – Andy talks about the opportunity they saw at the time for a smart camera concept, where third party devs could create new apps for cameras. It wasn’t just an operating system, but we envisioned it being connected to the cloud with access to the internet.

9:27 – That was Android for digital cameras. Andy moves on to second iteration of their VC presentation, which was Android for cell phones. Founding team was a little more broad, with some expertise in marketing.

9:30 – Andy says in 2005 he wasn’t worried about Microsoft. They positioned Android between enterprise and low end. They knew if they wanted to move up or down later on, they could. The middle game them the most flexibility.

9:32 – [Speaking of shift from camera to smartphone] You have to be flexible, and if your business doesn’t work, you have to change. You have to make decisions quickly, and change direction instantly.

9:36 – After the Google acquisition, the services business model was advertising.

9:38 – Japan is the most interesting market from an app revenue basis.

9:39 – Andy say that Puzzles & Dragons in-app purchases caused them to have to make changes to their infrastructure to accomodate so many in app purchases.

9:40 – Mikitani introduces Jack Dorsey.

9:42 – Jack shows a video of real time visualization of Tweets during the earthquake.

9:42 – We started Twitter in the US and our first major market was Japan. It has been a major success here.

9:43 – Like Twitter made communication easy, Square makes payments and commerce easy.

9:45 – Jack speaking about early development of Square. Says its not just for individuals, and have found users in nearly every form of commerce. Wherever commerce is happening, Square is there. Not just in metro areas, but all over the country. Many new technologies hover around San Francisco, but we are all over the country. [Shows a map of US, with hotspots everywhere.]

9:49 – Jack demos Square with Mikitani-san’s credit card. Asks for a tip. (below)

9:53 – Jack says cites a small coffee house a a Square success stories. Also cites Starbucks, a Square partner. Good for big and small businesses — both can use the exact same tool. People compete on the merit of their ideas.

9:55 – It’s not just about payments, but it’s the activity between the buyer and seller. It’s being able to give them a fast experience, because with speed, the technology disappears. Technology is best when it completely disappears, when it is additive.

9:57 – Mikitani-san introduces Ben Silvermann of Pinterest.

10:01 – We thought it would be cool to share our collections online. I left Google, we got a tiny office. And we started building. It started small with a few dozen users, then a few thousand. What was special was that just by pinning things you could also find other people with the same interests as you. It connects people according to their points of view in the world.

10:06 – I think there’s something beautiful the fact that you don’t have to live in Japan to love anime, you don’t have to live in California to love skateboarding.

10:09 – Niklas Zennström now speaking on stage.

10:09 Usually disruption is a seismic shift in functionality. It’s usually done by outsiders. It’s hard for industry insiders to be a disrupter.

10:10 – Sometimes a disrupted company can be too disrupted, and that’s something I experienced with Kazaa. Unfortunately the incumbent record industry and movie studios were not ready for that, and we could not survive in that space. We were unable to create a sustainable business model

10:12 – Disruption is about making something that is easy to use, and simplifies everything.

10:16 – A third of international phone calls are made with Skype.

10:18 – Gengo is disrupting translation services. Before you would send text to a translation agency, and they send it back to you. Gengo uses the internet to crowdsource translation among freelance translators, and give you maybe a 90% cheaper price, a much faster service… And if gives people with language skills to fulfill these translations requests. It’s a truly disruptive service.

10:22 – Another example is Halo, an app that you have on your smartphone that you can use to hail taxis. It connects drivers and customers wherever they are. It’s beneficial for customers to find taxis, but for drivers it enables business.

10:23 – We heard Andy speak of iteration, and very rarely is disruption just writing a business plan and executing it. But many times, the road is just not a straight line and you need to iterate, and fail fast. If something is not working, do a course correction and make another iteration. But as long as you have a long term vision you can be successful. If an idea doesn’t work out it doesn’t mean that you have failed. … In this economy we should encourage people who create disruptive businesses.