Overheard: 9 powerful quotes from TED-style talks by Houston entrepreneurs

Eavesdropping in Houston

Entrepreneurs' Organization had seven of its members give TED-style talks on April 25. Ammar Selo

Moving the needle on something — whether it's changing the world or growing your business — hearing how others accomplished their own goals can be a beacon of hope and guidance for others.

The local Entrepreneurs' Organization chapter, EO Houston, hosted a series of seven TED Talk-style talks by members of the organization. These seven entrepreneurs discussed everything from being an introvert in a world of extroverts to the biggest security threat to American citizens: obesity. EO Talks took place at a breakfast event on April 25 at Houston Baptist University. If you missed the event, check out these overheard quotes from the day of discussions.

“When you get people involved in your organization, your job (as CEO) is alignment. Keep your team aligned with the strategic objectives of your company.”

— Paul Sarvadi, chairman, CEO and co-founder of Insperity, in his talk, "Take Care of Your People: An Entrepreneur's Journey." Connectivity is key, says Sarvadi.

“Taking care of your people is not rocket science. In fact, rocket science would be easier. It involves math and science — it works the same every day. But as soon as you put people in the mix, what worked yesterday might not work today.”

— Sarvadi continued in his talk about the importance of human resources in the the work place.

“What if everyone in the world knew what they stood for — imagine what that world would look like. We would know how we fit. We would be the best versions of ourselves. And, the world would be the best version of itself.”

— Winnie Hart, founder of TwinEngine in her talk, "What Do You Stand For?" Hart discussed finding one's identity and motivators — both in business and in life.

“Everywhere we look introverts are living in an extroverted world. It’s natural if you’re an introvert, like me, to feel a little insecure or that you feel the need to compete with your extraverted friends.”

— Darlene Gagnon, CEO and co-founder of Kinnect Global Management Services in her talk, "The Introverted Entrepreneur Competing in an Extroverted World." Gagnon says that introverts on track to be the most successful entrepreneurs with their execution skills, detail oriented nature, and ability to tune out the noise.

“It is the men in our lives that need to take action. Gentlemen, stand with us. Help us create a better presence so that we can sustain a future.”

— Shoshi Kaganovsky, CEO and founder of SensoLeak Global, in her talk, "Women Entrepreneurs—To Be..Or..To Be The Best." Kaganovsky compared how people say, "behind every great man is a woman," to how female leaders also need the support from the other gender.

“Entrepreneurship is an endless circle of reinventing yourself, being able to change, and keeping a positive attitude while doing so.”

— Kaganovsky continued in her talk as advice to the room of entrepreneurs.

“We can escape this crushing threat we call obesity. How are you going to make your escape?”

— Dr. Joe Galati, liver disease expert, radio host and author in his talk, "America's #1 National Security Threat." Galati argued that it's not Russia or North Korea that pose a major threat to the United States — it's our own health issues caused by obesity.

“We’ve all heard of the term ‘side hustle.' Maybe my dad invented the ‘side hustle.’”

— Chris Hotze, CEO and founder of Crescere Capital, in his talk, "Understanding the Power of Recurring Revenue." Hotze tells the story of how his father created a residential real estate side business out of necessity, and how that entrepreneurialism affected his own business career.

“As entrepreneurs, as long as we see control, we visualize an opportunity far greater than we see the risk.”

— Ali Nasser, CEO of AltruVista in his talk, "The Entrepreneur's Opportunity Cost," Nasser explains how entrepreneurs are hesitant to put money in the stock market, yet dive into ownership and risks for their own businesses.

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Houston medtech startup clears FDA approval for new surgical tool

precision surgery

Houston-based Prana Surgical will soon bring a new electrosurgical tool to operating rooms around the country. The Prana System officially cleared U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval earlier this month.

"Receiving FDA clearance for the Prana System represents a defining milestone for our company," Joanna Nathan, CEO and co-founder of Prana Surgical, said in a news release. "Surgeons today are increasingly focused on achieving precise outcomes while minimizing disruption to healthy tissue. The Prana System was designed to support that shift by integrating targeting and excision into a single, streamlined tool."

Prana Surgical began as Prana Thoracic in 2022. Back then, the company primarily focused on developing screening tools for lung cancer diagnosis. It raised $6 million in series A funding rounds in 2023 and 2024 before transitioning to broader surgical needs in 2025.

The Prana System is a minimally invasive, image-guided, single-use tissue extraction tool designed to retrieve samples without damaging healthy tissue. The tool is still designed with the respiratory system in mind, helping Prana in the fight against lung cancer and other thoracic diseases.

Reducing the impact of tissue extraction via electrosurgery and enhanced image scanning can significantly reduce complications. The Prana System combines localization and tissue-cutting capabilities in one, which keeps surgeons from having to swap out components during a procedure, making for a smoother process. It can core, cut and feel blood vessels on the way toward the intended target, giving surgeons greater control over tissue preservation.

"Electrosurgery is foundational to modern surgery, but there is still opportunity to improve how energy-based tools are applied in minimally invasive settings," Nathan added. "Our goal is to introduce a new class of image-guided surgical tools that enable more precise intervention across a range of procedures."

The company projects sales of $7.5 billion from the Prana System in the United States, estimating that 2.5 million surgical modules will be able to use the new tool. While starting out focused on biopsies, the company plans to evolve the system into other procedures, such as ablation, in the future. It is also planning for a controlled U.S. clinical rollout as it moves toward commercialization

Texas still ranks as No. 1 in U.S. for inbound moves, but growth dips

by the numbers

Texas continues to be the country’s No. 1 magnet for newcomers from other states, giving a boost to the state’s economy. However, Texas’ appeal weakened in 2024 compared with the previous year, due in large part to spiking home prices.

An analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data by self-storage platform StorageCafe shows Texas saw net interstate migration of 76,000 people in 2024. Texas’ net interstate migration dropped nearly 50 percent from 2023, according to the analysis. Net migration refers to the number of incoming residents minus the number of outgoing residents.

California remained the top source of newcomers for Texas, sending nearly 77,000 residents to the Lone Star State in 2024, the analysis says. Florida ranked second, followed by New York, Colorado and Illinois.

“These trends reveal Texas’ continued pull from both high-cost coastal markets and other large Sun Belt states, resulting in a mix of affordability-driven and job-driven relocation,” StorageCafe says.

Putting a damper on the influx of new residents: a roughly 124 percent surge in Texas home prices over the past decade, according to StorageCafe.

“While the state remains significantly more affordable than California, its top feeder state, the once-wide pricing gap has narrowed,” says StorageCafe. “For many movers, Texas is still a relative bargain, but no longer an undisputed one.”

Nonetheless, Texas keeps attracting young, highly educated people, which bodes well for the state’s long-term economic outlook, StorageCafe says. More than half of new arrivals to Texas in 2024 held at least a bachelor’s degree, and the age of newcomers averaged 32.

Where are most of these young, highly educated newcomers settling?

Lloyd Potter, former Texas state demographer, tells StorageCafe that population growth in Texas is happening most rapidly in suburban “ring counties” at the expense of slowing growth in urban cores. Ring counties are on the outskirts of major metro areas.

“Many people are moving from urban cores to suburban rings seeking lower costs, newer housing, better schools, and more space,” Potter says. “Typically, a move to a suburban county will be within commuting or hybrid‑commuting distance of major metro economies.”

Artemis II makes historic call to space station with help from Houston Mission Control

History in the making

Still aglow from their triumphant lunar flyby, the Artemis II astronauts made more history Tuesday, April 7: calling their friends aboard the International Space Station hundreds of thousands of miles away as they headed home from the moon.

It was the first moonship-to-spaceship radio linkup ever. NASA's Apollo crews had no off-the-planet company back in the 1960s and 1970s, the last time humanity set sail for deep space.

"We have been waiting for this like you can’t imagine,” Artemis II commander Reid Wiseman called out.

For Christina Koch on Artemis II and Jessica Meir aboard the space station, it marked a joyous space reunion despite being 230,000 miles (370,000 kilometers) apart. The two teamed up for the world's first all-female spacewalk in 2019 outside the orbiting lab.

Koch told her “astro-sister” that she'd hoped to meet up with her again in space “but I never thought it would be like this — it's amazing.”

“I'm so happy that we are back in space together,” Meir replied, “even if we are a few miles apart.”

Houston's Mission Control arranged the cosmic chitchat between the four lunar travelers and the space station's three NASA and one French residents.

Koch described being awe-struck by not just the beauty of Earth, “but how much blackness there was around it.”

“It just made it even more special. It truly emphasized how alike we are, how the same thing keeps every single person on planet Earth alive,” she told the space station crew. “The specialness and preciousness of that really is emphasized” when viewing the home planet from the moon.

By late Tuesday afternoon, the Artemis II astronauts had beamed back more than 50 gigabytes' worth of pictures and other data from the previous day's lunar rendezvous, which set a new distance record for humanity. The highlight: an Earthset photo reminiscent of Apollo 8's Earthrise shot from 1968.

"While they are inspirational and, I think, allow all of us to really feel a little bit of what they were feeling, there's also a lot of science hidden inside of those images," said Mission Control's lead lunar scientist Kelsey Young. “The conversations and the science lessons learned are just beginning."

During a debriefing with Young, the astronauts recounted how they spotted a cascade of pinpricks of light on the lunar surface from impacting cosmic debris. The flashes lasted mere milliseconds and coincided by chance with Monday evening's total solar eclipse.

Young said it was too soon to know whether the crew witnessed an actual meteor shower or more random, run-of-the-mill micrometeoroid hits. Either way, there were “audible screams of delight” in the science operations center, she said.

Koch described being awe-struck by not just the beauty of Earth, “but how much blackness there was around it.”

“It just made it even more special. It truly emphasized how alike we are, how the same thing keeps every single person on planet Earth alive,” she told the space station crew. “The specialness and preciousness of that really is emphasized” when viewing the home planet from the moon.

The first lunar explorers since Apollo 17 in 1972, Wiseman and his crew are aiming for a splashdown off the San Diego coast on Friday to wrap up the nearly 10-day test flight. The recovery ship USS John P. Murtha left port Tuesday for the target zone.

It sets the stage for next year's Artemis III, a lunar lander docking demo in orbit around Earth. Artemis IV will follow in 2028 with two astronauts attempting to land near the lunar south pole.

As for the Orion capsule’s pesky potty, Mission Control assured the astronauts that no maintenance was required Tuesday. The toilet has been on-and-off limits to the crew ever since last week’s launch, prompting them to rely on a backup bag-and-funnel system for urinating.

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman told the crew following the lunar flyby Monday night: “We definitely have to fix some of the plumbing” ahead of the next Artemis mission. Engineers suspect a clogged filter in the overboard flushing system.

Aside from the toilet and other relatively minor matters, the mission has gone well, Isaacman noted at a news conference Tuesday, “but I'll breathe easier when we get through reentry and everybody's under chutes and in the water.”

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