Strikeforce: Inside Silicon Valley's Most Unusual Apprenticeship Futurist Peter Diamandis offers a deal to young entrepreneurs: Help him for two years, and maybe build the next billion-dollar company at the same time.

As robots go, the three telepresence machines that wheeled themselves into a conference room in Culver City, Calif., in mid May were not exactly what one would call lifelike. Flatscreens mounted on stilts rising from a mobile base, operated from afar by flesh-and-blood humans sitting in front of keyboards, the robots were functionally little more than sophisticated teleconferencing gear. Some people Skype into business meetings, but that's not forward-thinking enough for Peter Diamandis. So when he gathers the dozen or so employees of his company PHD Ventures for their monthly meetings, the off-site participants send robot stand-ins.

Related: The Power of Innovation

"All right, you rebels!" says Diamandis, after the attendees are all in place. "Let's go!" He calls this assemblage his Jedi Council; he is Obi-Wan, and they are his disciples.