When I was a kid growing up in New Jersey, I had the idea of being an accountant firmly ingrained in my mind. I knew that accounting was a foundational element of business and working in that world would lead to fast success. After my first year of auditing public companies, I became frustrated by not being able to make a bigger difference.

Silicon Valley, long the undisputed king of venture capital, is now sharing its throne with Asia.

A decade ago, nearly three-quarters of the world’s financing of innovative, tech-heavy startups and young companies took place in the U.S., with American investors plowing money into mostly U.S.-based venture firms.

You have to see Apple’s Reno, Nevada, data center from the inside to truly understand how huge it is. It’s made up of five long white buildings sitting side by side on a dry scrubby landscape just off I-80, and the corridor that connects them through the middle is a quarter-mile long.

Image: Apple Park’s enormous roof is covered with solar panels. (Photo: Carlos Chavarria)

Innovation isn’t a one-time project. It’s a continuous activity. Which is why we are seeing numerous organizations adding an innovation department to their company infrastructure. In fact, in a recent survey of our client base, we were surprised to learn that almost 40% of our customers operate out of a dedicated innovation group. We’ve also noticed that innovation also moves through a cycle with a repeating set of activities, goals, and outputs. That cycle includes six basic steps.

What research tells us about the art of negotiating under the influence.

In many cultures, it is customary to have a drink during a negotiation. In Russia, for example, morning meetings that include a round of vodka shots are not unheard of. In China, a business relationship usually starts with a banquet that calls for celebratory toasts. In France, it is not unusual for business lunches to involve a generous flow of local wines.

I don’t really have anything insightful to say about this, but I thought today’s chart in the Wall Street Journal about the origin of venture capital money was interesting:

Image: https://www.motherjones.com

If you asked me why I gravitated to startups rather than work in a large company I would have answered at various times: “I want to be my own boss.” “I love risk.” “I want flexible work hours.” “I want to work on tough problems that matter.” “I have a vision and want to see it through.” “I saw a better opportunity and grabbed it. …”

We’re pleased to announce the winners of the 2018 World Changing Ideas Awards. World Changing Ideas, now in its second year, celebrates businesses, policies, and nonprofits that are poised help shift society to a more sustainable and more equitable future.

Image: Photos (from top left): Lia Diagnostics, Kind Foundation, Digifarm, Catherine Yrisarri/© Chasing Coral, courtesy Lauren Lee, Thor Trucks, Humanium Metal Initiative, GreyMatters, Kanpur Flowercycling, LA-Más, Ginkgo Bioworks, Eviation

For many, the internship represents that rite of passage from being a student to becoming a young professional. Internships help young adults apply what they’ve learned in their studies to the real world. It is an internship at a coveted company, many argue, that makes the recent college grad more marketable than her degree itself.

Trendiest, most hipster-friendly cities in the world are mostly American, according to a new ranking — but they call got beaten to the top spot by a city in England.

The ranking, known as the , The International Hipster Index, comes from relocation company MoveHub. It compared 446 cities based on the prevalence of hipster touchstones including vegan eateries, coffee shops, tattoo studios, vintage boutiques and record stores.

If you want to be successful in business (and in life), there are a few important rules you need to follow. Never pick a fight.

Never purposefully offend anyone.

Never make the same mistake twice.

Never… Okay, let’s just stop that. It’s all baloney.

You know why some people stand out from the crowd and achieve success while others flounder? It’s not because they’re doing everything the way everyone else is.

No, they’re doing things a bit differently. Often, they’re doing exactly what we’ve all been taught not to do!

After 35 years, the Akron Global Business Accelerator has rebranded itself as Bounce, Akron’s Innovation Hub.

Doug Weintraub is the newly installed CEO. 

He’s also a serial entrepreneur and co-founder of the Cleveland venture capital group Jumpstart.

Weintraub has big visions to build a start-up community in Akron.

He takes us on a tour of the soon to be renovated first floor of the former BF Goodrich factory ahead of the facility's first public open house on Friday.

Image: Doug Weintraub is the new CEO of Bounce: Akron's Innovation Hub. He's a serial entrepreneur and angel investor who says he's wants to build a start-up culture around the former tire factory. JEFF ST.CLAIR / WKSU

Being a start-up entrepreneur can be simultaneously the most exciting and alienating time in someone’s life. You are making decisions quickly, you are racing to keep up while your business grows around you and you’re navigating a new and unknown landscape.

At least, so it was for me! While this can be a totally exhilarating experience, I remember a time during the early years of New Covent Garden Soup Co. when it was growing at a very rapid pace and it often felt like I had to make decisions faster than I had time to weigh up the pros and cons, or consider all of the various outcomes.

You don’t have to be a jerk to get ahead — in business and in life, according to David DeSteno, a Northeastern Universitypsychology professor. Instead, positive emotions lead to bigger wins. He spoke with Knowledge@Wharton about this concept, which he wrote about in his book — Emotional Success: The Power of Gratitude, Compassion, and Pride. His comments came during the Knowledge@Wharton show, which airs on SiriusXM channel 111.

Image: Image by rawpixel.com

Online symptom checkers are the digital version of the DIY doctor. Plug in what’s ailing you — headache, stomach pains, weird skin rash — and you get a list of what’s (likely) causing the problem.

The key word is ‘likely.’ Depending on which version you use, that list could be spot on, or it could lead you astray — luring you into a false sense of reassurance that nothing is wrong, or sending you into a spiral of anxiety about a serious, and possibly even fatal, condition.

A business or management degree can be a springboard to a life of success. Generally speaking, the better the university, the more chance of getting to JPMorgan, Goldman, or a major hedge fund.

Every year, education company QS produces a comprehensive ranking of the world's best universities, broken down by region and subject. QS's latest ranking was released back in March, and it includes some interesting data about which universities provide the best education in business and management.

The Chronicle’s Shark Tank: Edu Edition returned to the South by Southwest EDU conference in March to weigh in on three ideas for improving higher education. The pitches came from a religion professor, a finance entrepreneur, and a leader from a major philanthropy known for its scholarship programs.

The dominant tech trend in places like Southeast Asia will not be artificial intelligence as a whole, but rather it will be the more specific AI field of machine learning, according to a researcher from Deloitte.

“Machine learning is the big one, not AI. AI’s a very broad field, we are talking about the very narrow field of machine learning,” Duncan Stewart, the director of technology, media, and telecommunications research at Deloitte Canada, told CNBC.

Yesterday, the EU announced VentureEU, a new “fund-of-funds program” designed to make the bloc more competitive in the global startup space.

VentureEU will split a $2.6B pot among 6 different European VC firms. So far, the EU has committed $505m of its own budget, but still has to persuade private investors to front the remaining money to hit their goal.

Image: https://thehustle.co

In Quirky, NYU Stern professor Melissa Schilling embraces what you might call the “great person” view of innovation. Many recent studies of innovation have focused on the importance of collaboration and social setting, and emphasized the ways in which good ideas are typically the product of many minds, rather than one. Schilling looks instead at eight individuals whom she calls “serial breakthrough innovators”: Benjamin Franklin, Marie Curie, Nikola Tesla, Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein, Dean Kamen, Steve Jobs, and Elon Musk.

Image: https://www.strategy-business.com