No industry is safe from the tsunami of digital disruption, but some will be hit sooner than others. Three checks could reveal if you’re next.

Have you ever been bitten by a snake? Fortunately this has not happened to me (yet) but it might be a similar experience to what happens  you when your business is hit by digital disruption. One minute the reptile is calmly enjoying the sun, the next moment it lunges forward. Before you know it you have received the deadly bite and if you do not administer the antidote as quickly as possible you are finished.

During his summer internship with a New Jersey congressman, Matthew Schaller will work eight hours a day, three days a week. He will not be paid. He is paying $3,100. That’s the cost of a three-credit summer course at Seton Hall University, where Schaller will get credit for his work. He is a diplomacy major, and the degree program requires an academic internship.

Image: MELISSA GIRA / CREATIVE COMMONS

In the games played on the innovation field it can happen that the winner takes all. The market power of the new monopolist is liable to cause severe disparities in the distribution of income and wealth. Growing inequalities occur not only between individuals; even businesses are affected. Those among them who raise high monopolistic barriers can get returns on investments made several times higher than the median values. Epicentres of value creation, cities are faced with a narrow path traced by innovation between progress and inequality. How to take it? On the wake of Schumpeter, they should not worry about the new monopolies. Their strength would fall in the face of strong pressures from potential competitors, firmly determined to enter the most promising emerging markets. Therefore, the best strategy would be to let the market take its course. And if monopoly profits of the incumbents withstood the attacks? In short, what if the markets were not as efficient and equitable as one might expect?

Wherever I go in the world, everyone is desperately seeking innovation and they’re looking to Silicon Valley for inspiration. This is true for places as different as Tokyo and Dubai, Amsterdam and Mumbai, Beijing and Singapore.

It is also true for Wharton students. Our MBA for Executives program in San Francisco has developed its own entrepreneurial ethos and West Coast vibe. The Semester in San Francisco for our MBAs, as well as the winter week for undergraduates at our campus under the Bay Bridge, are both oversubscribed.

Image: http://beacon.wharton.upenn.edu

Continuing to cut higher education funding will hurt Wisconsin’s economy by reducing research and innovation on college campuses, according to a new report from the state organization that advises lawmakers on science and technology.

The Wisconsin Technology Council argues that legislators should instead make it a priority to increase state support for the University of Wisconsin and Wisconsin Technical College systems.

The childhood insult “Four eyes!” may one day apply to most of us. By 2050, according to a new report from the Brien Holden Vision Institute in Australia, almost half the world will be nearsighted and require some form of corrective lens, up from a quarter of the global population in 2000. Conventional wisdom puts the blame for the rise in myopia on reading and staring at computer screens, but little evidence supports that hypothesis. Current thinking holds that people, especially children, spend too little time outside—a handful of studies show that lack of sunlight exposure from long periods indoors correlates with myopia.

The following discussion addresses the criteria that a good innovation metric should meet.

Comparative

A good innovation metric should allow users to measure current innovation performance with prior years’ performance, as well as with competitors’ performance. The ability to compare to prior years’ performance will support company improvement. The ability to compare against competitors performance will support increasing the company’s competitiveness, market share, revenue, and profitability relative to its competitors in the market.

Image: http://www.innovationexcellence.com

A growing drum beat tuned for the election year is advising the government to override patent protection as the quick and easy way to make drugs more accessible. The patent system is being roundly condemned as a barrier to public health which must be brought to heel. Efforts range from urging the NIH to misuse the march in provisions of the Bayh-Dole Act to control drug costs to “A simple way for government to curb inflated drug prices“ in The Washington Post advising that the “government patent use” authority be invoked to take drugs deemed too expensive. The next step in the campaign is coming from the United Nations.

Beginning on May 16, 2016, small businesses and start-ups will be able to sell shares to the American general public on crowdfunding portals.  Under the Securities and Exchange Commission crowdfunding rules, an eligible company may raise up to $1 million on the internet in a 12-month period, through either a broker or a crowdfunding portal registered with the SEC.

An investor earning or having net worth less than $100,000 may invest no more than (a) the greater of $2,000 or (b) 5 percent of the lesser of the investor’s income or the investor’s net worth in all crowdfunding offerings in a 12-month period. An investor having net worth and income greater than $100,000 may invest no more than (a) $100,000 or, if less, (b) 10 percent of the lesser of the investor’s income or the investor’s net worth in all crowdfunding offerings in a 12-month period. An issuer generally may rely on an intermediary to determine whether an investor’s crowdfunding investments are within these limits. Crowdfunding securities may not be resold for one year, except to accredited investors.

Next week will begin a new chapter for the startup industry. Starting Monday, new crowdfunding rules will permit anyone, not just the rich clan, to risk $2,000 a year or more investing in small companies in exchange for a stake in the business. Companies can raise up to $1 million a year this way.

Until now, only accredited investors, meaning those with an annual income of at least $200,000 or a net worth of at least $1 million, have been permitted to take equity stakes in most private companies.

The Facebook CEO wants to change the world, not just the Internet

“Where are you taking Facebook at this point?”

It’s 2005, and Mark Zuckerberg is mulling the interview question at his startup’s office as he sits beneath a Pulp Fiction poster, the same one plastered in dorm rooms across America for the last two decades. He clutches a beer in a red Solo cup and, at age 21, is just barely old enough to legally drink it. His voice still has an adolescent cadence.

Image: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mark_Zuckerberg_em_setembro_de_2014.jpg

According to a National Venture Capital Association survey, 82% of small businesses get their backing from self-funding. So if you’re coming up empty finding angel investors to contribute to your business fund, you’re not alone.

Fortunately, there are ways you can develop multiple streams of revenue to get your business up and running without going into deep debt. Bootstrapping is a popular way to fund yourself, but it doesn’t mean you have to eat ramen and live in your car to see your startup become a reality.

Venture capital and VC-backed startups are some of the most popular archetypes of entrepreneurship. Unicorns, which we usually only hear about if they are investor-backed, dominate the news.  20-year olds raising 20 million dollars in the Bay Area for a tech company are a sexy story, and get a lot of airtime in news about entrepreneurship regardless of how prevalent they are.

Between TechCrunch and the TV show Silicon Valley – awesome as both those are – it’d be easy to think entrepreneurship, especially growth entrepreneurship, is all about venture capital.

I’ve been wanting to write this post for months but wasn’t sure how I wanted to put it. Over the last few weeks, I’ve gained some clarity that will help me get the words out.

Last year, I started a digital marketing company. What a first year it was – named to the “Top 50 Startups to Watch in Colorado”; named as one of the six most charitable companies in Colorado; and the winner of multiple awards for our work. However, I just didn’t love what we were doing at the company.

Connecticut is expanding its venture capital firm to help promote new start-up and early-stage businesses in the state.

The $19.7 billion state budget being voted on by the General Assembly this week includes a provision establishing a subsidiary within Connecticut Innovations known as CTNext. It's intended to foster innovation, start-up and other early-stage businesses.

Image: Dannel Malloy

This week’s Charlotte Business Journal lists N.C.’s largest venture capital and private equity firms, ranked by funds under management. Charlotte’s Ridgemont Equity Partners tops The List with $2.5 billion of capital under management.

In late 2015, Ridgemont closed its second round of fundraising, raising $995 million. The firm says the investment strategies for the new fund will be similar to the first one — a focus on investments of $25 million to $75 million in basic industries and services, energy, health care and telecommunications/media/technology.

Ken Johnson, the veteran Wisconsin investor who is a partner in the Badger Fund of Funds, has held true to his vision from the start.

Even before the Badger Fund of Funds was officially seeded in 2014 with a $25 million investment from the state of Wisconsin, Johnson described the early stage fund as “money for minnows” to be led by young, regionally focused managers.

April was the warmest such month on record for the globe, and yet again, we saw a near-record large margin compared to average, according to NASA data released Saturday. 

The record all but assures that 2016 will set another milestone for the warmest calendar year in NASA's database, regardless of whether the rest of this year sees comparatively cooler global temperatures.

During each of the past seven months, global average surface temperatures have exceeded the 20th century average by more than 1 degree Celsius, or 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit.

I find that I’ve become increasingly irritated with the narrow interpretations and self-serving definitions of what is, or is not, innovation. One of the most common scapegoats for innovation is brainstorming. No other activity is more frequently miscast, and often blamed, for failed innovation. It’s strange that the most natural activity in an innovation process is singled out as the most complex, difficult, and dangerous. That fact alone highlights how poorly understood the entire innovation process is. I’m here to neither praise nor bury brainstorming, but to clarify when it’s appropriate.

What is success as an entrepreneur? It’s all relative, and business owners need to define it for themselves, said Mark Cuban. But the billionaire entrepreneur and investor on the TV show “Shark Tank” has no shortage of opinions on what it means to him.

Cuban, who spoke recently at South by Southwest, is a serial entrepreneur who has owned companies since the age of 21. He is the owner of the Dallas Mavericks basketball team, chairman and CEO of AXStv, and co-owns the Landmark Theater chain. Success has meant different things to him throughout the stages of his career, beginning with his first business when he was in college.