Yahoo’s core business is worth next to nothing, and buyers are struggling to see if there’s any there there. Twitter’s market cap just plummeted after a bad earnings report. Given that news, it seems that businesses that have dominated their markets are learning that the magic elixir of network effects and winner-takes-all advantages are about as reliable as cures for baldness.

Economists developed the theory of network effects in the 1970s and burnished it in the 1990s, and business gurus, entrepreneurs, and the tech media enshrined it as one of the guiding lights of the new economy.

As an entrepreneur, I was once in the middle of pitching to an investor when he asked me the question: “What do you want to get out of this?” I started to repeat the financial figures that I had prepared, but he interrupted me and clarified his question. “No, what do you personally want to get out of this?”

I was shocked to find out that I actually didn’t have a good answer for him. I thought about his question for days. What did I really want? While I thought of a variety of reasons, one theme definitely emerged. I wanted to prove I was CEO material and control my own destiny, without spending my life in the politics of career advancement.

The tech that forever changed the way we live, work, and play

Think of the gear you can’t live without: The smartphone you constantly check. The camera that goes with you on every vacation. The TV that serves as a portal to binge-watching and -gaming. Each owes its influence to one model that changed the course of technology for good.

It’s those devices we’re recognizing in this list of the 50 most influential gadgets of all time.

The City of Lawrence, KS, offers a good example – and sets a high standard – for economic development incentive reporting in its 2015 Annual Report: Economic Development Support & Compliance. This post is part of an occasional series examining state and local reports assessing economic development incentive programs.

Compliance in context

In the Smart Incentives 4x4 framework, we emphasize data, analysis, transparency and accountability throughout the incentives process and distinguish between compliance and evaluation in the reporting phases. Compliance emphasizes monitoring whether incentivized companies have fulfilled the terms of their performance agreements and met their commitments to your community.

Paul Krugman famously wrote, “Productivity isn’t everything, but in the long run it is almost everything.” He is right: Higher living standards depend on increased productivity. But what can policymakers do to raise productivity? Most economists would start their answers by tamping down expectations, arguing that government can do little, other than perhaps to get out of the way. This is why Krugman went on to conclude, “So what are we going to do about productivity growth? Nothing.” Others offer only vague palliatives such as spurring competition, increasing public spending on education and science, and improving macroeconomic policy. But policymakers desiring higher productivity would be well advised to look beyond such advice from purveyors of the “dismal science,” because conventional economics is of little help in understanding the sources of productivity growth, much less in providing useful or actionable advice on productivity policy.

Last week, tech behemoth Apple AAPL -0.66% announced the launch of a spate of health apps linked to its new CareKit developer tool set, including programs for monitoring depression (Iodine’s Start app), pregnancy and maternity (Glow’s Nurture and Baby apps), and diabetes (One Drop’s eponymous application).

Joe Atkins, chief executive officer of Bowers & Wilkins, has owned a majority stake in the half-century-old British speaker business for the last 30 years. On Tuesday, he told his 1,100 employees that he’s selling it to a tiny company that almost no one has heard of, run by a man he met just 30 days ago.

Over the weekend, Atkins reached a sale agreement with Eva Automation, a 40-person Silicon Valley startup that hasn’t yet sold a single product or service. The company was started in 2014 by Gideon Yu, a former Facebook Inc. chief financial officer, ex-venture capitalist, and current co-owner of the San Francisco 49ers.

Wherever you are in the world, a middle manager’s working life is seldom free from office politics. But nowhere is dealing with political power more of an issue than in China’s state-owned enterprises (SOEs). Communist Party influence and scrutiny pervades these firms, cascading down through virtually all management levels via Party branches that SOEs are required to install wherever they do business. Apparatchiks double as full-time employees of the firm.

Image: http://knowledge.insead.edu

A humpback whale gave a group of Alaskan fishermen quite the show on Monday, displaying its fishing skills for all to see. 

Captain Cy of Strike Zone Sportfishing captured this ridiculous video, which shows a massive humpback whale breaching the water's surface as it gobbles up some fish in the Knudson Cove Marina in Ketchikan, Alaska. 

Image: http://mashable.com

Investment firm Heritage Group has closed its second innovation fund and now counts 15 healthcare organizations as limited partners.

The $220 million fund is the latest example of how health systems and other industry players are taking an active role in piloting, investing in and mentoring young digital health companies as technology continues to reshape healthcare delivery. It is among the largest pools of funds for healthcare technology investments, and the combined approach allows the group to make larger investments in later-stage companies than they might otherwise do on their own.

A long-anticipated regulatory change is expected in May that will allow retail investors to join in start-up funding alongside millionaires and venture capitalists.

Unaccredited investors will be allowed to put money into start-ups, letting the average investor compete alongside the Marc Andreessens of the world to back up-and-coming companies, and potentially to make enormous profits in the process.

Image: Source: Slice Capital Rohan Shah, Slice Capital

If you are an employer determined to turn a college campus upside down to shake out the best graduates and persuade them to come and work for you, setting up a stand on a busy thoroughfare, distributing leaflets and answering any questions from passing students probably won’t cut it anymore. While many firms still do this, it is more often in conjunction with a range of other ways to engage with students on campus - and the more innovative and imaginative, the better.

While there’s some controversy on whether or not 90 percent of startups are actually bound to fail within their first year, there’s no doubt that there are some mistakes that early-stage startups can avoid to land (and stay) on the path to success. Incubators, providing more than just office space and mentorship, can also be a great provider of support to early-stage startups.

Here are a few ways to help grow your startup, beyond the incubator stage (via Mashable):

Funding is an essential part of starting and growing a business. The lack of it can stop an idea from becoming a product or service dead in its tracks. Even companies that have raised $1.3 million have failed before their second year, according to the most recent analysis by CB Insights. The fact that venture capital funding got even more scarce at the end of 2015, is a challenge to startups, particularly to those owned by women.

Image: Flickr user Jes

What does it take to create incentives that advance local innovation and technology?

That urgent question is on the mind of economic developers all over the world today.

The answer is not simple. There will never be another Silicon Valley. But there is also no monopoly in regional leadership to support and promote promising technology ventures.

No region illustrates this better than the western U.S. state of Arizona. Its 2016 Innovation Challenge, sponsored by the Arizona Commerce Authority, has drawn 25 semi finalists to its business plan contest that seeks promising early-stage companies in high-growth industries. Awards range from $100,000 to $250,000 per company.

Image: http://www.thenextsiliconvalley.com

The Small Business Administration (SBA) announced the 2016 Growth Accelerator Fund competition. In its third year, the SBA will commit up to $3.95 million for accelerators and other entrepreneurial ecosystem models to compete for monetary prizes of $50,000 each. This year, the SBA will partner with several other federal agencies – NIH, NSF, Department of Education, and USDA – to provide additional prizes to accelerators that assist entrepreneurs with submitting proposals for the Small Business Innovation (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs.  Applications must be submitted by June 3.

In my view, starting a new business has never been easier, and according to reports from the Kaufmann Foundation, the numbers are finally here to show it. The number of startups rose in 2015 for the first time in five years, with the largest year-over-year increase in two decades. Over 500,000 new businesses were created last year, or about one per minute of every day.

Image: http://blog.startupprofessionals.com

Crowd pitching  events  are where fairly younger startups get an opportunity to showcase their ideas and product in front of investors and mentors. The sole motive of crowd pitching is not just to secure funding, but is also to get audience’s reaction to the product and receiving constructive feedback.

Seven startups participated at a crowd pitching event conducted by Crowd Product in Bangalore. The startups included Cloud 9, Fundamentor, Sunami, Help Tweet, UI5CN, myOtels.com, and WomenCabs.com.

Depending on whom you ask, the U.S. economy is “stuck in second gear,” already in another massive recession or—according to Warren Buffett—doing just fine. For those not feeling as optimistic as the Oracle of Omaha, there may be a sense of despair. Our dysfunctional, gridlocked Congress isn’t likely to implement solutions to kick the economy into high gear anytime soon. So who can jump-start the economy?

Entrepreneurs.

Whether it’s a small problem (How can I put something healthy on the table tonight?) or large one (How do we feed a growing world population—Farm the oceans? Use more insects in foods?)—entrepreneurs are often the first to rise to the challenge and offer innovative solutions.

Image: https://www.nav.com

Have you ever thought to yourself, “If I just had enough working capital, I could push my business in the right direction?” Well, the good news is that there are ways to bring in working capital from the outside and grow your business. You will need a strategy, though.

The In’s and Out’s Of Managing Working Capital

When looking at the health of a company, you can determine a lot by asking this one simple question: “How much working capital do you have?”