Despite being an island nation inhabiting just 5.6 million people, Singapore has become one of the world’s leading centers for technological innovation, and the go-to place for entrepreneurs — big or small, local or international. A report published last year by US-based Startup Genome project, which covered 10,000 start-ups and 300 partner companies, stated that tiny Singapore has overtaken tech mecca Silicon Valley as the world’s number one for startup talent. The report cited the country’s innovative policies, significant government subsidies, ease of starting businesses, and geographical location that acts as an effective gateway to nearly 600 million people living in the Southeast Asian region as the reasons for its success.

In case you hadn’t noticed, innovation is a tricky business. The fact that a product is innovative doesn’t necessarily make it good—see, for instance, Google’s Clips camera. Furthermore, what many people crave in the gear they buy isn’t so much revolution as evolution. That’s why the venerable MacBook Air line refused to die even after Apple was ready to move on.

Image: https://www.fastcompany.com

As the mom of an 8-month-old, I am living a totally different life than I was a few years ago. Before having my daughter, my days consisted of waking up at 2 or 3 in the morning to go to work. After my shift, I went to back-to-back meetings for my side hustle. Somewhere in that routine coffee replaced meals, I came up with some of my best ideas on a SoulCycle bike or Orange Theory Fitness treadmill and sleep was a commodity. My business was my baby and I was driven by the work that (always) needed to get done.

Recent headlines have touted the move by several big employers to stop requiring new hires to hold college degrees. Meanwhile, a drumbeat of studies show increasing labor market returns for degrees, and employers say they value the critical thinking skills of liberal arts graduates.

These seemingly oppositional trends are both real and on display in a new report from Northeastern University’s Center for the Future of Higher Education and Talent Strategy. The report sheds light on a technology-enhanced shift in the way workers are being hired in the knowledge economy.

The last time GEN compiled a list of CEOs, investors, and others with the biggest stakes in biopharma companies—what GEN calls “molecular millionaires”—was last year, based on 2016 data. Only one new person who had not been listed in previous editions made the cut back then.

This year’s updated list includes two newcomers not appearing on the 2017 list, with at least two others possibly emerging by this time next year—namely the chairman and CEO of Moderna Therapeutics, which in November filed for the biggest-ever biotech initial public offering at $500 million, and then two weeks later, on November 28, raised its proposed IPO to $600 million.

The speed and distance at which planets orbit their respective blazing stars can determine each planet’s fate—whether the planet remains a longstanding part of its solar system or evaporates into the universe’s dark graveyard more quickly.

In their quest to learn more about far-away planets beyond our own solar system, astronomers discovered that a medium-sized planet roughly the size of Neptune, dubbed GJ 3470b, is evaporating at a rate 100 times faster than a previously discovered planet of similar size, GJ 436b.

Image: NASA, ESA, AND A. FEILD (STSCI)

Scientific evidence supporting the Environmental Protection Agency’s 2009 Endangerment Finding for greenhouse gases is even stronger and more conclusive now, according to a new study published today in the journal Science. This finding could strengthen challenges to proposed efforts to rollback emissions standards and carbon emissions regulations in the United States.

In the landmark Endangerment Finding the EPA determined that greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare, which created a legal obligation for the agency to regulate greenhouse gases emissions under the Clean Air Act. The Science paper comes three months after a senior Republican senator said that the Trump Administration might still try to repeal the landmark decision.

The ongoing negotiations on how to implement the Paris Agreement aren’t going well. The world’s largest economies and top greenhouse emitters remain mired in decades-old arguments about who is responsible for addressing climate change and its impacts.

Now, a group of small island nations have stepped in to save themselves.

Countries like Kiribati, Vanuatu and the Marshall Islands aren’t your typical geopolitical movers and shakers, but here at the United Nations climate change conference in Katowice, Poland these highly vulnerable countries have managed to reshape discussions with a simple but poignant reminder: if the world fails to halt global warming they may disappear for good.

This week, The Atlantic ran an article by an MBA student who was noticing how startups aren’t ‘cool’ anymore. Between the threat of an economic downturn and looming student-loan payments, the author discusses how coffee-break conversations about business ideas with his classmates rarely come to fruition. My co-founder and I both were successful entrepreneurs before we became venture capitalists (and both obtained our MBAs) -- so we found the post interesting on multiple levels.

"We have been dealt a very good hand, but the reality is the city is not growing."

As a newly divided Congress is sworn in, the American government will once again be brought into a political balance between Democrats and Republicans.

Even federal agencies like the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Food and Drug Administration, which have worked out an agreement to share their responsibilities on regulating controversial-yet-promising cell-based meat, are apparently following suit in their own way. 

This eighth, biennial report focuses on the economic progress and footprint of the industry geographically including the performance, positioning and latest trends in the bioscience industry for the nation, states and metropolitan areas. For the first time, it includes a national assessment of the full economic impact of the bioscience industry not only in terms of employment, but also with respect to economic output and fiscal impacts. In addition, the report details the nation’s academic research activities and trends in federal funding, access to critical angel and venture capital and the innovation outputs context via patent activities.

DOWNLOAD THE FULL REPORT

Technology makes society more efficient, but is moving faster always such a good thing? A new book delves into history and looks at the benefits and consequences of waiting. Delayed Response: The Art of Waiting from the Ancient to the Instant World, by University of Maryland-College Park professor Jason Farman, says speed can stifle innovation and creativity because people don’t take the time to think. He joined the Knowledge@Wharton show on SiriusXM to explain why good things come to those who wait.

It is difficult to pick up a major business publication today without reading about how venture capital and venture capitalists develop unicorn ventures, privately held start-ups valued at over $1 billion. This publicity prompts entrepreneurs to ask how to get VC, rather than if they should even seek it, or when.

The reality is that very few get VC

Venture capitalists invest in few early stage ventures because of the lack of proven potential. To calculate how few get VC, consider the following:

Image: http://blogs.lse.ac.uk

David Waddell walks into Interim, finds his usual corner seat, orders soup and gazes over the East Memphis restaurant’s white tablecloths.

He dresses tastefully. He drives an Audi. He graduated from Babson, a Boston college that educates entrepreneurs. He lived recently in the Asian city full of entrepreneurs, Hong Kong.

When FedEx scion Richard Smith launched his campaign last spring to spur Memphis’ economy, Waddell was at his side, reporting slow economic growth here has persisted for two decades. Waddell’s advice: Create more entrepreneurs.

Gary Hamel is on a mission. Bureaucracy, he says, is stifling innovation and we need to kill it. It calls for nothing short of a revolution in the way we run our organisations. Too much lip service is paid to innovation and the rhetoric is not being matched with practice.

Image: Gary Hamel: has tested many of his ideas through his consulting firm Strategos - https://www.irishtimes.com

Welcome to State of Startups, the annual survey where hundreds of venture-backed founders speak frankly about what it's like running a technology startup today. Over four years of State of Startups, we've collected 2,700+ submissions and nearly 150,000 data points, creating the industry's largest dataset on the founder and startup experience.

A private equity sector bursting with cash and searching for deals means more of that money has flowed into the healthcare system over the past decade. In 2009, private equity firms completed over 200 healthcare deals, and by 2016 this had tripled to more than 600 deals.

The healthcare industry saw a high level of deals in general in 2017 and 2018, involving both private equity and corporate buyers. As those deals are completed, many may be looking to sell noncore business units, prime targets for private equity firms looking for a proven business model and solid cash flow.1,2 Private equity’s purchases of healthcare divestitures are expected to continue in 2019 as the sector looks to invest the cash it has raised, a reported $624 billion ready for investment across industries as of July 2018.3

Image: https://www.pwc.com

Last week, business leaders, policy makers and experts from across the country convened in downtown Salt Lake City for the three-day annual SSTI conference discussing the innovation economy.

Organized by SSTI (the State Science and Technology Institute)—a nonprofit that works to support technology-based economic programs throughout the country—the event was focused on creating policies in support of building stronger local economies through technology and innovation initiatives.

What is the future of initial coin offerings (ICOs) as we look to a 12-month horizon?

As an early supporter of ICOs (properly run), I’d like to offer a broad perspective on where I think we are, and where we are going. Just as bitcoin and blockchain-based cryptocurrencies challenged our traditional views of money and its movements, ICOs should make us question three well-entrenched sectors: venture capital, public finance and entrepreneurship.