Managers and boards are often pushed by investors, fund managers, and analysts to focus intently on a single measure of success, such as shareholder value or profit, and then they do everything they can to maximize it. As a result, they tend to overlook other important measures — for instance, customer satisfaction, employee motivation, and supplier support — and their narrow view of the organization can do long-term damage. Consider “Chainsaw Al” Dunlap, infamous for his profit-at-any-price approach to corporate turnarounds. He left a trail of failed companies behind him, including the iconic Sunbeam. He’s an extreme example, but one that shows what happens when you lose sight of organizational complexity.

Ted Chung is a man who has thought long and hard about hot sauce. "It's something I take very personally and spiritually," the founder of Cashmere, a marketing agency that targets multicultural millennials, tells Fast Company.

As the son of Korean immigrants to the U.S., he noticed as far back as the 1970s that his parents put Tabasco on absolutely everything, wherever they ate. "They were longing for the spiciness that is common in Asian foods," he says. "At the time, Tabasco was the primary hot sauce available to them. It became the temporary replacement that allowed them to experience all the pleasure that capsicum can bring."

Innovate Mississippi announces the election of Richard A. Sun, founder and owner of Sun & Co., as chairman of the Innovate Mississippi Board of Directors.

Sun, of Jackson, earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Princeton University and a Masters of Business Administration from New York University.  He has also earned the esteemed designation as a Chartered Financial Analyst. He has served as an investor, adviser, senior executive or board member in over 30 startup and early stage high-potential companies.  Additionally, Sun was a banker for 22 years with Bankers Trust Company (now Deutsche Bank), Goldman Sachs, First Boston (now Credit Suisse) and UBS (once Swiss Bank Corporation). From 1994 to 2001, he was a private equity investor with Emerging Markets Partnership, a $6 billion firm backed by AIG and the Government of Singapore. He has arranged, advised on or made over $11 billion of private debt and equity investments.

Most small businesses are trying to forget the last recession, and get back to “business as usual.” They don’t realize that business as usual is gone forever. With social media and smart phone conversations, real product information spreads at astounding speeds. Entrepreneurs that are not listening, not engaging, and not changing will be left behind even in the best of times.

Investing in startups is like bird-watching, or at least that's the quote from legendary venture capitalist Mike Moritz.

Over the past two weeks, I have listened to 146 startups pitch in rapid-fire succession at demo days for Y Combinator and 500 Startups.

Today, the combination of globalization and digitalization is fueling the exponential growth of new technologies at historically unprecedented levels. From machine learning and virtual reality to DevOps and the Internet of Things, the global start-up scene is abuzz with the latest in tech trends. In the entrepreneurial mecca that is Berlin, start-ups are launching thousands of new businesses in the e-commerce, cloud, and Big Data realms as well as in creative sectors, such as fashion, marketing, and media.

Many youngsters rock up at my door asking for money to chase their dreams. Some of the ideas are great, but the pitch is amateurish.

If you can’t execute your pitch, most investors will assume you can’t execute, period.

Here are some tips. These are not Silicon Valley tips. These are tips for pitching to South African angel investors.

Becoming a full-time entrepreneur is one of the best decisions that I’ve ever made. It’s exciting and fulfilling. And, it’s pretty awesome not answering to a boss in a boring 9-to-5 gig. While I wouldn’t change being an entrepreneur, it’s not always as glamorous as it’s portrayed.

Take, for example, these following five things that nobody has ever told you about becoming a full-time entrepreneur.

In 1962, cinematographer Morton Heilig patented his Sensorama Stimulator—a bulky virtual-reality machine that showed 3-D films on a personal display while pumping in smells, sounds, and the sensation of wind.

Heilig was never able to popularize the sensory-immersive Sensorama; it remains a curious footnote in the history of virtual reality. But a small startup based in a Portland, Oregon, garage could have better luck.

Image: Startup Wild combines virtual reality with real objects. This composite shot shows the view from inside a Gear VR headset and in the real world. 

A blood test that could quickly detect a brain injury and measure the damage it has done could help doctors provide better care for the millions of people suffering from such injuries, potentially improving their chances of avoiding long-term disabilities.

Image: http://www.technologyreview.com 

Sales is an essential component of an entrepreneur’s life. Without being able to sell effectively, you can’t gain clients.

Being able to sell effectively means knowing how to get your prospects to lower their guard. You must make your prospects feel comfortable with you. People buy from those they know, like, and trust.

When Tidjane Thiam, former CEO of Prudential (and an INSEAD alum) became the CEO of Credit Suisse, he was asked if he was equipped to do a good job since he had never worked in investment banking before. He replied, “I’ve studied physics and maths…there is nothing that I don’t understand in investment banking”.

Last month, the startup world was chattering about free money, and founders and investors alike were on their toes driving growth at all costs and trying to push valuations to unprecedented heights. This week, after the Dow dropped 1,000 points to start trading on Monday, the same people are on their heels, worried the party might be over.

Founded in 2003 within the bounds of Fort Meade and supported by the NSA, the contractor-turned-tech incubator called the Chesapeake Innovation Center (CIC) was once tasked with scouting the technology of private defense contractors. Today, now out from the shadow cast by the military base, CIC is a non-profit incubator working to mentor and build early stage tech startups as part of the Anne Arundel Economic Development Corporation (AAEDC).

Image: NSA headquarters building in Fort Meade (left), NSOC (right) / Credit: Wikicommons 

When Congress comes back in September to work on the budget, they will have to address not one, but two deficits. That’s because America suffers not just from a yawning fiscal deficit but also from a terrible backlog of needed investments, including for research and development, education, and infrastructure. It, too, is a deficit that threatens America’s long-term prosperity. In fact, these twin deficits often reinforce each other in confounding ways. Cutting spending can ease the near-term fiscal deficit while depressing long-term growth and raising our debt in proportion to our income. Yet borrowing money merely to increase regular spending is likely to worsen the fiscal deficit without doing much for the nation’s long-term growth.  

When Reddit user Somuch101 asked, "What does a $300,000 house look like where you are from?" he or she set of a storm of responses. The answers ranged from "impossible to afford" to "a palace for pocket money." Although the range is startling, there are few surprises. The more desirable a place is to live, the more expensive the housing. In New York’s Manhattan, $300,000 might buy you a four-weeks share in a fancy hotel suite. In San Francisco, the same will land you a corner plot covered in grass and nothing else.

Companies spent $323 billion on research and development performed in the United States during 2013, 6.7% more than the $302 billion spent during 2012 (table 1). Funding from the companies’ own sources was $247 billion during 2012 and $265 billion during 2013, a 7.1% increase. Funding from other sources was $55 billion during 2012 and $58 billion during 2013 (table 1). Data for this InfoBrief are from the Business R&D and Innovation Survey (BRDIS), which was developed and is cosponsored by the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Census Bureau.

The globalization of the economy has increased the importance of supply chain management for large firms. As a result, many companies have appointed a high-ranking executive to deal specifically with issues related to logistics. Originally tasked with all things IT, these chief information officers — or CIOs, a term that originated in the 1980s and become commonplace in the mid-1990s — now also are charged with modernizing supply chains, trimming operational costs, streamlining inventory cycles, and overseeing strategic reforms in the way their firms develop new products or services. In short, they’re largely responsible for moving their companies forward into the multinational age.

Innovative technology companies account for just over 11 percent of local jobs, but pay double the average wage and are leading San Diego’s economic growth.

That is the conclusion of a report released Thursday by the National University System Institute for Policy Research that examined the strengths of San Diego’s innovation economy.

Image: A scientist working at a San Diego life sciences company. Image from CONNECT video 

It is good that Mr. Neumann begins his piece in the 70’s, as that era certainly set the table for the 1980’s. You may recall I got into the industry in 1978.

The key reason for the explosion in capital flowing into the industry, and therefore the large increase in practitioners, had nothing to do with 1970’s performance, early stage investing, or technology. Instead, it was the result of two profound regulatory changes, the 1978 Steiger Amendment, which lowered the capital gains tax from 49% to 28%, and the 1978 clarification under ERISA that venture capital investments came within the “prudent man” doctrine.