Many U.S. firms have long had a simple mantra: “Invent here, manufacture there.” But, increasingly, those same companies are now choosing to invent as well as manufacture abroad. From automotive to semiconductors to pharma to clean energy, America’s innovation centers have shifted east, offering growing evidence that the U.S. has lost what Harvard Business School’s Willy Shih calls the “industrial commons”: indispensable production skills and capabilities. It’s not just that virtually all consumer electronics are designed and made overseas. It’s that the U.S. has lost the underlying capacity to make products like flat-panel displays, cell phones, and laptops; nearly half of the foreign R&D centers established in China now belong to U.S.-based companies.

Workforce issues are the highest recurring pain point for businesses in a period of sub-4% unemployment. When it comes to talent, everyone is pulling from the same pool, and competition is increasing.

In the third annual Talent Attraction Scorecard, we explore how well small and large counties are attracting and developing skilled workers. Counties are ranked using Emsi’s Talent Attraction Index, which is based on drawing new residents, growing jobs and skilled workers, attracting young talent, and increasing educational attainment.

Image: https://www.economicmodeling.com

The most successful entrepreneurs and business owners I know are humble, and they don’t have an inflated sense of self. When you have some success behind you as a manager, executive, founder, or CEO, it’s easy to become less open to the advice and signals around you, and believe you should just continue doing what you are doing to keep climbing. It’s a recipe for disaster.

Agricultural start-up firms with great ideas but no funds can tap venture capital firms for cash. Despite the downturn in agriculture, venture capital continues to move into agriculture. In 2017, AgFunder said $4.2 billion had been invested globally into the agricultural sector, says Derek Norman, head of corporate venture capital for Syngenta Ventures. Norman spoke at this week’s Syngenta Media Summit in Minneapolis.

Image: https://www.agriculture.com

Chamath Palihapitiya, one of Silicon Valley's most outspoken tech investors, doubled down on calling the venture capital and tech start-up economy a Ponzi scheme on Wednesday.

In a letter released by Social Capital, his venture firm, Palihapitiya wrote that "the dynamics we've entered is, in many ways, creating a dangerous, high stakes Ponzi scheme" and a "bizarre Ponzi balloon."

Image: Heidi Gutman | CNBC Chamath Palihapitaya speaking at the 23rd Annual Sohn Investment Conference in New York City on April 23, 2018.

Angel investors support 10-times more women-led companies than venture capital-backed investors, revealed a first-of-its-kind report by the Kansas City-based Angel Capital Association.

“It didn’t shock us,” said Marianne Hudson, executive director of the ACA, the world’s largest cohort of angel investors.

To combat this pressure, incumbents and attackers alike should build and sustain best-in-class commercial capabilities to gain significant competitive advantages. In many cases, that entails adopting best practices from other industries.

The rewards can be substantial. Based on our assessment of more than 200 commercial capabilities at 200 clients,2 we found that businesses that were top performers—those with superior commercial capabilities—consistently deliver revenue growth about 1.9 points higher and earnings growth about 4.7 points higher than peers in the same sector (Exhibit 1).

For each year during the past quarter century, the world’s oceans have absorbed an amount of heat energy that is 150 times the energy humans produce as electricity annually, according to a study led by researchers at Princeton and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California-San Diego. The strong ocean warming the researchers found suggests that Earth is more sensitive to fossil-fuel emissions than previously thought.

After positive feedback on my post clarifying the difference between leadership and management, I'm sharing what makes someone an entrepreneur and what they might be if not.

Definitions are like opinions-;everyone has one and people argue over them-;so I'm not trying to tell anyone how to think. I'm only sharing a perspective that has helped me. If you use another definition than I mention here that works better for you, please share for others.

Hugh Herr sits at a table in his austere glass office in the famous Media Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, scrolling through images of a striking fashion model born without a right forearm. As head of biomechatronics research at MIT and one of the world’s leading developers of wearable robotics, Herr is making a point about how disability is becoming obsolete as the boundary between humans and robots vanishes.

Image: Photographs by Matthew Septimus

An extensive recruitment process brought in over 140 applications. The selection team vetted the applications using a three-step process including internal evaluation and scoring, the submission of a lean canvas and traction roadmap and one-on-one interviews.

“We were really pleased with the level of interest Incite garnered,” said Barry Bisson, CEO of Propel, in a release. “The Propel team put a lot of work into redesigning our accelerator and we believe what we’ve developed is unprecedented. We look forward to seeing the results from the companies who complete the program.”

Image: Propel ICT CEO Barry Bisson speaking at an event in June, 2018. (Image: Facebook)

The entrepreneurial lifestyle can offer many perks. It’s exciting, it’s creative, and you can potentially create products or services that can have a positive impact on the world. However, being an entrepreneur isn’t always easy. You’ll encounter plenty of obstacles along the way, and maintaining motivation day in and day out can be tough.

Be the first to get the coolest products you didn't even know you needed, all selected by Mashable's commerce team -- and all rigorously vetted for awesomeness.

Check out this retro keyboard that can keep up with all your modern needs. It has a metal build and is fully bluetooth compatible. It can pair up to three devices so you can always feel sleek and retro while getting all your work done on time.

Israeli and Polish organizations have signed a 10-month innovation plan, supported by the Israeli government and the Polish Ministry of Technology and Entrepreneurship, which will see large corporations share their innovation needs and challenges with startups and individual entrepreneurs from both countries. The goal is to identify solutions to those challenges, forming startups around them, and getting the solutions piloted, implemented and scaled to markets.

Image: Israeli and Polish organizations have signed a 10-month innovation plan.BGK POLAND

As a long-time advisor to small businesses and startups, I still find many who think marketing is still primarily broadcasting your message to as many customers as possible, hitting them again and again, until it sticks. They don’t realize that customers today are looking for relationships, meaning two-way conversations with your business. They ignore all else as just plain noise.

Image: https://blog.startupprofessionals.com

The ethical use of technology engenders trust through transparent practices and the protection of privacy, according to Microsoft’s Toni Townes-Whitley, Corporate Vice President of Worldwide Public Sector and Industry. She gives examples of how leaders in the digital age should act responsibly, such as by ensuring that automation maximizes efficiencies without destroying people’s dignity.

Image: https://ecorner.stanford.edu

Congratulations, you’ve made it to the end of my “Roadmap to Innovation” series and hopefully have a budding innovation program in the works. Thus far, I’ve spoken about aligning innovation with your business strategy, building your teams, overcoming key obstacles, funding your program and incentivizing all employees to participate (check out part 1 and part 2). Although you may be eager to put your game plan into action, it’s a good time to take a step back and establish metrics to gauge the success of your programs and continuously improve upon it. Metrics are crucial. Here’s why.

Consumers have greeted Apple’s latest slate of iPhones, computers and the newest connected Watch with solid interest, but not the high enthusiasm from years past. Since the iPhone’s debut in 2007, public excitement soared in the early years but then has steadily dipped as the novelty wore off. According to Statista, global search interest for iPhones has been falling since 2012, after peaking with the iPhone 5. Citi analysts also noticed the same shift over time: “We suspect this is because of a slowdown in innovation and the saturation of iPhone in the addressable market.”

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

A key part of a leader’s job is to keep their team curious and innovative. According to an IBM report, some of the key barriers to innovation are inadequate funding, risk avoidance, time commitments and incorrect methods of measurement. Leaders were asked to look at how they were measuring success, if the innovation was worth the time of those involved, how effective their ways of measuring risks, benefits and non-innovation were, how far they could get without money and how much was needed to succeed.

It’s become part of climate-change lore: Just weeks after Donald Trump won the election in 2016, California Governor Jerry Brown took to the stage during a conference in San Francisco and proclaimed that “California will launch its own damn satellites” to track climate change if the new president continued to deny its existence.

Image: Daniel Salo (illustration), Chelsea Schiff (typography), Iaremenko/iStock (windmill)