Many of us have seen and experienced some of the sweeping digital transformations made in healthcare in the past two years. It was the perfect convergence of the capabilities of technology being available at the right time and the environmental constraints of Covid-19 forcing the innovation to happen. These kinds of advancements don’t usually happen so quickly, and going into 2022, I see a return to a more iterative innovation as we approach year three of the pandemic.

Venture capital is by far the most interesting form of capital — and, along with tech entrepreneurs, venture capitalists are the most interesting sort of capitalists. Over the past 60-odd years VCs have propelled Silicon Valley to the heart of the world economy. Now they are driving the rise of artificial intelligence and other clever technologies in China. Most capitalists focus on predictable returns. VCs are in the business of betting on the future. If capitalism is about creative destruction, as Joseph Schumpeter argued, then venture capital is creative destruction taken to the nth degree.

Building a startup is hard work for low pay, it’s risky, and it requires total responsibility to make it work. Yet, many entrepreneurs are the happiest people I know. On the other hand, I know many unhappy individuals who are always partying, have minimal commitments, and little responsibility. I suspect the real parameters of happiness have eluded these people.

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Recently, headlines have been dominated by entrepreneurs, scaling heights of valuation, creating blockbuster IPOs, and achieving global recognition. While these headlines hide the innovation, excitement, struggles and headwinds thousands of entrepreneurs grapple with, it does serve as a bellwether for both the aspiration and achievement of a new breed of tenacious innovators.

ANGELA MUHWEZI-HALL HAD a startup idea long before the pandemic—it just never seemed like the right time. She had a steady job at a university, a 401(k), and the ability to take paid time off. Then came March 2020. As the university shut down and Muhwezi-Hall retreated to work from home, she started to think about making the leap.

If you’re worried that your employees are eyeing the door, it’s time to start having some important career-defining conversations. In this piece, executive coach Susan Peppercorn outlines five questions to start asking your direct reports so that you can get a better sense of how they’re feeling about their positions...

Venture capital is by far the most interesting form of capital — and, along with tech entrepreneurs, venture capitalists are the most interesting sort of capitalists. Over the past 60-odd years VCs have propelled Silicon Valley to the heart of the world economy. Now they are driving the rise of artificial intelligence and other clever technologies in China. Most capitalists focus on predictable returns. VCs are in the business of betting on the future. If capitalism is about creative destruction, as Joseph Schumpeter argued, then venture capital is creative destruction taken to the nth degree.

In algorithmic investing, investors use a company’s metrics to decide whether to participate in a deal. But when the art of choice is factored out, it becomes more difficult to perform deep due diligence on founders who may be about to receive millions of dollars via a wire transfer.

Potential startup founders are always looking for ideas to implement, when they should be looking for problems to solve. Customers pay for solutions, but there is no market for ideas. I’m often approached by people with a “million dollar idea,” but I haven’t seen anyone pay that for one yet.

Equally often, I see startups who are on the road to implementing an idea, but haven’t figured out what problem it solves – the business plan waxes on eloquently for 20 pages about how great this product and technology is, but never gets around to defining the problem (investors call this the “solution looking for a problem” syndrome).

Image: https://blog.startupprofessionals.com

The Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO) provides a glimpse of economic development in the biosciences ecosystem at the state and regional levels. The report, which was developed in partnership with the Council of State Bioscience Associations (CSBA), was released as an industry analysis in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on the overall economy. 

LONDON, Jan 21 (Reuters Breakingviews) - What’s good for venture capital isn’t necessarily good for venture capitalists. That’s one message from “The Power Law: Venture Capital and the Art of Disruption”, Sebastian Mallaby’s absorbing new history of startup investing. Successful early technology backers invited imitators, making capital into a commodity and empowering cocksure founders. Even as the $1.8 trillion industry breaks fundraising and dealmaking records, its influence over companies may have peaked.

Launching a new business is becoming more popular than ever before. In 2021, a surge of people quitting their jobs was dubbed “The Great Resignation.” In August alone, 4.3 million Americans quit their jobs — that’s almost 3% of the entire workforce. Many experts believe that entrepreneurship is a major driving force behind this employment trend. After all, working for yourself gives you greater flexibility in work hours, which has certainly become more important as Americans juggle ever-changing schedules for in-person work for themselves and schooling for their children. 

Business-to-business selling used to rely primarily on face-to-face meetings. Even before the pandemic, many interactions were shifting to digital; during the pandemic, video meetings have become the norm. As companies look toward the future, they must reassess the role of personal selling in finding new customers and expanding sales to existing clients.

Not everyone is a fan of venture capitalists (vcs). One academic famously questioned whether they were “soulless agents of Satan, or just clumsy rapists?” Paul Graham, the co-founder of the Y Combinator startup incubator, published a “unified theory of vc suckage”, in which he likened the industry’s investment process to a body-cavity search by someone with a faulty knowledge of anatomy. Venture capitalists, he concluded, resembled classic villains: “alternately cowardly, greedy, sneaky and overbearing”.

Time for a Concerted Effort to Explore Manufacturing in Microgravity Environments

Space is emerging as the next frontier for advanced manufacturing. The market alone for biomanufacturing in space is expected to reach nearly $3 billion by the mid-2030s. Similar microgravity markets exist in other engineering and technology areas.

Accordingly, the administration and Congress need a coordinated effort to take advantage of the incredible opportunity of manufacturing at scale in the microgravity environment. As a recent gathering of corporations, federal agencies, scientists, and engineers examining biomanufacturing in space noted: “The formation of a public-private consortium is needed to further prioritize opportunities, de-risk space-based research and development (R&D) and guide the translation of results into commercial applications on Earth.”

A Renault R&D center holds innovation competitions with a twist: In addition to allowing employees to say whether they like prospective ideas, it allows them to volunteer to help pursue an idea if it gets the green light. After the competition ends, the successful inventor can get in touch with some or all the people who indicated that they would want to help turn the idea into reality who could provide skills and support that the project will need.

In an age where knowledge is so easily disseminated, the modern-day workplace, and roles as we know them, are beginning to transform. As ideation establishes itself as a concept, if put into action, it could help to create and form a more transformative entrepreneurial future generation. It will be the actions of many ideators that will motivate and contribute to the post-pandemic economy, and this becomes even more tangible as fewer people occupy predetermined and fixed positions in companies.

In the spring of 2017 I was serendipitously invited to what initially seemed to be the wrong scientific meeting. The invitation came thirdhand, and the details were murky but intriguing. I took a car to a train to a downtown hotel where I wound my way through a series of conference rooms before a sign on a door made it clear that something was terribly wrong. It said, “MAPS Phase 3 meeting.”

As I talk to business owners and entrepreneurs, I’m surprised at how many complain about team members who feel taken for granted, or have contributions not appreciated. As an advisor and mentor, I’m always looking for more ways to improve communication, get people more engaged, and get more done. Great communication inside the organization and outside is the key to value.

Amid the relentless pursuit of creativity, it may be time to reconsider how we define it.

“The worst enemy of creativity,” said Sylvia Plath, “is self-doubt.” To the celebrated American poet and novelist, ideas and inspiration would flow for those who have the “guts to do it” and “imagination to improvise.” Plath might well raise an eyebrow at how creativity is now dissected, promoted, and obsessed over around the world. Countless studies have been conducted about instilling and nurturing creativity in everyone from schoolchildren to business executives. An entire genre of “creativity” self-improvement books has flourished over the last decades.