Manipulation has a bad rap. Nobody likes being on the receiving end of manipulative behaviors like bullying, name calling, passive aggression and the like. Or the more seductive and insidious forms of manipulation that we associate with used-car salesmen, political demagogues…
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The recent IPO odysseys of Uber and WeWork are more than a couple of isolated stories of entrepreneurial overreach. Uber’s IPO fell far short of its predicted valuation of $100 billion. WeWork (recently rebranded as We), after slashing its valuation…
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There are only two ways to create value in an enterprise: through new projects or excellent processes. Leaders must not only understand the difference but also know how to lead both activities. Confuse the two—or just misunderstand the differences between…
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Due to the upsurge of underage vaping, the federal government, several states and cities are moving aggressively against Juul and other companies in the e-cigarette industry, and the company has removed its CEO. (A recent spate of deaths associated with vaping has greatly…
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Many successful entrepreneurs of the moment inspire fear and anger. The litany of their sins is long: They sell our personal information to people who use it to manipulate us. They create dangerous products, like e-cigarettes, and market them to minors. They devastate worthy industries, such as the newspaper business and independent book selling, and invent repugnant industries, such as internet porn. And as ten…
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Though social media and the big tech companies are relatively young, many citizens and lawmakers are fed up with their abuses. The House of Representatives has undertaken a sweeping antitrust investigation of the industry. People ranging from Senator Elizabeth Warren to Facebook…
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Entrepreneurs often develop strong feelings about the connection of friendship to business success—feelings that can get in the way when they enter a corporate setting. Consider an entrepreneur—let’s call him Mike—who sold his company to a big corporation and agreed…
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A new Netflix documentary called The Great Hack explores the Cambridge Analytica scandal from the perspective of several of the company’s former employees. Its title and narrative suggest we focus on how the personal information of up to 87 million Facebook users…
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“Do you think I have what it takes to succeed as an entrepreneur?” That’s the question I hear over and over from students in my entrepreneurship classes at Princeton and from other aspiring entrepreneurs. It’s no casual inquiry. They’ve spent…
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Is Amazon becoming saintly? Amazon announced on Thursday that it will invest $700 million in retraining 100,000 workers for higher-tech positions that will be more secure and hopefully more satisfying as automation and artificial intelligence continue to encroach on more and more jobs.…
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"I am on a mission to improve the odds of building a sulf-sustaining business. I teach with these tools at Princeton which I am now making available to you, for free."
—Derek Lidow
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