Each and every year, I have the pleasure of judging at the Rice Business Plan Competition. Tens of thousands of enterprising students from around the world compete, with a handful making it to the finals in Houston, Texas. At this incredible event, student entrepreneurs pitch to the crème-de-la-crème of global…
Money is a strange phenomenon. Our modern notion of it mean that (in essence) it is intrinsically useless apart from as a medium of exchange. Our government, regulators, law and communities agree that phenomena (whether a physical banknote or an electronic ledger such as a bank account) have certain value,…
Many of recent history’s most significant market events have manifest in what was (previously) the extreme of the market. These “bubbles” and “crashes” follow power laws, meaning that (in theory) they could reach any size and fundamentally threaten the functionality of the entire financial system. Typical central-bank and policy…
It’s quite conceivable that the grandparents (or even parents) of the future will be made to feel even more archaic as the young of that generation look at them quizzically and state “…are you serious? You used to use bits of paper as money?!” Money is a cultural abstract. It…
The perception that we learn from our mistakes is just one in a long-list of cognitive and behavioural biases that exist in the human mind. As WIRED reported in 2009, “Researchers from MIT have shown that the brain learns more after a success than a failure. This study indicates, contrary…
“Behold, the lewd, pornographic embrace of two great American pathologies…” wrote David Simon, “Race and guns, both of which have conspired not only to take the life of a teenager, but to make that killing entirely permissible. I can’t look an African-American parent in the eye for thinking about what…
Originally Published in Entrepreneur Country, July 2013 “Throughout much of history… ” writes Prof. Edward Barbier, “a critical driving force behind global economic development has been the response of society to the scarcity of key natural resources, such as land, forests, fish, fossil fuels and minerals. Increasing scarcity raises the cost of exploiting…
Guest article written for AllAboutAlpha.com – the official publication of the Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst (CAIA) Association Originally Published at: http://allaboutalpha.com/blog/2013/06/17/the-truth-about-executive-pay/ There is little doubt that we are facing tough times for the economy. Rising unemployment, austerity and many other factors have meant that the average person feels considerably worse off…
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We live in a society where our pursuit of authenticity is more important to us than ever, but we've created a society which is also extraordinarily fake. I want to understand this and understand how we can fight back.
How did we survive for thousands of years without modern medicine? What was it that we inherently had that was protecting us? And as I went deeper and deeper in that area and in that research and in that study, what I came up with was microbiome.
At one point, while working on the rotation routine, I was watching a piece rotate on the screen. It was then that the idea struck me—the game could be played in real-time. That was the very first important 'aha' moment for Tetris.
I've learned that the best ideas often come from the most unexpected conversations. That's why I've spent decades having curiosity conversations with people from completely different fields.
Most people think of optimism as a celebration, but for us optimism is a courageous choice to remain grittily determined to find solutions in a timely and collaborative way. We have no choice but to address climate change, and thus we have no choice but to remain stubbornly optimistic.
Ten in-depth articles distilling insights from over 550 interviews with the world's leading thinkers, creators, and changemakers.