Category: Entrepreneurship

“Biology’s Many Unanswered Questions”

Unanswered questions in science provide grounds for thinking that future scientific advances may provide grist for the innovation mill. Some argue innovation has slowed because we have picked all the low-hanging fruit. I doubt it. But if so, the fruit can grow back.

(p. C9) The irresistible enthusiasm of “Great Adaptations” couldn’t come at a better time—science is under assault not merely by know-nothing deniers but in how it is taught and presented to the general public. It’s dispensed as a collection of facts, recitations of what past research has uncovered, findings to be understood, which all too often means just “memorized.” By contrast, as Mr. Catania clearly understands, and demonstrates beautifully in his book, science offers adventures in trying to decode the mysteries of the natural world.

This open-minded, openhearted attitude toward biology’s many unanswered questions is the organizing principle of “Great Adaptations”: how to recognize those mysteries, how to go about solving them, and most important, how to appreciate them. In science, working out the solutions to a puzzle inevitably raises new questions in a process not unlike nuclear fission, in which splitting one nucleus generates the energy to split more—except in this case, the energy released isn’t dangerous but illuminating.

For the full review, see:

David P. Barash. “Biology’s Unanswered Questions.” The Wall Street Journal (Saturday, September 5, 2020): C9.

(Note: the online version of the review has the date Sep. 4, 2020, and has the title “‘Great Adaptations’ Review: Survival of the Weirdest.”)

The book under review is:

Catania, Kenneth. Great Adaptations: Star-Nosed Moles, Electric Eels, and Other Tales of Evolution’s Mysteries Solved. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2020.

Radenbaugh Started Rad Power Bikes as Teenager in Family Garage

(p. B8) The residents of Garberville, Calif., didn’t know what to make of 15-year-old Mike Radenbaugh and the odd motorized bikes he was concocting in his family’s garage.

It was 2005, the home-brew era for electric vehicles, and there he was, a high school freshman zooming by at up to 35 miles an hour, not even pedaling. He seemed to defy gravity as he ascended the region’s steep winding roads lined with 300-foot redwoods.

. . .

Wires fried and batteries died. But after six months of experimentation, Mr. Radenbaugh had a semi-reliable electric bike. “It got better and better. And it got faster,” he said. “All of a sudden, I’d be riding into town passing slow cars. I quickly became known as the kooky e-bike guy in my little hometown.”

By his junior year, he’d founded Rad Power Bikes. Now based in Seattle, his company approached $100 million in sales in 2019. It has sold over 100,000 electric bikes. Numbers aren’t well reported for this young industry, but Rad Power Bikes is widely considered the largest e-bike seller in the United States.

. . .

What’s most impressive about the RadRunner is its use of smart design, wringing value from clever choices. The RadRunner has extra-fat tires to absorb bumps rather than an expensive front suspension. The rear hub motor is simpler and more cost-effective than what is known as a pedal-assist mid-drive. The LED controller mounted on the handlebars is basic, but it’s user-friendly and gets the job done. The detachable battery can be brought inside to charge.

. . .

Mr. Radenbaugh, now 30, manages a staff of 200 people. He described the current pace of change — and the myriad business challenges it poses — as “hyper-growth.” It’s not easy steering a transportation revolution. He said, “Every night, I feel like my brain was beat to pieces.”

For the full story, see:

Bradley Berman. “The Teenage Tinkerer Behind an E-Bike Revolution.” The New York Times (Friday, August 7, 2020): B8.

(Note: ellipses added.)

(Note: the online version of the story has the date Aug. 6, 2020, and has the same title as the print version.)

At Netflix “Adequate Performance Gets a Generous Severance Package”

Note that Netflix practices what Clayton Christensen called “emergent” strategic planning. Experimental responding to opportunities; no five year plans.

(p. B5) As a founder and co-chief executive of Netflix Inc., Reed Hastings has reshaped both the way people watch television and how the entertainment industry operates.

. . .

In his new book “No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention,” Mr. Hastings likens being employed at the streaming giant to being part of a sports team: Getting cut is disappointing but carries no shame. “Unlike many companies, we practice: Adequate performance gets a generous severance package,” reads one of Netflix’s mottos.

. . .

WSJ: In the book you say, “It’s impossible to know where a business like ours will be in five years.” What kind of prognosticating do you do?

Mr. Hastings: We keep trying experiments. The business model will be pretty similar in five years. Can we figure out animation? Can we catch Disney in family animation?

WSJ: You’ve said you want Netflix to be able to pounce on unanticipated opportunities. What’s an example of one you didn’t see coming?

Mr. Hastings: Nonfiction programming is a pretty good one. We started as superpremium TV, and the expansion into nonfiction has been a huge success. The whole sharing of content around the world has been a huge success. Prior to that, people thought Americans won’t watch content that’s produced outside the U.S.

For the full interview, see:

Joe Flint, interviewer. “BOSS TALK; Netflix’s Hastings Isn’t Fan of Remote Work.” The Wall Street Journal (Tuesday, September 8, 2020): B5.

(Note: ellipses added. “WSJ” and “MR. HASTINGS” were bolded in original.)

(Note: the online version of the interview has the date Sep. 7, 2020, and has the title “BOSS TALK; Netflix’s Reed Hastings Deems Remote Work ‘a Pure Negative’.”)

Hastings, Reed, and Erin Meyer. No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention. New York: Penguin Press, 2020.

Home Viewing Allows Movies to Bloom Late

(p. C9) It’s no overstatement to say that “Rudy’s” reputation was revived thanks to Blockbuster Video. Audiences saw the film on home video, a technology also responsible for the late success of another notable box-office underperformer, “The Shawshank Redemption,” which came out a year later. “Maybe this was the opening wedge of what’s become a very modern phenomenon, which was films that do not work well in theaters working well at home,” Mr. Turan said.

Perhaps the naked sentimentality of “Rudy” was better experienced at home rather than among rowdy multiplex-goers. “When it’s something you bring home…you don’t have to answer to anything,” Mr. Thomson said. “You’re just in direct conversation with your own heart as to what you want.”

For the full review, see:

Peter Tonguette. “For a Football-Deprived Fall, the Inspiration of ‘Rudy’.” The Wall Street Journal (Saturday, September 5, 2020): C9.

(Note: ellipsis in original.)

(Note: the online version of the review has the same date and title as the print version.)

Simison Interviews Diamond on Mazzucato

Recently I was interviewed by Bob Simison for his profile of economist Mariana Mazzucato that appeared in the current issue of Finance & Development, an official publication of the International Monetary Fund. Mazzucato believes that innovation should be more centrally funded and directed by governments. Simison mentions my book Openness to Creative Destruction: Sustaining Innovative Dynamism, and summarizes my claim that for innovation to flourish entrepreneurs need the freedom to pursue serendipity, hunches, and trial-and-error experiments.

(p. 50) To economist Arthur Diamond of the University of Nebraska,Omaha, Mazzucato’s thesis sounds too much like centrally planned industrial policy, which he argues won’t work because government is inherently unable to foster innovation. In his 2019 book, Openness to Creative Destruction: Sustaining Innovative Dynamism, he argues that what drives innovation is entrepreneurs who are deeply immersed in their subject and able to benefit from serendipity, pursuing hunches, and plain old trial and error.

“Government decision-makers won’t be as immersed in the problems, won’t have the detailed information, and won’t be in a position to follow hunches toward breakthrough solutions,” Diamond says.

For Simison’s full profile of Mazzucato, see:

Simison, Bob. “Economics Agitator.” Finance & Development 57, no. 3 (Sept. 2020): 48-51.

(Note: in the original article, the title of my book was italicized.)

My book mentioned above is:

Diamond, Arthur M., Jr. Openness to Creative Destruction: Sustaining Innovative Dynamism. New York: Oxford University Press, 2019.

Pie Venture Was Located Where Entrepreneur Wanted to Live

(p. 1A) Judith Larsen turned her American dream into a small-town Nebraska reality with her Village PieMaker business, and the operation has gone cosmopolitan under a big-name owner.

. . .

Larsen’s is the story of entrepreneurship and diligence. It’s also a story of what happens when great success blossoms from small beginnings.

. . .

(p. 2A) Larsen learned how to make pies from her grandmother in Nebraska’s Sand Hills and got good enough to clear out a spare bedroom and build a pie kitchen in Sumner, Nebraska.

She bartered with pies and sold them. One time she used pie to hire a man to drag an upright piano from the basement. “I learned that you could get a man to do just about anything if you offered him a pie,” she said.

Then it was on to the village of Eustis, population 401, where in 2003 she rented an old creamery for her business. Sales took off. She named it the Village PieMaker, saying every place has its village drunk and village idiot, and she would be its piemaker. “No canned stuff” became the company’s motto.

She sought to produce pies that tasted homemade and looked homemade. “I wanted a product that people could be proud of because making a pie is a dying art,” she said.

. . .

“In the early days, I worked 80 hours a week in that shop,” she said. “In the beginning, I would do every job that everybody else would do.”

. . .

She has started a small business in which she uses a “longarm sewing machine” to assemble quilts. “I’m an entrepreneur and I’m also somebody who can’t sit still,” she said.

Who knows? Maybe her new business will do fairly well.

For the full story, see:

Rick Ruggles Jul 23, 2020. “Pie Venture That Found Success, Workers in Eustis Is Uprooted.” Omaha World-Herald (Friday, July 24, 2020): 1A-2A.

(Note: ellipses added.)

(Note: the online version of the story has the date July 23, 2020, and has the title “Founder says she’s sad for workers after Joe Ricketts closes pie-making facility in Eustis.”)

Uber and Lyft Drivers Earn Over $23 an Hour in Seattle

(p. B3) A study by researchers at Cornell University found that the typical driver in Seattle made over $23 per hour after expenses during one week last fall. Previous studies for other areas had put net earnings well below $20 per hour. Another new study put the figure at less than half that.

. . .

While other researchers have assumed that drivers are working any time their app is turned on — even if they’re not on their way to pick up a customer or don’t have a passenger in the car — the Cornell study counts such time as work only if it directly precedes a ride. If a driver turns on the ride-share app but is not dispatched on a ride before shutting it off, the authors do not count the time as work.

According to the Cornell authors, this assumption adds about $2.50 per hour to the typical driver’s earnings.

. . .

The Cornell authors also assume that many of the costs of owning a vehicle, such as the value a car loses as it ages or financing costs, should not be considered work expenses because car owners would typically pay these costs even if they didn’t drive for Uber or Lyft.

The only costs the authors factor into their preferred calculation are so-called marginal costs — like gas and maintenance costs that accrue because of the extra miles a worker drives while on the job. This assumption results in costs that are up to about $5.50 an hour lower for full-time drivers, and a net wage that is several dollars per hour higher, than under a more conventional calculation.

For the full story, see:

Noam Scheiber. “Critics Doubt Study on Uber and Lyft Pay.” The New York Times (Monday, July 13, 2020): B3.

(Note: ellipses added.)

(Note: the online version of the story was updated July 14 [sic], 2020, and has the title “When Scholars Collaborate With Tech Companies, How Reliable Are the Findings?”)

The Cornell study mentioned above is:

Hyman, Louis, Erica L. Groshen, Adam Seth Litwin, Martin T. Wells, Kwelina P. Thompson, and K. Chernyshov. “Platform Driving in Seattle.” Research Studies and Reports, ILR School Cornell University, Institute for Workplace Studies. Ithaca, NY, July 6, 2020.

Water Park Entrepreneur Did Not Use “Market Research or Long-Term Planning”

(p. 12) . . ., “someone had tied off the ankles and sleeves of an old janitorial jumpsuit, stuffed it with sand and fabricated a head out of a plastic grocery bag,” Mulvihill writes in his new book, “Action Park: Fast Times, Wild Rides, and the Untold Story of America’s Most Dangerous Amusement Park.” “The makeshift dummy cleared the loop but emerged decapitated.”

. . .

What’s the most surprising thing you learned while writing it?

I knew my father was a risk taker, but I never really understood the size of the risks, and the sheer tenacity and confidence he possessed to take them on. He was fearless.

I look back on the incredible number of crazy ride ideas and the inventors he’d back to develop those ideas, and it just blows you away. Some of them never worked out, but the ones that did were incredible. He didn’t rely on market research or long-term planning; he acted on gut instincts. Contrast it with the bigger parks and all of their exhaustive analysis.

. . .

Who is a creative person (not a writer) who has influenced you and your work?

My father. He was a creative genius and a driven entrepreneur. It’s one thing to have dreams and ideas, it’s another to execute them. He never took no for an answer — whether from an investor, regulator, inspector or government official.

He invented the water park and participation rides where you controlled the action, where you were in control of your own destiny. He was really the precursor to extreme sports and the X Games, only he did it at an amusement park. He wanted to show people something they’d never seen before. He never settled for mediocrity — that was boring. If you’re going to do something, go all out. Shoot for greatness. Do not check the box, blow it up. I’d like to think I’ve led my life embracing that premise.

For the full interview, see:

John Williams, interviewer. “5 THINGS ABOUT YOUR BOOK; Risky Business? That’s Really an Understatement.” The New York Times (Monday, July 13, 2020): C5.

(Note: ellipses, and bold font, added.)

(Note: the online version of the interview has the date July 12, 2018, and has the title “5 THINGS ABOUT YOUR BOOK; ‘Action Park’ Looks Back in Amusement and Terror.” The first couple of sentences and the bold questions are from the interviewer Williams. The unbold answers to the questions are from Andy Mulvihill. [Added later: I just figured out that in this blogging template, within the italics block quotations, bolded text does not appear to be bolded.])

The book discussed in the interview is:

Mulvihill, Andy, and Jake Rossen. Action Park: Fast Times, Wild Rides, and the Untold Story of America’s Most Dangerous Amusement Park. New York: Penguin Books, 2020.

Masks Blocked Covid-19 at Hair Salon

(p. A6) Vigilant mask wearing might have spared nearly 140 people from catching the coronavirus at a hair salon in Missouri, according to a report published on Tuesday [July 14, 2020] by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In May [2020], the people interacted with two hair stylists with confirmed coronavirus infections, but none ended up showing symptoms of Covid-19.

. . .

But policies instructing locals to cover their mouths and noses, put in place by the city of Springfield and by the salon where the stylists worked, Great Clips, appear to have played a substantial role in curbing the spread of disease.

For the full story, see:

Katherine J. Wu. “Report on Hair Salon Affirms Value of Masks.” The New York Times (Thursday, July 16, 2020): A6.

(Note: ellipsis, and bracketed dates, added.)

(Note: the online version of the story was updated July 17 [sic], 2020, and has the title “2 Stylists Had Coronavirus, but Wore Masks. 139 Clients Didn’t Fall Sick.”)

The CDC report mentioned above is:

Hendrix MJ, Walde C, Findley K, Trotman R. Absence of Apparent Transmission of SARS-CoV-2 from Two Stylists After Exposure at a Hair Salon with a Universal Face Covering Policy — Springfield, Missouri, May 2020. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep 2020;69:930-932.

“Biggest Barrier” to Cell-Cultured Meat Is the “Difficult Regulatory Landscape” Created by Lobbyists

(p. 12) We should try to get beyond our disgust about “lab meat,” argues the journalist Chase Purdy, who is in the rare position of having actually tasted it. In a fast-paced global narrative, Purdy follows the various cell-cultured meat companies that are currently competing to get their product to market first. The front-runners are in Israel, the Netherlands and (no surprise) Silicon Valley.

. . .

Up until now, the biggest obstacle to getting cultured meat on the market has been the sheer expense — hence the “billion dollar burger” of Purdy’s hyperbolic title. When the first lab-grown burger was unveiled in 2013 by a panel including the Dutch food scientist Mark Post, it was estimated to have cost $330,000 for a single five-ounce patty: equivalent to $1.2 million per pound of beef. But that cost is falling, and fast. In 2019 an Israeli firm called Future Meat Technologies claimed that by 2022, it would be able to get cell-cultured meat on the market for as little as $10 a pound.

. . .

Purdy says that the biggest barrier to getting these products to market in the United States is “a difficult regulatory landscape” influenced by meat lobbyists with a strong vested interest in keeping cell-cultured meat off the shelves.

For the full review, see:

Bee Wilson. “Frankenburger.” The New York Times Book Review (Sunday, July [sic] 19, 2020): 12.

(Note: ellipses added.)

(Note: the online version of the review was updated June [sic] 18, 2020, and has the title “Are You Ready to Eat Meat Grown in a Lab?”)

The book under review is:

Purdy, Chase. Billion Dollar Burger: Inside Big Tech’s Race for the Future of Food. New York: Portfolio, 2020.

Increase in Remote Work May Increase Quality and Diversity of Hires, Increasing Firm Innovation

(p. B1) A few years ago, Mr. Laermer let the employees of RLM Public Relations work from home on Fridays. This small step toward telecommuting proved a disaster, he said. He often couldn’t find people when he needed them. Projects languished.

“Every weekend became a three-day holiday,” he said. “I found that people work so much better when they’re all in the same physical space.”

IBM came to a similar decision. In 2009, 40 percent of its 386,000 employees in 173 countries worked remotely. But in 2017, with revenue slumping, management called thousands of them back to the office.

. . .

As long ago as 1985, the mainstream media was using phrases like “the growing telecommuting movement.” Peter Drucker, the management guru, declared in 1989 that “commuting to office work is obsolete.”

. . .

(p. B4) Apart from IBM, companies that publicly pulled back on telecommuting over the past decade include Aetna, Best Buy, Bank of America, Yahoo, AT&T and Reddit. Remote employees often felt marginalized, which made them less loyal. Creativity, innovation and serendipity seemed to suffer.

Marissa Mayer, the chief executive of Yahoo, created a furor when she forced employees back into offices in 2013. “Some of the best decisions and insights come from hallway and cafeteria discussions, meeting new people and impromptu team meetings,” a company memo explained.

. . .

At the beginning of the year, the unemployment rate was low and workers had some leverage. All that has been lost, at least for the next year or two. Widespread remote work could consolidate that shift.

“When people are in turmoil, you take advantage of them,” said John Sullivan, a professor of management at San Francisco State University.

“The data over the last three months is so powerful,” he said. “People are shocked. No one found a drop in productivity. Most found an increase. People have been going to work for a thousand years, but it’s going to stop and it’s going to change everyone’s life.”

Innovation, Dr. Sullivan added, might even catch up eventually.

“When you hire remotely, you can get the best talent around and not just the best talent that wants to live in California or New York,” he said. “You get true diversity. And it turns out that affects innovation.”

For the full story, see:

David Streitfeld. “Working From Home Has a Checkered Past.” The New York Times (Tuesday, June 30, 2020): B1 & B4.

(Note: ellipses added.)

(Note: the online version of the story has the date June 29, 2020, and has the title “The Long, Unhappy History of Working From Home.”)