Harvard Business Review

JULY 25, 2012

Venture capitalists exhibit some strange behaviors, but none is more bizarre than the near-inevitable scheming to remove a company's founder-CEO. The process, instituted by a particular stripe of venture capitalist, represents the acme of "adult supervision" by the VC, a destroy-the-village-to-save-it moment of investor heroism.

Venture Capitalist 13

Venture Capitalist Venture Funding Gordon CEO 13

Harvard Business Review

AUGUST 22, 2014

In January 2014 IBM announced they were spending $1 billion to launch the Watson Group , including a $100 million venture fund to support start-ups and businesses that are building Watson-powered apps using the “ Watson Developers Cloud.” With the entrepreneur ecosystem, we are behaving more like a Silicon Valley startup.

Venture Funding 14

Venture Funding Entrepreneur Agility Business Model 14

Harvard Business Review

JULY 19, 2011

While it may not be intuitive to global readers, I see many similarities between Samsung's transformation from local leader in Korea to major player on the world stage and our own journey in building the United Bank for Africa into a group that operates in 20 countries and on three continents.

Venture Funding 12

Venture Funding Banking Participative Globalization 12

Harvard Business Review

JANUARY 25, 2011

When Google announced that co-founder Larry Page was replacing Eric Schmidt as CEO, the official reason was to "streamline decision making" at the top. In contrast, employees of large established firms operate with a different sense of risk and reward , reassured by financial security and structure.

Innovation 15

Innovation Company Venture Funding Follow-up 15

Harvard Business Review

APRIL 18, 2014

CEOs of midsized companies who make big bets can lose the farm. The executives of Fortune 500 companies might be able to lose the same bet with impunity, and the founders of venture capital-funded startups are only renting the farm (with the VC’s money) anyway. That helped BlueArc raise another $28 million in VC funds.

CFO 8

CFO Venture Funding IPO Retail 8

Harvard Business Review

APRIL 27, 2015

We understand how a CEO might come to such a conclusion. Balance: the mix of different types of innova­tion (product, service, pricing, distribution, operations, etc.); differ­ent risk cate­go­ries (incremental improvements versus speculative ventures); and differ­ent time horizons.

Innovation 8

Innovation Company Engineering Supply Chain 8