Harvard Business Review

JUNE 8, 2015

With its Emerging Businesses (EB) group (where one of us serves as President), Merck started a journey about three years ago with a core investment thesis: there are areas of growing unmet need in health care that intersect with its established competencies.

Health Care 8

Health Care Venture Capitalist Strategic Fit Pharmaceuticals 8

Harvard Business Review

SEPTEMBER 24, 2012

Here's why: the innovation revolution spurred by venture capitalists decades ago has created the conditions in which scale allows big companies to shift from shackling innovation to unleashing it. The effort also positions Medtronic to dramatically expand in those markets as it develops new technologies that lower costs. (

Innovation 8

Innovation Company Venture Capitalist Health Care 8

Harvard Business Review

FEBRUARY 3, 2016

The kinds of shifts we’re talking about have come more naturally to greatly successful startups of the last two decades — Google, Amazon, Uber, and Facebook among them — and their venture capital investors. Develop a portfolio of capabilities with different risk/return profiles. Acquire ideas, not just revenue.

Venture Capitalist 8

Venture Capitalist Short-term ROI Long-term 8

Harvard Business Review

DECEMBER 2, 2010

That's enough to participate in other productivity or life-enhancing investments, like a well, or a roof, or health care. So Acumen finds entrepreneurs on site in the developing world, funds them, teaches them and pushes them to build really big organizations. That's a surplus of $700 a year. It puts the edge much further away.

Marketing 14

Marketing Mass Marketing Early Adopters Venture Capitalist 14