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A Quiet Revolution in Clean-Energy Finance

Harvard Business Review

In the last year, however, early-stage investments in clean energy production technologies have fallen substantially (see the table at the end of this piece for more detail). Most clean energy startups, on the other hand, need huge amounts of capital to get off the ground, and so far big payoffs have been scarce.

Energy 10
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Reversing the Decline in Big Ideas

Harvard Business Review

Many venture capitalists are up in the arms because their returns are down, their funds are drying up, and there appear to be a declining number of entrepreneurs pursuing big ideas. Unfortunately, venture capitalists have mixed up their causality. Have all the innovative ideas already been done? What gives?

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Reversing the Decline in Big Ideas

Harvard Business Review

Many venture capitalists are up in the arms because their returns are down, their funds are drying up, and there appear to be a declining number of entrepreneurs pursuing big ideas. Unfortunately, venture capitalists have mixed up their causality. Have all the innovative ideas already been done? What gives?

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Why Some of the Most Groundbreaking Technologies Are a Bad Fit for the Silicon Valley Funding Model

Harvard Business Review

The myth of Silicon Valley is that venture-funded entrepreneurship is a generalizable model that can be applied to every problem, when in actuality it is a model that was built to commercialize mature technologies for certain markets. The Silicon Valley Model. Back east, established firms worked with big banks to launch new enterprises.

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Why Do Smart People Do Such Dumb Things?

Harvard Business Review

For years, those of us who study business innovation have been thrilled by the results and influence of Muhammad Yunus , Grameen Bank, and the idea that one powerful way to fight poverty is to make small loans to villagers (mainly women) who have tons of energy but no access to capital. has made the loans much less effective.".

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5 Questions to Ask About Corporate Culture to Get Beyond the Usual Meaningless Blather

Harvard Business Review

I’ve met so many leaders who are brilliant when it comes to product design and capital structure but who treat the people in business as an afterthought, a matter of sound administration as opposed to daring innovation. Can your culture maintain its zest for change and renewal, even when the company stumbles?

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Enabling the Natural Act of Entrepreneurship

Harvard Business Review

So Puerto Rican entrepreneurs hire consultants to badger government procurement to pay up, and in parallel they jack up their prices to finance the long receivables cycle. Stay off of ventures'' balance sheets — and get onto their income statements. Economy Entrepreneurship Innovation' Convene, celebrate, catalyze.