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What If Google Had a Hedge Fund?

Harvard Business Review

Acutely aware of the competitive edges timely data offers sophisticated investors, the company's ever-entrepreneurial cofounder once proposed that Google launch a hedge fund. The world's biggest and fastest search engine can't help but generate terabytes and petabytes of actionable investment intelligence.

Hedge 15
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Let Data Ask Questions, Not Just Answer Them

Harvard Business Review

Innovators more intent on inventing the future than predicting it should look hard at how cutting-edge scientists now computationally massage their big data. AH, not AI, will increasingly inspire tomorrow’s breakthrough innovation. The breakthrough innovator’s hypothesis doesn’t have to come from a human.

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Why Business Leaders Need to Read More Science Fiction

Harvard Business Review

Singapore has overtaken Silicon Valley as the world’s innovation hub after FDA regulation prompts a brain drain from California. Infomocracy , by governance researcher Malka Older, explores how software could change our public institutions through the social and technical engineering of elections.

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Here Are All the Reasons It’s a Bad Idea to Let a Few Tech Companies Monopolize Our Data

Harvard Business Review

.” But absent “demonstrable harm to competition and consumers,” the DOJ is “reluctant to impose special duties on digital platforms, out of [its] concern that special duties might stifle the very innovation that has created dynamic competition for the benefit of consumers.” ” How Data-opolies Harm.

Company 11
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To Build Your Resilience, Ask Yourself Two Simple Questions

Harvard Business Review

Her team had found ingenious ways to shave costs and innovative ways to add value for the client. One of her engineers, a key employee and the only one who understood how a critical software component worked, left the firm. Failure is sometimes lauded as a key to successful innovation, but it takes a psychic toll on the manager.

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Oil’s Boom-and-Bust Cycle May Be Over. Here’s Why

Harvard Business Review

Most major producers with large balance sheets will likely hedge their bets and attempt both. These trends will require oil producers to shift their focus away from transportation and diversify towards innovative petrochemical products to capture market share in diverse end uses such as clothing and construction materials.

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Three Ways to Succeed by Breaking Convention

Harvard Business Review

But by offering stripped down samples (sometimes called "Model T" versions) to gather direct and unbiased customer input, organizations can innovate around unanticipated answers, especially when conventional data is not available or is not useful.