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Best podcasts about university fm

Latest podcast episodes about university fm

unSILOed with Greg LaBlanc
631. A Physicist's View on the Inherent Risks of Financial Modeling with Emanuel Derman

unSILOed with Greg LaBlanc

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 18, 2026 46:54


What do particle physicists and Wall Street traders have in common? How did finance become more like physics, and how is physics now becoming more like finance? Emanuel Derman is an emeritus professor at Columbia in financial engineering and the author of several books, including My Life as a Quant: Reflections on Physics and Finance and Models. Behaving. Badly.: Why Confusing Illusion with Reality Can Lead to Disaster, on Wall Street and in Life. His work examines the entanglement of physics and finance, using memoir to reveal hidden truths about the theories and models practitioners rely on.  Greg and Emanuel discuss his transition from physics to Wall Street, revealing that he found finance to be more social and creative. They also explore how early quant work required both theory and hands-on programming, what distinguishes models from theories, and why, despite some superficial similarities, the fields of finance and physics couldn't be more different. *unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.* Episode Quotes: Financial models require confidence without hubris 29:29: In my life as a quant, I think I said you had to be cocky when you were using models and push them as far as you possibly could, but stop short of hubris, and I think that's important. You ought to understand that your model isn't going to be correct. In the end, the world is going to violate it. When physics meets social sciences 09:35: I think to some extent they [psychists] confuse accuracy with point of view. Even progressive theories get more and more accurate. Newton's laws aren't as accurate as relativity, but they still, both theories, the one just does better than the other, but they still have this nature of saying, let me describe the way the world works rather than, let me make an analogy. Why model builders must explain where models fail 30:46: There's a clear distinction between concentrators to tell the people that use it that this is where it's going to fail, as best I can see. And they'll use it in this regime. And these are the assumptions I'm making. Don't just let them run wild with the formula. I think traders are smarter now and more numerate and maybe understand this better, but I think that's important. Why financial engineers need perspective beyond mathematics  28:13: I don't think one should be teaching philosophy necessarily, but I think one should learn enough to know about the history of finance and to be able to back off a little and look at what you're doing. Not just, I don't know. I have a feeling more and more of the programs focus on mathematics and behavioral psychology. Show Links: Recommended Resources: Dictionary of Financial Risk Management Salomon Brothers James Clerk Maxwell Baruch Spinoza Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Fischer Black Black Scholes Black Derman Toy model Put call parity Paul Wilmott Binomial options pricing model Mark Rubinstein Freeman Dyson Guest Profile: Faculty Profile at Columbia University Professional Website Professional Profile on X Guest Work: Brief Hours and Weeks: My Life as a Capetonian My Life as a Quant: Reflections on Physics and Finance The Volatility Smile: An Introduction for Students and Practitioners Models. Behaving. Badly.: Why Confusing Illusion with Reality Can Lead to Disaster, on Wall Street and in Life Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

All Else Equal: Making Better Decisions
Ep74 Is The Financial Sector Good for Society?

All Else Equal: Making Better Decisions

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 18, 2026 18:51


What value does a financial sector add to society? How would society function without a financial sector?  In this episode, hosts and finance professors Jonathan Berk and Jules van Binsbergen make the case that a competitive market financial sector is crucial to economic growth and the betterment of society.  Jonathan and Jules contend with the critiques they hear most often when it comes to free markets, breaking down the core purpose of a financial sector and why its value is not easily observable or necessarily fair. They also compare and contrast other financial systems, like command-and-control, and explain why those systems tend to fail.     Find All Else Equal on the web:  https://lauder.wharton.upenn.edu/allelse/ All Else Equal: Making Better Decisions Podcast is a production of the UPenn Wharton Lauder Institute through University FM. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

unSILOed with Greg LaBlanc
630. What Evolutionary Psychology Gets Wrong About Dating and Attraction with Paul Eastwick

unSILOed with Greg LaBlanc

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 16, 2026 57:35


Romantic relationships are something uniquely human — we form attachments and perceive compatibility in ways no other species does. So what explains the idiosyncratic preferences people have for one potential partner over another? And why have popular conceptions based on evolutionary psychology been wrong about when it comes to how humans choose their mates?  Psychology professor Paul Eastwick is the head of UC Davis' Social-Personality Psychology program and the director of the Attraction and Relationships Research Lab. His book, Bonded by Evolution: The New Science of Love and Connection, challenges society's core assumptions about attraction and compatibility, and presents new findings on the key to long-lasting commitment. He also co-hosts the podcast, Love Factually, with his colleague Eli Finkel, which explores the science of relationships through film.  Paul and Greg discuss how a distorted view of evolutionary psychology has perpetuated inaccurate ideas about dating and relationships, the effect online dating has had on intensifying competition and gender differences, and some key tips for building strong, long-lasting connections.  *unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.* Episode Quotes: Why dating apps can't replace real romantic connections 39:57: The apps make you think like a romantic connection is right there. Like maybe it will be tonight. I would encourage people instead to think about what is it like just to hang out with other people and give the romantic possibilities some time to fall out of those networks a little bit more organically, a little bit more naturally. It takes a while. Like it can take quite a long time, especially like if we haven't been tending to our networks recently, but nevertheless, like this is at least an approach that people should be supplementing with their online dating if, if they're going to continue to use the apps. ​​Why are some couples happy and some are not? 22:46: Compatibility, how well two people fit together. That is probably explaining the lion's share of why some couples are happy and some couples are not. Rather than this idea that like, oh, you got a good long-term partner, that's probably not the best way to think about it. Compatibility is something couples build together 25:17: Compatibility can be many, many things. It can be like, we seem to get along and coordinate well. It could be about our easy flowing conversation, but it also could be about how we get through the day. And often that's what relationships are. It's an interdependent web of goals and preferences and values that two people negotiate together. And it's very hard for people to know how that negotiation is going to turn out until they really dig in and start to try to do it. The evolutionary mismatch behind modern dating 45:44: What I think is deeply ironic is that some of the earliest evolutionary psychological findings happened to be the ones that reinforced the view that really fits this hierarchy idea, the mismatch component of it. So it's like, I love the idea of the evolutionary mismatch, thinking deeply about the environment in which we evolved. My problem is like a lot of the early ev psych ideas actually weren't doing that all that, all that well, that in reality, right? We evolved in small groups. You got to know a limited number of potential partners. There were going to be other people involved trying to shape, you know, who you spent time with and who you got to meet. It wasn't this dramatic marketplace of inequality. Show Links: Recommended Resources: The Moral Animal by Robert Wright John Bowlby Queen Victoria's Costume Balls Guest Profile: Faculty Profile at UC Davis Professional Website Guest Work: Bonded by Evolution: The New Science of Love and Connection Love Factually podcast Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

unSILOed with Greg LaBlanc
629. Beyond Happiness: The Deep Longing to Matter with Rebecca Goldstein

unSILOed with Greg LaBlanc

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 12, 2026 52:50


What if the tale of Genesis were reframed as a story of humanity's ascent into awareness of mortality and entropy? How are both connectedness and a “mattering project” key to flourishing as an individual? Rebecca Goldstein is the author of several fiction and non-fiction books, including The Mattering Instinct: How Our Deepest Longing Drives Us and Divides Us, 36 Arguments for the Existence of God: A Work of Fiction, Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won't Go Away, and The Mind-Body Problem. Greg and Rebecca discuss how the ideas in her new book, The Mattering Instinct, trace back to her novel, The Mind-Body Problem. Rebecca details a long-developed theory of human motivation: beyond survival and pleasure, humans are “creatures of matter who long to matter,” driven to justify themselves in their own eyes (homo justificans). To Rebecca, this is linked to self-reflection, theory of mind, and existential “absurdity.” This episode will outline some mattering strategies and also discuss personality links, ethics, and concerns about AI. *unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.* Episode Quotes: We are creatures of matter who long to matter 08:21: What we are are creatures of matter who long to matter. I love that we can do that in English. You know, we can't do it; it can't be replicated in other languages. But thank goodness for English, two amazing words: the noun matter and the verb matter. Why everyone needs to feel like they matter 04:23: Look, everybody needs to feel like they matter. Then there's a great diversity of ways in which we might try to prove to ourselves that we matter. The human search for values 15:11: Entering into this world of entropy, where everything eventually runs out of energy and does die, the universe itself will run out of energy and thermal equilibrium that awaits the universe, with that stepping out of paradise. They took on the burden, but the dignity of being human, of trying to justify becoming Homo Justific, becoming creatures who are in search of values that will justify them in their own eyes. We come up with a whole bunch of values, and we disagree tremendously about these values, but there's something so grand about being creatures who need values in order to be able to  live with themselves, even if they're bad values, but that we bring values into the universe because we are creatures longing to matter. Show Links: Recommended Resources: Ludwig Wittgenstein Aristotle Book of Genesis Baruch Spinoza Eudaimonia Happiness Economics Sigmund Freud Entropy Second Law of Thermodynamics Theory of Mind Blaise Pascal “The unexamined life is not worth living.” Darwinism William James Guest Profile: RebeccaGoldstein.com Wikipedia Profile Profile on the National Endowment for the Humanities Guest Work: Amazon Author Page The Mattering Instinct: How Our Deepest Longing Drives Us and Divides Us Incompleteness: The Proof and Paradox of Kurt Gödel 36 Arguments for the Existence of God: A Work of Fiction Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won't Go Away The Mind-Body Problem Betraying Spinoza: The Renegade Jew Who Gave Us Modernity Kurt Gödel The Dark Sister Mazel Properties Of Light Late Summer Passion of a Woman of Mind The Mattering Map | Substack Newsletter Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

unSILOed with Greg LaBlanc
628. The Civic Bargain: Democracy, Knowledge, and the Challenge of Scale with Josiah Ober

unSILOed with Greg LaBlanc

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 10, 2026 55:25


A key precondition for democracy is civic trust and commitment to common goods; polarization and party identity undermine this, worsened by modern communication technologies that enable separate realities. Josiah Ober is a professor of Political Science and Classics at Stanford University and also the author and co-author of several books about Athens, Civics, and Ancient Democracy. His latest title is The Civic Bargain: How Democracy Survives.  Greg asks Josiah about his work linking ancient Athens to modern democracy and organizational design. Josiah argues that political science necessarily blends positive and normative theory, joining rational self-interest with ethical reasoning to secure both stability and the good. He also compares firms and states as purposeful organizations governed by rules, incentives, and norms, noting that democracies struggle to scale but can outperform hierarchies by aggregating dispersed knowledge if institutions align incentives and citizens share information. Josiah emphasizes civics as teachable skills—listening, bargaining, and positive-sum compromise. He makes an appeal for renewed civics education informed by history and classical thinkers, including a rehabilitated view of the sophists and strategic reasoning. *unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.* Episode Quotes: Why democracies know more than hierarchies 14:58: The democratic system, intrinsically, knows more than a highly hierarchical boss centered system, simply because those who see themselves as citizens have reason to share what they know. Those who are subjects have reasons to not share what they know. Therefore, it is possible for a democracy for reasons that, you know, Friedrich Hayek talked about in terms of why markets work, because all of that information comes together in, you know, producing a price, it is possible for well-structured democracies to bring in a great deal of information. From a great deal of people who have very different experiences, know different things, to solve the problems that they need to solve. Does democracy only work when the design is right? 15:45: You have to have the right kind of organization, not only of, sort of voting and so on, but of incentives for people to bring what they know to the right place at the right time, not to the wrong place at the wrong time. And that is hard to do. You get it right and you get this tremendous success. You get it wrong and it does not work very well.  Politics should work like buying a car 32:22: When we go into the political regime space nowadays, it's that, well, compromise is bad now. We gave up, they won. The imagination now of politics is something like a football game in which there's a winner and a loser, and the winners cheer and the losers cry. But that's not what politics is. It is much more like buying a used car. Show Links: Recommended Resources: Aristotle Robinson Crusoe Friedrich Hayek Athenian Democracy Stanford Civics Initiative Logos Techne Sophist Protagoras Thomas Hobbes Alexander Hamilton Guest Profile: Faculty Profile at Stanford University Hoover Institution Profile Guest Work: Amazon Author Page The Civic Bargain: How Democracy Survives The Greeks and the Rational: The Discovery of Practical Reason The Threshold of Democracy: Athens in 403 BCE The Athenian Revolution: Essays on Ancient Greek Democracy and Political Theory Athenian Legacies: Essays on the Politics of Going On Together Political Dissent in Democratic Athens: Intellectual Critics of Popular Rule Democracy and Knowledge: Innovation and Learning in Classical Athens Mass and Elite in Democratic Athens: Rhetoric, Ideology, and the Power of the People Origins of Democracy in Ancient Greece A Company of Citizens: What the World's First Democracy Teaches Leaders About Creating Great Organizations Google Scholar Page Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

unSILOed with Greg LaBlanc
627. Unlocking the Secrets of Love and Happiness with Sonja Lyubomirsky

unSILOed with Greg LaBlanc

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 6, 2026 44:06


How important are relationships and the feeling of being loved to human happiness? How have the fields of happiness studies and relationship studies converged?  Sonja Lyubomirsky is a professor of psychology at the University of California, Riverside. She is also the author or co-author of the books How to Feel Loved: The Five Mindsets That Get You More of What Matters Most, The How of Happiness: A New Approach to Getting the Life You Want, and The Myths of Happiness: What Should Make You Happy, but Doesn't, What Shouldn't Make You Happy, but Does. Greg and Sonja discuss her shift from happiness research to her co-authored book with Harry Reis, How to Feel Loved. Sonja explains that many happiness interventions (gratitude letters, kindness practices, and variations like texting gratitude vs. social media posting vs. private writing) work largely because they increase feelings of love and connection They also discuss why listening is difficult, with Sonja sharing her experience in a Tel Aviv listening workshop, and the need for compassion and a growth mindset. Other themes include the Michelangelo effect (helping others become who they aspire to be), balancing sharing and listening (avoiding monologues or interrogations), appropriate vulnerability and gradual self-disclosure, and the “multiplicity” mindset of seeing people as complex quilts of good and bad traits to reduce harsh judgment.  The episode also considers whether people can feel loved without being loved, including AI companions that can mimic excellent listening but lack a genuine open heart, and the risk that some people may substitute simulated relationships for real ones.  *unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.* Episode Quotes: What's the distinction between being loved and feeling loved? 07:42: A lot of us are loved, but we do not feel loved. So we might have, we might know that our partner loves us or child, or a family member or friend or colleague. But we do not really feel loved. And when you think about it, feeling loved is what really matters even more, right? Because if, you know, if you love me, but I do not feel loved by you, it is almost like you do not love me, right? Like, because I am not really sensing that, and so feeling loved is really important. That is what really matters to happiness. The key to feeling loved is really to be known and to know the other 10:16: The key to feeling loved is really to be known and to know the other, and we get known by taking the wall down a little bit. And I get to know you if I help you take your wall down. How do I help you take your wall down? By showing curiosity. Then hopefully you will start to open up a little bit. I show even more curiosity. I ask you questions and I l truly listen, not really just try to fix it or help you or tell my own story. I just listen to learn. The first step to feel more loved 09:11: If I want to feel more loved, the first step, which may sound counterintuitive, is to help the other person feel loved first. You go first. I go first. The first step is to show genuine curiosity in the other person, in their inner life and the details of their day, their dreams, goals, values, fears. We all want that. We want to be seen, we want to be heard, and we do not get genuine curiosity very often. When was the last time you remember telling a story about yourself and the other person was so curious they could not wait for you to finish the sentence? It is rare. When it happens, it is priceless. That is such a gift to someone, to show authentic curiosity in them. It has to be authentic because you cannot fake it. That is the first step. You help the person be seen by showing curiosity in them, and that helps them open up more. Real connection requires both listening and sharing 18:48: If you only share, it is a monologue. You are spouting off. If you only listen, then it is an interview. It is an interrogation sometimes. You really need to do both. They go together. That is where the emotional intelligence comes in. Because when you are sharing, the entire time you are sharing, and we all know people who do not do this, they go off and they seem to not see any cues that the other person is not interested in continuing the story. Show Links: Recommended Resources: Harry Reis Relationship Science Michelangelo Phenomenon Impression Management Multiplicity The All-or-Nothing Marriage: How the Best Marriages Work Esther Perel Love 2.0: How Our Supreme Emotion Affects Everything We Feel, Think, Do, and Become Techne Unsiloed 208: Psychological Safety and the Benefits of Discomfort with Todd Kashdan Guest Profile: SonjaLyubomirsky.com Faculty Profile at UC Riverside LinkedIn Profile Profile on Wikipedia Social Profile on Instagram Social Profile on X Guest Work: Amazon Author Page How to Feel Loved: The Five Mindsets That Get You More of What Matters Most The How of Happiness: A New Approach to Getting the Life You Want The Myths of Happiness: What Should Make You Happy, but Doesn't, What Shouldn't Make You Happy, but Does Google Scholar Page TED Talk | 1 thing you can do today to be happier Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

unSILOed with Greg LaBlanc
626. Connective Labor: The Art of Human Connection in a Disconnected World with Allison J. Pugh

unSILOed with Greg LaBlanc

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 4, 2026 52:02


How could AI shift medical value toward primary care relationships if pattern-recognition specialties are more automatable? What would people prefer if given the choice between discussing their problems with a human or with non-judgmental empathic AI? Allison J. Pugh is a Professor of Sociology at Johns Hopkins University and the author of several books. Her most recent works are The Last Human Job: The Work of Connecting in a Disconnected World and The Tumbleweed Society: Working and Caring in an Age of Insecurity. Greg and Allison discuss Allison's newest book and her concept of “connective labor,” defined as the relational practice of seeing another person and having them feel seen. They also contrast this idea with more individual-centered ideas like EQ. Allison argues that this type of work is reciprocal, widespread across roles (therapists, teachers, chaplains, primary care, managers, service work), and increasingly important as the economy shifts toward requiring more “feeling.” Allison also talks about how AI is being used in new ways to help automate different aspects of different jobs, and along with that come connected effects like the rise of automated medical scribes amongst the medical community, but also the drastic reduction of interns and the near elimination of that valuable aspect of education and job training for an intern's future professional life. They also discuss how the different efficiency tools can backfire because of the increased need to oversee and validate automated output. *unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.* Episode Quotes: Why friction is essential to human connection 17:26: Part of the relationship with another human being involves the friction of not being able to control what they say, of running up against their disagreement or conflict or even tension, or they have their own ideas, their own desires. And that is part of making our way through this world, and it is a really important part of being in community, in relationship with other human beings. And that is what chatbots do not give us. They give us no friction. AI is mirror, not a relationship 17:08: So with chatbots, you are not really experimenting how to be with another human being. You are instead experimenting with a mirror, and that is just not going to have the same powerful impact. Who gets humans, and who gets machines? 12:27: The idea that technology will be better than nothing, I am afraid, will not lead to greater opportunities to be seen, for less advantaged people. Instead, they will just have machines seeing them, and the rich people get humans seeing them, and that is an inequality that I find kind of tragic. Seeing people is a leadership skill 49:52: When people have a chance to kind of express their values at work, figure out who they are and have their values kind of enacted in their work and kind of basically attach a purpose to what they are doing, a more transcendent purpose than just kind of earning the paycheck, it translates into a kind of deep meaningfulness, and that is part of the outcome of connective labor. And so it is really worth it for managers to get good at this because it enables people, the people they are seeing, to figure out what matters to them and to find that in relationships at work. That is a path to meaningfulness that can be very important. Show Links: Recommended Resources: Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game Automated Medical Scribe Chat Checkout Lanes Unsiloed 469: Matt Beane - The Importance of Learning by Doing Guest Profile: Faculty Profile at Johns Hopkins AllisonPugh.com LinkedIn Profile Social Profile on X Guest Work: Amazon Author Page The Last Human Job: The Work of Connecting in a Disconnected World The Tumbleweed Society: Working and Caring in an Age of Insecurity Beyond the Cubicle: Job Insecurity, Intimacy, and the Flexible Self Longing and Belonging: Parents, Children, and Consumer Culture Google Scholar Page Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Owl Have You Know
Houston Loves Risk Takers feat. Dean Peter Rodriguez

Owl Have You Know

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 4, 2026 45:48


Over the past decade, Rice Business has scaled with intention.MBA enrollment has doubled. Faculty ranks have grown. New MBA formats have launched. The Virani Undergraduate School of Business was established. And a new building will open soon, designed to further fuel collaboration, research and innovation.In this conversation, Dean Peter Rodriguez reflects on the strategy behind that momentum — from championing the Online MBA to building one of the nation's strongest entrepreneurship ecosystems in the heart of Houston. He discusses AI's impact on business education, the evolving energy landscape, and the leadership lessons that come with guiding a school through rapid transformation, all while shaping the next chapter for Rice Business.Episode Guide:00:00 Meet Dean Peter Rodriguez01:20 Online MBA Origins and Vision for Growth07:50 Virtual Campus Advantage09:41 From Space Crunch to Expansion: Designing the New Building16:29 Launching the Virani Undergraduate School of Business21:51 AI and Business Education28:46 Dean Life and Daily Headwinds29:23 Why Rice Ranks High & Houston's Entrepreneurship Advantage36:32 What Deans Learn on the Job43:37 Next 50 Years Vision48:25 ClosingThe Owl Have You Know Podcast is a production of Rice Business and is produced by University FM.Episode Quotes:On Rice MBA's Growth over the decade01:37: If there was one overarching theme of the last decade, I think growth is it. The question is always like, well, why growth? Or growth for what? And of course, clearly want growth for the good outcomes, and that good outcomes all start with pursuing the mission.We have a mission to create and disseminate knowledge at the vanguard of business and the business disciplines. And so that is what we really do. And when I was really looking at the job almost exactly 10 years ago and thinking about where Rice was and where it needed to be, one of the first conclusions that was easy to draw was that it needed to be about twice as big as it was, at least, you know, and, and it is not that growth is all good, but why would I say that? And the thinking was, you know, in order to advance that mission, we needed more tenure track faculty. And there the foundation on which more or less everything else proceeds.How does the Rice Business navigate AI? 22:19: On the basic part of our mission, which is delivering an education, we have to do two things. We have to prepare people to think really critically and to be able to assess them as individuals without this incredible, unprecedented tool. That is to say, what can Peter do of his own accord? What does he know? And then I have to train him very aggressively to make sure that with the tool, he is also highly capable, far more capable to do some things, and as capable as anybody in any university in the country is using the tool. So there's sort of almost sounds like martial arts mastery. You know, you have to sort of, wax on, wax off, you know, learn these sort of things that are apart from the tool, and then you are sort of empowered. That's where we are, is trying to do that.Houston loves risk takers30:59: Houston loves risk takers. It is part of the environment, it is part of a Texas thing too, but, you know, it is going to space, drilling out in the Permian Basin or deep in the ocean, putting in an artificial heart, whatever it is. I think there is a real admiration for trying hard things and picking yourself up if you fail and not being discouraged because things did not go right the first time.Show Links: Rice Business New Building PlansTranscriptGuest Profile:Peter Rodriguez | Rice BusinessLinkedIn 

All Else Equal: Making Better Decisions
Rerun: Ep29 “How Do You Become CEO?” with Dirk Jenter

All Else Equal: Making Better Decisions

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 4, 2026 33:31


All Else Equal is on Spring Break this week, so we're revisiting one of our most popular episodes dealing with the question: How does one become a CEO? We'll be back with new episodes in two weeks.  A lot has been written and said about CEOs and their compensation, but who are they really and how did they get there? According to the data, what are the most likely paths to become one? In this episode, hosts and finance professors Jonathan Berk and Jules van Binsbergen are joined by Dirk Jenter, Professor of Finance at the London School of Economics, for a fascinating discussion of CEOs, including the surprising truths about who rises to the rank of CEO and from where, as well as exploring the issue of CEO pay, and how it could be justified.    Find All Else Equal on the web:  https://lauder.wharton.upenn.edu/allelse/ All Else Equal: Making Better Decisions Podcast is a production of the UPenn Wharton Lauder Institute through University FM. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

unSILOed with Greg LaBlanc
625. How to Not Just Face Uncertainty, But Thrive In It feat. Nathan and Susannah Furr

unSILOed with Greg LaBlanc

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 2, 2026 55:20


We live in an age where uncertainty lurks around every corner, but what if uncertainty didn't have to be an anxiety-inducing, uncomfortable part of life?  The Upside of Uncertainty: A Guide to Finding Possibility in the Unknown, by INSEAD professor Nathan Furr and entrepreneur Susannah Harmon Furr, presents strategies and tools to embrace uncertainty and turn it into opportunity.  Nathan, Susannah, and Greg discuss why humans are naturally wired to avoid the unknown, and how our capacity to face it can be strengthened through learnable tools. The conversation covers some of the strategies described in the book like creating “islands of certainty” through rituals and support systems, maintaining a portfolio of personal options instead of going all-in too early, and focusing on what's within one's control while pursuing other meaningful goals, internally.  *unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.* Episode Quotes: The golden space of uncertainty 26:59: [Nathan Furr] The American can-do attitude is it was this kind of illusion that we control the world. And most people who have been through something hard recognize it is not totally in our control. We sure we influence it, we nudge it, but a lot of things are outside our control. And so the people who are able to approach uncertainty with greater calm also kind of said, you know, what is in my control? I will focus on that, and what is outside of my control, or partially outside of my control, I am not going to obsess about that. And so there is this kind of golden space where you are focused on what are my internal goals, being the best, doing my best, making a contribution in the world. And I recognize that, there is some element of, in this complex, ambiguous world that I do not control, and so I am just going to focus on the things I can control and let the other pieces go. That leads to a much calmer view of the world. The video and audio are not synched On being comfortable with uncertainty 11:42: [Susannah Furr]: All of us could have cooler and more brilliant lives if we just tried a little bit more, if we got a little bit more comfortable with uncertainty. It is good to know, like, Ooh, I do not like risks. And we have a tool for that. Like, know what risks you have affinities and aversions for, but definitely do not just decide, Nope, I do not do uncertainty, because you are, you are missing out. The real danger isn't risk 18:29: [Nathan Furr] The real danger is not that you are going to go all in on the uncertain thing, it is that you are probably going all in on the certain thing, and you are not bringing that thing you care about, that thing you dream about, into the portfolio of options in your life. Show Links: Recommended Resources: Ben Feringa  World Uncertainty Index  Sam Yagan  Martin Seligman  Kathleen M. Eisenhardt Ayana Elizabeth Johnson Guest Profile: Nathan Furr Faculty Profile at INSEAD Nathan Furr on LinkedIn Susannah Harmon Furr Profile at INSEAD Susannah Harmon Furr on LinkedIn The Uncertainty Possibility School Guests' Work: The Upside of Uncertainty: A Guide to Finding Possibility in the Unknown The Innovator's Method: Bringing the Lean Start-up into Your Organization Leading Transformation: How to Take Charge of Your Company's Future Innovation Capital: How to Compete--and Win--Like the World's Most Innovative Leaders Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

unSILOed with Greg LaBlanc
624. Time, Distraction, and Investing in What Matters with Cassie Holmes

unSILOed with Greg LaBlanc

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 27, 2026 52:02


What happens when you start thinking of time as a scarce resource? What practical strategies can you use to protect it from being passively spent or hijacked so that you can spend the time you have in more fulfilling and meaningful ways? Cassie Holmes is a professor at UCLA's Anderson School of Management, and also the author of the book Happier Hour: How to Beat Distraction, Expand Your Time, and Focus on What Matters Most. Greg and Cassie discuss how to use time more intentionally to increase both day-to-day joy and overall life satisfaction. Cassie explains how even though these happiness questions are timeless, they have become newly urgent due to modern distractions, cell phones, productivity culture, and the pandemic's effects on time perception, anxiety, burnout, and workplace engagement. Cassie describes exercises such as tracking one's time and rating activities to identify what is personally most joyful and meaningful, noting common low-happiness activities (commuting, work, housework) and how individuals can find variation within them. Cassie opens the window on some of the examples of this within her own life through her regular coffee dates with her daughter and a prearranged commitment device that allows her to count on date nights with her husband. They also cover bundling chores with enjoyable activities, selectively outsourcing tasks, and the tradeoffs of pricing time in money, emphasizing that better time management enables more meaningful and satisfying life activities, not simply doing less. *unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.* Episode Quotes: Why being busy doesn't make you fulfilled 08:46: The unhappiness comes from when you have been busy and have spent your time and are looking back on it, feeling unfulfilled, like it got spent without you having invested in anything that ultimately matters to you. Whether it is things that give you that like true sense of joy and enjoyment, oftentimes through our interpersonal relationships, but also even that sense of satisfaction when you are making actual progress on whatever your project is, whatever that endeavor that you are sort of working towards is in line with your purpose, whether it is your personal purpose, which is really what my focus on is in the book, is the individual, and then ideally it is aligned. Your personal purpose is aligned with the sort of purpose of the work that you are doing. What is time poverty? 40:31: What time poverty is, it is this feeling of having too much to do and not enough time to do it. It is a feeling of being limited by the resources, in this case, time that you have available to achieve what you set out to do. Why isn't more enough, when it comes to happiness? 20:22: Not recognizing the role of hedonic adaptation is sure that first half hour, like, yes, that is the delight, right? You have your glass of wine, and you finally can kick back. But once you press, next episode, and you are three hours into your watching TV that night, you see on the happiness ratings that it, your enjoyment goes down over time. So that is also really helpful information, right? Because if we are trying to optimize using your optimization, sort of discipline and thinking, then we will, well, actually, we should spread out those positives, like my TV watching. This is also where intentionality comes into play. Like instead of zoning out for like many hours every night, just watch that first half hour. Show Links: Recommended Resources: Happiness Hedonic Treadmill Intentionality Marie Kondo George Shultz Time Poverty Katy Milkman Guest Profile: CassieHolmes.com Faculty Profile at UCLA Anderson School of Management LinkedIn Profile Guest Work: Happier Hour: How to Beat Distraction, Expand Your Time, and Focus on What Matters Most TEDx Talk | Finding Happiness in Ordinary Moments Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

OneHaas
Ann Hsu, MBA 98 – Helping Students Thrive Through Bicultural Education

OneHaas

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 26, 2026 53:06 Transcription Available


On this episode of OneHaas, learn about the incredible, globe-spanning career journey of alumna Ann Hsu, Founder and Head of School at Bert Hsu Academy. From high tech to yogurt to revolutionizing the approach to public education, this double bear's story is not one to miss!Born and raised in Beijing, China, Ann moved to the U.S. with her family at age 11 but has always maintained a strong cultural connection to China. After getting her Master's degree in electrical engineering from UC Berkeley, she moved back to China and launched into a successful career in high tech. When the need arose to add more business acumen to her skillset, she knew Berkeley Haas was her best option for an MBA. Ann's latest career pivot has been into education, where she's opened the first American-Chinese bicultural school in the U.S., named in honor of her father, Bert Hsu. Ann joins host Sean Li to discuss the exciting ways they are reimagining education at the Bert Hsu Academy, how her Berkeley degrees have supported her career journey, and her advice for current MBA students and young alumni. She also shares her memories of moving to the U.S. as a young girl in 1978, her family's history in China, and how her own bicultural experience has shaped her career and worldview. *OneHaas Alumni Podcast is a production of Haas School of Business and is produced by University FM.*Episode Quotes:On her assimilation to American culture“ I remember a discussion in class and they were talking about china, the bowls and plates. Well, I thought they were talking about the country of China. And I raised my hand, I said, ‘I'm from China.' Yes, I knew the word, but I didn't know that we were talking about plates and bowls china and not the country of China. That's what I mean by cultural assimilation or Americanization. It took me four years.”On where the idea for a Chinese-American bicultural school came from“ I thought back to my own experience of going to school in China and the U.S. and then watching my sons go to school in China …and about what's good about the Chinese education approach, what's good about the American ones, what's bad about each. And I thought, I want to combine the Chinese education philosophy, approach and practices with the American ones because both have pros and cons. And if I'm going to design [a school] from scratch, I'll just pick the good ones. The pros!”On her decision to name the school after her father“...It came to me that the person who embodies the bicultural and bilingual Chinese American experience, whom I have the utmost respect for, is my father. And he was bicultural, in addition to being bilingual. He not only survived, but thrived in both China and in the United States because he understood [the culture] and could really thrive in both cultures. And I thought, that should be the goal. I want all of our students to be able to do that.”Her advice to current MBA students“ MBA students, they fret about,what should I do [after MBA]? Which job should I take? What career should I pursue? what I tell them is that you only have so much information. You're never going to get complete information, and you're never going know whether that decision you made is the right decision. So what you do is you take all the information you have, make a decision, and then make that the right decision.”Show Links:LinkedIn ProfileBert Hsu Academy Website Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/onehaas/donations

unSILOed with Greg LaBlanc
623. From Classroom to Boardroom: Unstoppable Entrepreneurs with Lori Rosenkopf

unSILOed with Greg LaBlanc

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 25, 2026 49:37


What makes for a good entrepreneur in today's start-up landscape? How do you work to scale and when is it right to go from bootstrapping to seeking funding? How are the roots of innovation now fundamentally different than the dot com era? Lori Rosenkopf is a Professor of Management and also the Vice Dean of Entrepreneurship at the Wharton School, San Francisco campus. She is also the author of the book Unstoppable Entrepreneurs: 7 Paths for Unleashing Successful Startups and Creating Value through Innovation. Greg and Lori discuss Lori's focus on Wharton's student and alumni entrepreneurial ecosystem, and she explains how entrepreneurship skills overlap with the innovation inside large organizations and universities. Lori describes seven entrepreneurial pathways and six “Rs” that reflect an entrepreneurial mindset, emphasizing that many successful entrepreneurs first build industry experience in standard careers rather than launching ventures immediately after school.  Their conversation covers how Wharton's curriculum has evolved over time, adding majors and coursework in entrepreneurship, innovation, analytics, and now AI; experiential learning; venture pitching for credit. Greg asks how the Venture Acceleration Lab helps expose students to scaling alumni ventures. Lori and Greg discuss different stereotypes of entrepreneurs, and Lori touches on why alumni and industry-affiliation networks remain powerful, how innovation increasingly happens through ecosystems, partnerships, and acquisitions rather than in-house R&D, and the continuing importance of universities in basic science commercialization, including Penn's Pennovation initiative and strong biomedical startup activity. *unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.* Episode Quotes: The stereotype of a unicorn founder 17:18: I think that we have grown accustomed to a stereotype, which is, let us name them out, college dropout. Young. Venture capital backed tech, unicorn, great personal and commercial wealth. And now we are depending on them for philanthropy. We can have a whole discussion just about whether that is a good thing or not. But that is sort of the image. Is there a way people can cultivate their resilience? 32:00: Resilience, it can come from being in love with your problem and wanting to solve that so deeply. Now it has to be a problem that enough of the marketplace shares that they are willing to think about your solution. But people who want to solve a problem are going to claim lots and lots of different ways to attack it. And this is what entrepreneurs are constantly dealing with, negative feedback and challenges. In many cases, it is very rare that companies of ventures first offering is something that everybody falls in love with. What has Lori learned about information diffusion over 30 years of research? 11:17: I think that as we have gone to where more digital products and services, that it gives us the opportunity to build up these bigger ecosystems where different parties are collaborating in a variety. So it might be as extreme as acquisitions. And that is not just happening when Apple, that is CPG companies are buying little startups where people have developed new grants that are cool. They are partnering in many cases, so they may not be a full on acquisition, but there will be a contractual set of arrangements and maybe a conformance to a standard, as well. So that has become more and more common, and the idea that any one firm can invent everything in house, I think it does feel a little bit passé, you know, like rate of change is getting quicker and quicker. Show Links: Recommended Resources: Patrick T. Harker Entrepreneurship Venture Lab | University of Pennsylvania Max Weber Bell Labs Guest Profile: Faculty Profile at Wharton Business School LoriRosenkopf.com LinkedIn Profile Guest Work: Unstoppable Entrepreneurs: 7 Paths for Unleashing Successful Startups and Creating Value through Innovation Google Scholar Page Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

unSILOed with Greg LaBlanc
622. The Critical Art of Manufacturing & Why We Can't Lose It with Tim Minshall

unSILOed with Greg LaBlanc

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 20, 2026 54:48


In today's world where every imaginable product can appear at your doorstep with the click of a button, the art that goes into manufacturing those products is increasingly overlooked.  Tim Minshall is a professor of innovation at the University of Cambridge and the author of How Things Are Made: A Journey Through the Hidden World of Manufacturing. As head of the Institute for Manufacturing, Tim is shaping the future leaders of manufacturing and reinforcing the critical role manufacturing plays in today's world.  In this conversation, Tim and Greg discuss the disconnect happening between modern-day consumers and the products they buy, plus the misconception that manufacturing has declined. They also delve into the complexity and fragility of manufacturing systems, the role of education in manufacturing, challenges in reviving manufacturing, and the future of manufacturing and software integration.  *unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.* Episode Quotes: Bridging the gap between idea and implementation 08:09: The narrative has got a bit confused. This idea that there is a thing called innovation where you have got all the great science and technology and all this cool stuff happening, and that is brilliant. And then there is a bit, which is now implement, or we can call that manufacturing and, as you say, not without its challenges to scale and support software at scale. It is a non-trivial challenge. But if you are scaling up the production process for a new cell therapy to treat cancer or scaling up the production of, a novel semiconductor approach using, I do not know, compound semiconductors, there is, as you say, massive physical challenges involved there, so, but to me that is all part of the same innovation story. You go from the idea and the market opportunity all the way through is part of the innovation story. There is not this neat line in the middle which goes, yes, we have done with the innovation, now we manufacture. Have we become disconnected from how manufacturing happens? Every single thing we can see, unless it is a plant, a rock, an animal, or another human, has been manufactured...All of these things have been manufactured, and so there has been a slight worrying thing that has happened, certainly in the UK, and I suspect a little bit in the US as well, which is we have become disconnected from how that happens. And the more we become disconnected from it, the less we appreciate how incredibly clever it is. What are one of the biggest challenges facing manufacturing? 16:39: One of the biggest challenges facing manufacturing is. Getting good people to want to work in factories. Surely step one is making it visible. If you do not know it and you have not seen it, you are unlikely to just go, oh, I want to get involved in manufacturing. You need to have seen it. Repositioning manufacturing as the thing that drives solution 23:24: We have to reposition manufacturing as the thing that drives solutions. It is the thing that pushes us to deal with the energy transition. It allows us to deal with our multiple healthcare crises. It is what allows us to deal with sustainability challenges, all of these, it allows us to deal with the defense challenges. Geopolitics at the moment is pointing to extremely important role for manufacturing. We would rather not be in this situation, but it is an absolute truth. Show Links: Recommended Resources: I, Pencil Breakneck: China's Quest to Engineer the Future by Dan Wang  Why Isn't the Whole World Developed? Lessons from the Cotton Mills by Gregory Clark Jeff Immelt | unSILOed John Taylor Ha Joon Chang | unSILOed Guest Profile: Faculty Profile at University of Cambridge's Institute for Manufacturing Professional Profile on LinkedIn Profile on X Guest Work: How Things Are Made: A Journey Through the Hidden World of Manufacturing – A Guide to Sustainable Innovation - US Your Life Is Manufactured: How We Make Things, Why It Matters and How We Can Do It Better - UK  Google Scholar Page Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

All Else Equal: Making Better Decisions
Ep73 “The Dangers of Group Think on Decision Making” with Adi Sunderam

All Else Equal: Making Better Decisions

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 19, 2026 33:39


Whether it be in politics, public health, or corporate finance, why are people more likely to interpret facts or data in a way that fits their preconceived notions about the world as opposed to searching for the fundamental truth?  A new paper from the Harvard Business School called, Sharing Models to Interpret Data (by Joshua Schwartzstein and Adi Sunderam)studies the propensity for people to adopt interpretations to data based on their community's beliefs, and why this can lead to less accurate conclusions. Hosts and finance professors Jonathan Berk and Jules van Binsbergen are joined by the paper's co-author  Adi Sunderam, who is a professor of corporate finance at Harvard Business School, a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, and a co-editor of the Journal of Finance. The conversation covers the complexity of Bayesian updating and how the process is improperly deployed in today's thinking, not only in corporate decision-making but also on a sociological level. They also discuss Sunderam's model for explaining how people interpret data, why people are more likely to fall into group-belief dynamics, and if there are any interventions that would lead to better decision-making.  Read Adi Sunderam and Joshua Schwartzstein's paper: Sharing Models to Interpret Data  Find All Else Equal on the web:  https://lauder.wharton.upenn.edu/allelse/ All Else Equal: Making Better Decisions Podcast is a production of the UPenn Wharton Lauder Institute through University FM.  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

unSILOed with Greg LaBlanc
621. Land, Loans, and Legacy: Real Estate's Global Influence with Mike Bird

unSILOed with Greg LaBlanc

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 18, 2026 55:12


What is the impact of land reform on economic development? What are the implications of property law when a financial crisis hits? This episode offers a comprehensive look at how land has shaped socio-economic landscapes.Mike Bird is the Wall Street editor at The Economist and the author of the new book, The Land Trap: A New History of the World's Oldest Asset.Greg and Mike discuss the historical and contemporary importance of real estate as an asset class, its undervaluation in modern investment strategies, and its critical role in the financial systems. Their conversation explores the distinction between land and other assets, and how mortgage-backed securities have revolutionized real estate finance. Mike lays out the history of land financing from colonial North America to present-day reforms, touching on the influence of key historical figures and economic theories. *unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*Episode Quotes:How land reform fueled economic growth41:29: These sort of moments of expropriation are really focused on land quite tightly. They do not spread over into sort of general expropriation attitudes. They can have seemingly really positive impacts. So lots of people credit land reform in Japan in particular with sort of establishing the basis of a democratic society, of massively accelerating the education boost in Japan. If you are a tenant farmer and you are given land yourself, you are able to actually invest in it. And you want to make the most of it because it is no longer the landlord taking it from you. The surplus you create is your own. Most of those people used the extra money they made to massively accelerate the education of their children. This generation of people in Japan becomes a more educated one, which fuels the economic development that happens, you know, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s. So the spillover effect from land reform is really quite large.ETF vs home ownership psychology50:15: I would say, I think half the answer here is behavioral and slightly irrational and social, and half of the answer is deeply rational and makes sense to any student of finance. The side that is irrational is home and land ownership has a reputation and a status that other asset ownership does not have. You have people who say they do not want to form a family until they can own a home. That is a fairly common sentiment in large parts of the world. Nobody says, I have got to own $300,000 in my S and P 500 ETF, or I am not starting a family. It is not a common thing. There is a sense of status security, middle class belonging that comes through owning a home, which makes it very unusual. And I think this digs into a deep historical thing about freedom from feudalism, from living under a landlord, from living, in sort of someone else's pocket.Why housing isn't diversified54:52: Obviously what you cannot buy unless you are buying an extremely well diversified REIT, for example, you cannot buy a US house, right? It has to be somewhere. You are plugging into the opportunities and rewards or punishment of a local economy, and so on, I am not enormously surprised at that. I think the thing that is unique in the US relative to the rest of the world is just how well you can do and have done historically investing in listed equities, investing in risk assets and getting the compounded returns relative to home ownership, which I think is massively to America's credit. This is not true in other large portions of the rest of the world.Show Links:Recommended Resources:Samuel AdamsHernando de SotoZamindarHenry GeorgeProgress and PovertyGeorgismLeasehold EstateDuke of WestminsterWolf LadejinskyCase–Shiller IndexGuest Profile:MikeBird.coProfile on The EconomistLinkedIn ProfileSocial Profile on XSocial Profile on BlueSkyGuest Work:The Land Trap: A New History of the World's Oldest Asset Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Owl Have You Know
The Future of Elite Sports Training feat. Scott Deans '22

Owl Have You Know

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 18, 2026 43:27


Leveling up your game just got so much easier, thanks to the new cutting-edge technology from BeONE Sports — a startup that uses mobile motion-capture and AI to enhance athletic performance, prevent injuries, and support coaches and athletes at every level.Co-founded by former Division I athlete Scott Deans '22, the idea for BeONE started right here at Rice Business. Scott has loved sports since his days playing football, and through the EMBA program, he found a way to bring his passion and business acumen together.He joins co-host Brian Jackson '21 to discuss his early career journey through architecture, the 12 years he spent at bp and what ultimately led him to Rice Business. They also dive deep into the exciting technology being used at BeONE and how the company's partnership with Rice Athletics is helping student athletes optimize their performance and prevent injuries.Episode Guide:00:00 Introduction to Scott Deans and BeONE Sports01:02 Scott's Athletic Journey and Transition to Architecture05:55 From Architecture to Analytics at BP12:56 Pursuing an MBA at Rice University16:36 Founding BeONE Sports and Its Technology28:23 Partnerships and Applications of BeONE Sports37:44 Challenges and Advice for Entrepreneurs42:20 Conclusion and Final ThoughtsThe Owl Have You Know Podcast is a production of Rice Business and is produced by University FM.Episode Quotes:On building company your passionate about19:35: I sometimes imagine if I had chosen the other, one of the other companies, and I was like, there is no way I would be here after four years, grinding through the trenches, as they say, on something that did not matter to me. So, yeah, I think that is a huge, huge point in any entrepreneurial journey, that it has to matter to you; otherwise, you are not willing to compromise and go through all the pain in order to make it successful.How the Rice program helped Scott build his business28:30: So another big piece of the program at Rice was really focused on, like, building a team. And I have been a coach for a long time. I have been part of teams and built teams, so teams are, in my opinion, the linchpin, really the basis for product and a business and all those things. But part of that process is everybody's recognizing what they are good at and what they are not good at, and then where you have gaps. You need to find people who are strong in those areas. So, recognize really quickly the areas that I am not strong at and, Jason, basically from a business side and many other sides, filled those perfectly.The importance of asking better questions09:55: Always try to ask better questions, and this has been a mantra of mine since I was a little kid. I think. Because, you know, there are always going to be answers. You can always find a solution. But is the solution the right one? And is there a better question we could be asking to, you know, a lot of rework or pivoting and changing. And so it creates a mindset of constant flux, like you are in constant change. And that is not an easy mindset for many people.Show Links: BeONE Sports “Rice partners with BeONE Sports to transform athlete performance with AI technology” | Rice BusinessTranscriptGuest Profile:Scott Deans | LinkedIn

Beyond the Hedges
Building the Future: Tommy McClelland's Vision for Rice Athletics

Beyond the Hedges

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 18, 2026 42:09


How do you balance elite academics with athletic success? How was Rice able to expand the field of women's sports at Rice? What's the broader vision of how to transform Rice University into a hub of athletic and community engagement, while staying true to its academic integrity?Tommy McClelland is the Vice President and Director of Athletics at Rice University, a position he has held since August of 2023.Tommy discusses his personal journey from a walk-on football player to becoming the youngest Division I Athletic Director at 26. He shares insights into his leadership style, shaped by early career challenges and advice from his father. Tommy also shares his experience at various institutions, including Vanderbilt. Tommy explains to host David the vision for Rice Athletics. This includes the ambitious $120 million Gateway project, aimed at modernizing Rice's athletic facilities and integrating them with the local community. Let us know you're listening by filling out this form. We will be sending listeners Beyond the Hedges Swag every month.Episode Guide:01:01 Tommy McClelland's Early Life and Career03:10 Lessons Learned as a Young Athletic Director06:54 The Appeal of Rice University10:59 Balancing Winning with Academics15:23 The Gateway Project: Transforming Rice Athletics22:54 Future Vision for Rice Stadium24:39 Concert Opportunities and Local Community Impact25:46 Changing Landscape of College Athletics27:08 Adapting to One-Year Curricula31:16 Women's Sports Expansion at Rice33:55 Vision for Championship Success37:07 Engaging Alumni and Supporters39:19 Rapid Fire QuestionsBeyond The Hedges is a production of Rice University and is produced by University FM.Episode Quotes:Balancing elite academics and athletics success11:49: When you say you're a coach and you reach out to recruit a kid and you say, “Hey, I'm Coach so-and-so, and I'm with Rice University.” Immediately there's a filter that happens and it you're not for them, or it is, if you're at any other school in our conference, that filter doesn't really exist... [12:28] When the 17th ranked university in the country says, “I am interested in recruiting you to play high-level sports at the Group of Five,” which, by the way, we sit on an island in that, and I think we need to lean into this further... [13:09] We sit very isolated, but in this unique position where if you want high academics and you want to compete at the Group of Five, there's only one choice. That's a beautiful filter.Rice community stadium is more than just a football stadium17:30: It's not Rice Football Stadium, it is the Rice Community Stadium and football is going to be the primary tenant. But we need to expand the things that we do in it on a yearly basis... We should not look up in a given year and say, the only thing that happened there was our conference slate, a graduation.On making a year count29:17: I only have them for one year, how am I going to influence them the most in their entire life? Through the professors they meet. Because they will be introduced to that through the network of people that they get to meet in the alumni, in the external network. And then through how I am going to build a relationship and challenge you athletically.Show Links:RiceOwls.comRice AthleticsThe Gateway ProjectRice AlumniAssociation of Rice Alumni | FacebookRice Alumni (@ricealumni) | X (Twitter)Association of Rice Alumni (@ricealumni) | Instagram Host Profiles:David Mansouri | LinkedInDavid Mansouri '07 | Alumni | Rice UniversityDavid Mansouri (@davemansouri) | XDavid Mansouri | TNScoreGuest Profiles:Tommy McClelland | Faculty ProfileTommy McClelland | LinkedInTommy McClelland | Instagram

unSILOed with Greg LaBlanc
620. The Secret to Creating ‘Good Jobs' Where Everyone Wins with Zeynep Ton

unSILOed with Greg LaBlanc

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 16, 2026 54:00


What if a company could deliver high quality products at low cost, improving the value for customers and giving it a competitive edge, all while offering higher pay and career growth opportunities for its employees and not hurting the bottom line?Zeynep Ton is a professor at MIT's Sloan School of Management, president of the Good Jobs Institute, and author of The Case for Good Jobs: How Great Companies Bring Dignity, Pay, and Meaning to Everyone's Work. Zeynep joins Greg to explain the interconnected components of the “good job strategy,” such as standardization, empowerment, cross-training, simplification, and the incorporation of slack in schedules. She emphasizes that companies should view their workforce as value drivers rather than costs to be minimized, advocating for investment in employees for better productivity and sustainable company growth.*unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*Episode Quotes:The ‘good job strategy' requires systems thinking43:47: A lot of organizations operate in silos, and ‘the good job strategy' requires systems thinking, interconnected decisions, and all the decisions coming back to: how do we create value for the customer and how does this interact with other choices to deliver that type of value? And as long as we do the AB testing and requiring on, rigorous, and I do not think it is rigorous, it is, yeah, it is math, but it is not rigorous logic, it will be very difficult to adopt this.Standardization is a gift28:51: Standardization is a gift because there are so many things I do not even have to think about. So, think each of these choices is helpful to say what are the mindsets that are driving the choices, when used that way, and standardization is not just about work, [but also] standardization of management practices.Why ‘the good job strategy' creates competitive advantage13:02: I can see a lot of companies in the same industry using ‘the good job strategy' as long as they have a differentiation in the eyes of their customers and they're improving their value, continuously using the strategy. It's not good jobs that differentiates. It's the customer value that is a source of competitive advantage.Why unmet basic needs drive employee turnover17:02: You ask our students what motivates people. Everybody is gonna talk about is a sense of belonging, achievement, meaning, recognition. Of course, those things are the motivators. But so many people do not have their basic needs met. And there is tremendous lack of awareness. And those are, oftentimes, the biggest reasons for employee turnover that I have seen in many organizations that I work with.Show Links:Recommended Resources:Good Jobs Institute Toyota Production SystemJohn Paul MacDuffieCharlie MungerQueueing theory“How CEOs Manage Time” by Michael Porter and Nitin NohriaBob NardelliPete StavrosGuest Profile:Faculty Profile at MIT Sloan School of ManagementProfessional WebsiteProfessional Profile on LinkedInGuest Work:The Case for Good Jobs: How Great Companies Bring Dignity, Pay, and Meaning to Everyone's WorkThe Good Jobs Strategy: How the Smartest Companies Invest in Employees to Lower Costs and Boost Profits Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

unSILOed with Greg LaBlanc
619. Fatherhood, Power, and History: Unpacking the Male Role in Society with Augustine Sedgewick

unSILOed with Greg LaBlanc

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 11, 2026 53:03


When did society change from matriarchal to patriarchal, and why? What was the advice on fatherhood from Plato and Aristotle, and how did other writers on the subject put one philosophy of fatherhood on the page but live a very different one in practice?Augustine Sedgewick is the author of two books: Fatherhood: A History of Love and Power and Coffeeland: One Man's Dark Empire and the Making of Our Favorite Drug.Greg and Augustine start by discussing the lesser-explored history of fatherhood. Their conversation get into why the history of fatherhood may be understudied, the societal and cultural shifts impacting the role of fathers, and how historical figures like Saint Augustine, Rousseau, Jefferson, and even Thoreau have shaped modern perceptions of fatherhood. They also touch on Augustine's first book, Coffeeland, for the economic and social structures underpinning the coffee industry, emphasizing the role of capitalism in shaping labor conditions, and Augustine reflects on his own personal journey through fatherhood and the influence of his historical research on his understanding of the subject.*unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*Episode Quotes:Patriarchy is not a loss for men05:48: Obviously there has been some really great work on patriarchy. A lot of that has come from feminist historians. As a result, I think a lot of the greatest work on the history of patriarchy has been the history of the consequences of patriarchy for women, much fewer, much less work on the history of patriarchy and its consequences for men. I have come to believe that that is, we are in a moment where we hear often about the crisis of men and boys. And I actually think it is the best thing that men could do for themselves, be to learn something about the history of patriarchy and masculinity. Like, that would not be a loss for men. That would be an incredible gain if we could begin to understand where those ideas originate, how they have changed over time, and what they have cost us. I will say.Fatherhood as a system of power05:24: I think you could argue that fatherhood is the most widespread and arguably enduring form of social inequality and metaphor for power that we have in human societies.Why father knows best was never humanly possible18:22 There is almost plasticity built into that God-like mandate of father knows best, I will protect and provide, if you do what I say. Because I think what is interesting about that set of edicts and mandates is that it is impossible for human beings to fulfill. No one always knows best. No one can always protect; no one can always provide God-like jobs because they cannot be fulfilled by actual human beings. And so the process of fatherhood, historically, has been exactly negotiating the distance between those promises and the reality. Plasticity has been the required element there.Show Links:Recommended Resources:Simone de BeauvoirPatriarchyPater familiasPlatoAristotleAugustine of HippoJean-Jacques RousseauThomas JeffersonGreat Father and Great MotherSally HemingsHenry David ThoreauSigmund FreudGuest Profile:AugustineSedgewick.workGuest Work:Amazon Author PageFatherhood: A History of Love and PowerCoffeeland: One Man's Dark Empire and the Making of Our Favorite Drug Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

unSILOed with Greg LaBlanc
618. Brand Global, Adapt Local: Insights with Katherine Melchior Ray

unSILOed with Greg LaBlanc

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 6, 2026 55:37


What challenges come with taking a marketing strategy global, and what strategies can be created to account for and even take advantage of differences from one market to another? How are differences in Japanese culture reflected in the buying practices of the population?Katherine Melchior Ray is a global marketing executive and consultant, who also teaches global marketing at UC Berkeley Haas School of Business, and is the author of the book Brand Global, Adapt Local: How to Build Brand Value Across Cultures.Greg and Katherine discuss the importance of both maintaining global brand consistency and adapting to local cultures. Katherine explains the history and evolving definition of marketing, the balance between data-driven strategies and creative intuition, and the necessity of cultural intelligence in global business. Throughout the conversation, Katherine shares anecdotes from her diverse career, offering insights into the challenges and strategies for successful global marketing.*unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*Episode Quotes:What does it mean to be a global brand?13:51: Just because you can access it on a global level does not mean it is going to be relevant to you in your culture. And this is where it is tricky. So we have gone way beyond the Ted Levitt era, where you have global brands, but in order for them to connect, create meaning, which is where value lies, and ultimately loyalty with consumers in different cultures, they need to do both. And this is where the book title came, Brand Global. Be a global brand, hold certain things very consistent, but adapt local, and that is tricky. It is really tricky. Which aspects do you want to hold the same, and which aspects are you willing to flex?What is cultural intelligence and why is important in leadership39:21: We all know about emotional intelligence, and I think we have come to realize how important that is in leadership. Well, cultural intelligence takes us one step further. It relies on a lot of the aspects of emotional intelligence, but it adds culture on top of it. And basically, it is the ability to see and, and bridge cultural differences. So you do not have to be an expert in every culture. You do not have to know how to code, I guess, in technology. But you have to have a couple qualities that help you learn how to see what is often not actually being explicitly said with words.The notion of balance in brands18:52: When you think of a brand, the strongest brands actually do play simultaneously in opposite, seemingly opposite, directions, but really, those two seemingly opposed directions are complimentary, right? One might be the traditional side, and one is the innovative side. One might be the classical side, and the other is the trendy side. But actually, that duality gives the brand elasticity; it gives it range. So it can reach a lot more customers, and it gives it this inherent dynamism, tension, and excitement.Story is important for expansion20:20: The reason story is important is for expansion. You cannot control every aspect of a brand as you expand, right? Because the same people, like if you think of Steve Jobs, he could review every aspect of the computer as it was being designed. But as it was being marketed in different markets, in different countries, in different stores with different salespeople, you cannot control all of that. And so the way to create a form of consistency is by telling the same internal stories, and then those stories go externally so that everyone understands why certain things are in the way that the company operates and the brand shows up in products and services.Show Links:Recommended Resources:Louis VuittonPhilip KotlerTheodore LevittPark Hyatt | Masters of Food & WineSotheby'sXiaomiGuest Profile:KatherineMelchiorRay.comLinkedIn ProfileFaculty Profile at UC Berkeley Haas Business SchoolSocial Profile on ThreadsSocial Profile on XGuest Work:Brand Global, Adapt Local: How to Build Brand Value Across Cultures Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Owl Have You Know
How An AgTech Investment Banker Found His Focus feat. David Verbitsky '10

Owl Have You Know

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 4, 2026 36:33


Not every job will feel like the perfect fit, but for David Verbitsky '10, every new position is an important stepping stone in your career, and an opportunity to learn and grow. When David wanted to pivot his career from engineering to finance, the path led him straight to an MBA at Rice Business. His experience at Rice spring boarded him into a career in investment banking with a special focus on agriculture and food. Over the past 15 years, he's worked as the global head of agriculture and nutrition investment banking at Goldman Sachs, as the global head of AgTech and sustainable food investment banking at Nomura Greentech, and as a member of the global chemicals and agriculture investment banking team at Barclays.Now, David is applying all of his industry expertise to his own investment banking firm, Verbitsky Capital. In this episode, he chats with co-host Maya Pomroy '22 about how Rice Business prepared him for a successful career in finance, what he learned through every job change and where he thinks innovation in the agriculture sector is heading next.Episode Guide:00:00 Introduction and Guest Welcome00:59 David's Early Career in Engineering03:06 Transition to Business School and Finance06:09 Investment Banking Journey08:59 Shift to Agriculture Sector18:20 Navigating the VC Fund Experience21:30 Exciting Deals in AgTech23:24 Challenges and Lessons Learned29:44 Building and Leading a Team with Verbitsky Capital31:37 Future of AgTech34:35 Career Advice and Final ThoughtsThe Owl Have You Know Podcast is a production of Rice Business and is produced by University FM.Episode Quotes:The importance of judgement in every leader31:19: [Maya Pomroy]: What do you look for in leaders?31:26: [David Verbitsky] I do not really know if you can quantify or measure it, but it is judgment. The only way you can really see that is seeing people in action, right? It is seeing, okay, when you are in a difficult situation, or maybe it is not even difficult, but when you have to make decisions. And take responsibility for things. And some of it is, could be very easy, like simple things who just, we are in the middle of a deal and you gotta just decide on what, how you move forward. Right. How do you take decisions? How do you move forward? How do you take accountability? How do you, in certain circumstances, decide not to do something? Which is probably more important in many different ways.On networking and constant learning36:16: [Maya Pomroy]:What would you say to someone that is sort of considering maybe an MBA to really pivot their own career.36:25: [David Verbitsky]  So first and foremost, I would say it is all about relationships. And her ability to, to maintain them. Right. That, that is part networking, but it is also just part effort of just people you already do know. Maintaining those relationships. Do you think that is first and foremost is the most important thing? Do not burn any bridges. Right? Keep them, keep them all active and then building off of that just sees opportunities when they present themselves, be open to things. Because they might be the wrong choice, but. You should learn something from every new step you take.From missteps to momentum37:04: Going to Goldman Sachs and switching a hundred percent into agriculture was a big opportunity, which I was like, I do not know, but let us try it out. Right? Those things worked out incredibly well. And then I had a bunch of missteps of like trying, trying to go and do startup or VC fund that just was not the right fit, or go into a place that was good for a while, then was not, and then just, it leads you here. So like. Realize when an opportunity presents itself and do not be afraid to take it. Which is the right piece of advice. Just be aware and realize this is an opportunity. Maybe it is not the right one, but be, I think, very mindful.Show Links: TranscriptGuest Profile:David Verbitsky | LinkedInVerbitsky Capital

All Else Equal: Making Better Decisions
Ep72 Alternatives vs. Mutual Funds: Where Should You Put Your Money

All Else Equal: Making Better Decisions

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 4, 2026 31:48


In the rapid-moving world of delegated money management, it is important to recognize the differences in how mutual funds and alternative assets operate. When it comes to alternatives, how do these funds wind up with strong incentive contracts for the money managers as opposed to flat fee contracts more commonly seen in mutual funds? Why do managers of alternatives cap their fund sizes when it could potentially lead to lower fees?On this episode, hosts and finance professors Jonathan Berk and Jules van Binsbergen examine the key differences between mutual funds and alternatives, by unpacking research in a new paper co-authored by Berk.The conversation covers performance fees, persistent alpha, limits on capital, and the key liquidity distinction between mutual funds and alternatives. Read “A  Unified Theory of Delegated Capital Management” by Jonathan Berk and Peter DeMarzo here: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=6019667 Find All Else Equal on the web: https://lauder.wharton.upenn.edu/allelse/All Else Equal: Making Better Decisions Podcast is a production of the UPenn Wharton Lauder Institute through University FM. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

unSILOed with Greg LaBlanc
617. Navigating Leadership Challenges: Analyzing Systems with Barbara Kellerman

unSILOed with Greg LaBlanc

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 3, 2026 55:10


How do bad leaders persist in current-day environments, and how do they use factors like fear, rewards, and the natural difficulty of uprooting entrenched authority to their advantage? Despite the challenges inherent to speaking out, what duty and role do followers play in identifying and addressing bad leadership?Barbara Kellerman is the founder and a fellow at the Center for Public Leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School and the author of many books, addressing many different aspects of leadership. Her latest works are Leadership from Bad to Worse: What Happens When Bad Festers, LEADERSHIP: Essential Selections on Power, and The Enablers: How Team Trump Flunked the Pandemic and Failed America.Greg and Barbara discuss Barbara's critiques of the leadership industry, highlighting its focus on 'good' leadership while often neglecting the study of 'bad' leadership and the crucial role of followers. She argues for a more nuanced understanding of leadership that includes the contexts and followers that shape and are shaped by leaders. Their conversation dives into the complexities of trust in leaders, the need for rigorous education and credentialing in leadership akin to doctors or lawyers, and the significance of managing both leadership development and organizational design. *unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*Episode Quotes:The three-part leadership system06:25: The leadership system is slightly more complicated than just leadership, but only slightly. It's got three parts, each of which is of equal importance. One is the leader. None of this is to say that leaders are unimportant, but equal importance. This is—think of it as an equilateral triangle—the leader is one point, if you will. One of the two other points are the followers, the constituents, the stakeholders, whatever language. If you do not like the word follower, we can do all the euphemisms. I tend to use follower because in English, it is the only natural antonym of leader. So let's say, for the purpose here now, one part of the triangle is the leader, the other part is the followers, and the third part, again of equal importance, is the context—or better put, are the contexts, 'cause it is always plural within which leaders and followers are situated.There is no leader without followers29:55: We tend to obey. We do not tend to disobey. So the idea that this broad thing called the field of leadership pays such inadequate attention to the obvious other side of the coin—leadership is, after all, a relationship. You cannot have a leader without at least a single follower. Why is that other, by definition, so much less consequential? The answer is they are not, but the field pays that other virtually no attention.Does being a good leader automatically make you ethical?15:45: The word bad is so complicated. And it is adverse good that I have found it practical in my work generally to divide bad and good into two categories. One is a continuum of ethics, so you're a good leader if you're ethical. You're a bad leader if you're unethical. And the other continuum is effectiveness. You're a bad leader if you're ineffective, and you're a good leader if you're effective.Show Links:Recommended Resources:Deborah RhodeMartin WinterkornVolkswagen Emissions ScandalHippocratic OathGroupthinkList of prime ministers of the United KingdomNiccolò MachiavelliJeffrey PfefferMarco RubioGuest Profile:Personal WebsiteProfile on LinkedInWikipedia ProfileCenter for Public LeadershipGuest Work:Amazon Author PageLeadership from Bad to Worse: What Happens When Bad FestersLEADERSHIP: Essential Selections on PowerThe Enablers: How Team Trump Flunked the Pandemic and Failed AmericaWomen and LeadershipProfessionalizing LeadershipThe End of Leadership: A Provocative Reassessment of Leadership in the Digital Age—Questioning Beliefs That Are Dangerously Out-of-DateFollowership: How Followers Are Creating Change and Changing LeadersBad Leadership: What It Is, How It Happens, Why It MattersReinventing Leadership: Making the Connection Between Politics and BusinessThe President As World LeaderLeadership and Negotiation in the Middle EastBad Leadership – Why We Steer ClearTEDx Talk: What do we do about bad leaders? Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

unSILOed with Greg LaBlanc
616. Leading Through Learning: Lessons from Life as a CEO with Jeff Immelt

unSILOed with Greg LaBlanc

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 30, 2026 45:06


There's no instruction manual for how to be a CEO, and that role has undergone massive change in recent decades. So how do the leaders of great corporations today prepare themselves to make the hard decisions?Jeff Immelt, former CEO of GE and now current instructor at Stanford University, shares some of his top lessons on leading a major corporation in his book, Hot Seat: What I Learned Leading a Great American Company.Jeff joins Greg to reflect on his long career at GE, discussing his sense of belonging and the changing nature of career expectations, especially among today's youth. They delve into the intricacies of being a CEO, the differences between traditional and modern management practices, and the importance of both depth and breadth in business expertise. Jeff shares insights on organizational design, the importance of listening, and the critical role of teaching and continual learning in leadership.*unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*Episode Quotes:What actually makes people stay, grow and perform in a company.07:36: Every company I work with, you know, I said, why do people leave? Right? Because there is a finite number of options and all this other stuff we can give people. And basically money counts for sure. But the second reason why people leave is I have a bad manager. The third reason why people leave is I am not getting any better. I am not getting any training, I am not getting any coaching. I am just like a work unit, and so those are the things we have to solve for. I think if we really want to turn back on the productivity engine of the next era.Every job looks easy till you're the one doing it38:41: Every job looks easy till you are the one doing it, right? So when you step in, do not come in and say, “This person stunk. I am the new sheriff. Everything is going to be great.” Just keep your mouth shut and do your job.Every good leader has three voices39:42: One of the things, Greg, that I teach, particularly founders, on is I say, look, every good leader has to have three voices, right? You need to be able to have the all-employee meeting, right? You need to be able to stand up to 400 people and communicate to 4-0-0 people. You need to be able to run a meeting, and you need to be able to give one-on-one feedback. And you know, those voices, the vocabulary is very different, right? In terms of how you motivate people in those three settings. And I try to give them examples of, you know, what they can work on, and, and very few people are really good at all three. But a lot of people give up at one, and it is hard to be a good leader. It is hard to be a good leader if you cannot traverse those three settings.Show Links:Recommended Resources:Inside Crotonville | GEDavid L. JoyceSam Bankman-FriedBill RuhStephen A. SchwarzmanLean Six SigmaAT&T LabsRoss PerotGuest Profile:Faculty Profile at Stanford UniversityProfessional Profile on LinkedInGuest Work:Hot Seat: What I Learned Leading a Great American Company Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

unSILOed with Greg LaBlanc
615. Reclaim Your Life from Digital Overload with Paul Leonardi

unSILOed with Greg LaBlanc

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 26, 2026 60:03


What are practical strategies to avoid overload and exhaustion in today's digital world? What norms can organizations create for tool usage, and how can finding offline activities that provide a mental contrast to digital work?Paul Leonardi is the Duca Family Professor of Technology Management at UC Santa Barbara, a consultant and speaker on digital transformation and the future of work, and an author of several works. His latest book is called Digital Exhaustion: Simple Rules for Reclaiming Your Life.Greg and Paul discuss the complementary nature of his two most recent books: the first focuses on harnessing digital tools, and the second on mitigating the overwhelm they can cause. They also explore teaching technology management, including the importance of understanding technology's impact on people and organizational processes. Paul explains the 30% rule, emphasizing the need to understand digital tools well enough to use them effectively. They also explore the concept of digital exhaustion, the subject of his most recent book, its symptoms, and how to manage it, both at work and in daily life. *unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*Episode Quotes:How can we reduce exhaustion?41:29: One easy way of reducing our exhaustion is to match the sort of complexity of the task that we are trying to do with the affordances or the capabilities of the technology. And I say match, not over exceed, because we also have the problem where, like me, I am sure you have been in many, many meetings that should have just been an email, that there is not the need. And so what we have done in that situation is we have overstimulated people, right, in a setting with, you know, 15 other folks, and we have taken an hour out of their day and maybe the travel time to get there. And that has created other avenues for exhaustion when, if we had just perceived this information via email, we could not have had the meeting. So you do not want to overmatch, you just want to like match to the complexity of the task. And that is the key to reducing our exhaustion.It's not just distraction that exhausts us18:28: I think we have failed to look at how it is not just being distracted that is a problem, but it is the act of switching itself across all of these different inputs really is a significant source of our exhaustion.Inference is a big driver of exhaustion32:45: Inference is really a big driver of exhaustion. And I would say the place that it most shows up, although not exclusively, is in our social media lives. Because, of course, people are curating their lives in terms of what they post, whether that is LinkedIn or TikTok or Instagram, that does not really matter. And we are constantly not only making inferences of them, but what I find is that we are also very often making inferences about ourselves because we see a past record of all the things that we wrote and all of the things that we posted. And then we are also making inferences of what we think other people think about us based on all the things that we post.Show Links:Recommended Resources:Human MultitaskingTask SwitchingFatigueUnsiloed Podcast Episode 612: Rebecca HindsGuest Profile:Faculty Profile at UC Santa BarbaraPaulLeonardi.comWikipedia ProfileLinkedIn ProfileGuest Work:Amazon Author PageDigital Exhaustion: Simple Rules for Reclaiming Your LifeThe Digital Mindset: What It Really Takes to Thrive in the Age of Data, Algorithms, and AIExpertise, Communication, and OrganizingMateriality and Organizing: Social Interaction in a Technological WorldCar Crashes without Cars: Lessons About Simulation Technology and Organizational Change from Automotive DesignGoogle Scholar Page Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

unSILOed with Greg LaBlanc
614. Understanding the Great Divergence: Europe vs China from 1000 to 2000 feat. Guido Tabellini

unSILOed with Greg LaBlanc

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 23, 2026 53:31


What changes happened in the histories of Europe and China to create two economies that developed so differently? How did different forms of local cooperatio influence state development, rule of law, and economic progress?s?Guido Tabellini is a professor of Political Economics at the University of Bocconi in Milan, Italy. He is also the author of several books, most recently co-authoring Two Paths to Prosperity: Culture and Institutions in Europe and China, 1000–2000.Greg and Guido discuss the historical divergence in prosperity between Europe and China, exploring when and why it began, and whether it arose from cultural or institutional phenomena. Guido also emphasizesthe contrasting roles of corporations and clans in both regions, the impact of state capacity, and the lasting effects of these differences on modern economic and political landscapes. Their conversation touches on the historical process of cooperation across regions and its implications for modern development economics.*unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*Episode Quotes:What are the political origins of corporations?31:55: So, we should not think of the corporation just as a firm, as a way to organize production that is important, but actually comes at the later stage. And the very important role of the corporation is also to have a political role, to govern a city, to represent a city in parliament, in China. The role of the corporations, when they emerge. Instead, it is purely economic. You do not have self-governing city, and even at the level of monasteries, you do have Buddhist monasteries, which are important, but each one of them is organized as an entity. You do not have a congregation of monasteries like the Cluny monastery or like, eventually, the church. Reframing the conversation on the Great Divergence02:34: Rather than talking about great divergence, we actually like to talk about great reversal in the book because it has been a reversal. So even before starting to debate when the divergence begins, meaning that Europe gets ahead of China, we should acknowledge that the opposite was true, that China was ahead of Europe at the turn of the first millennium. The high stakes of clan adjudication49:05: In China, the demand for external enforcement was probably less, evident because the clan needed less of an external enforcement. They were smaller communities, they had stronger reciprocal ties. The reputational mechanism within the clan was much more important because if I cheat on my clan member, I am kicked out of the clan. And if I am kicked out of the clan in a society which is organized around clans, I am on my own and I die. In Europe, of course, reputation is very important, but the penalty of cheating is not as harsh. So the altruistic value ties are weaker, and the penalty of cheating is also weaker. And so you have a stronger demand for external enforcement. Show Links:Recommended Resources:Great DivergenceCharles TillyClanCluny AbbeyConfuciusGuest Profile:Faculty Profile at Brocconi UniversityWikipedia ProfileCEPR.org ProfileGuest Work:Amazon Author PageTwo Paths to Prosperity: Culture and Institutions in Europe and China, 1000–2000L'Italia in gabbia: Il volto politico della crisi economicaThe Economic Effects of ConstitutionsPolitical Economics: Explaining Economic PolicyFlexible Integration: Towards a More Effective and Democratic EuropeMonetary and Fiscal Policy: PoliticsGoogle Scholar Page Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

All Else Equal: Making Better Decisions
Ep71 “The Working From Home Revolution” with Nick Bloom

All Else Equal: Making Better Decisions

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 22, 2026 28:16


When the pandemic hit in 2020, working from home skyrocketed. Six years later, many companies have returned to in-person work, but hybrid models are still the dominant structure. So with WFH here to stay in some form, what's the proper balance? And what are we at risk of losing in the long term with less in-office interaction?Nick Bloom is an economics professor at Stanford University and one of the first researchers to take a serious look at the work from home phenomenon. He joins hosts and finance professors Jonathan Berk and Jules van Binsbergen to discuss his research into why working from home has outlasted COVID precautions, its impact on employee performance, the surprising effects its had on birthrates, and his recommendation to companies on striking the perfect balance with a hybrid structure.  Find All Else Equal on the web: https://lauder.wharton.upenn.edu/allelse/All Else Equal: Making Better Decisions Podcast is a production of the UPenn Wharton Lauder Institute through University FM. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Owl Have You Know
Learning to Lead Anywhere feat. Chris Stillwell '24

Owl Have You Know

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 21, 2026 33:07


When it comes to working in military intelligence, strong leadership skills and the ability to make quick decisions under pressure are key. Just as important to a mission's success is being a good team player.Those were the lessons and skills Chris Stillwell '24 carried into his two career pivots after his time working as a military intelligence officer for the U.S. Army. His first pivot landed him a role at Kearney in Dubai focusing on M&A integration and strategy consulting. Chris then decided to pursue an MBA at Rice Business to sharpen his financial skills and pivot once again into the world of investment banking. Now an investment banking associate at Bank of America, Chris joins co-host Brian Jackson '21 to discuss his military experience, why he chose Rice, how the program helped him make a major career transition, and his advice to those considering an MBA to pursue new career opportunities. Episode Guide:00:00 Introduction to Chris Stillwell01:03 Military Intelligence: Separating Fact From Fiction02:15 Roles and Responsibilities in the Army03:08 Leadership and Decision Making in High-Pressure Situations08:07 From Military to Consulting09:49 Living Abroad: Challenges and Cultural Insights15:02 Transitioning to an MBA at Rice University18:13 Involvement and Networking at Rice20:56 Entering Investment Banking: Preparation and Challenges25:37 Day-to-Day in Investment Banking28:46 Advice for Career Pivoters and VeteransThe Owl Have You Know Podcast is a production of Rice Business and is produced by University FM.Episode Quotes:The moment Chris realized that Rice gave him an edge over his peers[20:48] Brian: Going into investment banking, was there, like, now an elevated sense of confidence of, Okay, I've done this before; I'll do it again?[20:56] Chris: Maybe some blind confidence sometimes. Yeah, you could even ask my parents. I went home for like four days for the Christmas break the year I was recruiting. And I was studying flashcards with my mom of all the IB 400 questions. And I was like, “I'm not going to get a job. You know, like all these people around me are much smarter than me. There's a really—we've got a really talented pool of candidates that are recruiting this year.” But you know, I felt like at the end of the day, the Finance Association and Rice, just the classes I took, really prepared me to understand the basics of finance, the basics that are expected of the interview process. And then, going forward, I saw when I started as an intern at the bank, I went to New York for a week…We were training with all these people from all these different schools, going to all these different groups in the bank, and some people didn't even know what a DCF was or didn't know how to do it that well, I should say. We were doing some practice problems, and I was like, “Wow, we're actually far ahead of a lot of these other schools and people.” So that was kind of good to see that Rice really put an effort into training us up. What Chris learned about leadership through three career pivots[30:15] There are certain people who can be leaders and are very good at being leaders. But being a good leader in the military might not translate to being a good leader at banking. And a lot of times you actually see that, or you see military officers leave the military and go into the corporate world and not be as successful. Because I really think you do need to tailor your leadership style to the one the industry you're working in, and two, the people you're working with, you know, different ways of operating motivate people differently. Like in the military, you could yell at somebody and hold them to a higher standard and maybe they'll do it. But if you yelled at somebody like, you know, a marketing job, they probably would shut down and that'd be the end of it. It really doesn't work the same. The leadership style is something that you have to adjust to the area you're working in.On how his military experience strengthened his teamwork skills[04:03] In the military, you are a leader, but you learn how to be a good follower as well. And I think what you do with that is that you are able to have great teamwork. You're able, like in my current job now, I have an analyst underneath me, but I have people like VPs and MDs above me and I can understand what their intent is and what we need to get accomplished in our day-to-day job, but also articulate to the people below me, Hey, this is the intent and this is how we do it. So it's kind of been very helpful in those soft skills.On how Rice gave him the academic foundation he needed[16:49] My reasons for going to Rice were great, but once I got there, I appreciated it a lot more. I really got exposed to, I mean, I was looking for some things like smaller classrooms for example. Like a lot of people we hire from Kearney were from Yale or HBS, and their class size was like a thousand people. And maybe you didn't have a lot of rigor in terms of academics. I think Rice, especially in the first term, really forces you to go to classes to do your homework, to learn the materials. And that was attractive to me as well, because I didn't come from a finance background at all. So I didn't even know what a DCF was before I came to Rice. So I was very grateful at that, you know, getting to Rice and realizing that it was such a good platform to be integrated into.Show Links: TranscriptGuest Profile:Chris Stillwell | LinkedIn

unSILOed with Greg LaBlanc
613. Challenging Bureaucracy: Management Insights with Gary Hamel

unSILOed with Greg LaBlanc

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 19, 2026 51:47


Where did the concept of management as a profession come from, and how did it develop? Why do bureaucratic practices persist? How can companies break free from those constraints to unlock greater potential and adapt more effectively to the relentless change and competition in today's business world?Gary Hamel is the founder of the Management Lab, a professor at the London Business School, a visiting professor at the University of Oxford, and the author of several books. His recent titles include Humanocracy, Creating Organizations as Amazing as the People Inside Them, What Matters Now: How to Win in a World of Relentless Change, Ferocious Competition, and Unstoppable Innovation, and Competing for the Future.Greg and Gary discuss the evolution of Gary's thinking on management over the years and the detrimental effects of entrenched bureaucratic systems in organizations. He argues that bureaucracy stifles innovation, efficiency, and human engagement, leading him to suggest that organizations need to adopt more human-centric, dynamic, and decentralized models. He also points out the eventual trajectory of all companies that don't follow this path.*unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*Episode Quotes:Why organizations stop being technical and start being bureaucratic08:29: I don't think administrative skills are any more a competitive advantage. You need them, but they are not much of a differentiator. So far as I can see, they are not really a source of competitive advantage. And yet, given that history of them being so rare, we basically turned our organizations into administrative aristocracies . And so what that meant practically was, once you reached a certain level in an organization, a fairly low level, the only way to advance your career was to become a manager. And that is still true in most organizations. People tend to compete for those jobs because, and I have young friends, and kids and so on who, very capable people worked in organizations, and however capable you are technically, you reach a point where they are coaxing you into an administrative or managerial role as the only way to grow. And the desire to keep great employees and to pay them well means that those positions proliferate. We create more managerial roles because that is the way of rewarding people and escalating their salaries.The radical shift from static hierarchy to dynamic power39:04: I am all for having a hierarchy, but I think it needs to be highly dynamic depending on the issue, and the hierarchy needs to be able to shift also. When people in power are no longer adding value or whatever they need to, you need to be able to fire those people from below.Why traditional leadership programs create administrators, not leaders47:18: In survey after survey, by Fortune, by McKinsey or others, the vast majority of executives do not think leadership development is producing positive returns or noticeably positive returns. And again, I think the reason for that is what we call leadership development is, first of all, almost done completely in the bureaucratic frame. We are not trying to find people with genuine leadership, natural leadership capacity. We are not trying to find people who understand how to mobilize and catalyze others to do things that people thought were impossible. Our leadership training is basically training people to take on bigger administrative jobs and stratified just like the pyramid: managing yourself, managing a team, managing a unit, managing a function, managing the organization. So number one, we have that problem. It is simply replicating, and it is creating better administrators. I do not think the data says that it is creating leaders.Show Links:Recommended Resources:Thomas PaineMax WeberMcKinsey & CompanyJames G. MarchHerbert A. SimonDisruptive InnovationKKR & Co.Open Strategy: Mastering Disruption from Outside the C-SuiteDominic BartonJeffrey PfefferBarbara KellermanLeadership DevelopmentManagement DevelopmentPeter DruckerGuest Profile:GaryHamel.comLinkedIn ProfileWikipedia ProfileHumanocracy.comThe Management LabSocial Profile on XGuest Work:Amazon Author PageHumanocracy, Updated and Expanded: Creating Organizations as Amazing as the People Inside ThemWhat Matters Now: How to Win in a World of Relentless Change, Ferocious Competition, and Unstoppable InnovationCompeting for the FutureThe Future of ManagementThe Corporate Lattice: Achieving High Performance In the Changing World of WorkLeading the RevolutionBringing Silicon Valley InsideGoogle Scholar Page Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

unSILOed with Greg LaBlanc
612. Cracking the Code of Effective Meetings with Rebecca Hinds

unSILOed with Greg LaBlanc

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 15, 2026 54:34


When are meetings the best way to coordinate and make decisions and when do they make things worse?? How do you use the two-pizza rule to hold effective meetings and what happens when you start including too many people in a process?Rebecca Hinds is the head of the Work AI Institute at Glean and the author of Your Best Meeting Ever: 7 Principles for Designing Meetings That Get Things Done, a book outlining the way to address one of the ways productivity is lost in organizations.Greg and Rebecca discuss the importance of intentionality in information flow within organizations, the common pitfalls of meeting culture, and practical strategies to improve meeting efficiency. Rebecca emphasizes the use of data and AI to measure meeting effectiveness and reduce 'meeting bloat', while sharing insights from her experiences at Asana and her studies on organizational collaboration. They also explore the evolving collaboration between HR and IT departments in the era of AI and the necessity for both tech and HR professionals to exchange and enhance their skills.*unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*Episode Quotes:How ‘visibIlity bias' fuels endless meetings[07:28] We know that humans have a bias to associate presence with productivity. And so what I find to be often the case is people start to associate more meetings with more importance and status within the organization, and so when you're stuck and not sure how to make progress or you're worried about productivity, a meeting becomes a knee-jerk solution to solve that. You might not accomplish anything meaningful in the meeting, but at least you've sat together and shown that some progress or perceived progress was made. And so I think at the core of this, is this pervasive productivity theater that goes on in organizations, this visibility bias where we associate meetings with importance within the organization. There are a host of other problems, but at the core, I think that's the fundamental problem that we're dealing with.The pressure ingrained in our calendars and meeting cultures[09:37]  As soon as someone extends a meeting invite. They're establishing this social contract where you feel like you have to reciprocate. Even when we think about terminology around, it's a meeting invite. You either accept or you reject. You start to feel like you're not just rejecting the meeting, but rejecting the person. And it's taken very personally. AI tools can help reveal participation imbalances in meetings[22:59] If you're seeing that leaders are consuming 70%, 80% of the airtime, that's an opportunity to course correct and improve your meeting effectiveness. And often when it comes from an AI tool or an objective analytic tool, it's much more effectively received than a less powerful person trying to voice that takeaway in the meeting and try to veer influence that way.Are we socially conditioned to hate meetings?[28:48] Humans have what I call a meeting suck reflex, right? For a multitude of different reasons.When we hear the word "meeting," we have this negative, visceral reaction. So much so that you know when you're asked to evaluate your meetings in public versus private, you tend to rate your meetings much more negatively when you're around people in public as compared to privately, because we think that we should hate meetings. We've been socially conditioned to feel such, and there's few things that bond coworkers more quickly than bonding over a bad meeting that could have been a five-line email, right? And so to avoid that, assessing whether a meeting was worth your time helps to level set. Everyone has an intuitive sense of whether a meeting was worth their time. Is there something more productive they could have done with that time or not? And so that tends to be a good gauge for you as an organizer.Show Links:Recommended Resources:Asana, Inc.Parkinson's lawSteven RogelbergLaw of TrivialityAmazon's Two-Pizza TeamsROTIRobert I. SuttonGuest Profile:RebeccaHinds.comThe Work AI Institute at GleanLinkedIn ProfileSocial Profile on X for GleanGuest Work:Your Best Meeting Ever: 7 Principles for Designing Meetings That Get Things Done Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

unSILOed with Greg LaBlanc
611. Finding a Strategy for Life, Business, and Everything in Between feat. Geoffrey A. Moore

unSILOed with Greg LaBlanc

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 12, 2026 55:19


Whether in markets, organizations, or the universe itself, today's guest is a master at navigating complex systems where existing models have stopped working, and new ones must emerge.Geoffrey Moore is a consultant in the high-tech sector and a prolific author, with titles including Crossing the Chasm, Inside the Tornado: Strategies for Developing, Leveraging, and Surviving Hypergrowth Markets, and, most recently, The Infinite Staircase: What the Universe Tells Us About Life, Ethics, and Mortality. Geoffrey and Greg discuss his transition from Renaissance English scholar to high-tech strategist, why narrative is critical in business, the challenges of disrupting industries, and what “The Infinite Staircase” reveals about life's meaning and human purpose. *unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*Episode Quotes:The importance of sales and the failure of business schools09:32: It's absolutely a travesty that business schools don't teach sales. It's, it's crazy. And there are a bunch of people that have made that argument before. But the reason why academics didn't like sales is it felt too much like Glengarry Glen Ross: sleazy, you know, closers, "coffee is for closers," and all the kind of stuff the academics hate. But the point about it is that, particularly in contemporary B2B sales, that's not what a salesperson does anymore. You have to help the customer find the use cases and the ROI that validates why they're gonna buy this thing, which means you have to be intellectually curious about their business and not just yammer about your own business. And so it is, it's actually a really interesting profession if you approach it, you know, in a kind of more in-service-to-the-customer approach, as opposed to, "I'm going to make my commissions and go to the club," although that's also a big motive among salespeople.Venture capital is literary criticism06:10: Venture is a form of literary criticism prior to investment. And then, as you invest, you start to figure out, now how can I verify? How can I validate? And eventually, the analytics and the numbers become very important. But not at the beginning. At the beginning, it is really about the story.Venture Capital vs. Corporate metrics38:11: Venture capitalists do not fund performance. They fund power, but everything in a venture model is about becoming more powerful, not becoming more performant. When we exit, then they'll become performant, but not now, and that idea is still very hard to land in a large corporation.The correct sequence for success33:51: The correct sequence has to be customers first, employees second, investors third. Any other sequence doesn't work, not for sustainable success.Show Links:Recommended Resources:Regis McKennaAlfred D. Chandler Jr.Edmund SpenserGreat chain of beingClayton ChristensenSatya NadellaNorthrop FryePhilip SidneyGuest Profile:Professional WebsiteProfessional Profile on LinkedInProfile on XGuest Work:The Infinite Staircase: What the Universe Tells Us About Life, Ethics, and MortalityCrossing the ChasmInside the Tornado: Strategies for Developing, Leveraging, and Surviving Hypergrowth MarketsDealing with Darwin: How Great Companies Innovate at Every Phase of Their EvolutionLiving on the Fault Line, Revised Edition: Managing for Shareholder Value in Any EconomyThe Gorilla Game: An Investor's Guide to Picking Winners in High TechnologyZone to Win: Organizing to Compete in an Age of Disruption Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

unSILOed with Greg LaBlanc
610. Shaping Spaces: Architecture, Design, and Urban Planning with Witold Rybczynski

unSILOed with Greg LaBlanc

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 8, 2026 50:42


What is the real importance of understanding architectural history, and how is its teaching different from the histories of other disciplines? How can good design influence business decisions?Witold Rybczynski is an emeritus professor in the Weitzman School of Design at the University of Pennsylvania. He is also the author of several books on architecture and its history. His most recent titles have been The Driving Machine: A Design History of the Car, Now I Sit Me Down: From Klismos to Plastic Chair: A Natural History, Mysteries of the Mall: And Other Essays, and The Story of Architecture.Greg and Witold discuss Witold's extensive work on various topics, including the present state and histories of architecture, urban planning, and design. Their conversation covers the cultural valuation of architecture versus fine arts, the historical impact of city planning and urban design in the United States, and the unique characteristics of American cities compared to how cities and urban planning happens in European countries. They also get into the interplay of style and function in car design based in the research from Witold's new book.*unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.* Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Owl Have You Know
Pressure Makes Diamonds feat. Rzan Yunus '17

Owl Have You Know

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 7, 2026 39:55


As a first-generation American from Saudi Arabia, Rzan Yunus '17 learned from an early age what ambition and perseverance can lead to. She credits her immigrant father's determination to build a successful career and life for his family in the U.S. as inspiration for her own strong work ethic and drive. It was that drive that led her first to a career in insurance at American International Group (AIG), and eventually all the way to Rice Business. Since pivoting from insurance into consulting, Rzan has put her Rice MBA to use as a senior director at Alvarez & Marsal, where she's helping companies solve tough problems. Rzan chats with co-host Brian Jackson '21 about how her father's pursuit of the American dream inspired her, the critical skills she picked up at AIG, why she was drawn to the Professional MBA program and how her experience at Rice has left a mark on her forever. Episode Guide:00:00 Introduction to Rzan Yunus01:00 Early Life and Family Influence05:39 Career Beginnings at AIG09:40 Pursuing an MBA at Rice18:28 Transition to Consulting23:07 Current Role and Consulting Insights35:40 Balancing Career and Personal Life39:46 Conclusion and Final ThoughtsThe Owl Have You Know Podcast is a production of Rice Business and is produced by University FM.Episode Quotes:Finding community, support, and belonging at Rice[12:32] When you learn entrepreneurship, you learn to hustle. You learn to think like an owner, or take  accountability to be resourceful, to drive results. I really appreciated Rice's pathways with other organizations and other companies, particularly consulting. I knew I wanted to explore that eventually and knew that they recruit based on certain programs. And then my favorite thing about Rice, and when I went and visited, is the team and peer atmosphere. You know, you spend so much time at work, but you also spend so much time in this program. And the people that I met and the camaraderie and the collaboration and the fact that you rarely ever achieve anything alone in life. I really wanted to be surrounded with people that were smart and hardworking and capable and collaborative and supportive. Very similar to the support system that I think everybody needs in life to be successful.Why the MBA program was an important investment in Rzan's future.[16:17] My two years in the program, and I think I said this earlier, it really changed my life. I am becoming and am the person now that I never thought I could have been 10 years ago, 15 years ago. I mean, the program is hard. It's a top MBA program for a reason. Balancing school and your personal life is difficult. Working full-time while earning an MBA is not a casual commitment, but it's the most important step that you can take to invest in yourself. Surround yourself with people that reflect the ambition and the dedication that is contagious. Why she chose to pivot to consulting[19:11] I chose consulting because I loved the variety of work that they got to do, you know, in every year, and this was something that really attracted me to it when I was meeting with people from Alvarez & Marsal. You know, you work in different industries and different projects. One year you might be doing a transformation for a media company. The next, working on a financial services operational improvement. The following year on a manufacturing cost reduction. And I think that continuous learning really appealed to me.Show Links: TranscriptGuest Profile:Rzan Yunus | LinkedInRzan Yunus | Rice Business

All Else Equal: Making Better Decisions
Ep70 "The Science Behind Why We Don't Just Say What We Mean" with Psychologist Steven Pinker - Part 2

All Else Equal: Making Better Decisions

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 7, 2026 23:46


In the final part of this two-part interview, Steven Pinker, an experimental psychologist and Harvard professor, again joins hosts and finance professors Jonathan Berk and Jules van Binsbergen to discuss his new book When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows: Common Knowledge and the Mysteries of Money, Power, and Everyday Life.In this episode, Jonathan and Jules break down more revelatory examples from Steven's book that demonstrate how common knowledge is a first order explanatory variable for how humans behave. They also explore the role common knowledge plays in financial markets, particularly when it comes to speculative trading, and examine common knowledge in an academic freedom sense, highlighting the delicate balance between promoting open debate and safeguarding societal norms.  Find All Else Equal on the web: https://lauder.wharton.upenn.edu/allelse/All Else Equal: Making Better Decisions Podcast is a production of the UPenn Wharton Lauder Institute through University FM. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

unSILOed with Greg LaBlanc
609. The Evolution of Science: From Natural Philosophy to Modern Understanding feat. Peter Dear

unSILOed with Greg LaBlanc

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 5, 2026 45:09


What was the role of experimentation in early science? How did past scientific paradigms continue to influence current scientific discourse? What is the utility of understanding the history of science for modern scientists?Peter Dear is a professor emeritus of history at Cornell University, and the author of several books, including The World as We Know It: From Natural Philosophy to Modern Science and Discipline and Experience: The Mathematical Way in the Scientific Revolution.Greg and Peter discuss the evolution of science from natural philosophy, addressing how scientific progress is not simply a linear journey towards greater knowledge. Peter talks about the transformative periods like the Renaissance and the scientific revolution, and the debate over the definition and significance of terms like 'scientific revolution.' They also explore how today's scientific practices are deeply rooted in 19th-century developments. Their conversation also covers the historical context behind Newton's and Darwin's work among other famous scientists throughout history.*unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*Episode Quotes:The two “registers” of science09:50: Science nowadays, and through the course of the last, well, developing over the last two centuries, really in the 19th and 20th centuries, science is still talked of as if it were a naturaln actual philosophy, even if that term is not used very much anymore. Science is sometimes regarded as something that is about understanding the universe, understanding the natural world as if it is an intellectual enterprise and just an intellectual enterprise. And at the same time, it is also regarded as something that is practically useful, practically valuable, and these two different registers for talking about science, I think, sort of ride alongside one another and switch back and forth depending on how it is that people want to represent any particular kind of knowledge.The birth of experimentation22:23: One of the things about experimentation, is that it was a matter of developing practices, procedures for generating knowledge claims about nature that were different from the ways in which experience had been used, particularly in Aristotelian or quasi-Aristotelian context, to talk about the behavior of nature. Experiments are a particular way of understanding what experience is useful for in making sense of the world.The twin dimensions of science40:30: I think all scientists have always relied on the twin dimensions of science, the fact that science can be regarded as an actual philosophy when it's talking about the way things are, and the fact that science can be regarded as, or talked about in terms of, instrumentality. When you are focusing on the capabilities, the practical capabilities, the particular ideas and procedures enable you to do, and at different times and places, scientists will sometimes play up the natural philosophy side of things and at other times play up the instrumentality side of things, depending on what it is interested in talking about at the time. But I think everyone, all scientists, regard those as both essential elements, so to speak, of what scientific inquiry is all about.Show Links:Recommended Resources:Scientific RevolutionFrancis BaconParacelsusAristotleNicolaus CopernicusGalileo GalileiIsaac NewtonRené DescartesRobert BoyleTaxonomyCharles LyellAlbert EinsteinThomas KuhnGuest Profile:Academia PapersProfessors Emeriti List at Cornell UniversityGuest Work:Amazon Author PageThe World as We Know It: From Natural Philosophy to Modern ScienceRevolutionizing the Sciences: European Knowledge in Transition, 1500-1700Revolutionizing the Sciences: European Knowledge and Its Ambitions, 1500-1700Discipline and Experience: The Mathematical Way in the Scientific RevolutionThe Intelligibility of Nature: How Science Makes Sense of the WorldMersenne and the Learning of the SchoolsResearchGate Page Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

unSILOed with Greg LaBlanc
608. Why Imperfection Is Core to Being Human feat. Laurence D. Hurst

unSILOed with Greg LaBlanc

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 22, 2025 56:22


While evolution is often thought to be conducive to perfect adaptation, there are plenty of reasons why we never get there. Laurence D. Hurst is a professor of evolutionary genetics in the Milner Centre for Evolution at the University of Bath. His book, The Evolution of Imperfection: The Science of Why We Aren't and Can't Be Perfect is an expansive look into the imperfections of the human genome and why humans seem to be predisposed to so much bad genetic luck. Laurence and Greg explore the evolutionary constraints that lead to imperfections, how population size affects mutation rates, the advancements in gene therapy, and why imperfection could be key to a deeper understanding of evolution. *unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*Episode Quotes:Why humans have such bad genetic luck07:13: We have good reason to think that humans are far from being as fit as they might be. We have a very high mutation rate. We've got one of the highest mutation rates going, for example, and most mutations are deleterious. Most of the time, five to 10% of us will have a rare genetic disorder, for example. And we could be better. We could be a lot, lot, lot better.Medicine is anti-evolution47:17: Medicine is anti-evolution. Evolution is why we keep on having these genetic diseases, and medicine goes, well, you might have them, but we are going to stop them having their effects.Childbirth is more dangerous than the most dangerous job in America12:13: Childbirth is, for humans, a spectacularly dangerous pursuit. There was a lovely survey done by Forbes Magazine of America's most dangerous jobs, and it turns out nothing comes close to childbirth. Childbirth is an order of magnitude more dangerous than America's most dangerous job.Show Links:Recommended Resources:10 Most Dangerous U.S. Careers Heading Into 2025, Study Reveals | ForbesNearly neutral theory of molecular evolutionHe JiankuiGuest Profile:Faculty Profile at University of BathProfessional WebsiteMilner Centre Profile on XGuest Work:The Evolution of Imperfection: The Science of Why We Aren't and Can't Be Perfect Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

unSILOed with Greg LaBlanc
607. Navigating Gender Equality and Patriarchy in the Modern Workplace feat. Cordelia Fine

unSILOed with Greg LaBlanc

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 18, 2025 54:53


How can organizations make more equitable changes to their internal norms and structures, to promote fairness over merely seeking profit? What are alternate ways to tackle the difference in agreeableness that underpins many professional gaps between men and women?Cordelia Fine is a professor in the history and philosophy of science department at University of Melbourne, as well as the author of several books, including Patriarchy Inc.: What We Get Wrong About Gender Equality and Why Men Still Win at Work, Delusions of Gender: How Our Minds, Society, and Neurosexism Create Difference, and Testosterone Rex: Myths of Sex, Science, and Society.Greg and Cordelia discuss the complexities surrounding gender equality, including the contested reasons for wage differences and occupational gaps between men and women. Cordelia critiques the traditional and evolving gender norms, explains her stance on DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) strategies, and advocates for more nuanced, context-aware approaches to addressing gender disparities. She challenges oversimplified evolutionary psychology narratives and underscores the importance of understanding the cultural evolution of gender roles. *unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*Episode Quotes:Why valuing women isn't enough52:52: You can say pretty words about valuing the feminine. Oh, you know, women are great. They're so wonderful. They're so empathic and collaborative and participative, and they're really good at building people. But you can't just say that—you have to actually change your organizations so that you literally put your money where your mouth is, so that is what is actually being rewarded.Redefining patriarchy10:37: There's a sort of assumption that when we talk about patriarchy, we're just talking about the harm to girls and women. Its long been recognized, I think, in feminism that often men and certain groups of men do also face harms in that kind of system that's keeping some men on top.Why our ideas about sex differences often get it wrong20:58: I do think we have to be careful about looking at our—first of all, making assumptions about what sex differences actually are—because they're often, you know, a huge amount of overlap, contingent depending on the context and the cues. But also, to then project that back into our ancestral past without taking a kind of wider look at societies beyond the weird populations—Western, educated, industrialized, rich, democratic.Show Links:Recommended Resources:Cecilia L. RidgewayCailin O'ConnorThe Making of the Modern FamilyDavid BenatarLeonora RisseHILDA SurveyNancy FraserGuest Profile:Faculty Profile at the University of MelbourneCordelia-Fine.comWikipedia ProfileLinkedIn ProfileSocial Profile on InstagramGuest Work:Amazon Author PagePatriarchy Inc.: What We Get Wrong About Gender Equality and Why Men Still Win at WorkDelusions of Gender: How Our Minds, Society, and Neurosexism Create DifferenceTestosterone Rex: Myths of Sex, Science, and SocietyA Mind of Its Own: How Your Brain Distorts and DeceivesGoogle Scholar PageRelated Unsiloed Episode:Claudia Goldin - Understanding the Gender Wage Gap Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

unSILOed with Greg LaBlanc
606. The Great Myth of The New Deal & Its Lingering Economic Impact feat. George Selgin

unSILOed with Greg LaBlanc

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 15, 2025 55:13


Despite its long-held place in history as the lynchpin of America's recovery from the Great Depression, what if the New Deal did more to hinder the country's recovery than help it? George Selgin is a professor emeritus of economics at the University of Georgia and former director of the Center on Monetary and Financial Alternatives at the Cato Institute. His books like, False Dawn: The New Deal and the Promise of Recovery and Floored!: How a Misguided Fed Experiment Deepened and Prolonged the Great Recession, examine macroeconomic theories through the lens of key moments in monetary history. In this conversation, Greg and George dive deep into the inner workings of The Great Depression, covering the biggest misconceptions surrounding the New Deal's role in ending the crisis, why many of President Roosevelt's policies were counterproductive, and how pre-existing, international factors impacted the U.S.'s recovery.*unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*Episode Quotes:The myth of New Deal wisdom47:17: The thing that people have to remember when they are inclined to think, oh, you know, we need to look back at the New Deal and all the wonderful things they did to end the Depression. They knew so much, you know, they had all these experiments. No. We know a lot more about how to fight recessions and depressions than they did because we know that fiscal and monetary stimulus are our best hopes. And those were two things that the Roosevelt administration did not put much, if any, emphasis upon. And that, of course, just hearing that should give a lot of people second thoughts about how helpful the New Deal was. They did a lot of stuff, but they did not do the main thing we rely on now. The main things, they did not promote monetary stimulus, and they did not promote fiscal stimulus except somewhat, reluctantly.Keynes vs. the New Dealers59:39: I certainly believe that if Keynes's advice had been followed instead of what the New Dealers did, that the Depression would have ended much sooner than it did in the United States. The downside of "bold experimentation"35:56: Roosevelt made two statements that were probably the least, the two main unambiguous things he said, one of which turned out to be a very accurate description of what his administration would end up doing. And the other one of which would be a very inaccurate statement. This is all in the course of the campaign. The accurate statement was when he said that his administration planned to go about addressing the Depression through bold experimentation. And that is absolutely true. There was a lot of trial and error. And the problem is, as I say in my book, you know, the problem with bold experiments is they often fail.On war clouds and gold flows45:41: What keeps gold flowing in for the rest of the decade, and more and more of it as time goes on, is Hitler's rise to power and the, the gatherings war clouds that eventually have many, many Europeans thinking, I do not think this is place, this place is safe for our gold. And as long as they could, taking it and shipping it to the United States, where now after the suspension of the gold standard and the devaluation, the treasury alone is buying all the gold.Show Links:Recommended Resources:John Maynard KeynesFranklin D. RooseveltHerbert Hoover Henry Ford Alexander J. Field James Bradford DeLong Guest Profile:Faculty Profile at University of Georgia Professional Profile at the Cato InstituteProfessional Profile on LinkedInProfile on XGuest Work:False Dawn: The New Deal and the Promise of Recovery, 1933–1947 Floored!: How a Misguided Fed Experiment Deepened and Prolonged the Great RecessionMoney: Free and Unfree Less Than Zero: The Case for a Falling Price Level in a Growing EconomyThe Menace of Fiscal QE  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

unSILOed with Greg LaBlanc
605. The Intersection of Children's Rights and Our Legal System's Flaws feat. Adam Benforado

unSILOed with Greg LaBlanc

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 11, 2025 52:58


How does our legal system treat children today, and how do policies affecting their parents and communities cascade down to shape their lives? What forces create a pipeline to criminalization, and what would it take to break that cycle for the children who come next?Adam Benforado is a professor of law at Drexel University and the author of two books titled A Minor Revolution: How Prioritizing Kids Benefits Us All and Unfair: The New Science of Criminal Injustice.Greg and Adam discuss the deep-seated flaws in the US legal system, including cognitive biases and heuristics affecting legal professionals, and how historical assumptions about human behavior shape legal decision-making. Their discussion explores why the legal system is resistant to integrating behavioral sciences, and the impact of punitive criminal justice policies on society, especially children. Adam highlights the juxtaposition between overparented, affluent children and under-resourced, marginalized youth, advocating for evidence-based, preventative approaches to social issues rather than reactionary legal interventions. There are broader societal implications of legal practices and Adam stresses the importance of prioritizing children's rights now for a more equitable future.*unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*Episode Quotes:A different way to look at crime16:49: I think there's a really different way to look at crime, which is that everything is situational. It's a result of genes and environment. And of course society can play around with those things and make crime go up or go down. And so, you know, I think in this book, one of my hopes with doing it was honestly to provoke people to try to think about things that they think they know so well. And crime is one thing we think we know so well in our lives, but I think here we have to understand different countries, different people over time have taken very different approaches. And it is not that somehow, you know, people living in these cultures are fundamentally different. I've been to these other countries, and I would say humans actually are surprisingly similar. And what's different though in our country is how we approach it.Judges are human too07:30: I think the social science that we've accumulated literally over decades now tells a very different story, which is that judges are human beings, like all the rest of us. And so we need to be just as aware of potential biases that are coming into their judgments and decision making as everyone else.Where you're born shapes who you become43:12: We promise economic, socioeconomic mobility. But if you look at it, right, if you're in that bottom quintile of family income versus that top quintile of family income, in many ways your trajectory, no matter how inherently smart you are at third grade, a lot of that's already tracked out simply based on all of that investment that wealthy parents are gonna make over the course of that young person's childhood. And that's both positive enrichment, but it's also when kids, a lot of kids get into trouble. Something doesn't work, they're struggling in math, or they hit a kid in school, or they get sick. What happens, right? If you have wealthy parents, those problems get addressed and you get many second chances. If you're a poor kid, you don't.Show Links:Recommended Resources:Jon D. HansonConvention on the Rights of the ChildEmily OsterTrial by OrdealGuest Profile:AdamBenforado.comFaculty Profile at Drexel UniversityProfile on LinkedInSocial Profile on XGuest Work:Amazon Author PageA Minor Revolution: How Prioritizing Kids Benefits Us AllUnfair: The New Science of Criminal InjusticeGoogle Scholar Page Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Owl Have You Know
Building a Career One Flight at a Time feat. Liam Morris '23

Owl Have You Know

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 10, 2025 34:05


Liam Morris '23 manages one of the most complex corners of United Airlines — airport operations quality control across more than 80 stations spanning Latin America, Central America and the Southwest U.S. In this conversation, he shares how early travel experiences opened the door to a career in aviation, the path that led him from loading bags in El Paso to overseeing global safety audits, and what it takes to lead with precision, clarity and calm under pressure.Liam also reflects on United's customer-centric transformation, the moments that shaped his commitment to the industry, and how the Rice Online MBA gave him the flexibility and confidence to grow as a leader while navigating an ever-moving, always-on operational world.Episode Guide:00:00 Introduction to Aviation and Role at United Airlines00:29 Ensuring Safety and Compliance in Airport Operations02:56 Passion for Aviation and Early Influences06:08 Managing Multiple Stations and Time Zones08:00 Why United Airlines Stands Out12:16 Best Flight Experience and Customer Insights13:54 Decision to Pursue an MBA at Rice19:58 Mutual Learning and Decision Making22:27 Leadership Growth and Student Association26:47 Career Journey and Future Goals30:02 Travel Tips and Flying Etiquette37:19 Conclusion and FarewellThe Owl Have You Know Podcast is a production of Rice Business and is produced by University FM.Episode QuotesFrom cleaning planes to leading global operations25:34: I never, ever envisioned that I would be where I'm at now, and I can honestly say from when I was a business partner with United — cleaning aircraft and loading bags for another company, right — but working the United product, I never had a plan to get to where I was. My internship with United came up out of nowhere, and I moved to Jersey. Then, midsummer, I got a full-time offer to stay, and I transferred schools. You know, at the very last minute, I went up to Rutgers from UT El Paso. And then, you know, an opportunity came to transfer to Dallas, and there I ended up. You know, our CEO lives there. Ended up meeting him and a lot of executives all the time, and my name got out there really great. And then I came down to Houston to go to Rice as an assistant manager here in the airport. Then I finished my B.A. and went into the current role that I'm at, which is safety and regulatory. I can honestly say I never really had a plan to get where I was, but I'm thankful that I was always willing to walk through the door, because every single opportunity that I've had — both promotion and a lateral — was a great move, and it was such an instrumental, pivotal move.On being part of something bigger than yourself04:06: I wanted the ability to be in an industry where I am a part of something bigger, right? And being a part of an airline is really cool because even though, you know, my work now may not directly affect a flight leaving on time out of here, it does affect the customer experience some way. So I just wanted to be a part of a really, really big machine that gets people where they need to go.Show Links: TranscriptGuest Profile:Liam Morris | LinkedIn

Beyond the Hedges
Innovating the Future: Taking on Forever Chemicals with Coflux Purification feat. Alec Ajnsztajn and Jeremy Daum

Beyond the Hedges

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 10, 2025 41:57


We recorded a special episode of Beyond the Hedges live at Alumni Weekend where host David Mansouri got a chance to have a conversation with Rice alums and PhDs in material science and nanoengineering Alec Ajnsztajn and Jeremy Daum about their exciting new undertaking, complete with questions from the audience.Alec and Jeremy are co-founders of Coflux Purification, a company that grew out of the Rice Office of Innovation, and now does pioneering work with forever chemicals, or PFAS. They explain the major health and environmental risks posed by PFAS as well as their innovative solution that combines capture and destruction of these chemicals using covalent organic frameworks and light. Jeremy and Alec also recount their academic and professional journeys, including the collaboration and support they've received from Rice University's campus resources along the way. They close the discussion with talking about the future and the potential long-term impact of their technology, followed by a question and answer session with audience members, offering advice for other budding entrepreneurs at Rice.Let us know you're listening by filling out this form. We will be sending listeners Beyond the Hedges Swag every month.Episode Guide:00:00 Welcome and Introduction 01:26 Understanding Forever Chemicals02:24 The Health Impact of PFAS05:23 Alec's Journey: From Infrastructure to Innovation07:26 Jeremy's Path: From Rail Guns to Nanotechnology09:37 The Birth of Coflux Purification13:37 The Innovation Fellowship and Early Funding20:59 Simplifying the PFAS Treatment Process21:34 Future Promise of PFAS Technology23:55 Support from Rice University31:09 Questions from the Audience31:26 Regulatory Framework and Challenges34:29 Implementation and Cost Considerations38:09 Rapid Fire Questions41:39 Conclusion and Final ThoughtsBeyond The Hedges is a production of Rice University and is produced by University FM.Episode Quotes:Making a real impact with nanotechnology08:27: [Jeremy Daum]  A lot of this nanotechnology is fantastic at doing the best at anything it's ever done at it before. But can you make enough of it to be useful is always the question. And so my research has always been focused on, well, let's make enough of it so that someone can do something with it. So I actually then. Took that, and that's when the first project that Alec and I worked on here at Rice Together was how we can mass produce the material. That's actually now the fundamental part of our technology. So I've always been wanting to build stuff. I love making reactors. My job in the lab is I've made about five different reactors in the last two weeks. It's been fantastic. But kind of just this whole thing of how can we take this technology that I know can do so much? How can we make it big enough and fast enough that it can make it real impact in people's lives? And it just so happened that the hammer fit the nail that this stuff is really good at dealing with BFOS.The Forever in “forever” chemicals01:39: [Jeremy Daum] So PFAS, or Forever Chemicals, they are a type of microplastic, though. They are more like your Teflon stuff that you use every day, stuff that your grandparents have been using since like the forties. They're incredibly robust. They're hydrophobic. They are chemically resistant. They're great in places that you need something to just not wear away, but when you use those kind of products and you throw them out, that plastic, that Teflon doesn't go away. It goes into landfills, and then it gets into the environment. And that's what makes it so insidious, because the reason why they're called forever chemicals is because they have a half-life of about 40,000 years. So anything we made back in the forties is still going around today. Understanding the history of the problem23:09: [Alec Ajnsztajn]  I consider myself to be a polymer scientist in the forties and fifties, we spent a lot of fun time doing a lot of fun chemistry, and didn't really think through how a lot of that chemistry wound up Show Links:Lilie Lab | RiceOffice of Innovation | RiceRice AlumniAssociation of Rice Alumni | FacebookRice Alumni (@ricealumni) | X (Twitter)Association of Rice Alumni (@ricealumni) | Instagram Host Profiles:David Mansouri | LinkedInDavid Mansouri '07 | Alumni | Rice UniversityDavid Mansouri (@davemansouri) | XDavid Mansouri | TNScoreGuest Profiles:Coflux PurificationAlec Ajnsztajn | Rice ProfileAlec Ajnsztajn | LinkedIn ProfileAlec Ajnsztajn | Google Scholar PageJeremy Daum | LinkedIn ProfileJeremy Daum | Google Scholar Page

unSILOed with Greg LaBlanc
604. The Intersection of Philosophy and Suffering: From the Stoics to Modernity feat. Scott Samuelson

unSILOed with Greg LaBlanc

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 8, 2025 54:47


Is the point of life to minimize suffering, or to understand and embrace it on some level? How do different belief structures view the ideal human response to negative situations? Is there a degree of suffering that would be bearable in order to enable something pleasurable that could offset it?Scott Samuelson is a professor of philosophy at Iowa State University and also the author of several books, Rome as a Guide to the Good Life: A Philosophical Grand Tour, The Deepest Human Life: An Introduction to Philosophy for Everyone, and Seven Ways of Looking at Pointless Suffering: What Philosophy Can Tell Us About the Hardest Mystery of All.Greg and Scott discuss the universal accessibility of philosophy, the role of suffering in human life, and the balance between fixing and facing suffering. Scott shares his experiences teaching philosophy in prisons and how men in prison viewed suffering from different perspectives. He also explores the philosophical implications of thinkers like Epictetus, Nietzsche, and John Stuart Mill. Their conversation touches on the themes of modernity, the significance of facing suffering, and finding meaning in both joy and pain. *unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*Episode Quotes:Philosophy begins with wonder and deepens through suffering04:26: I think there's a kind of built-in wonder in all of us. But I also think, and this goes to the suffering book, that another thing that tends to make philosophers out of everyone is suffering. There's something about suffering that kind of blows our minds. I mean, a certain amount of suffering seems to make some sense. I mean, it makes some sense that my hand, you know, feels pain when it gets near a fire so that I protect myself. But almost everyone has experiences where someone dies prematurely, or where perhaps they suffer pain that just doesn't add up, like a migraine headache. Or we look at the world and see great injustice, and it's hard not to be a human and start to ask philosophical questions in the face of that—to start to wonder what's going on here. You know, why is this happening? Sometimes, why me? And as I've had a chance to teach a really wide variety of people over the years, I've found that they all—it's without exception—people feel these questions quite deeply inside them.How philosophy provides us space to face life's hard questions05:27: One of the beautiful things that philosophy can do is provide a space that kind of dignifies that part of us that is asking these questions and thinking about it. And so even when philosophy can't necessarily provide all the answers to the questions, there's something powerful just about being in that space where you're facing those questions.Why suffering is part of being human10:38: We, of course, are going to kind of combat suffering in some ways, shape, or form. But at the same time, it seems like we have to learn to face it and be open to it and to accept it and to see it as just a part of life rather than as a foreign invader of what it means to be human. And that when we do that, we open ourselves up to the adventure of being human. We had opened ourselves up to, you know, the possibilities of real growth and finding meaning. And a lot of people, when they come out the other side of difficult experiences, have a kind of weird sense that that was a very valuable and important thing, even something they're grateful for. Even though, at the same time, it's not that they wish that it happened, but they're grateful that it has become part of their story and their life. And so when we can do that, I think we're kind of living better lives overall.Show Links:Recommended Resources:William JamesPlato's ApologyAlexis de TocquevilleAleksandr SolzhenitsynSusan NeimanEpictetusStoicismBeing MortalJohn Stuart MillUtilitarianismWhen Breath Becomes AirFriedrich NietzscheEichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of EvilGuest Profile:Faculty Profile at Iowa State UniversityScottSamuelsonAuthor.comProfile on WikipediaGuest Work:Amazon Author PageRome as a Guide to the Good Life: A Philosophical Grand TourThe Deepest Human Life: An Introduction to Philosophy for EveryoneSeven Ways of Looking at Pointless Suffering: What Philosophy Can Tell Us About the Hardest Mystery of All Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

OneHaas
Dean Jennifer Chatman, PhD 88 – Leading the Haas School of Business Into a Bright Future

OneHaas

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 4, 2025 41:02 Transcription Available


On this special episode of OneHaas, Dr. Jennifer Chatman, Dean of the Haas School of Business, shares her career journey and her hopes for the future of Haas. Dean Chatman is not just a double bear, with an undergraduate degree and PhD from Haas, but has called UC Berkeley's campus home for most of her life. In this interview, she chats with host Sean Li about growing up in an academic family, how her father, a Berkeley professor, inspired her to pursue a life of learning, how following her curiosity led to a pioneering career studying organizational culture, the enduring relevance of Haas' defining leadership principles, and why she thinks the future of Haas is very bright indeed.  *OneHaas Alumni Podcast is a production of Haas School of Business and is produced by University FM.*Episode Quotes:On passing the baton from one Berkeley professor to another“ So I remember being out here just before I was about to start and my dad was just about to retire. We had lunch somewhere on campus and we were sitting on the steps of Harmon gym… and a student walks by and looks up and says, ‘Hi, Professor Chatman.' And my dad looks at this student and he looks again. He said, ‘I don't recognize that student.' I said, ‘Yeah, Dad, that's one of mine.' So that was the official passing of the baton.”On finding a passion early on for social psychology“ I've always been fascinated by social interaction. And I remember in high school…I always loved to type up surveys and then I would go give them to people. I'd give them to my parents, I'd give them to my sisters. I'd give it to my friends, like, what did you have for breakfast? And, you know, A, B, C, or D. Right? And, I just found that sort of calculating of what people were doing and what were the similarities across people and what were the ways in which they diverged. I found both of those things very, very interesting.”On the importance of trusting and leaning into your curiosity “ I think the advice is trust your curiosity and trust what gets you excited and passionate and figure out a way to lean into it, and develop a pathway that involves the things that kind of get you up in the morning. You know, career paths are very, very long and you wanna be doing something that's interesting to you. That gives you energy and it's actually something I really admire and love about our Haas students. There is not one Haas student that I've ever run into who is anything less than completely fascinating. Every single one of our students is interesting. They have a unique and distinctive story. They have really wide ranging interests. I find it just a profound distinction that we're privileged to have this community of super interesting, passionate students.”On her hopes for the future of Haas “ I just think that this is a really incredible moment for our school and we're so full of ideas and our students are so capable and eager and brilliant. They are defining the future and I think that our humanity as well as our skills in leveraging technology, but it's our humanity that's going to allow us to flourish into the future. And I'm just really excited about that.”Show Links:LinkedIn ProfileHaas ProfileProfessional WebsiteSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/onehaas/donations

unSILOed with Greg LaBlanc
603.  How to Engineer Serendipity in Your Life, Your Organization and Your Community feat. David Cleevely

unSILOed with Greg LaBlanc

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 4, 2025 53:42


What are the nuances of organizational design and risk-taking? What are the roles of both curiosity and trust in fostering an environment ripe for innovation? How can you create serendipity intentionally, and harness its power for your organization?David Cleevely is a British entrepreneur and international telecoms expert who has built and advised many companies, principally in Cambridge, UK. He is also the author of the new book Serendipity: It Doesn't Happen By Accident. Greg and David discuss the concept of engineered serendipity, which involves designing environments and life trajectories that optimize the occurrence of fortunate coincidences. David explains how places like Cambridge, Silicon Valley, and 18th-century Birmingham fostered innovative ecosystems. They explore how engineered structures can increase the likelihood of beneficial outcomes, the role of key individuals in creating networks, and the importance of interdisciplinary interactions. *unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*Episode Quotes:How can we engineer serendipity?04:23: The thing that we need to do is look at how did those things actually happen? Why did they happen? And is it possible to get some general principles out of this, some insights, so that instead of just relying on chance to do it for us, we can change the odds. And really, serendipity does not act by accident. It is about changing the odds.Randomness in strategy29:09: You need an element of randomness in strategy. So you need to have things that are highly focused, and you need some things that are going to be cross-disciplinary and completely wacky. And you will need different proportions of those.Creating environments for good things to happen02:27: I think we need to do some research, and it's properly cross-disciplinary, 'cause it involves network science, it involves behavioral psychology stuff, all of these things that we need to understand how this stuff actually works. We've been taking this stuff for granted, and actually we need to not just go, oh, that's interesting, and then move on. No, actually we need to investigate this stuff and think, how can we actually create environments in which good things are more likely to happen?Show Links:Recommended Resources:Lunar Society of BirminghamFriedrich HayekStuart KauffmanSanta Fe InstitutePriestley RiotsNapoleonic WarsCambridge WirelessCambridge AngelsACAMSteve JobsDunbar's NumberNicholas ChristakisPride and PrejudiceJohn Maynard SmithGuest Profile:Chemify LimitedWikipedia ProfileLinkedIn ProfileCleevely & PartnersTrinity Hall ProfileCambridge Ahead ProfileGuest Work:ConductingSerendipity.comSerendipity: It Doesn't Happen By Accident Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

unSILOed with Greg LaBlanc
602. Books: The Original Hardware for Knowledge feat. Joel J. Miller

unSILOed with Greg LaBlanc

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 1, 2025 47:01


If ideas and knowledge are the software, then books have always been the longest-running hardware.Author and former publishing executive Joel J. Miller's latest book, The Idea Machine: How Books Built Our World and Shape Our Future, delves into the history and evolution of books as a physical technology for idea transmission.Joel and Greg discuss the book's origins from ancient times with Socrates and Plato, to the development of the codex, and the impact of modern digital reading. Joel also shares insights from his experiences in the publishing industry, the importance of physical books in shaping thought, the role of metadata in organizing knowledge, and predictions about the future of books in an increasingly digital world.*unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*Episode Quotes:Books are hardware for knowledge09:09: I read someone say essentially this definition of a machine, that it is an assembly of parts that are, you know, designed to produce a particular end. And I do think that there is both institutional and cultural kind of degradation of that. And I thought that is what a book does. A book is a thing that is designed to help produce a particular outcome, which looks like a number of things, but one of them is to develop elaborate schemes of thought that would not be able to exist outside of that physical format. If you did not have the physical thing, the hardware, like you said, if you did not have that, the software would not matter because you do not actually have the ability to take all these elaborate thoughts that we have and hold them in our minds. Our working memory is too short, the ability to go back and revisit and revise is non-existent more or less. And so writing enabled us to develop ideas, and we access those through books.Books as vessels of ideas13:24: Ideas live in books. Whether they're arguments, like it's history, it's someone explicating a topic, or it is a novel where somebody is accessing, you know, a kind of a window on another self or things like that. The book is always there to do that for us.On metadata, organization, and libraries as knowledge systems25:16: Data is every bit as wild and unruly, and humans have been trying to figure out ways of getting it under control since the beginning, because we create more information than we can even use. We always have. And the ability to go use a library effectively requires some kind of scheme of organization in order to make it, to make things findable. And so we see that not only in the micro case of a single book, but we can see it blown out across an entire library where people have discovered ways of making ideas findable within them. And at every stage, as the technology has advanced, the job has gotten more complicated and also more interesting because the solutions emerge from that technology that enables us to get even better solutions to the problem.Show Links:Recommended Resources:Maxwell PerkinsHenry Regnery SeptuagintJustin MartyrI. A. RichardsIrenaeusGalenHernando Colon (Ferdinand Columbus)Paul OtletVannevar BushGuest Profile:Staff Profile at Full FocusProfessional WebsiteFocus on This podcastGuest Work:The Idea Machine: How Books Built Our World and Shape Our Future Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

unSILOed with Greg LaBlanc
601. King Dollar: The Enduring Dominance of the US Currency feat. Paul Blustein

unSILOed with Greg LaBlanc

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 27, 2025 52:17


How did the US Dollar become the dominant currency internationally? What keeps other currencies, fiat or crypto, from displacing the dollar's role? Does the aggressive use of sanctions by the US Government put the dollar's role at risk?Paul Blustein is with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, as well as an author and journalist. He has written several books including his latest work King Dollar: The Past and Future of the World's Dominant Currency and previous works, Off Balance: The Travails of Institutions That Govern the Global Financial System, And the Money Kept Rolling In (and Out) Wall Street, the IMF, and the Bankrupting of Argentina, and Laid Low: Inside the Crisis That Overwhelmed Europe and the IMF.Greg and Paul discuss the reasons behind the US dollar's dominance in global finance, its historical roots stemming from the Bretton Woods Agreement, and the challenges posed by international crises and economic policies. Paul also discusses the role and limitations of the IMF, the geopolitical implications of using the dollar as a financial weapon, and the potential impact of emerging currencies and digital threats. The episode concludes with insights into the phenomena of dollarization and how various economic strategies, including those of China and Russia, intersect with the enduring power of the US dollar.*unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*Episode Quotes:How the U.S. discovered the power of financial sanctions21:00: No longer was it just going to be the drug lords and, you know, in Colombia and places like that, it was now the government was gonna crack down on terrorists. And so the Treasury, OFAC, the Office of Foreign Assets Control, began doing some of that. And they realized that by cutting off banks abroad from access to the dollar system, that correspondent banking system we were just talking about, that, you know, things could really go boom. They could pose a death sentence on banks. And as they began to realize the power of that, they then applied it in the case of North Korea in 2005. And they were absolutely astonished to discover that this really worked. You could really have a big effect on North Korea's financial system by cutting off banks. It was—they went after a bank in Macau that had been—and then they were off to the races. They could use this similar kind of weaponry on Iran and other adversariesResponsible vs irresponsible use of dollar power25:29: You have this power with a dollar; if we use it responsibly, it can be a very good power. And if we use it irresponsibly, it's a bad power. And that's the way I like to look at it.How U.S.–China sanction scenarios are actually gamed out51:59: Some of the hawks in, you know, you don't hear so much from these guys anymore, but the hawks in Congress have tried to game some of these out. You know, I go into this in one of the chapters of the book about how they, you know, they had a red team and a blue team, and they thought, well, we can, you know, we just have done this—imposed drastic sanctions on Russia. So if there's an invasion of Taiwan, here's what we do. And they, I think, have discovered that if you have a really knowledgeable red team playing the Chinese Communist Party, they can come up with a lot, a lot of things that, it preserves Taiwanese democracy but doesn't have us at each other's throats.Show Links:Recommended Resources:United States DollarEuroRenminbiReserve CurrencyNetwork EffectBretton Woods SystemJohn Maynard KeynesHarry Dexter WhiteHerbert SteinFederal ReserveInternational Monetary Fund (IMF)SWIFTEuroclearFiat MoneyXi JinpingShadow FleetGuest Profile:PaulBlustein.comProfessional Profile for CSISLinkedIn ProfileSocial Profile on XGuest Work:Amazon Author PageKing Dollar: The Past and Future of the World's Dominant CurrencyOff Balance: The Travails of Institutions That Govern the Global Financial SystemAnd the Money Kept Rolling In (and Out) Wall Street, the IMF, and the Bankrupting of ArgentinaThe Chastening: Inside The Crisis That Rocked The Global Financial System And Humbled The IMFMisadventures of the Most Favored Nations: Clashing Egos, Inflated Ambitions, and the Great Shambles of the World Trade SystemLaid Low: Inside the Crisis That Overwhelmed Europe and the IMFSchism: China, America, and the Fracturing of the Global Trading System Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Owl Have You Know
Bringing AI to All feat. Allison Knight '10

Owl Have You Know

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 26, 2025 30:41


As the youngest founder in her Rice MBA cohort, Allison Knight '10 knows a thing or two about blazing a trail. At just 24 years old, she co-founded Rebellion Photonics, which used cutting-edge technology to identify and quantify gas leaks on oil rigs, preventing catastrophic explosions. Knight went on to sell Rebellion Photonics to Honeywell in 2019, and is now codifying blue collar genius through Alaris AI. In this episode, Knight joins host Brian Jackson '21 to discuss how Rebellion Photonics used early AI technology to improve hyperspectral imaging and revolutionize gas leak detection. She also opens up about her experience as a young woman founder in a predominantly male industry, her role as an adjunct professor at Rice Business and why she believes blue collar work is the next frontier for AI exploration. Episode Guide:00:00 Introduction to Allison Knight01:09 Founding Rebellion Photonics02:25 Challenges and Innovations in Gas Leak Detection03:48 The Role of AI in Rebellion Photonics04:26 Reflections on Being a Young Founder12:44 Lessons From Startup Life16:25 Introducing Alaris AI: AI for Blue Collar Workers23:35 Teaching AI at Rice Business27:52 The Future of AI in the Workforce32:44 Final Thoughts and ReflectionsThe Owl Have You Know Podcast is a production of Rice Business and is produced by University FM.Episode Quotes:On being a young entrepreneur12:17: I was 24. I was the youngest student in the Rice MBA program, and I had gotten a prestigious, semi-prestigious investment banking job that I had accepted. And then I did the thing you're not supposed to do under any circumstances, which is renege on a job. They do not like that. But I am a physicist more than I am an MBA. Science and tech still make me the happiest. So, I ended up, even at Rice, just hanging out with Rice techies, like other applied physicists. Yeah. And it was just too tempting. I knew I should do the investment banking job, but I just could not do it. I had to go for this crazy methane emissions monitoring company. And I loved it.Allison's first AI moment08:31: I think everyone will experience this, and I just happen to experience this 15, 16 years ago. It is your, like, AI moment—that first time where you run some code with AI. We had been trying to do real-time video detecting and imaging gas leaks in real time and kind of making do with it, and they were ugly. But then we brought in AI and started doing very, very, very, very basic machine learning, and it was just like magic, Brian. It was magic.On AI's next frontier17:20: Pretty much across the board, AI really sucks for blue-collar work. With white-collar work, we can just boop, boop, boop—take the generic ChatGPT, and it works beautifully. And that's because we, white-collar workers, have been typing for a long time. We've got all their documents in different folders, new ones, and so it's all been trained on that for the most part. So it's really trained on white-collar documentation and meant for it. Blue-collar documentation—basically, manuals and SOPs—has inherently always been stinky. But more importantly, none of the documentation has been done on what's in their head, what's in the foreman's head, the supervisor's head, or the individual's head. And so, when you don't have that data documented, structured, codified, the AI will be useless.Show Links: Alaris AITranscriptGuest Profile:Allison Knight | Rice BusinessLinkedIn Profile

unSILOed with Greg LaBlanc
600. The Intersection of Business Theory and Practice feat. Jay Barney

unSILOed with Greg LaBlanc

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 24, 2025 63:52


Unlike some other academic fields, the study of business has always had the challenging task of striking a balance between theory and practice. How can theoretical concepts aid business practitioners in real-world situations? And how can business academics expand their understanding of theory through that real-world application?  Jay Barney is a professor of strategic management at the University of Utah David Eccles School of Business. His work, including numerous books, journal articles, and textbooks, has shaped the field of strategy and entrepreneurship for decades. His most recent book is The Secret of Culture Change: How to Build Authentic Stories That Transform Your Organization.Jay and Greg discuss the evolving role of academia in the business world, the historical and current perceptions of business education, and the various theories that underpin strategic management. Barney delves into resource-based theory, the importance of organizational culture, and the intersection of strategy and practical business applications. *unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*Episode Quotes:What really makes a strategy hard to imitate44:56: You're going to have a strategy that's likely to be a source of sustained advantage; you have to figure out how that leverages resources, or capabilities that are socially complex. Why? Because that's harder to imitate, stuff that's developed over long periods of time. That's path dependent. Why? Because that's hard to imitate, or stuff that's costly and ambiguous. Well, you don't know how to develop those capabilities because that makes it hard to imitate. And I can make some empirical predictions that socially complex resources and capabilities should last longer. As long as their value is retained, they should last longer than non–socially complex.Why entrepreneurship is so hard to theorize39:22: Entrepreneurship, one reason that it's under-theorized as a field is because the theory is really hard, because many of the assumptions and attributes that make it possible to theorize in non-entrepreneurial settings do not apply in entrepreneurial settings. And so then we're stuck with this Knightian uncertainty and difficulties associated with that.How strategy escapes the tautology problem46:25: I think that we can avoid the tautology problem by identifying the characteristics that resources and capabilities need to have in order to be sources of sustained advantage. And then, then empirical predictions come out of that. But they do not come out of the tautology, but by definition.Show Links:Recommended Resources:Jay Barney “The Lessons They Didn't Teach You in Business School” | unSILOed Modigliani-Miller TheoremHawthorne EffectNicholas BloomMichael PorterDavid TeeceWilliam H. MecklingMichael C. JensenJensen and Meckling article 76 JFEGuest Profile:Faculty Profile at University of UtahProfessional Profile on LinkedInWebsiteGuest Work:The Secret of Culture Change: How to Build Authentic Stories That Transform Your OrganizationWhat I Didn't Learn in Business School: How Strategy Works in the Real WorldOrganizational Economics: Toward a New Paradigm for Understanding and Studying OrganizationsGaining and Sustaining Competitive AdvantageStrategic Management and Competitive Advantage, Concepts: Concepts and CasesJay Barney | Google Scholar Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

unSILOed with Greg LaBlanc
599. Why Authenticity Might Not Be the Answer feat. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic

unSILOed with Greg LaBlanc

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 20, 2025 52:23


Why might ‘bring your whole self to work' be terrible professional advice, and what should we be thinking about instead? Why does authenticity come into play more now than in previous generations? Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic is a professor of business psychology at University College London and Columbia. He is also the author of several books, including Don't Be Yourself: Why Authenticity Is Overrated (and What to Do Instead), Why Do So Many Incompetent Men Become Leaders?: (And How to Fix It), and The Talent Delusion: Why Data, Not Intuition, Is the Key to Unlocking Human Potential, I, Human: AI, Automation, and the Quest to Reclaim What Makes Us Unique.Greg and Tomas discuss the overemphasis of authenticity in professional and personal settings, the nuanced insights from sociologist Erving Goffman on impression management, and how emotional intelligence often aligns with strategic impression management. Their conversation gets into the impact of AI on human potential and workplace dynamics, as well as the complex interplay between organizational culture and individual behavior, particularly among leaders. *unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*Episode Quotes:Why do people believe authenticity naturally leads to wellbeing and success?03:08: In a world that is obviously not very authentic, pretending that we value authenticity or encouraging people to just be themselves might be quite fitting. I think it's not very authentic advice to tell people, "Oh, just be yourself. Oh, just bring your whole self to work. Oh, don't worry about what people think of you." But then, if somebody is silly or naive enough to follow that advice, the repercussions for them are not very positive.Self-awareness requires paying attention to others13:33: Professional success and personal development and self-awareness can only be achieved if you are receptive to what other people think of you. So, by the way, as I say in the book [DON'T BE YOURSELF], the notion that, I mean, you know, one of the mantras of authenticity or to authenticity advice, which is "ignore what people tell you," ironically,  the advice is trying to tell us how to behave, right? So you cannot ignore what people tell you. And the difference between somebody who has achieved basic emotional maturity and psychological maturity and somebody who still behaves like a child is that the psychologically mature person pays attention to what other people think of themselves, which doesn't mean being a sort of weak, feeble, conformist sheep. It means being a highly functioning member of society, of work, of community, not being trapped in your own narcissistic delusion.How do you achieve self-awareness?12:20: Self-awareness is actually achieved by internalizing the feedback from others from a very, very early age. We learn about ourselves from internalizing or incorporating the feedback we get from others. So your teachers, your aunt, your uncle, your parents, your older siblings, your friends will tell you, you are good at this, you are bad at that, you are funny. And then you understand that you are funny, right? It's obviously problematic if they're lying to you and then you realize, Ooh, outside my family, nobody laughs with my jokes, right? But there's no answer to who we really are. But the best way to understand who we are in the eyes of others is to not be self-centered and to actually be open to feedback. And that's something that people with high emotional intelligence do very well. Show Links:Recommended Resources:Erving GoffmanCore Self-EvaluationsEmotional LaborEmotional IntelligenceSelf-MonitoringElon MuskDavid Bowie360-degree feedbackCharles Horton CooleyDale CarnegieHenry FordJeffrey PfefferPope FrancisRobert HoganMachiavellianismMax PlanckAmos TverskyDaniel KahnemanJohn Maynard KeynesGuest Profile:Faculty Profile at University College LondonWebsite | DrTomas.comLinkedIn ProfileWikipedia PageSocial Profile on XGuest Work:Amazon Author PageDon't Be Yourself: Why Authenticity Is Overrated (and What to Do Instead)Why Do So Many Incompetent Men Become Leaders?: (And How to Fix It)The Talent Delusion: Why Data, Not Intuition, Is the Key to Unlocking Human PotentialI, Human: AI, Automation, and the Quest to Reclaim What Makes Us UniqueConfidence: How Much You Really Need and How to Get ItPersonality and Individual Differences, 3rd EditionThe Future of Recruitment: Using the New Science of Talent Analytics to Get Your Hiring Right (The Future of Work)Personality and Intellectual CompetenceThe Psychology of Personnel SelectionPersonality and Individual DifferencesConfidence: Overcoming Low Self-Esteem, Insecurity, and Self-Doubt Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.