An exuberant, mind-expanding, and at times enthralling call for inventive entrepreneurs.
In this debut book, an entrepreneur views intellectual capital as securing the world’s future.
Jain’s enthusiasm for the entrepreneurial mindset permeates a potent volume that is both a futuristic look at innovation and a recipe of sorts for success. Part 1 of this elegantly written treatise deeply explores in the broadest possible terms the thought processes of the entrepreneur. The author makes a solid case for the entrepreneur as an imaginative visionary. Jain, a serial entrepreneur, celebrates in particular those magnates who take “moonshots,” or reach for the impossible. He believes they “will emerge as leaders of the new world order,” a bold if not wildly audacious prediction. Equally daring are some of Jain’s educated guesses as to where entrepreneurial thinking will take readers in 30 to 50 years, examples intended to demonstrate exciting possibilities rather than accurately predict the future. The author waxes poetic about intellectual curiosity, motivation, perception, and wisdom, but none are more important than imagination—all elements embodied in the moonshot entrepreneur. Parts 2 and 3 of the book are shorter but no less enticing. Part 2 concentrates specifically on health care and education, two areas in which Jain thinks moonshots are sorely needed. Here, his pertinent illustrations are creative, stimulating, and thought-provoking; for example, his idea to “make illness ‘optional’ ” is discussed in the context of Viome, a company he founded, which works in the microbiome space. Part 3 is an exhortation for entrepreneurs to have “an openness to radical possibility” and to strive for moonshots, with some helpful advice for how to do so. “As long as you continue to learn,” advises the author, “you never really fail.” The “ten takeaways” offered at the end of Jain’s volume—written with Schroeter (Between the Strings, 2004, etc.)—encapsulate his thoughtful counsel. The prose conveys breathless, almost soaring optimism; the book exudes an infectious passion for the role of the disruptive entrepreneur in meeting the world’s challenges. There is so much genuine wisdom in this work that it is hard not to come away impressed with the breadth and depth of Jain’s insights.
An exuberant, mind-expanding, and at times enthralling call for inventive entrepreneurs.Pub Date: Oct. 23, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-9997364-0-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Moonshots Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.
“Quality of life means more than just consumption”: Two MIT economists urge that a smarter, more politically aware economics be brought to bear on social issues.
It’s no secret, write Banerjee and Duflo (co-authors: Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way To Fight Global Poverty, 2011), that “we seem to have fallen on hard times.” Immigration, trade, inequality, and taxation problems present themselves daily, and they seem to be intractable. Economics can be put to use in figuring out these big-issue questions. Data can be adduced, for example, to answer the question of whether immigration tends to suppress wages. The answer: “There is no evidence low-skilled migration to rich countries drives wage and employment down for the natives.” In fact, it opens up opportunities for those natives by freeing them to look for better work. The problem becomes thornier when it comes to the matter of free trade; as the authors observe, “left-behind people live in left-behind places,” which explains why regional poverty descended on Appalachia when so many manufacturing jobs left for China in the age of globalism, leaving behind not just left-behind people but also people ripe for exploitation by nationalist politicians. The authors add, interestingly, that the same thing occurred in parts of Germany, Spain, and Norway that fell victim to the “China shock.” In what they call a “slightly technical aside,” they build a case for addressing trade issues not with trade wars but with consumption taxes: “It makes no sense to ask agricultural workers to lose their jobs just so steelworkers can keep theirs, which is what tariffs accomplish.” Policymakers might want to consider such counsel, especially when it is coupled with the observation that free trade benefits workers in poor countries but punishes workers in rich ones.
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-61039-950-0
Page Count: 432
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: Aug. 28, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
A readable, persuasive argument that our ways of doing business will have to change if we are to prosper—or even survive.
A well-constructed critique of an economic system that, by the author’s account, is a driver of the world’s destruction.
Harvard Business School professor Henderson vigorously questions the bromide that “management’s only duty is to maximize shareholder value,” a notion advanced by Milton Friedman and accepted uncritically in business schools ever since. By that logic, writes the author, there is no reason why corporations should not fish out the oceans, raise drug prices, militate against public education (since it costs tax money), and otherwise behave ruinously and anti-socially. Many do, even though an alternative theory of business organization argues that corporations and society should enjoy a symbiotic relationship of mutual benefit, which includes corporate investment in what economists call public goods. Given that the history of humankind is “the story of our increasing ability to cooperate at larger and larger scales,” one would hope that in the face of environmental degradation and other threats, we might adopt the symbiotic model rather than the winner-take-all one. Problems abound, of course, including that of the “free rider,” the corporation that takes the benefits from collaborative agreements but does none of the work. Henderson examines case studies such as a large food company that emphasized environmentally responsible production and in turn built “purpose-led, sustainable living brands” and otherwise led the way in increasing shareholder value by reducing risk while building demand. The author argues that the “short-termism” that dominates corporate thinking needs to be adjusted to a longer view even though the larger problem might be better characterized as “failure of information.” Henderson closes with a set of prescriptions for bringing a more equitable economics to the personal level, one that, among other things, asks us to step outside routine—eat less meat, drive less—and become active in forcing corporations (and politicians) to be better citizens.
A readable, persuasive argument that our ways of doing business will have to change if we are to prosper—or even survive.Pub Date: May 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5417-3015-1
Page Count: 336
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2020
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