Panel of financial experts reflect on current business conditions

Panel of financial experts reflect on current business conditions “Depending on how you wake up in the morning, you either have opportunities or not,” he said. “Nothing else matters. The market doesn’t matter. You make opportunities. You might not want to come outside right now, given the environment. But you have to get beyond that. Always think from an opportunistic perspective.”
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“If you focus so much on the ceiling, there is a ceiling,” he said. “I teach my sons, there is no ceiling. Fortunately for me, I had great mentors. You need to have a champion, someone who will back you. Then you have to perform.”
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“Performance is critical, but without guidance, you may not get far.”

Humility Helps CEOs Get the Job Done

Humility Helps CEOs Get the Job Done
"Style and results go hand in hand,” said McComb. “So much of what I do is inspire people to do things. The people who get ahead are those who get things done through other people.” “You get people to listen by being humble, not by bossing them around. "

Turnaround and Restructuring Conference

Turnaround and Restructuring Conference

Huge Restructuring Cycle Predicted
Industry veteran with 28 years experience offers insights into business

The Nature of Restructuring
Turnaround and Restructuring Panel discusses key points

Coming Recession Makes for Busy Times in the Restructuring Business
Deals will face increasing complexity due to creditor’s different interests

Founding Partner of The Carlyle Group Looks at Private Equity Today

Founding Partner of The Carlyle Group Looks at Private Equity Today

A big sign of concern is the fall of pricing of major financial companies, who are going to the Middle East, Asia, and other regions to raise billions of dollars in capital, he said. “A bubble has burst,” Conway said. “The world has changed and people are far too complacent about what has happened and what is likely to happen.” No matter what happens, the fundamental principles will remain the same in private equity, he said. Conway has guided Carlyle successfully with 10 rules focusing on the obvious and worrying less about subtleties...

1- Develop an independent idea of what a business or asset is worth and constantly reassess the valuation.
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5 - Price does not matter if the deal is good. “The single most important thing about our business is that 90 to 95 percent of the return comes from the deals you do and the deals you don’t do,” he said. “It’s not the price you pay.”

6- Get help. “The best people want the most help,” Conway said. “The weakest people want the least help.”
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9 - Make sure managers concentrate on the few vital objectives, not everything.

10 - If management is not working out, change it – sooner rather than later.
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Entrepreneurship in Technology Innovation Will Focus on Energy and Life Sciences

Entrepreneurship in Technology Innovation Will Focus on Energy and Life Sciences

Entrepreneurs must stay open to opportunities that present themselves, said Gururaj Deshpande, chairman of A123Systems, Tejas Networks, and Sycamore Networks. “If you’re too uptight about what you want to do, you may miss some of these opportunities,” Access to a podcast from that very good speech on entrepreneurship, on that page.

Why the Best Ideas Occur in the Shower

Why the Best Ideas Occur in the Shower

In On War, one of the first books on modern military strategy, Prussian General Carl von Clausewitz explained how Napoleon combined four crucial steps to determine the strategy for his first major military victory, Dugan said. Those steps include storing failed— and especially successful—examples from history, reaching a presence of mind free of all preconceptions, allowing the mind to make its own connections in a flash of insight, and resolving to execute the course of action despite potential resistance, he said. In the late 1970s, Steve Jobs of the fledgling Apple Computers essentially utilized the same process during a visit to Xerox Corporation, when executives demonstrated their “graphical user interface” application, the seed for Apple’s ground-breaking windows operating system, Dugan said. “I thought it was the best thing I had ever seen in my life,” Jobs says during the short business film Great Artists Steal, aired by Dugan during his talk. “Within 10 minutes it was obvious to me that all computers would work like this someday,” Jobs adds. Other examples of such “theft,” or innovative synthesis, of business ideas came when Henry Ford got the idea for the moving assembly line after visiting the Chicago stockyards and when Google’s founders launched their groundbreaking Internet search engine, Dugan said. The latter combined the existing Alta Vista www.altavista.com search engine, data mining algorithms they learned at Stanford University, the common academic ranking of professors by annual journal citings, and the innocuous posting of searchable ads on another Web site to create the for-profit Google, he said. “In a series of flashes of insight, they put together four things, none of which they invented,” Dugan said. “All four had existed before them. The combination was new and made them two very happy young men.”

Turmoil on Wall Street Is Affecting Main Street

Turmoil on Wall Street Is Affecting Main Street

“The depth of the crisis hasn’t been hit yet if a new study by several prominent economists is correct concluding that unless financial markets can quickly recapitalize, banks are likely to cut back their lending to consumers and businesses by nearly $1 trillion,” Reuters reported.

Luigi Zingales Named “Monster Economist”

Luigi Zingales Named “Monster Economist”

Italy’s most famous newspaper and one if its oldest, Corriere della Sera, profiled Luigi Zingales, Robert C. McCormack Professor of Entrepreneurship and Finance, and four other economists as potential winners of Nobel prizes. The newspaper called out the five as the “most brilliant brains behind globalization.”
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View a video of Zingales discussing his research into corporate fraud and whistle blowing.

Only World War II was costlier than Iraq war

Only World War II was costlier than Iraq war

Steven Davis on the Price Tag of the Iraq War.
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Nobel laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz and Harvard University public finance Professor Laura Bilmes, both of whom served in the Clinton administration, have included those calculations in a new study of the war's long-term costs. Their estimate of the war's price tag: $3 trillion.
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Estimate revised down
The White House and Pentagon came back in January 2003 with a number that was more palatable - $50 billion to $60 billion. Rumsfeld's deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, boasted that Iraq would pay for its own reconstruction with increased oil revenues.
Economists say the trouble with the early estimates was they focused only on the cost of invading Iraq and then bringing the troops home. No one budgeted for a long occupation.
"It's quite apparent in hindsight the reason the war has been so expensive is because we have now maintained well over 100,000 and maybe closer to 200,000 troops in theater for five years," said Steven Davis, a professor of economics at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business, who co-authored a 2003 paper comparing the cost of invading Iraq with the cost of containing former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

China’s Impact on Latin America

China’s Impact on Latin America



South America has so far experienced "little pain and lots of gain" from China's emergence as an economic superpower, but the continent will face growing competition from the Asian giant in the coming years.

Are We Ready to Track Carbon Footprints?

Are We Ready to Track Carbon Footprints?

We need the right nudge, to borrow the title of the new book applying the lessons of social psychology and behavioral economics to everything from health care to climate maintenance. The authors of “Nudge,” Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler of the University of Chicago, agree with economists who’d like to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by imposing carbon taxes or a cap-and-trade system, but they think people need extra guidance. “Getting the prices right will not create the right behavior if people do not associate their behavior with the relevant costs,” says Dr. Thaler, a professor of behavioral science and economics. “When I turn the thermostat down on my A-C, I only vaguely know how much that costs me. If the thermostat were programmed to tell you immediately how much you are spending, the effect would be much more powerful.”

How to Create Work Groups that Make Money and Drive Innovation

How to Create Work Groups that Make Money and Drive Innovation
Susan Lucia Annunzio, CEO of the Center for High Performance discusses the results of her company's ground breaking study : “The first thing we found out is that (high performance) is not about the leader,” Annunzio said. Instead, high performance requires a proper environment. Researchers discovered that the environment of these healthy cells is discernible, quantifiable, and holds particular attributes, which correlate to profitable growth. The absence of those attributes correlate to a lack of profit.

How Size Matters... in Negotiating

How Size Matters... in Negotiating
"Don't underestimate the size of your bargaining zone" "...most people would do better in negotiation by asking for more. Yet bargainers persist on making the same mistake again and again because it’s hard to learn that they would have done better by being more aggressive..."

Bill Gates Unplugged: On Software, Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Giving Back - Video

February 20, 2008

The talk, titled “Bill Gates Unplugged: On Software, Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Giving Back,” covered a variety of topics, including how Gates got interested in computers, where he sees technology heading and how Microsoft researchers collaborate with university researchers and others worldwide. Gates’ visit to the University of Chicago is part of a five-campus university tour, in which he is emphasizing the importance of digital innovation in driving the global economy. He also is addressing societal issues and the benefits afforded careers based in mathematics and science.

A video of this presentation is available in Quicktime format. From minute 5:02 to 13:45, you will watch a funny video of his potential last day at Microsoft in June. Really worth watching.