Thinkers & Ideas

BCG Institute

Inspiring and thought-provoking conversations with leading thinkers about influential ideas on business, technology, economics, and science. Hosted by Nikolaus Lang and Adam Job.

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Yesterday · 32 min
How Great Things Happen with George Newman
In How Great Ideas Happen: The Hidden Steps Behind Breakthrough Success, George Newman argues that great ideas are not conjured from within but discovered outside of us, already present in the world, and that finding them is a methodical search anyone can run rather than a flash of genius reserved for a gifted few. Newman is a cognitive scientist and psychologist, and an associate professor of organizational behavior and human resource management at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, having previously held joint appointments in management, psychology, and cognitive science at Yale. In his first book, he draws on research across the arts, science, and business to recast creativity as an archeological dig: survey the terrain for fertile ground, grid the site, dig for volume, and only then sift for what is worth keeping. In his conversation with Adam Job, senior director at the BCG Institute, he discusses why organizations "turtle up" under pressure when they should be looking outward, why our best ideas arrive after we think we have run out, where AI genuinely helps the creative process and where it flattens it, the roughly 95/5 balance between proven ground and original twist, and why breakthrough ideas often feel uncomfortable at first. Key topics discussed: 01:01 | Reframing creativity as discovery rather than inspiration 02:38 | The archeology method: survey, grid, dig, sift 04:33 | Why organizations "turtle up," and how to stay outward-looking 06:13 | The creative cliff illusion: why the best ideas come last 08:35 | AI as an excavator: when it helps and when it doesn't 10:49 | Transplanting ideas from other domains 13:08 | The 95/5 balance of proven ground and original twist 16:13 | Ideas versus execution, and Steve Jobs' rock tumbler 19:36 | Creative hot streaks, from Jackson Pollock to Mondrian 25:14 | Why good ideas often feel uncomfortable at first 27:28 | How Newman applies his own research to his work
September 1 · 29 min
Manage the Machine with Paula Goldman
In Manage the Machine: How to Harness Human-AI Collaboration at Work, Paula Goldman argues that AI has crossed over from being a tool to being a partner, and that the companies that win will not be the ones automating the most or the fastest, but the ones that deliberately design around where humans still need to lead. Goldman is the first-ever chief ethical and humane use officer at Salesforce, where she is also EVP of Product, and previously led the Tech and Society Solutions Lab and impact investing at Omidyar Network. She has served on the US National AI Advisory Committee, chairing its generative AI working group. Her new book is a practical guide to integrating AI across functions from sales to HR to legal, setting out how to decide which tasks can safely be delegated to AI, which should stay with people, and what guardrails keep either from going astray. In her conversation with Adam Job, senior director at the BCG Institute, she discusses her "human at the helm" model of AI adoption, the role customer emotion plays in deciding where AI belongs, whether AI erodes the very human judgment it depends on, how to measure AI ROI beyond time saved, and what it takes to move from pilots to enterprise-wide rollout. Key topics discussed: 01:01 | What changes for leaders once AI shifts from tool to partner 02:28 | The "human at the helm" model in practice 07:09 | How the chief ethical and humane use officer role fits into AI governance 09:43 | Customer and employee emotion as a design input 12:39 | Skill decay: does the model erode itself over time? 15:54 | The jagged technological frontier and where to deploy AI 18:32 | Calculating AI ROI: cost savings versus new products 22:14 | Navigating two moving frontiers, better and cheaper 27:09 | Getting from successful pilot to enterprise rollout
August 18 · 29 min
Global by Design with Vijay Govindarajan
In Global by Design: How to Create Innovations That Scale, Travel, and Transform, Vijay Govindarajan argues that the most powerful innovations are designed from the ground up for emerging markets like rural China or India, and then travel back to disrupt wealthy ones. Govindarajan is the Coxe Distinguished Professor at Dartmouth College’s Tuck School of Business and one of the world’s foremost experts on strategy and innovation, most known for the New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller Reverse Innovation. In his new book, co-authored with MIT engineer Amos Winter, he fuses business strategy with engineering science to show how high-value, low-cost products built for poorer countries can win there first and then upend established markets abroad, offering a roadmap for innovators across engineering, business, NGOs, and government. In his conversation with Nikolaus Lang, global leader of the BCG Henderson Institute, he discusses how GE built a $15,000 ultrasound machine for rural China; why most multinationals chase only the thin top slice of emerging markets; the three phases of his innovation framework; the difference between serial and parallel reverse innovation; and why globalization behaves like gravity even in a fragmented, multipolar world. Key topics discussed: 03:29 | How reverse innovation works: GE’s ultrasound machine for rural China 06:39 | Why most multinationals aren’t global by design 08:01 | The mistake of serving only the thin top slice of emerging markets 10:00 | Phase 1, elucidating requirements: P&G’s 3,000 hours redesigning a razor 13:00 | Phase 2, closing the innovation gap: GE’s low-cost CAT scanner 16:48 | Phase 3, serial vs. parallel reverse innovation 20:20 | Value-driven innovation, the Segway cautionary tale, and where the biggest opportunities lie 24:14 | Global by design in a geopolitically fragmented world Additional inspirations from Vijay Govindarajan: Reverse Innovation: Create Far From Home, Win Everywhere (Harvard Business Review Press, 2012) LinkedIn: Three Box Solution Weekly Column
August 4 · 30 min
Blue Ocean Strategy with Renée Mauborgne
In Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make the Competition Irrelevant, Renée Mauborgne argues that lasting growth does not come from winning market share in crowded existing industries, but from creating entirely new market space that no one is competing in yet. Mauborgne is a professor of strategy at INSEAD and co-director of the INSEAD Blue Ocean Strategy Institute. Blue Ocean Strategy, co-written with W. Chan Kim has sold more than 4 million copies and is recognized as one of the most iconic and impactful strategy books ever written. The new 20th anniversary edition tests the original theory against today’s market realities and is enhanced with fresh cases, including NVIDIA’s three successive market-creating moves, a new preface that highlights the book’s ongoing global impact, and a curated list of over fifty blue ocean cases across diverse industries that expand far beyond those in the original version. In her conversation with Adam Job, senior director at the BCG Institute, Mauborgne discusses when a company should stop competing and start creating, why the search for new demand begins with non-customers rather than customers, how NVIDIA chases “zero-billion-dollar markets,” why differentiation and low cost need not be a trade-off, whether AI’s commoditizing effect makes advantage harder to defend, and how to reconcile bold commitment with the case for keeping options open. Key topics discussed: 01:12 | Why beating the competition is the wrong goal 02:34 | How to know when it’s time to shift from competing to creating 05:26 | Finding a blue ocean: value innovation and the role of non-customers 07:02 | Where the process starts inside an organization 09:25 | NVIDIA and the pursuit of zero-billion-dollar markets 12:46 | Breaking the trade-off between differentiation and low cost 16:21 | What prompted the new edition 18:33 | Will blue oceans stay defensible as AI commoditizes capabilities? 24:17 | Why using AI only for speed and efficiency is a trap 25:36 | Reconciling bold commitment with the need for optionality Additional inspirations from Renée Mauborgne: Blue Ocean Shift: Beyond Competing—Proven Steps to Inspire Confidence and Seize New Growth (Grand Central Publishing, 2017)
July 21 · 31 min
From the Archive: Making Sense of Chaos with Doyne Farmer
As uncertainty continues to define the business landscape, we’re revisiting our conversation with economist and complexity scientist Doyne Farmer on why conventional forecasting often falls short in a world shaped by interconnected, dynamic systems. Drawing on decades of research, he explains how complexity science offers a more realistic way to think about prediction, risk, and decision-making—and how leaders can navigate uncertainty with greater confidence. Whether you’re hearing this conversation for the first time or revisiting it with fresh perspective, Doyne’s insights remain as relevant today as ever.
July 7 · 43 min
Crisis Engineering with Matthew Weaver and Mikey Dickerson
In Crisis Engineering: Time-Tested Tools for Turning Chaos Into Clarity, Matthew Weaver and Mikey Dickerson argue that organizational crises are not problems to be survived but are rare windows in which rapid, directed transformation becomes possible within days rather than years. Weaver was a founding Site Reliability Engineer (SRE) at Google and later established the Defense Digital Service at the U.S. Department of Defense. Dickerson, also a founding SRE at Google, led the rescue of healthcare.gov, an effort that landed him on the cover of Time magazine. President Barack Obama subsequently appointed him deputy chief information officer of the United States, where he created the United States Digital Service. Together with their co-author Marina Nitze, the three are partners at the crisis engineering firm Layer Aleph. Drawing on decades of experience inside some of the most complex systems in government and industry—from the healthcare.gov rescue to wildfire response and pandemic logistics—the writers deliver a practical framework for identifying the five signals of a genuine crisis, and how to use that moment to drive lasting change across tech, government, healthcare, and beyond. In their conversation with Nikolaus Lang, global leader of the BCG Henderson Institute, they discuss why breakdowns in sensemaking cause well-trained operators to make situations worse, what the healthcare.gov rescue reveals about co-location and shared urgency, how crisis disrupts normal incentive structures to surface the organization’s real map, the concept of bracketing as a tool for directing team attention, and how AI integrations are creating the conditions for larger and harder-to-manage crises ahead. Key topics discussed: 01:24 | What “crisis engineering” means and what conditions define a true crisis 05:28 | Sensemaking: the invisible force driving decisions under pressure 10:38 | The 2013 healthcare.gov collapse: arriving on the crisis scene 14:05 | Why physical co-location is essential in a crisis 17:18 | Using a crisis to remap how the organization actually works 20:17 | Bracketing: deliberately defining the beginning and end of a crisis 25:33 | Why organizations struggle to define an exit condition 27:34 | Capturing crisis learning before returning to normal operations 30:22 | How AI is changing (and likely multiplying) crisis situations 35:51 | Advice for business leaders on building crisis readiness before a crisis hits
June 23 · 26 min
The Irrational Decision with Ben Recht
In The Irrational Decision: How We Gave Computers the Power to Choose for Us, Benjamin Recht argues that the optimization and mathematical rationality we apply to every corner of modern life—from dieting to hiring to strategy—often fails when encountering the messy realities of life. Recht is a professor of electrical engineering and computer science at UC Berkeley. In his new book, he traces how a narrow conception of rationality, born from 1940s wartime computing, came to dominate decision-making across society—and shows that this approach works brilliantly in closed, controlled systems like microchip design but breaks down in the complex, unpredictable domains where most real decisions are made. In his conversation with Adam Job, senior director at the BCG Henderson Institute, he discusses the origins of mathematical rationality, why optimization works for microchips but not for diets, why game theory fails to describe how humans actually behave, and how leaders should think about the boundary between human and machine intelligence in the age of AI. Key topics discussed: 01:02 | What is mathematical rationality and where do we encounter it? 02:49 | The origins of rational thinking in the 1940s 07:18 | Where optimization works: microchips, logistics, controlled systems 09:13 | Where it fails: Chernobyl, Waymo, and the limits of control 13:17 | When human “qualitative irrationality” is the right answer 14:59 | A framework for assigning decisions to machines vs. humans 17:45 | How the boundary between human and machine decision-making will evolve 19:14 | Why game theory fails to describe how humans actually behave 22:07 | Kahneman vs. Klein: two views on human decision-making 24:30 | What we risk losing as we outsource more decisions to AI
June 9 · 37 min
AI Needs You with Verity Harding
In AI Needs You: How We Can Change AI’s Future and Save Our Own, Verity Harding argues that AI governance is too important to be left to technologists alone—and that the rest of us need to join the conversation to shape this technology’s future. Harding is the director of the AI and Geopolitics Project at the Bennett School of Public Policy at the University of Cambridge and the founder of Formation Advisory. She spent more than a decade at Alphabet, first as head of Security Policy at Google, then as DeepMind’s first global head of Policy. In her book, she draws on historical case studies to show that democratic societies have successfully governed transformative technologies in the past. In her conversation with Nikolaus Lang, global leader of the BCG Henderson Institute, she discusses why the nuclear arms race is the wrong analogy for AI, what the 1967 Outer Space Treaty can teach us about cooperation between rivals, how Britain’s regulation of IVF became a gold standard by depoliticizing the technology, and what business leaders get wrong about their own role in shaping AI governance. Key topics discussed: 01:56 | Why the framing of AI as “too complex for nonexperts" is harmful 07:46 | Why the nuclear arms control analogy is counterproductive for AI 12:25 | The Space Race and the 1967 Outer Space Treaty as a model for cooperation 17:11 | IVF, the Warnock Committee, and why a philosopher led the regulation effort 20:38 | The internet: from open ideals to commercialization and surveillance 26:41 | What business leaders can do to shape AI governance 30:50 | Four principles for AI: peaceful intent, embrace limitations, purpose over profit, societal trust 35:25 | If you could mandate one thing for global AI governance, what would it be?
May 26 · 36 min
Incorruptible with Eric Ries
In Incorruptible: Why Good Companies Go Bad and How Great Companies Stay Great, Eric Ries argues that mission-driven companies face an invisible pressure that pushes them toward short-termism and conformity, no matter the intentions of their stakeholders. Ries is the best-selling author of The Lean Startup, founder of the Long-Term Stock Exchange, and advisor to startups around the globe. In his new book, he traces a recurring pattern across two centuries of business: principled founders build something exceptional, only to watch it be corrupted—not by greedy individuals, but by systemic forces baked into how capitalism is structured. In his conversation with Adam Job, senior director at the BCG Henderson Institute, Ries discusses how corporate corruption starts, why shareholder primacy became the norm, the concept of financial gravity, and the structural protections companies can put in place to defend their mission. Key topics discussed: 01:09 | How corporate corruption starts 03:50 | The rise of shareholder primacy 08:18 | Why mission-driven companies outperform but don’t dominate 11:06 | Are private equity and activist investors always destructive? 15:31 | Financial gravity: the invisible force that pulls companies off course 19:31 | Structural defenses: purpose, coherence, and integrity 27:06 | Can mature companies still be corrupted or still protect themselves? 31:14 | What Eric Ries would add to The Lean Startup if he could Additional inspirations from Eric Ries: The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses (Crown Currency, 2011)
May 13 · 30 min
Inside the Box with David Epstein
In Inside the Box: How Constraints Make Us Better, David Epstein argues that constraints—not freedom—are what drive creativity, clarity, and focus. Epstein is a number one New York Times–best-selling author, known for Range and The Sports Gene. In his new book, he draws on psychology, economics, and case studies from NASA to Pixar to Dr. Seuss to show that our brains default to the path of least resistance—and that blocking that path is the only reliable way to force genuinely new thinking. In his conversation with Adam Job, senior director at the BCG Henderson Institute, he discusses why freedom is the enemy of creativity, how leaders can set constraints that unlock rather than stifle their teams, why creativity is not the same as originality, and how Herbert Simon’s idea of “satisficing” can improve both decisions and well-being. Key topics discussed: 01:03 | Why constraints drive creativity and freedom doesn’t 04:06 | What kinds of constraints to use and when they backfire 09:30 | Constraints in innovation vs. execution 13:08 | How to set constraints that maximize creativity without killing autonomy 16:34 | Why creativity is not the same as novelty or originality 19:29 | “Preregistering hypotheses” and how it applies to business 23:19 | Herbert Simon’s “satisficing”: choosing good enough over endless optimization 26:13 | How Epstein applies constraints in his own life and writing process Additional inspirations from David Epstein: Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World (Riverhead Books, 2019) The Sports Gene: Inside the Science of Extraordinary Athletic Performance (Portfolio, 2014)
April 28 · 34 min
Genius at Scale with Linda A. Hill
In Genius at Scale: How Great Leaders Drive Innovation, Linda A. Hill argues that innovation fails not because companies lack ideas, but because they struggle to scale those ideas across the enterprise—and that the solution lies not in structure or processes, but in leadership. Hill is the Wallace Brett Donham Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, faculty chair of the Leadership Initiative, and one of the top ten management thinkers in the world as ranked by Thinkers50. In her new book, co-authored with Emily Tedards and Jason Wild, she draws on deep case studies of organizations from Mastercard to Pfizer to Pixar to show that scaling innovation requires three distinct but complementary leadership roles: architects, bridgers, and catalysts. In her conversation with Adam Job, senior director at the BCG Henderson Institute, she discusses why innovation labs alone don’t work, the ABCs of innovation leadership, how to build a culture of creative abrasion, and why even senior leaders need coaching to get innovation right. Key topics discussed: 01:28 | Why innovation fails at the point of scaling, not ideation 03:59 | The ABCs of innovation leadership: architects, bridgers, catalysts 06:29 | Getting metrics and incentives right for innovation 10:42 | What bridgers do and why organizations don’t have enough of them 14:33 | Is innovation leadership a team sport or a solo act? 18:48 | How to know which role you’re best suited to and how to learn the others 24:04 | How incumbent leaders can create urgency without being the new CEO Additional inspirations from Linda A. Hill: Collective Genius: The Art and Practice of Leading Innovation (Harvard Business Review Press, 2014) Article: Why Great Innovations Fail to Scale, co-authored by Emily Tedards and Jason Wild (March–April 2026 issue of Harvard Business Review)
April 14 · 35 min
Design Love In, with Marcus Buckingham
In Design Love In: How to Unleash the Most Powerful Force in Business, Marcus Buckingham argues that love—not engagement, satisfaction, or motivation—is the only feeling that reliably changes the behavior of employees and customers, and that it can be deliberately designed into business. Buckingham is one of the world’s foremost researchers on human performance. He is a former senior vice president at Gallup turned New York Times–best-selling author, having written First, Break All the Rules. In his new book, he draws on decades of research to show that the relationship between experiences and outcomes is not linear—only experiences so positive that people describe them as “love” actually drive loyalty, productivity, and advocacy. In his conversation with Adam Job, senior director at the BCG Henderson Institute, he discusses why love is categorically different from engagement, the five feelings that make up a loving experience, three disciplines leaders can use to design love into their organizations, and why common practices like outsourcing and large spans of control are fundamentally unloving. Key topics discussed: 01:16 | Why love is categorically different from engagement or satisfaction 04:43 | The nonlinear relationship between experiences and outcomes 08:24 | How experiences drive behaviors that drive outcomes 12:34 | Designing love in: the five feelings and three disciplines 16:00 | Can love be designed into products, not just experiences? 19:13 | The three disciplines: walk the stage, equip the people, sequence the scenes 27:39 | Spans of control and the one-to-12 rule 30:17 | The limits of artificial experience–making Additional inspirations from Marcus Buckingham: First, Break All the Rules: What the World's Greatest Managers Do Differently (Gallup Press, 2016)
March 31 · 27 min
BHI Presents: Winning the Rest of the 20s
In this special episode, Rich Lesser, BCG’s global chair, and Martin Reeves, former chairman of the BCG Henderson Institute, reflect on the shocks and surprises that shaped the first half of the decade and what they reveal about the future. They explore the traits leaders need today: building trust, staying geopolitically aware, and adopting AI in a people-centered way.
March 17 · 28 min
The Transformation Economy with B. Joseph Pine II
In The Transformation Economy: Guiding Customers to Achieve Their Aspirations, B. Joseph Pine II argues that an economic shift is underway, in which transformations—not commodities, goods, services, or experiences—will become the highest form of value creation. Pine is an internationally acclaimed author, known for having coined the term “experience economy” in the 1990s. He works as a speaker and advisor to Fortune 500 companies. In his new book, he suggests that most companies compete by improving what they sell, while missing what customers actually want: to become different people. In his conversation with Adam Job, senior director at the BCG Henderson Institute, Pine discusses the evolution of economic value creation, the North Star for transformation businesses, and how to scale from one to many transformation journeys. Key topics discussed: 01:01 | The evolution of economic value creation 03:35 | How to get into the transformation business 10:35 | The North Star for transformation businesses 15:07 | Scaling beyond individual transformation journeys 16:46 | Different types of transformation journeys 20:37 | Making transformations last 24:12 | Taking the first step toward the transformation economy Additional inspirations from B. Joseph Pine II: The Experience Economy, With a New Preface by the Authors: Competing for Customer Time, Attention, and Money, co-authored by James H. Gilmore (Harvard Business Review Press, 2019)
March 3 · 28 min
The Doom Loop with Eswar Prasad
In The Doom Loop: Why the World Economic Order Is Spiraling into Disorder, Eswar Prasad argues that we are caught in a destructive feedback loop between economics, domestic politics, and geopolitics. Prasad is a professor of Trade Policy and Economics at Cornell University, as well as a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution. In his new book, he explores how globalization, international institutions, the rise of “middle power” countries, and technological innovations had the potential to promote shared prosperity—but instead are driving global instability. In his conversation with Nikolaus Lang, global leader of the BCG Henderson Institute, he discusses the breakdown of the rule-based system, implications for trade policy in Europe and elsewhere, and the role AI plays in driving global instability. Key topics discussed: 01:20 | The doom loop driving global instability 06:41 | The positive aspects of globalization and middle powers 12:02 | Implications for European trade policy 15:51 | The breakdown of the rule-based system 18:36 | The role of AI and other technologies in the doom loop 23:57 | Reasons for remaining optimistic Additional inspirations from Eswar Prasad: The Future of Money: How the Digital Revolution Is Transforming Currencies and Finance (Belknap Press: An Imprint of Harvard University Press, 2023)
February 17 · 33 min
The New Geography of Innovation with Mehran Gul
In The New Geography of Innovation: The Global Contest for Breakthrough Technologies, Mehran Gul examines how innovation works in different countries around the globe—diving deep into the ecosystems that produce great technology companies. Gul is a writer and leading technology thinker, having served as the Lead for the Digital Transformation of Industries at the World Economic Forum. His book, which was nominated as a Financial Times best business book of 2025, he discusses why the United States remains at the world’s technological frontier, with only China being a true challenger. In his conversation with Nikolaus Lang, Global Leader of the BCG Henderson Institute, he talks about how innovation ecosystems are converging, the role of statecraft in fostering innovation ecosystems, and the main forces that will shift the global innovation landscape in the coming decade. Key topics discussed: 01:22 | Attributes of successful innovation ecosystems 06:57 | US vs. China talent pool 10:26 | What China gets right about innovation 13:20 | Why Europe lags behind on innovation 18:54 | The role of intentional statecraft in fostering innovation 23:31 | The convergence of innovation ecosystems around the globe 26:34 | Implications for businesses 28:56 | How the global innovation landscape will evolve in the next decade
February 3 · 31 min
Flourish with Daniel Coyle
In Flourish: The Transformative Power of Creating Community, Daniel Coyle investigates the ecosystems in which humans do their best work—from sports teams, to the boardroom, and our daily lives. Daniel Coyle is the author of multiple New York Times bestsellers, in which he explores how people and groups grow, perform, and flourish. He combines immersive field reporting with behavioral science to create practical frameworks for building skill, culture, and meaningful connection. In his conversation with Adam Job, senior director at the BCG Henderson Institute, he discusses his definition of flourishing, how to find moments of stillness in our turbulent world, and how leaders can balance efficiency with the disorder that fosters creativity. Key topics discussed: 01:03 | The definition of flourishing 09:13 | Finding moments of reflection and stillness 16:41 | Crisis as a trigger for flourishing 19:52 | Messiness and creativity 26:39 | Balancing disorder and efficiency 29:40 | A starting point for leaders Additional inspirations from Daniel Coyle: The Culture Playbook: 60 Highly Effective Actions to Help Your Group Succeed (Random House Audio, 2022) The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups (Bantam, 2018) The Talent Code: Greatness Isn't Born. It's Grown. Here's How. (Bantam, 2009)
January 20 · 30 min
Shared Prosperity in a Fractured World with Dani Rodrik
In Shared Prosperity in a Fractured World: A New Economics for the Middle Class, the Global Poor, and Our Climate, Dani Rodrik proposes new modes of cooperation and policy experimentation to address our greatest global challenges. Rodrik is the Ford Foundation Professor of International Political Economy at Harvard Kennedy School. He codirects both the Reimagining the Economy Program at Harvard and the Economics for Inclusive Prosperity network. In his conversation with Nikolaus Lang, global leader of the BCG Henderson Institute, he discusses the trilemma between democracy, prosperity, and sustainability, how hyper-globalization contributed to this struggle, and his proposed framework for resolving it. Key topics discussed: 01:06 | The trilemma of democracy, prosperity, and sustainability 03:50 | The shortcomings of hyper-globalization 10:33 | Why manufacturing is no longer an escape from poverty 14:47 | Services as drivers of development 18:33 | The new framework of productivism 23:25 | The power of unilateral climate actions 27:26 | Implications for business leaders Additional inspirations from Dani Rodrik: Straight Talk on Trade: Ideas for a Sane World Economy (Princeton University Press, 2017) Economics Rules: The Rights and Wrongs of the Dismal Science (W. W. Norton & Company, 2015)
Dec 16, 2025 · 20 min
The Seven Rules of Trust with Jimmy Wales
In The Seven Rules of Trust: A Blueprint for Building Things that Last, Jimmy Wales explains how he turned an impossible idea—creating an online encyclopedia that anyone can edit—into a global institution. Wales is the founder of Wikipedia. In his new book, he distills two decades of lessons from building one of the world’s most trusted collaborative projects. He argues that trust isn’t a soft virtue but a practical system—a set of design principles that allow people and organizations to cooperate effectively, solve problems honestly, and endure. In his conversation with Adam Job, senior director at the BCG Henderson Institute, he discusses whether Wikipedia could still be created today, how it can retain its trusted status in an age of polarization, and what we can learn from Wikipedia to rebuild trust within society. Key topics discussed: 01:02 | How to scale interpersonal trust 04:02 | The importance of assuming good faith 07:13 | Could Wikipedia still be created today? 09:06 | How Wikipedia can retain its trusted status in an age of polarization 10:30 | The impact of AI on trust 15:40 | How institutions can reclaim lost trust 18:01 | Reasons to remain optimistic about rebuilding societal trust
Dec 9, 2025 · 35 min
How to Be Bold with Ranjay Gulati
In How to Be Bold: The Surprising Science of Everyday Courage, Ranjay Gulati argues that being bold is something you can learn—not a trait you have to be born with. Gulati, a professor at Harvard Business School, is a leading organizational sociologist and management scholar. In his new book, he explores the science and psychology of courage—showing that bravery is not the absence of fear, but the mastery of it. In his conversation with Adam Job, senior director at the BCG Henderson Institute, he discusses the difference between uncertainty and risk, strategies for building courage at the individual and corporate level, and why we shouldn’t be worried about boldness leading to excessive risk-taking. Key topics discussed: 00:58 | The definition of courage 05:11 | Boldness and excessive risk-taking 06:34 | Strategies for building courage as an individual 14:51 | The power of sense-making 18:16 | Risk management systems 21:13 | How to build a culture of courage 31:40 | One thing executives should do differently Additional inspirations from Ranjay Gulati: Deep Purpose: The Heart and Soul of High-Performance Companies (Harper Business, 2022)

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