Data, its uses, abuses, influence, and future possibilities--was the focus of attention for sold-out TEDx conference attendees who gathered at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
Calling education "the most important problem that we have to solve in this country," an official of the U.S. Department of Education warned that other nations are doing a better job than the United States of educating their young people.
Silicon Valley isn't the only area in which technology companies can flourish, says Niklas Zennström, who founded the high-flying internet communication firm Skype in Luxembourg. Populations and internet use are growing fastest outside of the United States.
In the 1980s, John Paul DeJoria weathered 12% inflation and 18% interest rates. It was a tough path but he succeeded in founding John Paul Mitchell Systems, a hair care firm that registered $900 million in sales in 2010.
With nearly 32 million visitors last year and its first quarterly dividend in the bank, Latin America's MercadoLibre e-commerce site is on its way, founder Marcos Galperin, MBA '99, told a Stanford Graduate School of Business audience.
Observers of Silicon Valley have always assumed that the most successful companies get their competitive edge by paying their star employees more than the competition to fuel innovation. Now research, co-authored by Professor Kathryn Shaw, and using the academic field of insider econometrics, has been able to prove that this assumption is indeed true.
By 2040 Africa will have a larger workforce than China or India, speakers told a Stanford Africa Forum 2011 conference, exploring opportunities for business development in the 50-plus nations of that continent whose business opportunities are often overlooked.
Modernizing the New York Stock Exchange required extensive communication efforts with employees, Duncan Niederauer, the CEO of NYSE Euronext, told a Stanford Graduate School of Business audience. "And when we were pretty sure we'd over-communicated, we communicated a little bit more."
Jonathan Abrams, the founder and former CEO of the social networking website Friendster, was asked by MBA students how to survive the torrential waters of entrepreneurship. His response: "I don't know."
