Author: Dana Rousmaniere

It’s being billed as possibly the “largest journalism collaboration in history.” For the past 15 months, nearly 100 reporters from media outlets around the world, working in collaboration with the International Center for Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), have analyzed about 2.5 million documents detailing the identities and activities of 120,000 offshore tax havens. The effort aimed to expose the “hidden dealings of politicians, con artists, and the mega-rich in more than 170 countries.”

Adam Weinstein at Gawker breaks down what’s been uncovered so far (names, dollar amounts, incriminating allegations), why we should care, and what we can expect to see coming to light as investigations continue. On a final note, Weinstein teases: “ICIJ’s parent, the Center for Public Integrity, lists its funders here. Will any of them pop up in the documents? Man, that would be: Awk. Ward. We’re looking into it.”

A TALE OF TWO SUPPLY CHAINS

White House Seeks to Change International Food Aid (The New York Times)

The Obama administration is expected to announce a big change in the way it distributes international food aid. Instead of buying food from American farms and shipping it abroad, the administration proposes giving the money directly to relief agencies to buy food closer to where it’s needed. The proposed change would save millions, and would get food to the people who need it more quickly. But critics argue that the changes would have a devastating impact on U.S. farmers and shippers. “We are talking about hundreds of jobs lost,” says the executive director of one of the organizations lobbying against the change. But groups like Oxfam and CARE argue that the current system wastes too much food aid on shipping costs. “The current food aid program is not mission driven or about poor people,” said Gawain Kripke, director of policy and research for Oxfam. “It’s about moving product.”

UPWARD MOBILITY

Has a Seattle Building Discovered the Secret to Making Stairs Irresistible? (Bloomberg Businessweek)

Despite the proven benefits of opting for the stairs over the elevator, few office buildings do anything to encourage it. Most have dimly-lit staircases hidden behind fire doors, some of which lock you out of the office entirely if you forget your keycard. Caroline Winter gives us an inside look at a building that plans to be different by design. Seattle’s $30 million carbon neutral Bullitt Center, which opens at the end of the month and is being billed as the world’s greenest commercial building, will feature what its owner calls an “irresistible staircase” — a light-filled, winding “escalier” with views of downtown Seattle and Puget Sound (check out the photo — it really is beautiful).

NOW HEAR THIS

A Change to This Newsletter

Over the past year and a half, you have helped us hone our approach to Morning Advantage by providing excellent feedback on what you find useful (and what you could do without). Based on your advice, we’re announcing two changes we hope you’ll like: Morning Advantage will become “The Shortlist” (to reflect that our global audience does not all receive this newsletter in the morning) and it will appear weekly, on Fridays, instead of every weekday (to avoid cluttering your already-full inboxes). We’ll see you next week under our new name and on our new schedule — but with the same great roundup of management thinking. If the notion of a day without HBR is too much to bear (we love you, too!), please consider signing up for our new, shorter newsletter, The Daily Idea, which features a single fresh idea from the pages of HBR every weekday, summarized by Morning Advantage alumnus Kevin Evers.

BONUS BITS

The Real Deal

Staying Ahead of Counterfeiters, With a Butterfly’s Help (Big Think)
China’s Export Boom That Wasn’t (The Atlantic)
In Honor of Mad Men’s Return, Favorite Ads from the 1960s (Ad Age)

You might think that the best place to locate a new venture would be in an industry hub – say, Silicon Valley for a tech startup, or New York City for a publishing venture. After all, that’s where you’ll make connections, find networking opportunities, and tap into industry expertise. But, it turns out you may be better off locating your venture elsewhere. New research from Evan Rawley at the University of California at Berkeley and Philipp Meyer-Doyle of INSEAD shows that “agglomeration effects” — the benefits you get from sharing industry expertise or infrastructure — are portable, especially if you work in a service industry. And while it may seem counterintuitive to move away from an industry hub, it turns out that the benefits of staying within the hub are offset by the effects of the greater competition. Rawley explains in this Columbia Ideas at Work piece: “If you’re coming from a New York bank and starting up a new hedge fund, even if you are well connected in New York, you’re competing with people who are also well connected. There are a lot of hedge funds chasing dollars in New York, but very few in Missouri.”

Moral of the story? You can strike out on your own. In fact, you probably should.

CHEW ON THIS

When Eating is an Economic Act (Bloomberg Businessweek)

While the world produces more food than ever before, 1 in 7 people go to bed hungry every night. Many of them are farmers. Danielle Nierenberg at Bloomberg describes how we got here: “In the 1990s, the regulation controlling agriculture futures was abolished, thanks to the lobbying efforts of Goldman Sachs and others. Those futures were turned into derivatives to be bought and sold among traders, and a market in food speculations emerged, which happened to coincide with some of the biggest spikes in food prices around the world.” According to Nierenberg, the price of the world’s food has effectively doubled in the last decade and shows no signs of returning to previous levels. And this is exactly what traders want. She cautions: “The Arab Spring will look like a pep rally if the price doubles again. This kind of unrest will come back to haunt us. But that’s what the smart money is betting on.”

BAD NEWS FOR SUPERMARKET TABLOIDS

Beyond Showrooming: 3 Quirky Ways Smartphones Are Changing How We Shop (TIME)

“Showrooming,” or checking out merchandise in stores while simultaneously using your phone to find a better deal, is common practice among smartphone owners. It’s one of the ways these devices have changed the retail landscape, for better or worse. But, it turns out that our phones are modifying the way we shop in more unexpected ways, too. Kit Yarrow at TIME details three: 1) We’re making fewer impulse purchases at checkout lines (turns out that our smartphones are more enticing than candy bars or Kim Kardashian’s diet secrets); 2) We’re colliding with other shoppers more often (we’re too busy texting to watch where we’re going); and 3) We’re snubbing salespeople. A study by Accenture found that 73% of shoppers with smartphones would rather consult their devices than a salesperson.

BONUS BITS:

Just Another Day at the Office

The Best and Worst of the Internet’s April Fools’ Day Pranks (The Atlantic Wire)
Google’s Greatest April Fools’ Hoax Ever (Hint: It Wasn’t a Hoax) (Time)
April Fools’ Gadgets: You’ll Wish Some of These Were Real (CNET)

It’s a common strategy to cut labor costs in order to increase profit margins — plenty of companies do it routinely. But Sophie Quinton at The Atlantic points to several companies that are turning that equation on its head, proving that the decision to offer lower wages is a choice — and not a necessity. She cites the examples of low-cost retailers such as QuikTrip, Trader Joe’s and Costco Wholesale, who have found that paying their workers more actually pays off in the form of increased sales and productivity. The average American cashier makes $20,230 per year — which is below the poverty line for a family of four in a single-earner household. In contrast, entry-level employees at QuickTrip get an annual salary of around $40,000 — with benefits. And while its competitors have spent the recession floundering, QuickTrip continues to grow.

On the flip side, underinvestment in workers can lead to operational problems in stores, which ultimately decreases sales. Quinton points to Borders and Circuit City as prime examples of what happens when you devalue your workers: “Both big-box retailers saw sales plummet after staff cutbacks, and both ultimately went bankrupt.” Instead of thinking solely of high-level employees as the talent you need to pay well in order to help grow the company, Quinton argues that paying entry-level employees a solid living wage can help the bottom line, too.

THE NURSE WILL SEE YOU NOW

Nurses Can Practice Without Physician Supervision in Many States (The Washington Post)

Nursing groups around the country are pushing for legislation that would allow nurses with a master’s degree or higher to order and interpret diagnostic tests, prescribe medications and administer treatments without physician oversight. If they succeed, the number of states that allow nurses to practice without a physician would jump from 16 to 30. While physician groups are adamantly opposed to the legislation, citing concerns about patient safety and quality of care, the nurses have won the support of faith-based organizations, social workers, patients’ groups, the National Governors Association, and the National Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Medicine. Starting in 2014, insurers will be required to pay nurses the same rates that they pay doctors for the same services — which further encourages the creation of nurse-run practices. Judging from the number of comments this Washington Post article is getting, it’s a hot-button issue that’s got doctors, nurses, and patients alike up in arms.

GETTING TO “AHA!”

The Right Ideas in All the Wrong Places (Booz & Company)

Booz & Company partners and strategy experts Ken Favaro and Nadim Yacteen offer this advice for companies that want to innovate more strategically: First, you need to break your strategic challenge down into distinct components. Then, you can create a matrix of proven solutions for each piece of the puzzle in your strategic challenge. Finally, link the connections between the proven solutions to help uncover your own “Eureka!” moment. Easy, right?

BONUS BITS:

Branching Out

Yahoo Acquires Hipster Mobile News Reader Summly for Close to $30 Million (AllThingsD)
What Do PAAS and Manischewitz Do the Rest of the Year? (Bloomberg Businessweek)
Agency Sends Briefs Back to Clients as Elaborate Paper Sculptures (AdWeek)

The cartoon at the top of this Wired article says it all: A man is kneeling on the side of the road, changing a flat tire on his car, while a police officer points a gun at him saying: “You are under arrest for circumventing a technological measure that controls access to this tire. It looks like you’ll be needing a new car.”

Kyle Wiens posits that once we buy something, we should actually own it, and therefore we should be free to lift the hood, modify it, or repair it in any way that we see fit. But that’s often not the case, as more and more of the physical objects we buy (cell phones, our cars, even farm machinery) become increasingly digital — and therefore subject to copyright laws. The question of who owns what is blurring as the lines between hardware and software blur. Wiens argues that as Congress works on legislation to re-legalize cellphone unlocking, they’re missing the bigger picture: “Senators could pass a hundred unlocking bills; five years from now large companies will find some other copyright claim to limit consumer choice. To really solve the problem, Congress must enact meaningful copyright reform. As long as we’re limited in our ability to modify and repair things, copyright — for all objects — will discourage creativity. It will cost us money. It will cost us jobs. And it’s already costing us our freedom.”

NO VIRUSES THOUGH, I HOPE

Soon, You May Download New Skills to Your Brain (The Atlantic)

Forget about those piano lessons. Soon, you’ll be able to just download the ability to play the piano straight to your brain. Yes, just like in The Matrix. Using functional MRI technology, researchers from Boston University and Japan’s ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories showed that it may be possible to learn complex new tasks with little to no conscious effort by stimulating the brain with visual perceptual learning. The most interesting part? The researchers’ experiments worked especially well when the subjects were unaware of what they were learning.

IT’S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD

March Madness: The School Tuitions of the NCAA Bracket (The Awl)

The Awl has published its annual NCAA bracket by tuition, which shows that while winning a basketball title may be worth bragging about, “we all know the real champion is the institution of higher education that can charge the most tuition and still have enough students to keep its rejection letter printer warm.” Finalists included Duke, Villanova, Georgetown, LaSalle, and Notre Dame. But, congratulations go to those of you who put your money on Bucknell — the winner, with an annual tuition of $45,132 (about the cost of all four years at either UCLA or the University of Illinois). The school with the lowest tuition? North Carolina A&T State University, in Greensboro, coming in at an annual tuition of $2,791.

BONUS BITS:

It’s Called Brogurt

Yogurt for Men: A Review (NPR)
There Aren’t Nearly Enough Women on the Internet (Bloomberg Businessweek)
Amazon’s New Imprints Give Opportunities to Debut Authors, Short Story Writers (The Christian Science Monitor)

As U.S. colleges gear up for graduation day, many are announcing who their esteemed commencement speakers will be. Esther Zuckerman at The Atlantic gives us the rundown of some of the more intriguing speakers lined up. A few notables: President Obama will be speaking at Ohio State, Morehouse, and the U.S. Naval Academy. The Dalai Lama will deliver Tulane’s address. University of Virginia students can count on some big laughs with speaker Stephen Colbert. Toni Morrison will grace the Vanderbilt campus. Michael Bloomberg will speak at Stanford, Cory Booker at Yale, and Steve Wozniak at U.C. Berkeley. And Harvard landed Oprah. For a preview of what Harvard grads might expect, see the embedded video from Oprah’s 2008 Stanford commencement speech, where she reflects on harnessing passion, finding meaningful work, giving back, and what we can all learn from failure. Her best advice for gaining a competitive edge in the business world? Trust your gut.

IT TAKES A STEADY HAND

Tattoo Studio’s Brilliant Help-Wanted Ad Makes Applicants Carefully Fill In a QR Code (AdWeek)

A tattoo studio in Turkey found an innovative way to use QR codes in job ads. They printed a newspaper ad seeking tattoo artists, which had a faintly-visible QR code. In order to begin the interview process, potential applicants had to first fill in the QR code — very carefully. Those who were skilled enough to complete the task with precision could then scan it to receive the official application form by e-mail. Those who couldn’t? They screened themselves out of the running.

BABY STEPS

Before You Brainstorm, Take Care of the “Front End” of Innovation (Innovation Excellence)

Most organizations don’t appreciate the amount of discovery, learning, and thinking that are necessary for real innovation. As a consequence, they don’t allocate the time for these tasks, don’t assign the right people, and don’t establish the corporate expectations and culture that will help people innovate successfully. This neglect of the “front end” of innovation is one reason why companies have such a hard time creating truly new, non-incremental ideas. Jeffrey Phillips shows why it’s critical for companies to ask a lot of questions about customers and markets before trying to come up with new product ideas. — Andy O’Connell

BONUS BITS:

Julia, Charlie and John: You’re Going to Yale

Infographic: Here are the Names That Get You Into Yale — Or Keep You Out (Gawker)
Fraud or apathy: What is academia’s biggest threat? (Freeky Business)
Stop Requiring College Degrees (HBR)

Weight Watchers leaders are waging a battle — and it’s not just over our expanding waistlines. They’re angry about the wages they’re being paid, complaining that the base rate for running meetings ($18) hasn’t increased in more than a decade, even as the company shells out millions to celebrities like Jennifer Hudson and Jessica Simpson to advertise the program. Hundreds have taken to an internal corporate website in protest, some arguing that Weight Watchers gets away with paying so little because most of its leaders are female.

Steven Greenhouse at The New York Times says that the uproar comes at a tough time for Weight Watchers. Two years ago, the company reached a $6.2 million settlement that ended a class-action lawsuit in California in which employees complained about minimum wage violations, off-the-clock work and paychecks that didn’t explain how wages were calculated. And Weight Watchers is forecasting lower earnings this year, citing problems recruiting new members. (Is it any wonder, with its $42.95 monthly fee, when there are plenty of free weight loss apps that simulate the Weight Watchers experience?)

But for disgruntled employees, they sure do seem to love their work. As Teri Weatherby, a meeting leader in Hartford, CT, puts it: “Other than the financial problems, it’s probably the most rewarding thing I’ve ever done,” she said. “That’s what they prey upon. It’s like an abusive relationship. You know you should leave, but you stay because you love it.”

IN RELATED NEWS…

Cash is Nice, but Think About What Might Benefit Both Employees and the Company (Business Horizons)

What if you could “pay” your employees in such a way as to not only give them something they valued but simultaneously improve their commitment or job-related knowledge? You can. As a reward for high performance, you can give employees the freedom to redesign their jobs, or you can provide extra training. How about giving them a sabbatical? That will get their attention. Herman Aguinis of the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University lays out the options for non-monetary compensation. —Andy O’Connell

A WALK TO REMEMBER

A Chance Encounter Becomes Impromptu Mentoring (Fortune)

So, you’re a kid on a bike and you recognize the guy who takes a walk through your neighborhood as Mark Zuckerberg. Why does he take walks through your neighborhood? Because his office is nearby and it’s California and the weather is always beautiful. And what do you do? You strike up a conversation with him, and pretty soon you’re talking to him every day as he passes by. Before you know it, he’s urging you to learn to program and giving you detailed instructions on how to go about becoming a budding engineer. It’s a story of two people united by a sense of wonder and enjoyment. —Andy O’Connell

BONUS BITS:

But Can They Still Wear Their PJs?

Marissa Mayer’s No-Working-From-Home Rule Is Stupid — Or It Could Save Yahoo (Wired)
New Research: What Yahoo Should Know About Good Managers and Remote Workers (HBR)
Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer Installed a Nursery In Her Office (Gawker)

Fed up with the chaos that was dominating their household, the Starr family of Hidden Springs, Idaho, decided to start running their family like a business. They turned to a program called agile development, a system of group dynamics where workers are organized into small teams, and hold daily progress sessions and weekly reviews. According to The Wall Street Journal’s Saturday Essay Family Inc, it’s a growing trend among a new generation of parents who are taking workplace solutions — like accountability checklists, branding sessions, mission statements, core values statements, and conflict resolution techniques — home to their families.

Some of the take-home advice? 1.) The most effective teams (and families) aren’t dominated by a single top-down leader; all members must contribute. 2.) Employees (and children) are more self-motivated when they can set weekly goals, plan their own time, and evaluate their own work. 3.) You need to build flexibility into a business, or a family. You can’t anticipate every problem, so you need systems that allow you to adapt to change quickly. Accountability, one of the central tenets of agile development, is also key, making “information radiators” — large, public boards where people mark their progress — essential.

EXTRA! EXTRA! READ ALL ABOUT IT!

Innovation Lessons from the Newspaper Industry (Journalism.org)

A new report from the Pew Research Center shows that in the embattled newspaper industry, some papers are finding ways to turn business innovations into real revenue. A year-long report analyzed four daily newspapers’ experiments, which ranged from sales force restructuring to rebranding to digital experiments and outsourcing of services. Some of the common factors among the more successful newspapers? Leaders with a clear vision and a willingness to take risks, a commitment to reshaping the internal culture, and a focus on improving the quality of the product, even with reduced resources.

FACEBOOK FATIGUE

Number of Users Spending Less Time on Facebook Outweighs Number Spending More Time (Pew Research Center)

Some 34% of Facebook users say they spend less time on the site now than last year, while just 13% say they spend more time on it, and decreases in engagement seem to be most prevalent among the young, says a Pew survey: Among users ages 18-29, the proportion who report spending less time on the site is 42%. Additionally, 28% of total users say the site is less important to them than it was last year (only 12% say it’s more important). What does it all mean? Pew says simply that there’s a lot of fluidity among Facebook visitors. And bear in mind that it’s still a monster site: Two-thirds of all online American adults are Facebook users.
— Andy O’Connell

BONUS BITS:

Out of Balance

Raw Data: 401(k) Account Balances for Workers Near Retirement (Mother Jones)
Surnames Offer Depressing Clues to the Extent of Social Mobility Over Generations (The Economist)
China’s New Bachelor Class (The Atlantic)

Recently, a pastor in St. Louis dined with a party of 10 at Applebee’s. When her check came with an automatic 18% tip already added (standard for large parties), she crossed it out and wrote a note in its place that said: “I give God 10%. Why do you get 18%?” The waitress showed the receipt to a co-worker, who snapped a photo and posted it online. The rest, as they say, is history. The pastor was subjected to a vitriolic attack in the court of public opinion. The waitress was fired (at the pastor’s request).

The moral of the story? According to Conor Friedersdorf at The Atlantic, “In America, where ‘the customer is always right,’ a confrontation between a customer and an employee, mediated by a manager, is almost never going to end in satisfaction for the employee, no matter how badly the customer behaved.” Still, he argues that “10,000 digital tongue-lashings and a note on their permanent record” imposes quite a sentence on entitled or belligerent customers. While he agrees that businesses should hold employees accountable for exposing customers to Internet ridicule, Friedersdorf hopes that the transparency that technology brings will make the customer of tomorrow think twice before behaving badly.

SHE WORKS HARD FOR THE HUMANA

Everybody’s Working for the…Health Care Benefits (The Washington Post)

One of the most obvious demographic groups that will benefit from “Obamacare” are underemployed 20-somethings, who can now piggyback on their parents’ health insurance policies longer than they could in the past. But a smart analysis from Sarah Kliff in The Washington Post may be equally interesting to this cohort: She reports on survey data showing that many older workers stay in their jobs (or plan to stay in their jobs) longer than they would otherwise, primarily because they need the employer-provided health insurance benefits. This may change as some older workers decide to ditch their jobs and sign up for Obamacare, which while more expensive than employer-subsidized coverage, should still be moderately affordable for middle-income workers. If the newly-available insurance leads to a wave of retirements, it could lead companies to have to hire — creating another possible benefit for 20-somethings currently mired in their 17th unpaid internship.— Dan McGinn

EXPOSE YOURSELF

How to Make Irrelevant Ideas Relevant to Your Innovation Task (Knowledge@Wharton)

If you’re working on a creative project that calls for breakthrough innovation, make sure you take a lot of breaks to engage in outside activities such as talking with acquaintances in other fields or reading articles on unrelated topics. That way you expose yourself to “peripheral knowledge” that might work its way into your brain, say Wharton management professor Martine Haas and doctoral student Wendy Ham. Their research shows that this kind of knowledge can influence breakthrough innovation. Examples of the value of “irrelevant” information: At Reebok, the cushioning in a basketball shoe reflects technology borrowed from intravenous-fluid bags. Qualcomm’s color-display technology is rooted in microstructures of a butterfly’s wings. IDEO developers designed a leak-proof water bottle using the technology from a shampoo bottle top. — Andy O’Connell

BONUS BITS:

From the Monday Morning Quarterbacks

The 10 Super Bowl Commercials That Blew Up the Biggest in Social Media (Ad Age)
That Was a Great Blackout (NPR)
How Oreo’s Brilliant Blackout Tweet Won the Super Bowl (CNET)

Google just added new information to its “Transparency Report” to tell users how the company handles government requests for personal information (like what you provide when you sign up for a Google Account, or the contents of an email) — which, according to Shara Tibken at CNET, is happening more and more often: “In the second half of 2012, Google received 8,438 U.S. requests for information, up 6 percent from the first half of 2012. Globally, Google received 21,389 requests, up 2 percent from the first half of the year.” Google’s Chief Legal Officer David Drummond wrote in a blog post that “it’s important for law enforcement agencies to pursue illegal activity and keep the public safe. We’re a law-abiding company, and we don’t want our services to be used in harmful ways. But it’s just as important that laws protect you against overly broad requests for your personal information.”

In a nutshell, Google will review requests for your information (and will verify that there’s a search warrant) before complying, and will notify users about legal demands when possible.

SELF-MADE WOMEN

China Produces Outsized Numbers of Super-Rich Women (Reuters Magazine)

Women are making huge gains in the middle class around the world, but at the summit of wealth and economic power, they are almost entirely absent. Except in China. Half of the women in the world who earn their way to billion-dollar fortunes are in China, writes Chrystia Freeland. One explanation is that China’s family structure helps women get to the top. Close connections between generations mean grandmothers often help raise grandchildren, and there’s little stigma for Chinese mothers who don’t take care of their children. Plus the one-child policy means smaller families and thus less time spent nurturing them. — Andy O’Connell

THE MBA’S REDUCED ROI

MBA’s Salary-Enhancing Power Slashed (The Financial Times)

Bad news for MBAs. The paper’s latest global business school rankings show that students are shelling out more money for their degrees but earning less when they graduate. One bright spot: the gap between salaries paid to female MBAs and those paid to their male counterparts is narrowing. But in a shrinking compensation pool, that’s not much comfort. Oh, and the rankings: HBS (which is, of course, the parent organization of HBR) ousts Stanford for the top spot. — Alison Beard

BONUS BITS:

Say What?

Smart Organizations Should Also Be Stupid, Says New Theory (Science Daily)
Building the Telepresent Robotic Boss of the Future (POPSCI)
What Twitter Really Looks Like (The Atlantic)

In this three-part series from The Associated Press (featured here on the The Washington Post website), experts warn that if you add up all the jobs that technology (like robots) can take, the world is going to see unemployment on a scale that we haven’t begun to imagine. The article quotes software entrepreneur and author Martin Ford, who foresees a computer-dominated economy with 75 percent unemployment before the end of this century, and questions whether human beings will have anything left to do as robot and computers get smarter.

According to former U.S. Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers, also quoted in the article, the world is moving in that direction. In a speech last year, he declared that the biggest economic issue of the future would not be the federal debt or competition from China but “the dramatic transformations that technology is bringing about.”

TAKE OFF, EH?

Want to Start a Startup? Move to Canada. (Big Think)

The Canadian government recently announced that on April 1, it will launch a Start-Up Visa program to “link international entrepreneurs with private sector organizations…that have experience working with startups to provide essential resources.” People who qualify for the program will get permanent resident status and may eventually qualify for immigration. Canadian government minister Jason Kenney says that the program “underscores our commitment to supporting innovation and entrepreneurship in the Canadian labour market.” The criteria for qualifying for the program will be published sometime this spring.

‘FOUNDER’ IS A STATE OF MIND

What to Do If Your Startup Needs a Pro CEO Who Has a Founder Mentality (Quartz)

The current conventional thinking about internet companies is that they’re different from other types of startups, because they need to generate lots of new and exciting ideas to stay alive. Thus, the old wisdom about how founders should give way to “professional” CEOs is often said not to apply. But Reid Hoffman, cofounder of LinkedIn, realized a few years ago that being CEO wasn’t for him. He didn’t like running weekly staff meetings. He wanted to use his time solving intellectual challenges, not conducting debates about which employees should be promoted. His solution was to bring in a CEO who could function as a co-founder, “not as an adult supervisor.” For companies like LinkedIn, the professional CEO also has to have the knowledge, moral authority, and commitment of a founder, he says. — Andy O’Connell

BONUS BITS:

Think Again

If You Think You’re Good at Multi-Tasking, You Probably Aren’t (NPR)
11 Body Parts Defense Researchers Will Use to Track You (Wired)
Subway Apologizes for Failing to “Fully Deliver” on Footlong Promise (Gawker)

According to a new study from Stanford, once a company goes public, innovation declines. And that’s not all: Top inventors also tend to bail, and those who remain, waiting for their options to vest, typically suffer a decline in productivity.
As described in Bloomberg, Shai Bernstein, assistant finance professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, came to this conclusion by analyzing the patent data of over 1,500 public and private U.S. technology firms between 1983 and 2006 — a data set that includes Microsoft and Google, among others. The problem, he found, is that instead of fostering in-house innovation, public companies tend to rely on acquisitions for innovations.

MY PASSWORD IS PASSWORD

Google’s Alternative to the Password (MIT Technology Review)

Passwords may be going the way of the dodo — that is, if Google has anything to do with it. There are a whole host of reasons why passwords just aren’t working: people choose them badly, lose them, write them down, and reuse them across services. Plus, passwords can be intercepted by malware or password servers can be compromised over the Internet. Google engineers hope to change all of that, by developing security alternatives such as a USB key — or even jewelry, such as a ring on your finger — that would allow you (and you alone) to log in to your computer or a website. It could mean that in the near future, people will rarely use passwords at all, or would only need a strong password for deep backup.

SIRI, WHY ARE YOU SO BORING?

Job Opening at Apple: Writing for Siri (Quartz)

Siri, the iPhone’s “virtual personal assistant” may be a veritable font of useful information, but Megan Garber at Quartz wonders why she has to be so dull. “Siri, bless her, doesn’t do banter,” writes Garber. But, that could all be changing soon, as Apple recently posted a job for a writer/editor for Siri. That’s right – Siri’s getting a speechwriter. And this person is expected to make your future interactions with Siri sizzle. Siri’s ghostwriter is going to need to explain things in engaging, funny, practical ways. And while Garber questions whether the world really needs its cyborgs to be verbally dextrous and personality-laden, she surmises from Apple’s job description that Siri is about to get a lot more sassy.

BONUS BITS:

We Have the Technology

How Netflix, HBO, ESPN punish international travelers (CNET)
Why You Should Be Optimistic About Renewables, In One Chart (MotherJones)
This Car Could Make Honda Relevant Again (Wired)