Skydeck

Sheryl WuDunn (MBA 1986) is the author of several books with her husband, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, most of which have focused on poverty in developing countries. But in the Pulitzer Prize-winning duo’s latest book,Tightrope: Americans Reaching for Hope, they turn their lens on working-class communities in the United States—communities that have been decimated by job loss and drug addiction.  

In this episode of Skydeck, contributor April White speaks to WuDunn about what led to the fragile economic conditions of blue-collar America, what solutions are being developed to address those issues, and how the current COVID-19 crisis has revealed how much the country depends on its working class.

Ayr Muir always had an interest in the environment. After HBS, he thought he’d find a job in wind power—until a friend gave him an alarming UN report detailing livestock’s impact on CO2 emissions. With the average American consuming 3.1 servings of meat daily, Muir realized that food was a place he could make a difference. In 2008 he started Clover Food Lab with the goal of making vegetables irresistible for people who love to eat meat. Now a chain of more than a dozen fast-casual restaurants in the Boston area, Clover serves an always-changing, all-vegetarian menu to a 90 percent non-vegetarian customer base. In this episode of Skydeck, associate editor Julia Hanna takes listeners behind the scenes at a Clover food development meeting and talks to Muir about Brussel sprouts, the lack of transparency in the food industry, and the iterative process that created Clover’s different look and feel.

Eric Schultz was working as an executive chairman for a tech company, and on his way home from a fundraising presentation at a venture firm when he had an epiphany.

A longtime executive with a personal interest in history, he had been struggling with how to frame a new book he was working on about the history of innovation in America. But sitting around a makeshift bar with some of the other executives who had just laid out rosy scenarios and hockey-stick returns to potential investors, the truth came out. One of the executives was running out of cash. Another had a new competitor they didn’t have a few months prior. One had lost her star software developer to a rival. This, Schultz thought, was the perfect framing: Take all of the historical entrepreneurs he was focusing on for his book, and put them in a bar. Let them trade stories, tell jokes, share insights, and see what commonalities these icons could find over a few pints. 

The result is Schultz’s new book, Innovation on Tap: Stories of Entrepreneurship from the Cotton Gin to Broadway's Hamilton, and on this episode of Skydeck, he and I discuss what two artists separated by more than a century can teach us about innovation, and why it’s important for business leaders to reflect on history.  —Dan Morrell

Fifty years ago, as a senior at Abington High School in suburban Philadelphia, Stephen Schwarzman got waitlisted Harvard College. So he found the number for Harvard’s dean of admissions and called him up to plead his case directly. When told by the dean that no one would be admitted from the waiting list that fall, Schwarzman told him that he was making a mistake. It was all for naught, but this chutzpah was a bit of a hallmark: A year earlier, Schwarzman spearheaded a successful effort to get Anthony and the Imperials—then one of the most popular musical acts in the country—to play at Abington High School.

Today, Schwarzman is chairman, CEO, and co-founder of Blackstone, and the founder of the Schwarzman Scholars, a graduate fellowship program housed at the new Schwarzman College in Tsinghua University in Beijing. He has just written a new book, What It Takes: Lessons in the Pursuit of Excellence, and in this episode of Skydeck, Schwarzman and I discuss the origins of his audacity, his path to success, and what he’s learned from the low points.

Amy Jen Su is managing director at executive coaching form Paravis Partners, and she’s been hearing some consistent themes in the trenches these days. Increasingly, her clients tell her, they are facing a serious time crunch while, at the same time, their organizations are becoming more global and complex. And these pressures, coupled with internal pressures to succeed, leave these executives feeling like they are getting in their own way.

This chorus of executive worries led Su to write her new book, The Leader You Want to Be: Five Essential Principles for Bringing Out Your Best Self. Those principles are what she calls her five Ps: Purpose, process, people, presence, and peace. And in this episode of Skydeck, contributor April White talks to Su about how she developed those principles—and why real improvement requires a holistic approach, not just a lifestyle hack.

Monica Dodi on diversity as a competitive advantage for VCs

How the CEO of a Chicago charter school network picked up the pieces after a leadership crisis 

Space entrepreneur and investor Laetitia Garriott de Cayeux on how to search the skies for profits

Where and when alumni do their best thinking