Inspiring examples of responsible capitalism.
How to invest for a better world.
Decrying the fact that most venture capitalists “worship in the church of greed,” Klein and Kapor, founders of the impact investment firm Kapor Capital, offer myriad examples of businesses they have supported that are focused on doing good—specifically, on closing “gaps of access, opportunity, or outcome for low-income communities and/or communities of color.” An impact investment firm, the authors explain, aims to get a substantial return on their investments by funding entrepreneurs “whose own life experiences compel them to create companies and build wealth that will solve the difficult problems that they personally had to overcome.” Not surprisingly, those people come from underrepresented groups, including immigrants and children of immigrants, racial minorities, women, and individuals who identify as queer. At Kapor Capital, write the authors, “every person involved in making the fund’s investment decisions is a person of color.” They profile an impressive assortment of ventures responding to social, political, economic, and environmental problems, including Bitwise and Career Karma, companies helping people from underrepresented communities train for and secure jobs in the tech industry, notoriously dominated by White males from Stanford and Harvard; BlocPower, which uses a highly sophisticated software system to identify energy efficiency or inefficiency in low-income neighborhoods; Aclima, which aims “to close equity gaps in race, the environment, economics, education, and health by quantifying disparity as it relates to the quality of air people breathe; and Honor, which uses technology to make home health care more accessible and equitable. “What’s wrong with the larger ecosystem of mainstream tech and venture capital,” the authors assert, is that “its mission is to solve problems for the rich, and its players believe they’re smarter than the experts.” Although the authors address venture capitalists, they urge employees, consumers, and shareholders to join their efforts to make a positive impact.
Inspiring examples of responsible capitalism.Pub Date: March 14, 2023
ISBN: 9780063268517
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Harper Business
Review Posted Online: Jan. 5, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our...
A psychologist and Nobel Prize winner summarizes and synthesizes the recent decades of research on intuition and systematic thinking.
The author of several scholarly texts, Kahneman (Emeritus Psychology and Public Affairs/Princeton Univ.) now offers general readers not just the findings of psychological research but also a better understanding of how research questions arise and how scholars systematically frame and answer them. He begins with the distinction between System 1 and System 2 mental operations, the former referring to quick, automatic thought, the latter to more effortful, overt thinking. We rely heavily, writes, on System 1, resorting to the higher-energy System 2 only when we need or want to. Kahneman continually refers to System 2 as “lazy”: We don’t want to think rigorously about something. The author then explores the nuances of our two-system minds, showing how they perform in various situations. Psychological experiments have repeatedly revealed that our intuitions are generally wrong, that our assessments are based on biases and that our System 1 hates doubt and despises ambiguity. Kahneman largely avoids jargon; when he does use some (“heuristics,” for example), he argues that such terms really ought to join our everyday vocabulary. He reviews many fundamental concepts in psychology and statistics (regression to the mean, the narrative fallacy, the optimistic bias), showing how they relate to his overall concerns about how we think and why we make the decisions that we do. Some of the later chapters (dealing with risk-taking and statistics and probabilities) are denser than others (some readers may resent such demands on System 2!), but the passages that deal with the economic and political implications of the research are gripping.
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-27563-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
IN THE NEWS
These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.
A helpful guide to working effectively with people from other cultures.
“The sad truth is that the vast majority of managers who conduct business internationally have little understanding about how culture is impacting their work,” writes Meyer, a professor at INSEAD, an international business school. Yet they face a wider array of work styles than ever before in dealing with clients, suppliers and colleagues from around the world. When is it best to speak or stay quiet? What is the role of the leader in the room? When working with foreign business people, failing to take cultural differences into account can lead to frustration, misunderstanding or worse. Based on research and her experiences teaching cross-cultural behaviors to executive students, the author examines a handful of key areas. Among others, they include communicating (Anglo-Saxons are explicit; Asians communicate implicitly, requiring listeners to read between the lines), developing a sense of trust (Brazilians do it over long lunches), and decision-making (Germans rely on consensus, Americans on one decider). In each area, the author provides a “culture map scale” that positions behaviors in more than 20 countries along a continuum, allowing readers to anticipate the preferences of individuals from a particular country: Do they like direct or indirect negative feedback? Are they rigid or flexible regarding deadlines? Do they favor verbal or written commitments? And so on. Meyer discusses managers who have faced perplexing situations, such as knowledgeable team members who fail to speak up in meetings or Indians who offer a puzzling half-shake, half-nod of the head. Cultural differences—not personality quirks—are the motivating factors behind many behavioral styles. Depending on our cultures, we understand the world in a particular way, find certain arguments persuasive or lacking merit, and consider some ways of making decisions or measuring time natural and others quite strange.
These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.Pub Date: May 27, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-61039-250-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: April 15, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2014
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