unSILOed with Greg LaBlanc

Finding a ride, booking an overnight stay, running errands for someone— these amenities have been around for a while. But peer to peer platforms that offer these services have dominated the market in recent years. In his book, The Sharing Economy , professor of technology and economic expert Arun Sundararajan unpacks the concept of crowd-based capitalism. He breaks down his extensive research and...

Following the success of his first three books, best-selling author and licensed chartered financial analyst Simon Lack examined how the steady growth in debt and financial services will affect future returns. In Bonds Are Not Forever , he explores the reasons behind the steady decline in interest rates over the last few decades, how these fueled a dramatic rise in government and private borrowing...

Popular culture often portrays artificial intelligence (AI) as a super-powerful, ominous threat to jobs, lives, and ultimately humanity. As AI is moving out of the lab into the real world, how can we harness its potential for good? In this episode, Stuart Russell talks about how to avoid this impending problem, a topic he covers in his book Human Compatible. Listen as he takes us on a deep dive in...

Why do so many kids in wealthy countries have braces? Our jaws and teeth are growing smaller, causing aesthetic challenges as well as breathing difficulties. Modern orthodontics convinced us that braces and oral devices could resolve these issues. In this episode, Paul Ehrlich, a world-renowned evolutionist, talks about his latest book, Jaws: The Story Of A Hidden Epidemic . He discusses biologica...

Are you considering a new way of working? Is it possible to give people the freedom to lead projects they are great at and to collaborate regardless of hierarchy? It might be time to consider self-management. In this episode, Frederic Laloux, best-selling author and former Associate Partner with McKinsey & Company, discusses these ideas as well as his book Reinventing Organizations . Greg & Freder...

Hard work and luck. That's the key to success, according to Weijian Shan. And he knows a thing or two about success. Shan is the founder and head of Hong Kong-based private equity group PAG, a former professor at the Wharton School, and the lead on one of the most successful buyout deals ever: the acquisition and turnaround of what used to be Korea's largest bank. That is the focus of his latest b...

The buzz surrounding A.I. cognitive strategy, technology, data, and analytics has many companies excited, but what does a business do with the information available? In his book, The A.I. Advantage , Thomas Davenport offers a guide to using artificial intelligence in business.  Tom and Greg discuss how companies can leverage available technologies for their competitive advantage. Check out their d...

Why do you buy a lottery ticket when the odds of winning are one out 200 million? In this episode, Meir Statman, Professor of Finance at St. Clara University, talks about his book Finance For Normal People. Listen as he talks about what drives our hope for wealth, financial security, the need to provide for the family, and the need to give back to our society.  Greg and Meir talk about financial f...

On May 6, 2010, the global financial markets went into a tailspin suddenly and simultaneously. The event was known as the “Flash Crash,” the fastest drop in stock market history. Reports document a loss of a trillion dollars in valuation that occurred in just five minutes. Liam Vaughan, an investigative reporter with Bloomberg and Businessweek magazine in London, talks about this in his book Flash...

There is a saying that money makes the world go round. But Jacob Goldstein, journalist, author, and co-host of NPR’s Planet Money, suggests that money only works when we all believe in it. In this episode, he talks about his book, Money: The Story Of A Made-Up Thing . Jacob explains how money became a helpful fiction that shaped societies for thousands of years.  Listen from the beginning till the...

In a world of hundreds of decisions every day, how do you reconcile your ethics and biases? Max Bazerman, award-winning author, distinguished educator, and Jesse Isidor Straus Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, discusses his book, Better, Not Perfect . He shares how to become aware, honest, efficient, and smart about the decisions we make while not seeking the unreali...

Two-thirds of executives say their organizations are incapable of supporting their strategies. In this episode, Paul Leinwand, Adjunct Professor of Strategy at Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management and PWC Global Managing Director, talks about his book Strategy That Works . The author shed light on how successful companies like Lego and Ikea bridged the gap between strategy and execution.  J...

What is it about the color blue that appeals to people around the world? Why is yellow and green disliked so much? According to Sally Augustin, Ph. D., author and environmental design psychologist, sensory experiences affect the way people think about spaces. This episode highlights the ways she integrated science-based insights into the design of work and living spaces. Sally and Greg discuss ins...

Strategies that have the greatest likelihood of success are also the most likely to fail. In his best-selling and critically acclaimed book, The Strategy Paradox , Deloitte Managing Director Michael Raynor stresses the need to redefine strategy and confront uncertainty to resolve this paradox. In this episode, Michael and host Greg La Blanc discuss his views on strategic commitments, weighing risk...

Do individual traders and institutional investors suffer from psychological bias? This episode features an interview with Terry Odean, Rudd Family Foundation Professor and Chair of the Finance Group at the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley.  He shares his journey from dropping out of a seminary to hitchhiking in Afghanistan, driving a cab in the 1970s, to starting h...

How do you raise successful children? T.R.I.C.K. them! No, it's not what you think. Esther Wojcicki, Woj to her friends, wrote about the T.R.I.C.K. technique in her book How To Raise Successful People: Simple Lessons For Radical Results . If you want to know what it stands for, you'll have to listen to the full episode. Don't miss the parenting tips the journalist and educator shares from her own...

In today's business world, where everything happens at super speed, how does a company survive these accelerated changes? Author of the book Adaptive Space and Amazon Web Services Vice President for talent and Development, Michael Arena, discusses how creating Adaptive Spaces in the workplace can help build agile teams. Over the years, agility has been one of the keys that help companies survive t...

Humans have intuitive and reflective beliefs. Often, these affect how we weigh and process our arguments and views. Listen to Hugo Mercier, Cognitive Scientist and Author of Not Born Yesterday , as he shares provocative findings from his books.  In this episode, he and host Greg LaBlanc have fascinating conversations on what kind of environments shape our biases and what we choose to believe in. D...

What are the benefits of interdisciplinary research for educators in terms of gaining a deeper understanding of the larger issues that affect their field? The noted literary critic Gary Saul Morson and leading economist Morton Schapiro discuss how humanities, especially literature, offer economists ways to make their models more human, their predictions more accurate, and their policies more effec...

Despite its decentralized governance and vulnerability, why does Blockchain excite even the most powerful companies and governments? Associate Professor of Legal Studies & Business Ethics at Wharton, Author, and Founder of Supernova Group Consulting Firm, Kevin Werbach dives into the details of his book, The Blockchain And The New Architecture Of Trust . Listen as he discusses with host Greg LaBla...

How do companies and firms become unstuck to pursue sustainable competitive advantage? Best-selling author, globally renowned strategic advisor, and Columbia Professor, Rita McGrath has an in-depth conversation with host Greg LaBlanc on sustaining a culture of innovation and strategy.  Their chat revolved around her two books: The End Of The Competitive Advantage And Discovery-Driven Growth . The...

How can artificial intelligence benefit your business? Ajay Agrawal, Author and Geoffrey Taber Chair of Rotman talks about A.I. and how it generates predictions. In this episode, Ajay and Greg unpack the book Prediction Machines: The Simple Economics Of Artificial Intelligence . The episode focused on how A.I. predictions require enough data. As more data becomes available, it becomes easier to fi...

What are the steps to fostering collaboration in the academe, firms, industries, and organizations? Professor Richard Lyons, UC Berkeley's Chief Innovation and Entrepreneurship Officer, talks about his new position and new learnings. He discusses how the university is working to create an interface zone where ideas can be co-developed into commercial applications. Hear how the university's Changem...

Is Venice east or west of Naples? Our perception of an environment is often influenced by how we categorize things by proximity. Often, we associate words with the way humans think, but we tend to overlook actions and movements. Language is important, but pictures are better remembered than words.  In this episode, Stanford Professor and member of the governing board of the International Union of...

When markets are dynamic, it’s important that firms become dynamic too. Listening and understanding what's going on in the environment, outlining what the opportunities are, what the threats are is extremely important. Host Greg LaBlanc and Organizational Economist, David Teece unpack his Dynamic Capabilities Framework. In this episode, David and Greg tackle the importance of making sense of the o...