President L. Rafael Reif writes for The Boston Globe about The Engine, a new venture built by MIT to support startups tackling the world’s pressing challenges. Reif writes that The Engine will provide a model of support that nurtures “high-impact ideas and speeds them into the world while helping our regional innovation ecosystem flourish.”
MIT’s new enterprise, called The Engine, is aimed at supporting startups in research-heavy fields, writes Curt Woodward for The Boston Globe. “We see the opportunity for MIT to start this process and really make a huge difference in driving down the cost of innovation in hard technology and science,” notes Israel Ruiz, MIT’s executive vice president and treasurer.
David Harris reports for the Boston Business Journal on MIT’s new venture that will provide space, funding and support to startups focused on developing “‘tough’ technologies — big ideas that require time and long-term capital to commercialize — in a range of sectors including biotechnology, robotics, manufacturing, medical devices and energy.”
A study by Prof. Antoinette Schoar finds that hiring a CEO whose first job was during a recession can help boost a company’s shares, writes Alina Dizik for The Wall Street Journal. The researchers found a close connection between “starting one’s career in a recession and developing a reputation as a conservative, low-risk manager.”
Prof. Stuart Madnick writes for CNBC about how corporations can protect themselves from the growing threat of cyber crime. “It is up to senior business leaders to take the lead in protecting their organizations,” writes Madnick. “That can only be accomplished by working together with government, industry, and academia.”
MIT has been named the top university in the world in the latest QS World University Rankings, reports Nick Morrison for Forbes. This is the fifth consecutive year that MIT has earned the number one spot in the QS rankings.
Jason Margolis of PRI’s The World chronicles how MIT alumnus Sorin Grama’s first attempt at a startup paved the way for him to found Promethean Power Systems, which produces milk chillers for regions of India with unreliable power. Margolis notes that this fall Grama will serve as an entrepreneur-in-residence at MIT with a focus on the developing world.
Fortune reporter Jeremy Quittner writes about a new study by MIT researchers that examines why women are less likely to get VC funding than men. The researchers found that “women-owned companies do a certain amount of self-sorting into industries that are probably less risky, and so also lack high-growth potential that VCs find most attractive.”
In an article for The New York Times, Prof. Simon Johnson questions the ability of U.S. banks to weather another recession. Johnson writes that he thinks the U.S. should require our largest banks “to have a great deal more equity so they could absorb more of their own losses, and not dump them…on the public.”
Jarrod Goentzel and Fredrik Eng Larsson of the Center for Transportation and Logistics write for The Wall Street Journal that companies seeking greater supply chain visibility must quantify the benefits of such information. They write that “to make a clear case for investment in visibility systems, companies must focus on the tools that transform data into structural improvements.”
A study co-authored by Prof. Karen Zheng examines how fear that items will go out of stock can motivate shoppers to pay full price, increasing stores’ profits, reports CNBC reporter Susie Poppick. “It turns out people tend to believe certain products will be sold faster or sooner than they actually are,” explains Zheng.
Prof. Richard Schmalensee speaks with Forbes’ David Slocum about his book “Matchmakers: The New Economics of Multisided Platforms.” Schmalensee explains that the fundamentals of new businesses “are similar to those of old, familiar ones — from how they price, to how they solve the…problem of getting both groups of customers on board. New startups can then learn from old successful ones.”
Prof. Thomas Kochan speaks with WBUR reporter Deborah Becker about the contract dispute between Verizon and the company’s employees. Kochan says that in order to avoid these situations in the future, “we need to fundamentally change our labor policy to provide more workers access to a variety of different ways to have a voice at work.”
The Economist highlights an MIT study that shows Massachusetts is outperforming Silicon Valley in creating life sciences startups, and credits MIT for its role in driving innovation in Kendall Square. “The Boston metropolitan area...seems to be holding its own as the world’s pre-eminent biotech hub.”
Deepa Seetharaman writes for The Wall Street Journal about Prof. Sinan Aral’s research on the popularity of social media messaging applications. Aral found that people are three times more likely to try an app if invited by private message and 17 percent more likely to repeatedly use the application.