Business
5 Questions for:
Rich Lyons, Bank of America Dean, Haas School of Business 1. After the release of this year’s Academic Rankings of World Universities, you Tweeted, “Berkeley among the top 5 university brands.” That caught my attention because the word brand wasn’t part of the rankings. Why add it? Rich Lyons: We use the word reputation a lot […]
Fiat Lucre
Ideas are UC Berkeley’s greatest asset. If only you could bank on them. The wolf may not be butting against Academe’s door, but it is sniffing around in the front yard. Money, especially for public universities, is tight and getting tighter. Although there’s no satisfactory substitute for public funding, many academics insist some bootstrapping is in […]
A Taxing Business
What would happen if we raised taxes on the rich? History may hold the answer. The recent “Occupy” demonstrators protest that the top 1 percent of Americans aren’t paying their fair share. But tax the rich too much and you risk stifling productivity, counter fiscal conservatives. Not true, say Berkeley husband and wife economist team David […]
Beyond Wine and Chocolate
Scharffenberger leads a campaign to make tofu cool. John Scharffenberger’s taste buds have been good to him. They guided him to success in his premium chocolate and sparkling wine companies, which he has since sold for millions. Scharffenberger established a U.S. audience for these gourmet goods in what had previously been a European-dominated luxury market. Today, […]
Ego Inflation
Are you overvaluing yourself? After earning a Ph.D. from Cal in 2001, psychologist Cameron Anderson found that his favorite projects—studies of social dynamics in the workplace—were transcending the arcane realm of psychology and moving into the practical business world. Anderson, who joined the Haas School of Business last fall, immediately set out to study pomposity in […]
Social Responsibility
Moneymaker or not? It sounds too good to be true: you pay your workers a living wage, avoid pollution, and treat developing nations fairly. And though these tactics will cost you money, you’ll still improve profit as workers, investors, and shoppers reward your social responsibility. Yes, it is too good to be true, says business professor […]
In Search of Dry California Wines
California’s wine industry proclaims it’s leading the way toward sustainability. But are winemakers going green—or dry—enough to make a difference? California winemaking is big, big business. Two out of three bottles consumed in the U.S. are California wines. Those 196 million cases had retail sales of $18.5 billion in 2008; close to another $1 billion’s worth […]
Playing Ball
A Cal thespian goes to the Big Show. Jean Afterman ’79 defines herself professionally as an attorney. That she is the vice president and assistant general manager of the New York Yankees comes next. Being one of only three women holding front office executive positions in Major League Baseball is also part of the deal. Nine […]
Weathering The Storm
The forecast for newspapers may be grim, but J-schools look to a brighter future. As each week brings new reports of layoffs, buyouts, and bankruptcies across the print spectrum, the only thing clear is that an era in American journalism is ending. Graduate journalism programs, charged with training the next generation of professionals for a vocation […]
It Pays To Come Clean For Black Applicants
When employers interview new applicants, they’re looking for people who are honest, reliable, and responsible. Running criminal background checks is one way to screen applicants, but critics say these checks are unfair to black men, who are stigmatized by statistics: Black men are seven times more likely to be incarcerated than white men over the […]
Connecting Dots And Dollars
Venture capital took root in Northern California thanks to one thing: connections. That web of connections has turned out to be the most powerful renewable resource that California has ever had, spawning a business phenomenon in the late 1980s that relied on private investment and merchant banks, that at its height in 2002 produced 7,812 […]
Compassionate Capitalism
Money isn’t everything—at least, not to those in the business of venture philanthropy, an offspring of centuries-old socially responsible investing that Jerome Dodson modernized in San Francisco in 1984. In 1999, John (Bud) Colligan, a partner at the Silicon Valley venture capital firm Accel Partners, working with long-time business executive Penelope Douglas, created a venture […]
