Day: April 25, 2013

Automation of processes that increase yield and raise productivity, is the core of what people think of when they speak of smart manufacturing. Smart is not limited to process change but opens the door to the use of new materials. Rather than stocking inventory 3-D printing capability allows custom built job-lots of one. Smart is certainly transforming manufacturing but it also transforms companies themselves. Witness Valin Corp. a San Jose supplier to the semiconductor that nearly perished in the wake of the dotcom bust of 2001.

With the stock market surge over the past several years, executive stock options awarded near the bottom of the market are worth small – or not so small – fortunes. How does this affect the way CEOs run their companies? A hefty increase in options’ paper value may lead to sharp decrease in risk-taking

Venture capital is the exception, not the norm, as a funding source for startups. More VC-backed new companies fail than succeed, and since 1999 VC funds have barely broken even. Those are just some of the myth-busting facts revealed by Diane Mulcahy, director of private equity at the Kauffman Foundation and a former VC herself, in the May issue of the Harvard Business Review that focuses on entrepreneurship.