In this episode we’re headed to the Carbon Capture Inc.'s headquarters in Downtown Los Angeles, where the company's first prototype was built. And to Southwest Wyoming where the company is planning the first large-scale direct-air capture facility in the United States. 

But the scope of the problem is massive and growing, which means that all of these promising new ideas need to launch and scale quickly. 

This series will take you inside the world of carbon capture, guided by innovators and experts at the forefront of the movement who will help you understand what is possible.

And Steel wasn’t just hearing it, he was seeing it. At some point, it felt like he would see a new story every day about companies that were grappling with climate change, racial justice, or diversity and inclusion. He was watching a sea change take place.

His recent book, Elevated Economics: How Conscious Consumers Will Fuel the Future of Business, is his effort to explain the implications of this watershed moment—and help readers understand what it takes to succeed in the new economy it has created. 

In this second part of our Skydeck conversation with Immelt, we talk about the trials of the financial crisis, the loneliness of life at the top, and what his post-GE career in education and venture capital have taught him about the future of global business.

His initial plan was to spend five years or so at GE learning how to manage. Ultimately though, he would go on to spend 35 years at the company, becoming CEO in 2001. He was so dedicated to GE that, at age 50, he got the company's logo tattooed on his leg.

Immelt, now venture partner at New Enterprise Associates and a lecturer at Stanford's Graduate School of Business, recounts his history at GE in his recent book, Hot Seat: What I Learned Leading a Great American Company. And in this first episode of a special two-part Skydeck interview with Immelt, we talk about his rise to CEO, the challenge of enacting change at a massive scale, and what his experience at GE can teach large organizations about overcoming barriers to innovation.

But Rogers also recorded a second podcast, this one addressing a white audience, telling them exactly what they could be doing to help support the Black community. The positive response to that episode led Rogers, a retired HBS professor, to write his recent book, A Letter to My White Friends and Colleagues: What You Can Do Right Now to Help the Black Community. And in this episode of Skydeck, Rogers and I talk about the makings of America's racial wealth gap, why he thinks it is a root cause of the nation's racial crisis, and the tangible steps necessary to help erase it.

Five years later, officially in remission, Somani drew on the lessons learned during that difficult time to launch an inspirational speaker platform called Silver Linings in an effort to champion resilience, advocacy, and mental wellbeing. Somani believes that silver linings aren’t meant to just be “found” during the darkest of times, but can be created through mindset, intention, and sense of purpose. These are all learnable skills, she says, that can be used to build resilience and better navigate the uncertainty and challenges we all confront. In this episode of Skydeck, Somani talks to Associate Editor Julia Hanna about the moment of her diagnosis, an unexpected silver lining from her own experience, her career pivot, and how she sees her work evolving in the future.

But his success came against very high odds, which Ed chronicles in his recent book, On the Road Less Traveled: An Unlikely Journey from the Orphanage to the Boardroom.

It was a wakeup call for Friedman. He’d had a successful career in investment banking and venture capital, which included being the founder and former president of the investment banking operation of Houlihan Lokey at the age of 28. Houlihan Lokey would go on to become a New York Stock Exchange public company.  

But his friend’s death made the next big VC deal or M&A transaction seem much less important. Instead, Friedman reoriented his  life, focusing more on philanthropy—and also getting back into one of his favorite childhood pursuits: motorcycle riding. Ultimately, this renewed passion for riding would become an historic mission to ride a motorcycle on all seven continents.

 Friedman completed his mission in December of 2019, and in this episode of Skydeck, he and I talk about the challenges he faced during his epic journey—and why he believes that getting out of one’s comfort zone and tenacity are the keys to personal growth.

In this episode of Skydeck, he speaks to Ranjay Gulati—his former college classmate and his eventual HBS executive education professor—about how Panera has faced the myriad challenges of the pandemic, the leadership values that guide him, and how a deep, personal loss became a pivotal part of his life and career.

And in this episode of Skydeck, Adams and Stewart speak with contributing host and fellow alum Chitra Nawbatt about the transformational opportunity that business has to engage women of color.

Over the next 35 years, Rosenberg would turn Dunkin' Donuts into a global icon—which last year sold to Inspire Brands for a stunning $11.3 billion. And in this episode of Skydeck, Rosenberg offers a frank assessment of family donut chain wars, details near-death takeover moments, and expounds on why a donut and a cup of coffee represent much more than a simple morning pick-me-up.

 Silicon Valley has been the global hub of tech innovation since the 1960s—but its most influential product might just be its model of entrepreneurship: disruptive, asset-light and capital-intensive businesses with a scale-at-all-cost mentality and no fear of failure.

But now something is threatening to disrupt the disruptors. Alex Lazarow (MBA 2010), author of Out-Innovate, calls it the “frontier market model.” Founded in places with limited resources and nascent entrepreneurial ecosystems, these startups have to be scrappier and leaner. And these limitations, Alex says, make businesses more sustainable.

In this episode, we ask entrepreneurs from frontier markets around the globe: What can Silicon Valley learn from your experiences? And what happens if the startup capital of the world ignores these lessons?

The city looked nothing like Silicon Valley in those days. There were very few VC-backed startups and not much of an entrepreneurial ecosystem. It was what author and venture capitalist Alex Lazarow would define as a “frontier market”—a place where entrepreneurs face significant constraints on funding, infrastructure, and talent. A place where the Silicon Valley model of moving fast and breaking things—an early Mark Zuckerberg mantra—just doesn’t work. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

But if those dire predictions come true, it might not be because of inflated valuations. It could be because Silicon Valley has lost its monopoly on its superpower: Innovation.

 In this episode of Skydeck, we’re kicking off a three-part series called “Out of the Valley.” It will focus on the work of Alex Lazarow (MBA 2010), a venture capitalist and author of the book, Out-Innovate: How Global Entrepreneurs from Delhi to Detroit Are Rewriting the Rules of Silicon Valley. Over these next few episodes, we’ll explore the ideas at the heart of Alex’s book, detailing how entrepreneurs and ecosystems across the globe are challenging the Silicon Valley model—and explaining what these global startups can teach their peers in the Valley.

In this first episode, we’re going to examine why Silicon Valley is at risk of losing its startup crown and what that could mean for the future of innovation.

Willie Woods is cofounder, president, and managing director of ICV Partners, and in this episode of Skydeck, he talks to contributing host Chitra Nawbatt (GMP 6, 2009) about what it takes to make real change to the diversity of your organization.

In this episode of Skydeck, associate editor Jen Flint talks to Pal about the pandemic’s impact on both her business and on global carbon emissions, and the insight it can offer us about tackling climate change.

In mid-June, weeks after protests against racial injustice spread globally, the Leadership Now Project—founded in 2017 by HBS alumni to fix American democracy—released the Business for Racial Equity Pledge. Spearheaded by six Black HBS alumni, the pledge asks business leaders to promise that they will pursue anti-racist initiatives in the areas of policing reform; safe ballot access and civic participation; and economic inclusion. 

Among the alumni authors of the pledge is Lisa Lewin (MBA 2003), a Leadership Now steering committee member, ed tech veteran, and current cofounder and managing partner of Ethical Ventures, a management consultancy dedicated to social enterprises. In its first month, the Business for Racial Equity Pledge was signed by more than 1,000 people—half of which are either CEOs or senior-level executives.

In this episode of Skydeck, Lewin speaks with contributor April White about the impetus behind the pledge, what success might look like, and why she remains optimistic that real change is possible.

It’s an imperfect—albeit necessary—set up for fans. And Ruggiero, who is a four-time women’s hockey Olympian and gold medalist, knows it’s also not an ideal situation for athletes, who feed off of a crowd’s energy.  

But for the sports leagues and the related startups that can survive this transition period—and not all of them will—it could provide an opportunity to assess and invest in the kinds of infrastructure and tech upgrades, Ruggiero says, that will make live sports both safer and more engaging on the other side.

But somehow, she says, she made it to her EC year. By then she had a taste for touring and decided to use the privilege of her education to elevate feminine voices in the music industry. Gandhi has released two albums of her own since graduating from HBS and is working on her third. She is also a public speaker and a 2020 TED Fellow—work that, like her music, celebrates gender liberation. She talks to associate editor Jen Flint in this episode of Skydeck about what it’s like to be an artist, navigating a world without live performances, and working alone in quarantine.

Greenwald is a matchmaker, New York Times-bestselling author, and a business communication consultant, and in this episode of Skydeck, she tells contributor April White about the parallels between the business world and the dating world, the important difference between talking and connecting, and why this crisis has already fundamentally changed the way we communicate.

In this episode of Skydeck, contributor April White speaks to WuDunn about what led to the fragile economic conditions of blue-collar America, what solutions are being developed to address those issues, and how the current COVID-19 crisis has revealed how much the country depends on its working class.

A longtime executive with a personal interest in history, he had been struggling with how to frame a new book he was working on about the history of innovation in America. But sitting around a makeshift bar with some of the other executives who had just laid out rosy scenarios and hockey-stick returns to potential investors, the truth came out. One of the executives was running out of cash. Another had a new competitor they didn’t have a few months prior. One had lost her star software developer to a rival. This, Schultz thought, was the perfect framing: Take all of the historical entrepreneurs he was focusing on for his book, and put them in a bar. Let them trade stories, tell jokes, share insights, and see what commonalities these icons could find over a few pints. 

The result is Schultz’s new book, Innovation on Tap: Stories of Entrepreneurship from the Cotton Gin to Broadway's Hamilton, and on this episode of Skydeck, he and I discuss what two artists separated by more than a century can teach us about innovation, and why it’s important for business leaders to reflect on history.  —Dan Morrell

Today, Schwarzman is chairman, CEO, and co-founder of Blackstone, and the founder of the Schwarzman Scholars, a graduate fellowship program housed at the new Schwarzman College in Tsinghua University in Beijing. He has just written a new book, What It Takes: Lessons in the Pursuit of Excellence, and in this episode of Skydeck, Schwarzman and I discuss the origins of his audacity, his path to success, and what he’s learned from the low points.

This chorus of executive worries led Su to write her new book, The Leader You Want to Be: Five Essential Principles for Bringing Out Your Best Self. Those principles are what she calls her five Ps: Purpose, process, people, presence, and peace. And in this episode of Skydeck, contributor April White talks to Su about how she developed those principles—and why real improvement requires a holistic approach, not just a lifestyle hack.