B-School Bulletin: Trouble For Big Tech?

Clockwise from top left: Bilikiss Adebiyi-Abiola; Elliot Cohen; Tunde Alawode; Emily Reichert; Frederic Kerrest; Aukrit Unahalekhaka; and Kit Hickey, Gihan Amarasiriwardena, Aman Advani

Where Are They Now: Catch Up With 19 Of MIT’s Smartest Startups

News from MIT Sloan School of Management 

“More than 500 tons of garbage, 10 pilot cities, two major medical initiatives, one “unicorn.” In 2017 MIT Sloan alumni reached long-term goals, broke molds, and improved the lives of many people along the way. Here’s a look at some significant steps taken in the past 12 months.”

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Big Tech Is Not Untouchable

News from London Business School

“Google, Facebook and Amazon could have their freedoms curbed this year, according to Julian Birkinshaw, Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship at London Business School. ‘The tech giants are huge beasts and there is a growing sense of unease about their power,’ he said.

“Last November the attorney-general of the U.S. state of Missouri launched an investigation into Google to establish whether it had broken antitrust and consumer protection laws. Other states are also examining the power that Google gains through collecting consumer data.

“In Europe, Margrethe Vestager, the European Competition Commissioner, is about to hit Google with an antitrust fine of hundreds of millions of euros or more over its advertising network AdSense. The commission alleges that Google’s contracts with other websites broke competition law by preventing them from using other firms’ advertising networks within those websites’ search results.”

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Marc Rubin

Marc Rubin Named New Dean Of Miami Farmer

News from Miami University Farmer School of Business

“Marc Rubin, professor of accountancy and interim dean of Miami University’s Farmer School of Business, has been named dean of the Farmer School.

“Rubin has served as interim dean since last summer. His two-year appointment as dean takes effect pending approval by the university board of trustees in February.

“Rubin has taught at Miami since 1990.  He has been the PwC Professor of Accountancy and previously was chair of the accountancy department. He currently serves as the president–elect of the American Accounting Association and has been a member of the AACSB Accounting Accreditation Committee since 2015.”

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Winters In Chicago — Are They That Bad?

From the University of Chicago Booth School of Business 

“When I decided to matriculate at Booth and delivered the happy news to my family, I was met with some concern. Sure, my parents knew Booth is an amazing program and were very excited for me personally and professionally, but one thing weighed heavily on them, the weather.

“’Isn’t Chicago super, like super-duper cold?’ – my parents asked wearily. While my family never visited Chicago, they had a vision of the city based on TV and pop culture imagery. As they were born in the ex-USSR, they knew all about cold. My family remembered getting snowed in and was worried about my MBA experience, dramatizing it to sound like a natural disaster movie. The cold my parents grew up with was one that I could not even imagine, as I spent all my life in the sunny climes of Tel Aviv in Israel, with temperatures NEVER dropping below a very pleasant 50F/10C.

“So, when I moved to Chicago in July of 2016, I did not really know what to expect, but I was not worried. While I realized that I was probably in for a ride, I kept hearing from alumni that the weather is not as bad and that the city is flourishing despite it.”

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Looking At Both Sides In Search Of A Solution

News from UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School

Jeff Mittelstadt

“Highlighting the similarities between different sides of an issue to find practical solutions has been the common thread in the career of Jeff Mittelstadt (MBA ’07), documentary filmmaker.

“A childhood fascination with wildlife grew into a wider interest in sustainability – the confluence of social, environmental and economic issues, and human interactions with the environment. Those interests shaped his education and career decisions.

“’Everything I’ve worked on has been all about understanding people on different sides of an issue and finding a way for them to work together, or finding a solution that is amenable to different perspective,  whether that means capturing it in a new way or using compromise or finding win-win situations,’ says Mittelstadt.”

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