The Innovation Blind Spot: Why We Back the Wrong Ideas―and What to Do About It

The Innovation Blind Spot: Why We Back the Wrong Ideas―and What to Do About It

by Steve Case (Foreword), Ross Baird (Author)

Synopsis

Our innovation economy is broken. But there's good news: The ideas that will solve our problems are hiding in plain sight.

While big companies in the American economy have never been more successful, entrepreneurial activity is near a 30-year low. More businesses are dying than starting every day. Investors continue to dump billions of dollars into photo-sharing apps and food-delivery services, solving problems for only a wealthy sliver of the world's population, while challenges in health, food security, and education grow more serious.

In The Innovation Blind Spot, entrepreneur and venture capitalist Ross Baird argues that the innovations that truly matter don't see the light of day--for reasons entirely of our own making. A handful of people in a handful of cities are deciding, behind closed doors, which entrepreneurs get a shot to succeed. And most investors are what Baird calls two-pocket thinkers --artificially separating their charitable work from their day job of making a profit.

The resulting system creates rising income inequality, stifled entrepreneurial ambition, social distrust, and political uncertainty. Our innovation problem makes all our other problems harder to solve. In this book, Baird demonstrates how and where to find better ideas by lifting up people, places, and industries that are often overlooked. What's more, Baird ultimately outlines how to create long-term success through one-pocket thinking --eliminating the blind spot that separates what we do for a living and what we really care about.

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More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 240
Edition: Reprint
Publisher: BenBella Books
Published: 16 Oct 2018

ISBN 10: 194688555X
ISBN 13: 9781946885555
Book Overview: Book tour-Village Capital has partners in 35 US cities and 6 international cities with speaking engagements in each over the year following the book's release Village Capital is considered the best startup investment firm in the world focused on businesses seeking a positive impact Outreach through Village Capital's email list (20K) and events (~50 in 6 months) Ross leads the development of an organization that has supported over 600 enterprises on six continents Ross was recently named one of Washington's top 40 under 40 professionals by the Washington Business Journal Ross's work has been featured in MIT Innovations, TechCrunch, NextBillion, Forbes, the Huffington Post, and more Ross is an active speaker Media partnerships: Donna Byrd, publisher of The Root and VP at Univision is on Village Captial's board of directors, Tyler Brule of Monocle, Tom Foster of Inc. Magazine, editorial team at Medium.com-work to create curated conversations around the themes of the book Organization/affinity partnerships: Marshall Scholarship, Truman Scholarship, University of Virginia, Phillips Exeter Academy, and the Young Entrepreneurs' Collaborative most of their events are September/October and March/April/May Ross has 20K Twitter followers between his personal and work accounts Local markets in Alexandria, VA and Washington, DC Of foreign interest: Venture Capital has offices in Mexico City; Nairobi, Kenya; London, and Mumbai/Bangalore, India

Author Bio

Ross Baird is an entrepreneur and investor who is best known for finding, developing, and investing in entrepreneurs in places and industries where most people aren't looking. He founded Village Capital in 2009 and has worked with hundreds of entrepreneurs in over fifty countries since then. He has visited over a hundred cities worldwide by train, plane, and bus in an effort to find new entrepreneurs and help people supporting them, and he and Village Capital have partnered with over twenty Fortune 500 companies to help large institutions uncover new innovations. Before joining Village Capital, Ross worked for a venture capital firm and was on the founding team of four different startups.

Ross and his work have been featured by more than fifty media outlets including the New York Times, Bloomberg Business Week, Inc., and FastCompany. He has also lectured in entrepreneurship at the University of Virginia since 2012. He has a MPhil from the University of Oxford, where he was a Marshall Scholar, and a BA from the University of Virginia, where he was a Truman Scholar and a Jefferson Scholar.