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Where does confidence come from, especially when we attempt something new? How do we justify judgments prone to mistake and disagreement? Drawing on more than thirty years of research, Amar Bhidé cuts through esoteric theories and glib "how-tos" to explain the practical ways we cope with uncertainties. Weaving together forgotten insights from the economist Frank Knight and other great twentieth-century thinkers, Bhidé presents a fresh perspective that sheds light on surprising aspects of entrepreneurship, from why startups and giants coexist to how vividly described possibilities help make the imagined real.
List of contents
- Preface
- Part I: Invitation to the Voyage
- 1. The Offering
- 2. Uncertainty as Doubt
- 3. Conjectures about Justification
- 4. Applications to Enterprise
- Part II: Formidable Obstacles, Forgotten Beacons
- 5. Frank Knight: The Spark That Did Not Ignite
- 6. Practically Omniscient Microeconomics
- 7. Imperfect Market Theories: Realism without Fallibility
- 8. John Maynard Keynes: Help to Distraction
- 9. Herbert Simon: Faded Guiding Star
- 10. Daniel Ellsberg's Ambiguity: A Simplifying Side Trip
- 11. Kahneman and Tversky: Gaining Acceptance, Dropping Uncertainty
- 12. Richard Thaler and Co.: Building the New Behavioral Boomtowns
- Part III: The Specialization of Enterprise
- 13. Including Uncertainty: Recapitulation and Preview
- 14. "Bootstrapping" Improvised Startups
- 15. Calculating Capitalists: VCs and Angels Investors
- 16. The Evolution of Dynamic Bureaucracies
- 17. The Dominions of Giants
- Part IV: Imaginative Discourse
- 18. The Aims of Discourse
- 19. The Devices of Discourse
- 20. Stories As Side Dishes
- 21. Spillovers from Popular Stories
- Part V: Coda
- 22. The Case for Widening
- Acknowledgments
- Notes
- References
- Index
About the author
Amar Bhidé is Professor of Health Policy at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health and Professor of Business Emeritus at Tufts University's Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. He has researched and taught about innovation, entrepreneurship, and finance for over three decades. Bhidé is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a founding member of the Center on Capitalism and Society at Columbia, and a founding editor of
Capitalism and Society. He is the author of
A Call for Judgment: Sensible Finance for a Dynamic Economy;
The Venturesome Economy: How Innovation Sustains Prosperity in a More Connected World;
The Origin and Evolution of New Businesses; and
Of Politics and Economic Reality. He has written numerous articles for the
Harvard Business Review;
The Wall Street Journal;
The New York Times; the
Financial Times; and
Project Syndicate.
Additional text
A work of breathtaking breadth...A deep understanding of the concepts is intertwined with personal details of some of the colorful key personas such as Knight, Keynes, Savage, Ellsberg, Simon, and Kahneman/Tversky. The story is wonderfully curated and Bhide is not afraid to give his own views on what works and what has turned out to be fruitless expeditions to barren landscapes.... I can think of no better overview of the concept of uncertainty.
