Is Business Broken?

More than 70 million Americans now do some form of freelance or gig work. For many, the appeal is flexibility: the freedom to choose when, where, and how much to work. But that flexibility sometimes comes with a cost. Gig platforms give companies a workforce they can scale up and down with demand, while shifting more of the risk onto workers, who often lack the benefits and protections of traditional employees. In July, a U.S. Government Accountability Office report found that ride-hailing and

In the age of remote and hybrid work, one question has taken on new urgency: how do you measure productivity when you can’t see it?  From AI-powered engineering dashboards to internal chatbots that log every question an employee asks, companies now have more visibility into the workforce than ever before. These tools are often built with good intentions to help employees grow, collaborate better, and deliver more value. But when workers experience them as surveillance, even the best-design

We've watched companies wrap themselves in green branding, issue elaborate corporate sustainability reports, and promise a future where capitalism and conservation march hand in hand. But is corporate sustainability truly about saving the planet, or is it a substitute for accountability and regulation? In the last episode of our three-part series inspired by BU Questrom’s Beyond Corporate Sustainability conference, host Curt Nickisch unpacks the myths of market-driven solutions and the critical

Individual companies don't operate in a vacuum. They're part of industries, supply chains, financial markets, and a much larger system. So in this bigger picture, how did the idea of corporate sustainability become so ubiquitous and powerful? How did we come to believe that companies could take on some of society's biggest environmental problems while still turning a profit?  In the second episode of our three-part series inspired by BU Questrom’s Beyond Corporate Sustainability conference

In 1990, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change published a report confirming what many scientists already knew:  that human activities are driving rapid, intensifying global warming. The science was clear, and there was momentum to act. But who should take the lead? Beginning in the 1990s, a new answer emerged: corporations. If businesses were responsible for much of the world’s fossil fuel emissions, perhaps they could also be part of the solution. It seemed like a win-win: good f

Where does innovation begin? What are the critical factors driving innovation today and tomorrow? And what happens when federal funding gets shaky, the IPO market stalls, and political uncertainty rattles an entire industry? A century and a half after Boston University Professor Alexander Graham Bell patented the telephone, questions around the innovation economy are more urgent than ever. At a live show, recorded at the WBUR Festival in Boston, host Curt Nickisch sits down to explore these qu

Ocean shipping carries close to 90% of global trade, and it accounts for about 3% of global emissions. The International Maritime Organization has set ambitious targets to reduce those by 20% by 2030, by 70% by 2040, and reach net zero by 2050. Ships are expensive and pay for themselves over decades, and the technology for green fuels is still developing. What are you supposed to do if you're a shipping company? Do you invest early and take on the risk? Do you drag your feet? And why should we

We are living through a massive migration of wealth. More and more capital is leaving public markets and flowing into private equity. There's even a growing push to let everyday investors put their retirement savings into private markets. But as private equity's footprint expands, so does the debate over who actually benefits. Has private equity made the economy more efficient, innovative, and productive — or has it become a system for extracting wealth at the expense of workers, consumers, and