Jun 2025
The Promises, Pitfalls, and Trade-offs of the Circular Economy
Most businesses are built on a linear model: take, make, and discard. But that norm is reaching its limits, and leaders are under pressure to find smarter, more sustainable ways to operate. Weslynne Ashton is a systems scientist and professor at the Illinois Institute of Technolo ... Show More
20m 36s
Feb 2020
How to Set Up — and Learn — from Experiments
Stefan Thomke, professor at Harvard Business School, says running experiments can give companies tremendous value, but too often business leaders make decisions based on intuition. While A/B testing on large transaction volumes is common practice at Google, Booking.com, and Netfl ... Show More
23m 51s
Nov 2021
A Culture of Experimentation
<p>How can organizations become more experimental? Julia Dhar, the cofounder and leader of BeSmart, BCG’s behavioral economics and insights initiative, says identify a big problem, start small, and do not overly worry that academics may criticize your experiment. As a bonus, Dhar ... Show More
22m 29s
Oct 2025
540. The Art of Experimentation to Gain Consumer Insights
In this episode of The Brainy Business podcast, Melina Palmer welcomes Dr. Henry Stott, co-founder of Dectech, to discuss the nuances of business experimentation and how to better predict customer behavior. Henry shares insights from his extensive experience in applying behaviora ... Show More
42m 49s
Jul 2025
At Booking.com, Innovation Means Constant Failure (Summer Repeat)
During a busy travel season, digital travel platform Booking.com tried a risky experiment that meant changing the site’s landing page. Then CEO Gillian Tans made the decision to lean into the company’s “test everything” culture—even if it meant failure. In this episode from 2019, ... Show More
26m 41s
Apr 2019
The Right Way to Get Your First 1,000 Customers
Thales Teixeira, associate professor at Harvard Business School, believes many startups fail precisely because they try to emulate successful disruptive businesses. He says by focusing too early on technology and scale, entrepreneurs lose out on the learning that comes from servi ... Show More
22m 35s
Aug 2024
How to Make Better Decisions, According to Science
Entrepreneurs make a mistake: They often think of decisions as binary, where one answer is definitely right and the other is definitely wrong. Astrophysicist Saul Perlmutter says there's a better way to approach decisions — and it's with "probabilistic thinking," a concept that's ... Show More
19m 9s