#AcademicRunPlaylist - 5/26/25

I spent a ton of time driving today, but luckily I had lots of talks and books queued up for my #AcademicRunPlaylist!

First was a fascinating conversation with Joris Mercelis on Kodak's international network of research laboratories and its organizational, scientific, and commercial impact at the Hagley Museum and Library https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TL9Eh0wt6es

Next was an important discussion with Eola Dance and Jennie Katherine Williams on the intersection of data, memory, and descendent communities in the history of enslavement in the US on the Black Studies podcast https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXvnq45WEDI

Next was an interesting talk by Peter Adamson on the history of philosophy and the importance of the Islamic world in that history https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NKi-XRZ4KI

Next was "Cogs and Monsters" by Diane Coyle. Coyle provides a compelling, deeply thoughtful examination of the economics profession, confronting many of its central myths that have hobbled the field and society more broadly in recent decades. Perhaps most importantly is the myth of objectivity - claiming neutrality around what are extremely normative/political analyses and framings. I would have been more critical myself around some issues - economics has an extremely poor track record around technological change prediction and tends to focus myopically on whatever is the new hotness, for example, and claiming any metric is "objective" is a huge issue - however these minor quibbles don't detract from the excellence of this book. Highly recommend https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691210599/cogs-and-monsters

Next was "The Innovator's Dilemma" by Clay Christensen. The term "disruptive innovation" is thrown around far too much, and when one returns to Christensen's classic source it becomes clear that the innovations he refers to are those that disrupt business models - they may not actually be that huge of a technological leap. The examples here are instructive, but the lack of exploration of counterfactuals, case studies of failures, and quantitative evidence make the theory itself slightly amorphous, with the ultimate effect on the fate of businesses being unclear. This is still an essential theory to understand, however, and this book is a timeless foray into business strategy. Highly recommend https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=46

Last was "Competing Against Luck" by Clay Christensen, Taddy Hall, Karen Dillon, and David Duncan. This case study-heavy book explains the jobs-to-be-done theory of product development, providing a powerful framework for businesses hoping to deeply understand their true market. Some of the case studies here have aged extremely poorly - one of the sections on margarine, in particular, would have lead to countless more deaths if Christensen's advice was heeded, for example - and most of the cases could have used a bit more reflection on tradeoffs from tying success too closely to particular jobs-to-be-done. I also wasn't a fan of the attribution of success of some companies to this approach rather than other, more structural factors, with examples from digital platforms being particularly egregious. That being said, this book provides practical and useful grounding for folks in the business community, and if you're not familiar with this approach you should definitely pick this up https://www.harpercollins.com/products/competing-against-luck-clayton-m-christensentaddy-hallkaren-dillondavid-s-duncan