We are all born, become toddlers, teenagers, adults, mid-aged, late middle aged, and eventually die. Do company’s follow this same pattern? If so, can we use that pattern to better predict what they will do and compare that to what they should do at different stages of their life cycles?

My guest for this episode is Aswath Damodaran. Aswath is a Professor of Finance at the Stern School of Business at New York University (Kerschner Family Chair in Finance Education). Aswath is a super star professor, considered both in and out of academia as the ‘Dean of Valuation’, and one of the best teachers I have ever had the privilege of working with together. We have been lucky to have him teaching on the TRIUM EMBA for the last 23 years!

In this episode we discuss his latest book, The Corporate Life Cycle: Business, investment, and Management Implications.

The work is an attempt to provide a unified theory of all of finance (with a bit of strategy, management and leadership). With clear, compelling and concise writing, Aswath views all of corporate finance, valuation, investment philosophy and management/leadership through the construct of the birth, aging and dying of firms. The scope and scale is vast, and in a less gifted writer, it would risk being reductionist and overly simplistic – the opposite of what we have here. I wish I would have read this book 20 years ago because it would have saved me a lot of time and effort!

In this conversation we cover the basics of the corporate life cycle and some of its implications. We get into a lively discussion about whether companies should strive to be ‘sustainable’, explore the leadership characteristic needed at different stages of a company’s life cycle, and outline the reasons why renewal and rebirth for company’s near the end of their life cycle is so difficult.

It is conversations with the likes of Aswath which make me feel so lucky to do what I do!

Citations

· Damodaran, Aswath (2024) The Corporate Life Cycle: Business, Investment, and Management Implications. Penguin Random House.

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My guest for this episode of Fawaz Gerges of the London School of Economics where he is the Emirates Professorship in Contemporary Middle East Studies. Fawaz earned his doctorate at Oxford and has taught there, as well as at Harvard and Columbia. He has been a research scholar at Princeton and is the author of 10 books on the Middle East and his articles and editorials have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The Christian Science Monitor, The Guardian, The Baltimore Sun, The Independent (London), Al Hayat (London), Foreign Policy, Newsweek, The National Interest, Democracy: a Journal of Ideas, Middle East Journal, Survival, Al Mustqbal al-Arabi, Middle East Insight, and many others.

Gerges has given scores of interviews for various media outlets throughout the world, including ABC, CNN, BBC, PBS, CBS, NPR, CBC, Sky News, Al Jazeera, and LBC. He has been a guest on The Charlie Rose Show, The Oprah Winfrey Show, ABC Nightline, World News Tonight, Rachel Maddow Show (MSNBC), This Week, Good Morning America and other prominent shows. He was a senior ABC television news analyst from 2000 until 2007.

In this episode we first discuss Fawaz’s most recent book, What Really Went Wrong: The West and the Failure of Democracy in the Middle East. This is an excellent historical study of the impact of US interventionist foreign policy in the Middle East in the post-WW2 era. It shows how the pursuit of stability, open commodity markets and anti-communism led the US to support and ally with anti-democratic autocrats throughout the region who eliminated legitimate nationalistic (and largely secular and democratic) political leaders. We see the consequences of these interventions in the region today.

We then turn to a discussion of the current catastrophe in the Gaza, Israel and Lebanon.

Fawaz and I disagree on many issues. For example, he paraphrases towards the end of our conversation a school of thought which has come to see Israel as the last, ‘Settler Colonial’ state. I think this way of approaching the situation is an invitation to endless violence and despair. For a history of the evolution of this approach, I recommend On Settler Colonialism: Ideology, Violence and Justice by Adam Kirsch. There are also many things Fawaz says with which I agree. For example, his historical analysis of the monumental failure of US foreign policy seems to be me to be compelling. But my role as the host of this podcast is not to be a judge of other’s views. In fact, what I agree with or do not agree with is not relevant. My job is to bring you views which may challenge your own; views which help us to understand the ways in which understandings and beliefs can be fundamentally different.

The only way forward is to start with a genuine curiosity of what others think, believe and feel. Just as importantly, curiosity does not imply agreement. Too many times we pretend to attempt to understand something by seeking out others to confirm what we want to, or already believe. It is much better to be challenged by difference. From that starting point, we can, perhaps, begin to be able to predict and influence the future for the better.

Fawaz is a thoughtful, careful, prolific and elegant scholar. While I may differ with him in some areas, I have never questioned his fundamental decency and humanity. I always learn and am challenged by our conversations together - which is a great gift. I hope you enjoy our conversation as well!

Citations

Gerges, F. (2024) What Really Went Wrong: The West and the Failure of Democracy in the Middle East. London: Yale University Press.

Kirsch, Adam (2024) On Settler Colonialism: Ideology, Violence and Justice. WV Norton & Co.

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Across the world, the rise of various forms of authoritarianism and ethno-nationalism seems to be on an ever upward trend. This creates huge uncertainties across multiple dimensions – personal, cultural, political, and not least of which in challenges business leaders face as they attempt to navigate across this uncertainty.

All of this turmoil is, according to Larry Kramer - the Vice Chancellor and President of the London School of Economics - to be expected. Neo-liberalism, the once dominant political/economic paradigm, is no longer able to explain or order our understandings of our world. This triggers a search for, and creation of, alternatives. If, or until a different liberal paradigm emerges, we are destined to contend with illiberal, authoritarian and often ethno-national alternatives. In this podcast Larry and I discuss the fall of neo-liberalism and the emerging contours of what may come to replace it.

How and when this new paradigm emerges and whether it will successfully defeat the existing alternatives is perhaps the most important question we will face in the next decade(s).

Larry provides a thoughtful and provocative framework in which to understand these macro trends. Prior to being appointed to lead the LSE, Larry was the President of the Willam and Flora Hewlett Foundation for 12 years. With assets of over $14 billion, the Foundation is one of the largest sources of grants in the USA. Prior to his work at the Foundation, Larry was the Dean of the Stanford Law School and is a world expert in US Constitutional law and the role of judicial review within that system.

Not wanting to miss the opportunity to discuss recent shifts in the US Supreme Court with such an expert, at the end of our conversation we discuss these developments as an example of the power of a paradigm shift - the rise of ‘originalism’ as a reaction to the state-led expansion of individual rights – to take on real world consequences. In this context, we discuss the Dobbs decision, the overturning of the Chevron defence and the emerging presidential immunity doctrine.

My discussion with Larry reminded me of how fortunate we are at TRIUM to have the LSE as a partner. The depth of analysis and understanding of the macro trends affecting the environment in which business operates continues to be a unique selling point of our EMBA. Enjoy the show!

Citations

Operation Mincemeat by Cummings, D. Hodgson N. and Roberts Z. at the New Diorama Theatre,London.

A Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde and adapted by Kip Williams, with Sarah Snook at the Theatre Royal Haymarket, London.

Labatut B. (2024) The Maniac. Pushkin Press.

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