Technology
How Shadow Banning Can Silently Shift Opinion Online
In a new study, Yale SOM’s Tauhid Zaman and Yen-Shao Chen show how a social media platform can shift users’ positions or increase overall polarization by selectively muting and amplifying posts in ways that appear neutral to an outside observer.
How Do You Build a Design Team?
When designer Cap Watkins arrived at the digital media powerhouse Buzzfeed in 2015, the company had a group of talented designers. What it didn’t have, Watkins told Yale Insights, was the structure to help them to work together and build their careers.
Companies That Look for Social and Cognitive Skills Seem to Do Better
Computers are able to do many tasks, but people still outperform them at human interactions and complex decision-making. A new study suggests that successful companies take advantage of these capabilities.
What’s the Energy Equation?
What will the world’s use of energy look like in the coming decades, as technological advances revolutionize transportation and push down the price of renewable energy?
What’s the Future of Television?
With traditional TV losing viewers to streaming services, the industry is still figuring out what its new economic model will look like.
Can Tech Make the World Better?
Katie Rae ’97, who runs an incubator and an investment firm, on finding the next great startup.
What Makes Alibaba Grow?
Alibaba’s vice chairman on the financial mindset and internal culture that have propelled the company’s extraordinary growth.
Are the Startups Coming for Your Business?
Internet entrepreneur Kevin Ryan discusses the profound effect that new ventures are having on some of the world’s largest companies.
Corruption Decreases Technology Adoption in Emerging Markets
Technology adoption is lower in emerging markets with corrupt business environments, and higher in those with good transparency and enforcement, according to a new study forthcoming in Marketing Science.
Are ‘Patent Thickets’ Smothering Innovation?
One analysis estimated that a smartphone is covered by 250,000 patents. As technology grows increasingly complex, companies must navigate a web of intellectual property protections. Are innovation and competition suffering from the race to create enormous patent portfolios? Professor Stefan Wagner of the European School of Management and Technology (ESMT), a member of the Global Network for Advanced Management, talked with Yale Insights about the consequences of “patent thickets.”
How Has the Pentagon Shaped Innovation?
Defense spending has been a key driver of technology and innovation in the United States since the beginning of the Cold War, according to Yale SOM professor Paul Bracken. The Pentagon was a prime funder for the early growth of Silicon Valley and more recently quietly created another technology hub, focusing on defense, in northern Virginia.
