Uncertainty has preoccupied me since John McArthur, the late great Harvard Business School Dean, gave me a copy of Frank Knight’s forgotten treatise, circa 1990. It framed much of my writing and teaching on entrepreneurship, finance and innovation ever since.

Uncertainty and Enterprise tried pull all this together in a 2025 Oxford University Press book.

The book’s completion coincided with my retirement (Emeritus in Latin) as the Thomas Schmideiny Professor of Business from the Fletcher School at Tufts. That ended 35 years of teaching entrepreneurship at HBS, Chicago, Columbia, and finally, the Fletcher School.

But no rest for the wicked. I am devoting “retirement” to:

1) Teaching a course on Transformative Medical Advances. I first developed and taught this course as a Visiting Prof at HBS in 2021. I now teach it Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health and in collaboration with an engineering professor at Columbia’s engineering school. The course integrates the spirit and many of the ideas from entrepreneurship courses and in my books on innovation and uncertainty.

2) Teaching the course outside Columbia and helping faculty at other places to teach the course. Please contact me if you institution might be interested. My services — for helping and teaching the course are free! (As are most of the student materials — no expensive text books.)

3) Convening a council to promote transformative enterprise. Our goal is to “kindle the romance of progress” and sidestep the culture wars and political disagreements that are tearing universities and societies apart. Our flagship activity will be an annual conference, although we hope overtime to add a publications and educational programs. We have enlisted about fifty distinguished members and are likely to affiliate with the venerable New York Academy of Science.

Stay tuned!

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