STRT 580 Class Two

What role does entrepreneurship have in the world? Entrepreneurship can bring about creative destruction. As can famine, flood, global warming, misaligned policy. David and Logan both hope to use s market mechanism to capitalize on inefficacies in the energy and health care sector. The energy sector, the health of the planet as we know it, and Aquicore would benefit from a direct carbon tax. Dorsate would benefit from an alignment of the outcome of care and the direct cost to the consumer receiving medical aid. Healthcare as a right makes this more difficult to achieve bar moving towards a two tier system.  

How can entrepreneurship solve problems in regulated industries? Regulated industries should be regulated to maximize the utility of the population while protecting fundamental rights. In this way a reasonable citizenry could be convinced that pricing the negative externality of carbon dioxide emissions would benefit future generations.

Michael Chasen is the founder of Blackboard. He exited after a $1.64 billion buyout by Providence Equity. Founded in 1997 Blackboard survived the dot come bust because it was already cash positive at that time. Chasen realized early on that to successfully sell to institutions Blackboard had to have the corporate strength of a positive balance sheet.

Chasen knew the higher education market from his work at EY. He founded Blackboard with his college roommate. Blackboard grew by proving services to key university partners for zero cost in exchange for positive reviews to other schools. This word of mouth network proved effective as blackboard developed a pricing model.

Chasen was the CEO of Blackboard when it served over 30 million students and was used by 80% of top colleges. Blackboard gives students access to data and teachers a platform. Presently Chasen is working on a location based consumer mobile application.

Chasen’s experiacne can help disrupt city services by creating a population that assumes direct digital access to information is inherent to a social system. Young citizens expect a city to provide data through a web based platform.