Of the many books I read for the course Innovation in Context the one I found most interesting was Antifragile by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. In it he develops the theory of things that become stronger with shock. He calls it antifragile. A good example would be bones which grow stronger the more shock you put them through with exercise. Up to a point at least. He makes a good case which is helped by the fact he has some knowledge of mathematics to back him up so it not just hot air blowing out. Too be honest his writing style is atrocious but if you persevere you will find some nuggets of wisdom.
The biggest nugget for me was how he discussed “skin in the game”, or when somebody incurres risk by being involved in achieving a goal. The problem is of course that too often people in positions of power do not have skin in the game. A good example would be the bank crash in Iceland in 2008 where a whole group of people, bank managers, politicians and investors had isolated themselves from repercussions from their actions. This meant that they took huge risks for others and but hid them very efficiently, When the whole system came crashing down it did not affect them much while the rest of society went broke. Thus, it is very important when founding and running a company for the people who make the decisions to have “skin in the game”. I think this is especially important also for start-ups which usually are playing with other people´s money and the temptation can be great to just take them for a ride if things do not work out. The example of Theranos springs to mind though in the end after many years of fraud it turned out Elizabeth Holmes really did have skin in the game when she was convicted for fraud. Many people in a similar position have gotten away scotch free though.
When I move forward with my startup I will make sure I have personally skin in the game.
