Clear, simple and wrong is a good description of economic theories that exclude uncertainty. “If I can merely put uncertainty back into the conversation, and say it’s at least as important as incentives, would consider that a win.” – Amar Bhidé |
Amar Bhidé is Professor of Health Policy at Columbia University, previously he was the Lawrence Glaubinger Professor of Business at Columbia University (from 2000 to 2009) and the Thomas Schmidheiny Professor of Business at Tufts University (from 2010 to 2023).
He also served on the business school faculties of Harvard and Chicago universities. During his most recent Harvard appointment (as HBS Visiting Professor, 2020-21), Bhidé created and taught an elective course, ‘Lessons from Transformational Medical Advances.’ The course drew on his research on the nature and development of productive knowledge. has researched and taught about innovation, entrepreneurship, and finance for over three decades.
He now focuses on teaching, developing, and disseminating case histories of transformational technological advances.
A member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a founding member of the Center on Capitalism and Society at Columbia – and a founding editor of Capitalism and Society, Bhide’s latest Uncertainty and Enterprise, Venturing beyond the Unknown was published in December 2024 and has received rave reviews.
His earlier books include A Call for Judgment: Sensible Finance for a Dynamic Economy , The Venturesome Economy: How Innovation Sustains Prosperity in a More Connected World, The Origin and Evolution of New Businesses and Of Politics and Economic Reality
From the the early 1980s, he has written numerous articles for the Harvard Business Review, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and The Financial Times. He has periodically appeared on Bloomberg TV and CNBC.
His professional experience includes directorship of a FTSE 100 company. In the 1980s, Bhidé was a Senior Engagement Manager at McKinsey & Company, a Proprietary Trader at E.F. Hutton, and served on the Brady Commission staff, investigating the 1987 stock market crash.
Bhidé earned a DBA and MBA from Harvard Business School with High Distinction and a B. Tech from the Indian Institute of Technology (Bombay).
His ten Harvard Business Review articles include “The Judgment Deficit”, “Efficient Markets, Deficient Governance,” “How entrepreneurs craft strategies that work,” “Bootstrap Finance: the Art of Start-ups,” and “Hustle as Strategy.