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The Helsinki Spring

Steve Blank

I spent the month of September lecturing, and interacting with (literally) thousands of entrepreneurs in two emerging startup markets, Finland and Russia. Ironically one of the things that’s holding back the Finnish cluster is Tekes , the government organization for financing research, development and innovation in Finland.

Finland 328
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Reorganizing the DoD to Deter China and Win in the Ukraine – A Road Map for Congress

Steve Blank

is supporting a proxy war with Russia while simultaneously attempting to deter a China cross-strait invasion of Taiwan. Viewing the DoD budget as a zero-sum game has turned the major defense primes and K-street lobbyists into saboteurs for DoD organizational innovation that threaten their business models. Today, the U.S.

Ukraine 310
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Nokia as “He Who Must Not Be Named” and the Helsinki Spring

Steve Blank

Finland itself has significant engineering talent, and is also attracting entrepreneurs from Russia and the former USSR. Filed under: Business Model versus Business Plan , Customer Development , Teaching , Venture Capital. The country needs to figure out a long term privatization strategy for Venture investing.

Finland 331
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Blowing up the Business Plan at U.C. Berkeley Haas Business School

Steve Blank

Berkeley were heavily funded to develop Cold War weapon systems. Starting in the 1950’s, Stanford’s engineering department became “outward facing” and developed a culture of spinouts and active faculty support and participation in the first wave of Silicon Valley startups. Berkeley-wide. We’ve gone global as well.

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Lessons for the DoD – From Ukraine and China

Steve Blank

At the onset of the war in Ukraine, Russia launched a cyber-attack on Viasat’s KA-SAT satellite, which supplies Internet across Europe, including to Ukraine. They know this and know that weapons that can be built at a fraction of the cost and upgraded via software will destroy their existing business models. In the U.S.,

Ukraine 316
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Hacking for Allies

Steve Blank

Allied countries benefit under the Global Capabilities Program which offers allies opportunities to partner on research and development, with the goal to build prototypes and eventually co-produce systems. Last fall, Russia conducted a cyberattack on the Norwegian parliament. defense ecosystem. defense market. defense market.

Norway 245
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The Fatal Flaw of the Three Horizons Model and How To Fix It

Steve Blank

However, in the 21 st century the Three Horizons model has a fatal flaw that could put companies out of business and government agencies behind their adversaries. While traditional analysis suggests that Horizon 3 disruptive innovations take years to develop, in today’s world this is no longer the case. And here’s the big idea.

China 301