Originally shared in our September 2026 Top of Mind Newsletter.
Amar Bhidé taught entrepreneurship for 35 years at Harvard, Chicago, Columbia, and Tufts, and his 2000 study The Origin and Evolution of New Businesses remains one of the closest looks at how real companies get started. In this 40-minute talk at the Kansas City Public Library, he asks how anyone decides to act when the future can’t be calculated. His answer is imagination grounded in evidence. Entrepreneurs picture how a situation could unfold, check that picture against what they can observe, and tell a plausible story that brings doubtful customers and partners along. A new venture happens once, and no spreadsheet can say whether it will work.
The entrepreneurs we have observed had no forecast promising that their efforts would pay off. They looked around, imagined something that could work, and adjusted as they learned. Bhidé treats that as something ordinary people do every day and can get better at. For anyone whose career won’t follow a single industry for thirty years, it’s an irreplaceable ability.