Joseph B. Lassiter

Lassiter argues that the world needs to get nuclear power back into the race against fossil fuels in order to avoid significant levels of CO2 emission-driven climate change. The world’s energy experts forecast that CO2 emissions will increase for the foreseeable future. While the developed world’s efforts in curbing emissions are helpful, it is the developing world’s need for energy to lift their citizens to a modern standard-of-living that is driving world-wide CO2 emissions. These forecasts show that the world—even with all its current zero-carbon energy alternatives and their projected improvements—will lose the race to fossil fuels in all but the richest countries. Lassiter believes that we should not accept those forecasts. Lassiter argues that, rather than hope for a miracle, the world must aggressively pursue *new* nuclear alternatives.

Climate change is one of the most complicated and challenging problems that the world has ever faced.  As part of this video collection produced by the Harvard University Center for the Environment, Lassiter talks about *new* nuclear technologies as an urgently needed source of clean, carbon-neutral and potentially—but as yet unproven—low-cost, reliable electric power.

Today’s existing nuclear power alternatives as well as renewables are currently forecast by the EIA and IEA to be losing the race with fossil fuels worldwide and are expected to continue do so for the forecast future. A suite of *new* nuclear power alternatives that is capable of competing economically with fossil fuels (coal in Asia and natural gas in the United States) is on the drawing boards, but time is of the essence if we want to keep cumulative, worldwide CO2 emissions from reaching what could well be threatening levels.

Joe Lassiter, Harvard Business School Professor and Faculty Chair of Harvard's Innovation Lab, discusses how businesses can seize on new opportunities and re-invent themselves quickly and effectively at the Better by Design CEO Summit 2015 in Aukland, New Zealand. He explains why you shouldn’t be afraid of failure; the importance of reverse engineering - there are infinitely fewer paths in reverse than there are going forward; the importance of building a culture around an idea; why entrepreneurship is not genetic or a phenomenon. Rather, it is a relentless pursuit of opportunity beyond the constraints of resources currently controlled.

My work at HBS has always focused on high-potential ventures.  Most recently, these have been professionally financed start-ups and buyouts in newly emerging energy and cleantech businesses. These ventures tend to be based on innovative insights into technology and consumer/buyer behavior coupled with a deep understanding of the relevant regulatory and political environments. I look at the financing of these ventures as well as bringing their innovations to market in different parts of the world. 

For the purposes of my research, a high-potential venture is defined as one having the objective of building at least $50 million per year of new product/service sales in five or fewer years. These can be either new ventures or efforts within existing companies. I study these ventures in the  high-potential setting because business problems and opportunities tend to stand out clearly under the stresses of such an environment. These problems and opportunities are highlighted in the conflicts between the expectations of employees and investors, as management confronts the constraints of time, cash flow, and financing. I concentrate on start-ups and buyouts because these tend to have relatively short, intense lifecycles, allowing the results obtained and the methods used by the managers to be observed before the evidence is either lost or forgotten. I have found that the insights gained from studying this population can be successfully applied to the challenges facing investors and managers in both new ventures and established firms.