I thought framing this as Maximally Inverse to Goethe’s Die Leiden des jungen Werthers -where the protagonist’s disenchantment comes from the profound mismatch between what the mind can conceive and what he can actualize in practice – was most appropriate, especially as I conceived this post while enjoying a devilishly satisfying “For the hedonist crowd. Drink now” Napa Valley Cabernet, Faust. ☺️
Keeping with the epistolary style of the German original (Werthers, not Faust) – but maximally inverse in that they are incoming to me, and bearing increasingly positive news rather than displaying deepening distress – here we go:
Dear Prof. Tayur,
I have been facilitating J&J’s Data Science Community of Practice (COP) since 2018. We have 300+ participants in that COP and we meet monthly where we have presentations on new technologies, ideas, products, and projects.
A lot of us are familiar with your pioneering SmartOps company and we have been using that tool in our Plan teams for years. Your other company OrganJet is another fascinating one of which we don’t have much knowledge, so it may be a great one to cover.
I look forward to hearing from you.
I accepted the invitation, and gave a talk titled Healthcare Innovations.
Hi Prof. Tayur,
We truly enjoyed your presentation yesterday to our Data Science Community of Practice. I believe it was the best webinar we have had since we started in 2018. It touched on so many good things including math, supply chain, doing-good, philosophy, etc.
OrganJet is brilliant. I have been talking to my colleagues about it since yesterday. I am in a committee for “Doing Good with Data Science” especially for developing nations. We met earlier today and we discussed that. The Nudge video was great too. I don’t get emotional quickly but that one truly broke me.
Thanks so much for your great work and for being generous with your time to speak with us yesterday.
Moving on:
Dear MSOM Society member:
The Editorial Board members of the M&SOM journal have selected five papers as the finalists for the MSOM Society’s 2022 M&SOM Best Paper Award.
One of them is (with Soo-Haeng Cho, Xin Fang and Ying Xu):
Combating Child Labor: Incentives and Information Disclosure in Global Supply Chains.
Next are two back-to-back announcements that I combined into one:
Congrats to Theta Lake on its $50M Series B! Neotribe Ventures is excited to continue our journey…
BillionToOne, Inc., a next-generation molecular diagnostics company with a mission to create powerful and accurate tests that are accessible to all, announces the closure of an oversubscribed Series C funding round of $125 million with premier global investors, including Neotribe Ventures….
Of particular interest to me about the BillionToOne investment is their upcoming service: Liquid Biopsy.
What do I like even more than math or money? Movies! Here is the email from Bill Lichtenstein:
Some good news arrived by email today. See attached. It’s the start of the award season for films broadcast in 2021.
Congratulations! WBCN and The American Revolution has made it to the SHORTLIST in the 2022 New York Festivals TV & Film Awards. Winners will be announced at the Storytellers Gala virtual ceremony on April 26th.
What else is going on, on April 26th?
Hi Sridhar
Hope things are going well (well, I guess I know the academic side of that answer from your blog :)). I also just got off from a zoom call trying to get your current academic protege to come back to Cornell as a faculty (please convince Kyra to join us!!), and figured that now is a good time to circle back on the possibility of you visiting us this semester to give a talk. Our seminars are on Tuesdays at 4pm…
Yes, Kyra will be joining Cornell as faculty (making her my third student, after Nagesh and Vince, to do so). What am I going to be talking about on Tuesday 4/26 at the ORIE Seminar? I have lost count on how many times I have given talks at various departments at Cornell (as I wrote in Back to School):
Quantum Operations Research
This is a breezy introduction to three areas of overlap between Operations Research and The Second Quantum Revolution: (a) Quantum Integer Programming (b) Quantum Queuing and (c) Quantum Information Science via Semidefinite Programming.
Healthcare. Supply Chain. Venture Capital. Movies. Quantum. Indeed, these are among:
The Delights of the Free Spirit Tayur.
And as I was finalizing this post:
Dear Sridhar,
How are you and your family doing? I hope that you are all doing well.
The WEF confirmed that they will be back on campus with the Schwab fellows this year. The program that I will be chairing is scheduled to start on Saturday, August 20th. I would love to start the program with your case. If so, I will be teaching it between 4.30 pm and 6.30 pm that day. Will you be able to join us for the case discussion? It would be wonderful to have you in person.
I hope we can make it work! It would be great to get together.
Thank you, and take care,
Julie
Julie Battilana
Joseph C. Wilson Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School
Alan L. Gleitsman Professor of Social Innovation, Harvard Kennedy School
Founder and Faculty Chair, Social Innovation and Change Initiative
