If/Then

This week on If/Then, we’re sharing an episode of View From The Top: The Podcast, an audio series featuring leaders from around the world in conversation with MBA students. Recorded live at the CEMEX Auditorium at Stanford Graduate School of Business, episodes feature insights on effective leadership, the values that guide it, and lessons learned along the way.

Lisa Su, the chair and CEO of Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), lea...

 As we celebrate the conclusion of the second season of the If/Then podcast, we present a bonus episode featuring Deborah H. Gruenfeld, the Joseph McDonald Professor and Professor of Organizational Behavior and a Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at Stanford Graduate School of Business. 

Gruenfeld, who appeared on the first season of If/Then in an award-winning episode about hierarchies and the nature of ...

This week on If/Then, we’re sharing an episode of The Future of Everything, a podcast hosted by Stanford School of Engineering professor and friend of the show Russ Altman.

Everyone has goals — some are monumental, others modest — but every goal matters. Szu-chi Huang, an associate professor of marketing at Stanford Graduate School of Business, is an expert on sustaining enthusiasm for individuals, customers, and employees ...

This week on If/Then, we’re sharing an episode of Think Fast, Talk Smart, a podcast hosted by Stanford Graduate School of Business lecturer and friend of the show, Matt Abrahams.

How do you communicate with others when you’re confused yourself? For fellow GSB lecturer Rob Siegel, leadership isn’t about avoiding uncertainty: it’s about embracing the clarity that ambiguity can bring.

In his latest book, “The Systems Leader: Ma...

Do you stick to the rules or do you roll through stop signs? Whether you’re “tight” or “loose” — how closely you adhere to social norms — has major implications for your life at home and at work. 

“To be effective, we want to be ambidextrous,” says Michele Gelfand, the John H. Scully Professor in Cross-Cultural Management and Professor of Organizational Behavior at Stanford Graduate School of Business. “Even if we migh...

AI has the potential to reshape medicine. But translating its promise into solutions for providers and patients is a high-stakes challenge.

“There’s a lot more problems than solutions available,” says Mohsen Bayati, the Carl and Marilynn Thoma Professor of Operations, Information & Technology at Stanford Graduate School of Business. “So it’s ripe for innovation.”

From trust and privacy to hallucination and data quality, ...

“The way I think about trying to anticipate and shape the AI future requires us to take a step back and ask ourselves first, ‘What does this technology do? What does it enable?’” reflects Amir Goldberg, a professor of organizational behavior at Stanford Graduate School of Business. “That’s very different from asking ourselves, ‘How is the technology implemented?’” 

From locating the origins of innovation to identifying...

Neil Malhotra, the Edith M. Cornell professor of political economy at Stanford Graduate School of Business, aims to identify the nature of our tumultuous political moment in his work. 

In this episode, Malhotra explores rising distrust, shifting political identities, and what these changes mean for individuals — and businesses. 

Plus, the billion-dollar question: “Is Trump creating a movement that is separate from ...

Sridhar Narayanan, a professor of marketing at Stanford Graduate School of Business, studies how small businesses operate and why they’re so important, especially in the developing world. 

“Modernizing small businesses will have a profound impact on economies worldwide in many ways,” he says. 

In this episode of If/Then, Narayanan explains why so many retailers still rely on cash, how modernization can boost revenu...

Only a third of the global population is financially literate. Why? Because most of us don’t learn the basics of personal finance in school — or elsewhere. 

Treating financial literacy as an afterthought can have serious consequences, from personal calamities to economic crises, according to Annamaria Lusardi, a professor of finance and the director of the Initiative for Financial Decision-Making at Stanford Graduate S...

Susan Athey, the Economics of Technology Professor at Stanford Graduate School of Business and founding director of the Golub Capital Social Impact Lab, studies the impact of technological innovations on workers, businesses, and society. 

Will the world’s economies successfully adapt to a future defined by artificial intelligence? On this episode, Athey shares what the stories of 22,000 laid-off workers in Sweden can t...

Brian Lowery, the Walter Kenneth Kilpatrick Professor of Organizational Behavior at Stanford Graduate School of Business and the author of Selfless: The Social Creation of You, argues that identity is about much more than external characteristics, family history, or the collection of experiences that compose the chronology of our lives. In fact, Lowery argues, our identities are constantly being formed, shifted, and even c...

What’s one of the most powerful forces behind technological breakthroughs, business strategy, and job creation? The tax code.

Rebecca Lester, an associate professor of accounting and one of three inaugural Botha-Chan Faculty Scholars at Stanford Graduate School of Business, studies how subtle tax incentives can trigger monumental business decisions, determining how companies invest, grow, and innovate.

These incentives don’t...

The pen may be mightier than the sword — but the dollar beats them both. Economic leverage has long shaped the world order, and today global powers use financial networks, trade policies, and sanctions as tools of persuasion — or coercion. 

In this episode, Matteo Maggiori, the Moghadam Family Professor of Finance at Stanford Graduate School of Business, outlines why he believes the U.S. dollar remains the world’s fina...

“The ultimate price of a bad system falls on the public,” says Anat Admati, the George G.C. Parker Professor of Finance and Economics at Stanford Graduate School of Business and author of The Bankers’ New Clothes. “The Constitution did a lot to constrain the government, but the government has failed to constrain institutions in the private sector.” Simply put, Admati says the real problem isn’t just profit-hungry corporati...

Is burnout simply the cost of doing business? What responsibility do employers have for the health and well-being of their workers? Jeffrey Pfeffer, the Thomas D. Dee II Professor of Organizational Behavior at Stanford Graduate School of Business and author of Dying for a Paycheck and 7 Rules of Power, says that the connection between workplace stress and negative health outcomes is as strong as the link between smoking an...

Can the workplace be as harmful as smoking? Is it possible for governments and corporations to rebuild trust once they’ve lost it? How are nations wielding financial power to shape global politics? On Season Two of If/Then, Stanford Graduate School of Business faculty tackle big questions about business, leadership, and society, providing innovative, research-based insights to help you navigate rapidly changing times.

Join ...

Jensen Huang, co-founder and CEO of NVIDIA, believes leadership is about more than making decisions—it’s about empowering others to reason through ambiguity and drive transformative change. In this bonus episode of If/Then, Huang sits down with Stanford GSB student Shantam Jain, MBA ’24, on Stanford GSB’s View From The Top podcast, to discuss his journey from an ambitious engineer to the leader of one of the most innovativ...

Behind every lesson lies a journey of discovery. In this special episode of If/Then, we step into the classrooms of Stanford Graduate School of Business to uncover the human stories driving extraordinary insights. Christian Wheeler, professor of marketing at Stanford GSB, challenges our fear of failure, reframing it as the sharp edge where growth truly happens. “Be comfortable being uncomfortable,” he says, urging leaders ...