Business, Management, Marketing, Money, Tax, Law, People

Math is wonderful—because it works. Consider a classic valuation question: Is the whole worth the sum of its parts? Put another way, should the total value of a conglomerate be less than the value of its operating companies, if each business were measured on a stand-alone basis? The answer is no, of course not. Two plus two does not equal five, and when it comes to conglomerates, it should not…

A golden outline of a speech bubble is filled with a jumble of colorful, balloon-like spheres. The spheres vary in size, color, and texture, and the image is set against a light-gray background. In recent years, large language models (LLMs) have made tremendous progress in their ability to generate content. But some leaders who hoped these models would increase business efficiency and productivity have been disappointed. Off-the-shelf generative AI (gen…

Hurricanes Helene and Milton wrought destruction as they lashed across the southeastern United States in late September and early October. Lives were lost. Properties were ruined. Amid this devastation, it’s worth noting the considerable toll that storms like these can take on the small businesses that happen to lay in their paths. Small businesses can help knit together the fabric of a community, and many people depend directly on such…

One night, over dinner, Daniel Kahneman changed my perspective on value creation. Why do so many people, including leaders of large corporations, draw back from acting more boldly, even when taking incremental risks can create much greater returns? And perhaps more important: Can anything be done about it? Kahneman explained to me that while it’s hard to change human nature, it’s much easier for organizations to take practical steps to…

The race is on to build sufficient data center capacity to support a massive acceleration in the use of AI. Data center demand has already soared in response to the role data plays in modern lives. But with the emergence of generative AI (gen AI), demand is set to rise even higher. And that is likely to presage a supply deficit. As challenging as this could be, companies and investors…

According to economic historian Dr. Chris Miller, “You can’t understand the modern world without putting chips at the center of the story.” That conviction led Miller, an associate professor at the Fletcher School at Tufts University and nonresident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, to research and write the 2022 nonfiction best seller Chip War: The Fight for the World’s Most Critical Technology. In an interview with McKinsey alumnus…

Private credit has become a more popular financing option across many industries and types of businesses—and the opportunity for investors to deploy this approach is growing. In this episode of Deal Volume, McKinsey’s podcast on private markets, McKinsey partner and host Brian Vickery speaks to Vivek Mathew, president and head of asset management at Antares Capital, one of the world’s largest private credit managers. They discuss how the private credit…