OFIN 3366 - Superfirms: Reimagining the firms of the future

Imagine your future. At some point in the not-too-distant future you’re likely to be serving as a business executive at a global firm, lead a national government agency or cabinet, or become an officer of a global social enterprise. You might also be starting your own organization—a startup, a non-profit, or a social impact venture. Imagine that and ask yourself the following question: How will you lead the organization to pursue and achieve what has never been done before—and how will you propel your organization towards making extraordinary impact on people’s lives, business, markets, industries, and society at large? In other words, how will you use that opportunity to make your indelible mark? This course equips you with the vision, insights, strategies, tactics, and tools to not only answer these critical questions—but to reimagine your role and impact as a future leader.

Who is this course for? The course is designed for aspiring and emerging leaders—business, civic, public, and social leaders—who are bent on preparing and positioning themselves for making maximal leadership impact on firms and organizations and, by extension, on people’s lives, business, markets, and society at large.

Should I join this course? This course provides you with the opportunity to gain deep theoretical, empirical, strategic, tactical, and practical insights into imagining, building, and leading the firms of the future. It will give you an invaluable professional and leadership edge, placing you ahead of others. Notably, as AI deepens its impact on business and markets, aspiring leaders must be ready and capable of reimagining traditional firms, while also designing, building, and leading new firms that set the conditions necessary to unlock the full potential of people and maximize the synergy between humans and humanoids. This course provides insightful and rigorous foundations, ultimately enabling you to play a critical role in shaping that future. Consider this course a high-ROI investment in your human capital development and value.

What is the origin of this course? The course is grounded in first-hand experience gained while founding and building AI startups in Silicon Valley, innovating at the White House, collaborating with national governments and NGOs, and advising global companies in the banking, finance, technology, automotive, luxury, hospitality, and consumer goods sectors on digital and AI transformation and innovation.

There are no prerequisites.

Think of your favorite video game. This course is designed as a multi-player game involving missions,

challenges, discovery, immersion, and mastery. Think about it is as a multiplayer role-playing game

where we learn the rules of the game, discover its space and mechanics, unlock new challenges,

embark on new quests, develop new strategies, gain new powers, find inspiration, form aspirations,

collaborate and compete, and, ultimately, strive for mastery.

The course includes five principal components that, taken together, permeate and reinforce the pursuit

of learning, mastery, and excellence:

1⃣ Pre-Class Experience: Students are expected to engage deeply with mind-stretching content—

including texts, videos, podcasts, and more. You’re also encouraged to take copious notes as you

peruse these materials. These notes will become instrumental during class, enabling you to contribute

meaningfully and substantively to dialogue and discourse.

2⃣ In-Class Experience: We will follow a Socratic dialogue where we learn through articulating

complex ideas, reasoning, questioning, and revising our learning and understanding in an open and

respectful conversation with classmates and guests.

3⃣ In-Class Hackathon: We will hold a Hackathon-style innovation session where students work in

teams, brainstorming and developing innovative strategies and solving key Superfirm challenges.

Each team will present its strategic innovation during class.

4⃣ In-Class Executive Panel: We will hold a panel discussion with C-level executives from leading

multinational companies. Panel members will share hard-earned experience and insights regarding

their effort to transform their respective firms into Superfirms. Students will contribute through Q&A.

5⃣ Superfirm Moonshot: Each student will develop a Superfirm Moonshot, culminating in an in-

class TED-like presentation and plenary discussion. Students will develop their Moonshot ideas on

conceptual, analytic, strategic, and tactical levels. Students are expected to apply concepts,

frameworks, and insights discussed in class and present their projects during the last two sessions of

How can you achieve the highest ROI (returns on investment) and top grade in this course?

✅ In-class Contribution that “Raises the Bar” (25%): Students are expected to actively engage

with assigned materials and media ahead of class. Students are also expected to be present and well-

prepared, and contribute meaningfully to advancing in-class dialogue and discussion through articulating insightful ideas, raising critical questions, and voicing original perspectives. Participatory contribution that raises the bar actively and meaningfully for the entire class will be rewarded.

✅ Superfirm Hackathon (25%): We will launch an in-class Superfirm Hackathon where we will work

in teams to solve a key business problems.

• The Hackathon provides students with an opportunity to engage hands-on with concepts, insights,

ideas, and observations developed in class, and apply them in exploring and crafting novel

Superfirm strategies.

• Students will collaborate with their assigned classmates in small teams, and deliver a group

presentation of their Superfirm strategy during class.

• The team will be evaluated on their collaboration, solution, strategy, and presentation.

✅ Superfirm Moonshots (50%): Every student will select a personal ‘Moonshot’ project. It is useful

to think about this project as an extension of the Superfirm Hackathon (above).

• Students will research, identify, and select a unique Moonshot opportunity—it can be a problem, a

challenge, or a mission they wish to address. It is constructive to consider your Moonshot as if you

were serving as a firm’s CEO, CHRO (Chief HR Officer), CAIO (Chief AI Officer), or other C-level

leader.

• In thinking through and developing Moonshots, students are called upon to build on the concepts,

insights, frameworks, and methodologies learned in class.

• Moonshots are conceptual, analytic, strategic, and tactical in nature—the expectation is to deliver

the most compelling presentation of your project as if you are pitching this strategy to your CEO or

Board.

• Students will deliver a 5-minute presentation during the last session(s) of the course. This guide

provides a good idea of what's expectated. It will also help you hone your presentation skills.

• Students are expected to start working on their Moonshots from the outset of the course; this will

ensure you have sufficient time for finding inspiration(!), researching, thinking, learning, gathering

and analyzing data, prototyping and visualizing, collecting feedback (from individuals, groups,

myself, companies, or anyone else you deem useful), and pivoting to a different Moonshot (if and

when necessary). Also make sure you reserve sufficient time for developing a highly compelling

presentation.

• Finally, some advice. While highly useful, artificial intelligence does not match human intelligence,

ingenuity, and creativity. Students are expected to go beyond the artificial and potentially superficial

and develop their original ideas, analyses, and strategies. Use AI tools to augment your capabilities,

not to replace them, while keeping the main thing the main thing, which is to say: developing your

human capital through learning, analyzing, thinking, re-thinking, and then thinking even more. Stay in

the “problem space”, do not rush to the “solution space”. Understanding the problem deeply and

profoundly will transform and expand your solution space, enabling you to conjure and craft

compelling and high-impact solutions.

The workload includes engaging with texts and other materials; preparing for class with the goal of

contributing to in-class discussion and discourse; collaborating with classmates on hackathon projects;

and developing a Superfirm Moonshot project and presentation.