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Robert Hacker
Miami, FL
Robert H. Hacker works at the nexus of education, entrepreneurship, and technology. He is the co-founder and Director of StartUP FIU, a university-wide initiative in entrepreneurship and innovation. He teaches entrepreneurship, 4IR technology and mental frameworks at FIU and previously taught at MIT Sloan (IAP). | 305-742-8222 email rhhfla at gmail dot com
Interests: Bob manages GH Capital, a financial consulting boutique in Miami that focuses on growth strategies, acquisitions and complex problems for early stage and middle market companies in North and South America.
For 35 years he has worked in the private sector principally in Asia and Latin America. He built a billion dollar publicly traded company in Indonesia and prior to that provided strategy consulting for ten years to Fortune 500 companies in Japan. He began his career as a lending officer with Chase Manhattan Bank.
He is the former Chief Financial Officer of One Laptop per Child Association and an adjunct professor of entrepreneurship and social entrepreneurship at Florida International University in the Honors College and the Graduate School of Engineering. He has taught a course in social entrepreneurship in January 2011-2015 at the MIT Sloan School of Management. He also teaches the local and national Goldman Sachs 10KSB program.
He is the author of "Billion Dollar Company: An entrepreneur's guide to business models for high growth companies" and "Scaling Social Entrepreneurship". He also does paid workshops in Spanish and English on a wide range of business topics related to finance, leadership, entrepreneurship and social entrepreneurship.
"My interest in technology is what gets me up in the morning; my ability to develop strategies is how I differentiate everything I do; my knowledge of finance is how I earn much of my living."
Recent Activity
My Recent Writings
For the last year or two I have been posting my writings on Medium and that link is here. Enjoy the holiday break, rest up and stay healthy. Continue reading
Posted Dec 21, 2020 at SOPHISTICATED FINANCE
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How to Approach Critical Thinking
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Posted Jul 27, 2020 at SOPHISTICATED FINANCE
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The Overlooked Intangible in Healthcare—What Abstract Thought Teaches us about Entrepreneurship
To apply technology to mental health and emotional problems, look to make the abstract tangible. Continue reading
Posted Jan 28, 2019 at SOPHISTICATED FINANCE
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Four Major Trends in the Current Fourth Industrial Revolution
This is my recent article on Medium about trends in the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Continue reading
Posted Sep 6, 2018 at SOPHISTICATED FINANCE
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Fall 2018 Courses
From this article, I realized that high potential students had to be immersed in the thinking and writings of geniuses in order to better understand their alternatives. Continue reading
Posted Aug 6, 2018 at SOPHISTICATED FINANCE
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The Trilogy of the Fourth Industrial Revolution--Nature-Design-Technology
My professional life revolves around entrepreneurship in its many forms, the Fourth Industrial Revolution--4IR (that the World Economic Forum correctly started heralding a few years ago) and how these two themes intersect around opportunity, wealth creation and social innovation. Continue reading
Posted Apr 23, 2018 at SOPHISTICATED FINANCE
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Why I use Medium Now
Most of my recent writing is on Medium. Really no particular reason, but longer articles look to be easier to create there. Topics are still traditional and social entrepreneurship, creativity and learning and design thinking and complexity science. Increasingly I touch on the convergence of nature-design-technology, the trilogy of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Also, increasingly I am thinking about: the role of cities and the re-definition of that term, how the government is poised to be downsized at the federal level because it cannot respond to real-time information the role of Blockchain or another DLT in helping us to remember... Continue reading
Posted Apr 16, 2018 at SOPHISTICATED FINANCE
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Reading List for Entrepreneurship
This is a supplemental reading list I prepared for an 8-hour course in entrepreneurship that I was asked to prepare.
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Posted Feb 23, 2018 at SOPHISTICATED FINANCE
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The Power of Assumption in Entrepreneurship
This article is no exception and was prompted by a writer’s observation that every startup is based on a key assumption about the problem, the solution and scaling. Continue reading
Posted Jan 23, 2018 at SOPHISTICATED FINANCE
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My Latest Writing on Entrepreneurship and Complexity
Today on Medium I published an essay on these subjects and how they explain many of the large market opportunities that consistently have repeated throughout history:
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Posted Dec 18, 2017 at SOPHISTICATED FINANCE
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Some Good Books I Read in 2017
A few of the better books I read this year are shown below: Continue reading
Posted Nov 27, 2017 at SOPHISTICATED FINANCE
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An observation on the role of information
Increasingly I come to the conclusion that social problems are caused by the asymmetry of information. Rarely do I see approaches that take this idea into consideration. Continue reading
Posted Nov 23, 2017 at SOPHISTICATED FINANCE
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Information, Capital and Blockchain
So maybe we can conclude this information concept is important, even if we cannot tell what happened to Continue reading
Posted Oct 2, 2017 at SOPHISTICATED FINANCE
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Talks, Seminars and Workshops I Do
Much of the content for these talks has been put together over the last 2-3 years based on lectures I have given at several universities. Many people have heard me teach or speak on these themes at StartUP FIU. Many of my colleagues at StartUP FIU can also speak on these topics, if you wish. Continue reading
Posted Aug 15, 2017 at SOPHISTICATED FINANCE
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The New Role of Social Sciences in Technology
However, to properly develop these approaches we need disciplines such as game theory, behavioral economics and the social sciences such as psychology. Continue reading
Posted Jul 31, 2017 at SOPHISTICATED FINANCE
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My History on Twitter
584 tweets on entrepreneurship and an additional 116 on social entrepreneurship Continue reading
Posted Jun 19, 2017 at SOPHISTICATED FINANCE
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Why the 4th Industrial Revolution may not surpass the 3rd
I was talking to someone recently that argued that government grants to private companies were the most effective grants because the companies had proven methods to commercialize innovation. The person cited government funding for Tesla, but I can find little evidence of government cash as opposed to incentives going to Tesla. This Tesla example reminds me of a big difference now at the beginning of the Fourth Industrial Revolution compared to the Third Industrial Revolution that began in the 1960s with the advent of computing and digital information. In the 1960s government funding was plentiful at top universities like MIT... Continue reading
Posted Jun 10, 2017 at SOPHISTICATED FINANCE
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Why Assumptions are so Important
I have started thinking about my fourth book, which will be on assumptions or maybe assumptions and boundaries and how they affect the way we think about problems. Thinking about assumptions reminded me of this post I wrote in 2010, "Why can I not Timeshare a Dog" Continue reading
Posted May 30, 2017 at SOPHISTICATED FINANCE
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My Concern about How AI will Change Research and Thinking
Therefore, most of the great thinking in human history was done by methods that were far simpler than AI. I do not think we need to return to the 16th or 17th century methods at the expense of AI, but I do think we need to realize that AI is not a panacea and traditional thinking still has much to contribute. Continue reading
Posted May 8, 2017 at SOPHISTICATED FINANCE
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Why Open Source is Important
Perhaps this example from AT&T will help people to remember the alternative of open source. Continue reading
Posted Apr 24, 2017 at SOPHISTICATED FINANCE
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Patterns that Repeat in CS and Biology
Patterns that repeat in nature and in computer science are the basis for powerful thinking frameworks. Keep your eyes open Continue reading
Posted Mar 21, 2017 at SOPHISTICATED FINANCE
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Examples of Good Thinking
Yesterday's reading discovered some excellent articles: Continue reading
Posted Feb 20, 2017 at SOPHISTICATED FINANCE
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Notes on Proof of Concept
I do not think I have ever posted my work-in-progress notes on a subject. These are unedited excerpts that I put together from my archive as the first step in a new project. Continue reading
Posted Jan 30, 2017 at SOPHISTICATED FINANCE
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Further thoughts on social entrepreneurship
Coincident with this year's course I have been reading the writings of Ludwig von Mises. Von Mises is considered by some to be the leading thinker in the Austrian School of economics. Continue reading
Posted Jan 20, 2017 at SOPHISTICATED FINANCE
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Nature, Technology and Combinatorial Creativity
The book explores ten large market opportunities that have repeated throughout the last 40,000 years of human history. Every methodology for entrepreneurship that I have studied or taught always assumes an opportunity. I thought it was time to address how to find the opportunity beyond the usual advice to follow your passion. Continue reading
Posted Jan 9, 2017 at SOPHISTICATED FINANCE
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