Triumph of the underdog: How to beat the odds as a startup
Nike, Netflix, and Amazon are global powerhouses, but they all were once the new business on the block. Here’s how they beat the odds as startups.
Faculty
Naomi Stephen
Birger Wernerfelt is the J. C. Penney Professor of Management Science Emeritus at the MIT Sloan School of Management.
Wernerfelt has held teaching positions and has done research in marketing at MIT Sloan, in economics at the University of Copenhagen, and in strategy at Northwestern University and at the University of Michigan. His current research compares alternative ways of trading services.
Wernerfelt holds a BA in philosophy and an MA in economics from the University of Copenhagen and a DBA in managerial economics from Harvard University.
Wernerfelt, Birger. In Research Handbook on the Theory of the Firm, edited by Aveed Raha and Josef Windsperger, Edward Elgar Publishing. Forthcoming.
Wernerfelt, Birger. PNAS Nexus Vol. 3, No. 9 (2024): 1-5.
Wernerfelt, Birger. Journal of Institutional Economics Vol. 18, No. 3 (2022): 345-360. Download PDF. Download Preprint.
Wernerfelt, Birger. Strategy Science Vol. 7, No. 1 (2022): 1-9. Download Preprint.
Wernerfelt, Birger, Alvin Silk, and Shuyi Yu. Marketing Science Vol. 40, No. 5 (2021): 946-963. Download Preprint.
Wernerfelt, Birger. Strategic Management Review Vol. 1, No. 1 (2020): 145-158. Download Paper.
Nike, Netflix, and Amazon are global powerhouses, but they all were once the new business on the block. Here’s how they beat the odds as startups.