On Principle

In the summer of 2017, a data breach occurred at Atlanta-based credit bureau Equifax affecting the records of more than 140 million consumers in the United States. The company announced the incursion in September, arguably one of the largest such breaches in history at the time, giving hackers access to private information—names, Social Security numbers, dates of birth, credit card numbers, even driver’s license numbers.Into that scene, WashU Olin alumnus Paulino do Rego Barros Jr. stepped in as the

Lisa Hu, PMBA ’16, failed at least 40 times before succeeding. It’s as simple as that. The founder of Lux and Nyx, maker of handbags designed for “jet-setter luxury and boardroom quality,” had the idea in mind, and worked on it while ascending the corporate ladder. Yet she failed over and over to find the right manufacturer to execute the vision she had in her mind.She tried doing it herself. She hired a seamstress. She looked at professional bagmakers—all the while, collecting prototypes that

On October 28, 2011, the St. Louis Cardinals completed a comeback from a 2-3 deficit to win their 11th World Series championship. It was a thrilling series that twice saw Cardinal hitters score clutch runs with the team a single strike away from elimination.Three days later, the reality of the team’s future resumed for John Mozeliak, the Cardinals’ president of baseball operations. Manager Tony La Russa, destined for baseball’s hall of fame, announced his retirement. And an off-the-field drama that

On March 18, 2020, or thereabouts, the world turned upside down. With dire news around the spread of the deadly coronavirus came staggering uncertainty for business leaders. How should they respond? Among restaurateurs, owners were forced to make incredibly consequential decisions in the snap of a finger. They had to look into the fog and consider how long this new world would last. Pivoting operations is expensive—and hard to justify for only a few months. Fail to pivot quickly enough, however, and

How do you put a price tag on a hall-of-fame ballplayer? How do you decide to throw away one career dream for another one? How do you survive an existential crisis in your business? The debut season of On Principle puts you behind the scenes for these decisions and more. We interview leaders of startups and C-suite executives of major corporations. We talk to the president of baseball operations for the St. Louis Cardinals and an award-winning chef. Then, for each episode, we talk to academics and