Matt is chief editor of Bluesky-thinking.com, a website dedicated to the insights and research of business schools, universities and outstanding management thinkers.
He is an internationally recognised business and graduate school expert, consulting to the world's top business schools, and has written for many of the world's leading publications including Forbes, The Economist, Bloomberg BusinessWeek, BBC, Newsweek, CNBC, America Economia, Washington Post, The Independent, Boston Globe, Handelsblatt, South China Morning Post, San Francisco Chronicle and more.
Matt was Co-Founder of the QS World MBA Tour
Matt is co-author of Getting the M.B.A. Admissions Edge, a B-school admissions bestseller sponsored by Goldman Sachs and McKinsey. His new individual school guides will be available in the fall.
In 2020 someone visited the New Bedford Whaling Museum and left a one-star Google review with the words, worst aquarium ever. The museum is not an aquarium. It is a museum about the history of whaling, Six years later, printed with a one-star rating and a minimalist whale skeleton. The shirts have sold out. What does this delightful story teach about how to respond to a bad review?
Nike and Adidas spend billions of dollars a year to outshine their rival, and their flagship pink boots turned up at the World Cup indistinguishable to the naked eye. Everything that separated one company's boot from the other's had come down to a swoosh or three stripes stitched to the side. When the shoe cannot tell the story, the brand has to.
Somewhere in Europe this week, an executive is lying on a sun lounger reading a work email. They are telling themselves it will only take a moment. Even if it does, the damage is already done. The quality of the rest your vacation brings determines whether any of it sticks, and most people unknowingly undermine their own recovery before they have even left the airport lounge.
The third-place play-off between England and France at the 2026 World Cup produced the kind of open, flowing, end-to-end football that both sets of supporters had been hoping for all tournament. The bitter disappointment of semi-final defeats exposed the managers of both teams to heavy criticism. This was the match that revealed what both teams are capable of. Which raises the question, where was this in the semi-finals?
Beef prices hit records this summer and US consumers bought more of it than ever. The explanation involves two ideas from business school, and neither one is about beef. One explanation concerns the way people think about money. The other concerns the way industries think about time. Between them they explain not just the cost of your ribeye but a mistake that companies in every sector make, over and over.
The hydration break is the most unpopular new rule of the 2026 World Cup. FIFA has made it compulsory in every match, three minutes in each half, whatever the weather and whoever is playing. Fans hate the interruption. Broadcasters have filled the pause with advertising. Managers, whatever they grumble in public, have worked out that the break may be the most useful thing the tournament has handed them.
The most anticipated wedding of the year welcomed a thousand guests to Madison Square Garden, and almost nothing about it reached the public. Adam Sandler officiated and Stevie Nicks performed, but you know that only because Taylor Swift's team chose to tell you. Swift is a master of control, she reclaimed her work, and kept the paparazzi on the outside of her indoor wedding. Should the rest of us go and do the same?
Economists have spent years trying to explain why an Ivy League degree is worth roughly $101,000 more per year a decade after graduation. The answer they eventually found, after stripping out instruction quality, alumni networks in the conventional sense, and prestige signalling, was peer environment. Who you are in the room with.
Neither France, Argentina, or Mexico, are likely to win the 2026 FIFA World Cup Between 2006 and 2022, not a single World Cup winner collected maximum points in the group stage. Brazil in 2002 is the last champion to win every game on the way to the title, and that was twenty-four years ago. Why does the pattern exist, and will it make a difference this year?
