From Bias to Better Fundraising – Laura Huang’s Tactics for Founders

In this episode of Conductive Conversations, host Carey Lai sits down with Laura Huang, Distinguished Professor of Management and Organizational Development at Northeastern University and Wall Street Journal best-selling author of EDGE: Turning Adversity into Advantage and You Already Know: The Science of Mastering Your Intuition. A leading thinker on bias, entrepreneurship, and intuition, Laura has held faculty positions at Harvard Business School and Wharton and has been recognized by Thinkers50 and Poets & Quants for her impact on business and leadership.​

Together they unpack the real stories and research behind EDGE and You Already Know why Laura wrote these books, how being underestimated can become your greatest asset, and how her EDGE framework (Enrich, Delight, Guide, Effort) helps founders and leaders turn adversity into opportunity. Laura shares insights from her work on accent bias, investor Q&A dynamics, and her “Ten Nos” exercise, giving tactical tools for navigating perception, bias, and high-stakes pitch meetings.​

The conversation also explores the future of work, teaching, and entrepreneurship in an AI-driven world, how AI is changing jobs, how it will reshape the classroom, and how entrepreneurs can use AI as a force multiplier rather than a threat. Drawing from You Already Know, Laura explains intuition as a trainable synthesis of experience and data, and shows how founders can sharpen their “gut feel” to make better, faster decisions in uncertainty.​

🕒 Timestamps

• 00:00 – Trailer: AI taking jobs?
• 00:13 – AI opens opportunities & efficiency
• 00:25 – Higher ed broken? Top schools & brands
• 00:46 – Advice for smart engineering students
• 00:57 – Myths entrepreneurs must unlearn
• 01:05 – Intro: Laura Huang & her mission
• 02:21 – Conductive Ventures welcomes Laura
• 02:56 – Laura’s books: Edge & You Already Know
• 04:23 – Childhood experiences shaping her books
• 07:47 – Non-linear path: Engineer to academia
• 12:15 – 90% pay cut for PhD dream
• 14:38 – Can entrepreneurship be taught?
• 18:27 – MBA value? “C students” as top founders
• 23:26 – Being underestimated fuels research
• 26:26 – Edge core: Hard work isn’t enough
• 28:56 – EDGE framework: Enrich, Delight, Guide, Effort
• 32:34 – Founders: Turn underestimation into superpower
• 35:52 – Accent bias research & flipping perceptions
• 40:36 – Promotion vs. prevention investor questions
• 45:03 – Flip prevention questions for 70–80% edge
• 46:53 – Every disadvantage? Not every time
• 49:54 – “10 Nos” exercise: Train adaptability
• 52:51 – Why “be yourself” is horrible advice
• 57:29 – Why we “care less” in our 40s/50s
• 59:50 – Gut feel vs. intuition: The science
• 01:06:38 – Gut feel never wrong
• 01:15:16 – Will AI take away our jobs?
• 01:16:31 – Is the middle class getting poorer?
• 01:20:00 – AI in classroom: Aid, not replacement
• 01:28:13 – Higher education is broken
• 01:36:08 – Companies overpaying senior developers
• 01:41:13 – Success myths entrepreneurs must unlearn
• 01:45:11 – Outro

If you’re a founder, investor, or operator navigating bias, AI, and high-stakes decisions, this episode gives you a playbook for turning disadvantages into an edge and learning to trust what you already know.​

About Laura

Laura Huang is a Distinguished Professor of Management and Organizational Dynamics and Associate Dean of Executive Education. She also serves as the Faculty Director of the Women’s Entrepreneurship Initiative at Northeastern University. Laura has held faculty positions at Harvard Business School and the Wharton School and is currently on the board of Wharton Alumni Angels and NJECC. Her research examines the role of intuition and interpersonal signaling in entrepreneurship, workplace interactions, and decision-making. She is the international best-selling author of EDGE: Turning Adversity into Advantage, published by Portfolio: Penguin Random House. Her work has been published in top journals, including Administrative Science Quarterly, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Academy of Management Review, Academy of Management Journal, Organization Science, and Journal of Applied Psychology.

Laura was named one of the top 40 business school professors by Poets and Quants and was a recipient of the 2020 Cozzarelli Prize given by the National Academy of Sciences. In 2021, she was named to the Global Thinker50 Radar list as one of the top thinkers with the potential to change the world of theory and practice.

Before her academic career, she held investment banking, consulting, and management positions for organizations such as Standard Chartered Bank, IBM Global Services, and Johnson & Johnson.

Laura holds an MS and BSE in electrical engineering, both from Duke University, an MBA from INSEAD, and a PhD from the University of California, Irvine.