Michael Olenick

Michael Olenick

I write, lecture, and consult on strategy.

I am a pioneer of artificial intelligence and strategy, having worked at that intersection for 26 years, long before it became a field anyone talked about. The strategy software I first put on the web in 2003 was what we called AI in its day, and nothing else like it existed. I asked whether GenAI could do strategy in Harvard Business Review in 2023, and I've kept writing about how, and whether, it should ever since.

For decades I also worked closely with Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne, the authors of Blue Ocean Strategy, helping develop and apply the ideas behind it. For the past 12 years I have been a research fellow at INSEAD.

This site takes its name from value innovation, the core of blue ocean strategy. The usual assumption is that you must choose between lower cost and higher value. Value innovation sets that trade-off aside: by looking to noncustomers rather than fighting over the customers everyone already shares, you can lower cost and raise value at the same time, and open new market space in doing so.

Much of my work has been about making that idea practical. I've written seven bestselling pieces for Harvard Business School Publishing, along with many other cases and notes, and several articles for Harvard Business Review. My work has also been featured in the New York Times and elsewhere, and I contribute regularly to Poets & Quants. That early work grew into VSTRAT, the strategy software I founded, first built for blue ocean work.

I live in Austin, Texas, with my partner, Anastassia. Together we build KROHN, an app for keeping the relationships that matter, putting the right person in front of you right when you need them, rather than building one more social network.

Writing & Press

Elsewhere