Publications

March 2025 (Revised April 2025)
Case

Perplexity: Redefining Search

By: Suraj Srinivasan, Michelle Hu, Sriraghav Srinivasan and Radhika Kak

By early 2025, Perplexity had rapidly evolved from a modest startup into a popular "answer engine" valued at $9 billion. The company had boldly positioned itself as the disruptor to Google aiming to redefine search for the AI age. Through novel AI... View Details

Keywords: AI and Machine Learning; Venture Capital; Innovation Leadership; Technological Innovation; Internet and the Web; Business Startups; Competitive Strategy; Business Model; Technology Industry; United States

Career Coach

Madhav Datt

Madhav is a startup founder and tech product manager. He worked as Product Manager at Google where he launched and scaled B2B AI product from 0 -> $645M incremental ARR. Prior to that he was a Quant Researcher in US Equities at... View Details

August 2014 (Revised May 2016)
Case

Husk Power

By: Joseph B. Lassiter III and Sid Misra

In late 2013, Husk Power Systems found itself falling further and further behind plan. The founding CEO had decided to resign. His co-founder is faced with the decision of quitting his corporate job in the US to head to India and help form a new management team. Husk... View Details

09 Apr 2019
First Look

New Research and Ideas, April 9, 2019

the conditions under which P-Will would work—and not work? Purchase this case:https://hbsp.harvard.edu/product/419035-PDF-ENG Harvard Business School Case 819-058 BreezoMeter: Making Air Pollution Data Actionable The case focuses on an Israeli View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

March 2025
Case

Silicon Valley Bank: Gone in 36 Hours

By: Jung Koo Kang, Krishna G. Palepu, Charles C.Y. Wang and David Lane

This case examines factors contributing to the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) in March 2023, an event as unpredicted as it was quick. SVB funded nearly half of all U.S. venture-backed startups and at the end of 2022 held $173 billion in deposits, largely... View Details

02 Aug 2018
Blog Post

Venturing into VC

I’ve spent my summer as an MBA Associate at Victress Capital, an early-stage venture capital (VC) firm focused on achieving outsized returns through investing in diverse teams. I originally met our firm’s two General Partners (GPs), Lori... View Details

May 2021
Article

Mutual Funds as Venture Capitalists? Evidence from Unicorns

By: Josh Lerner, Sergey Chernenko and Yao Zeng

The past decade saw the rise of both “founder-friendly” venture financings and non-traditional investors, frequently with liquidity constraints. Using detailed contract data, we study open-end mutual funds investing in private venture-backed firms. We posit an... View Details

Keywords: Investment Funds; Investment; Business Startups; Venture Capital; Private Equity; Governance

Find at Harvard

July 1995 (Revised October 1995)
Case

Superior Clamps, Inc.

By: David F. Hawkins

An investor must prepare pro forma financial statements as a basis for a third-party investment in his new company. The investor must make a number of accounting policy decisions. View Details

Keywords: Financing and Loans; Investment; Policy; Financial Statements; Business Startups; Manufacturing Industry

11 Dec 2018
First Look

New Research and Ideas, December 11, 2018

followed by upward revisions in expectations of risk, suggesting that these expectations may not be rational. Harvard Business School Case 818-097 AirFox (A): Embracing the Blockchain and an ICO In summer 2017, Victor Santos, CEO of AirFox, considered whether to pivot... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

06 Nov 2018
First Look

New Research and Ideas, November 6, 2018

had been given the opportunity to manage teams, and they had done so with mixed success and consequences for both company success and employee retention. Reflecting on Clever’s progress as of early 2017, co-founder and CEO Tyler Bosmeny proposed View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

Career Coach

Pamela Harder

architect behind the Amazon HQ2 $1.1B tech talent investment program. Prior to that, Pam ran Strategy & Business Operations at Clever, a K12 edtech startup in San Francisco. Under her leadership, she... View Details

Keywords: Impact Investing; Impact Investing; Impact Investing; Impact Investing; Impact Investing; Impact Investing; Impact Investing; Impact Investing; Impact Investing; Impact Investing; Impact Investing; Impact Investing

07 Dec 2015
Research & Ideas

The Rise of Personalized Entrepreneurial Finance and Other VC Trends

limit the success of these programs. Q: The news site Quartz published a chart showing the fastest-growing areas of startup investment since 2012: Bitcoin, photo sharing, storage, space travel,... View Details

Keywords: Re: Josh Lerner; Financial Services; Banking

18 Mar 2014
First Look

First Look: March 18

Second, we compare patenting by venture‐backed startups and incumbent firms. Using a variety of measures, we find that VC‐backed startups are engaged in more novel and more highly cited innovations compared... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

20 Mar 2025
Blog Post

Scaling Climate Tech Innovation with Lee Scott (MBA 2023)

invested in my favorite startups and then reached out to HBS alumni at those orgs. A handful of these coffee chats turned into interviews. I ultimately decided on a Senior Associate role with Trellis... View Details

September 2020
Case

Uber at a Crossroads (2017)

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Karen Elterman

This case describes the history of Uber, its business model—including the ways it differed from that of the traditional taxi industry—and its competition with Lyft. The case is set in 2017, a year in which Uber was plagued by even more scandals than usual, though its... View Details