Publications

Web

John H. McArthur | About

information, he also saw a need for the School to experiment with new technologies and forms of packaging intellectual content, which had emerged as part of the changing competitive landscape for business... View Details

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

14 Apr 2003
Research & Ideas

Andy Grove on the Confident Leader

digital form, stored in this platform, and therefore ready to be transported in digital form. WK: Journeying from one business model to another is a formidable leadership challenge, especially in an industry so given to continual View Details

Keywords: by Walter Kiechel; Technology

November 2024
Case

AlphaGo (A): Birth of a New Intelligence

By: Shikhar Ghosh and Shweta Bagai

This case, the first of a three-part series, traces DeepMind's evolution from its 2010 founding through its acquisition by Google in 2014. Often referred to as the "Apollo project" of artificial intelligence, DeepMind used games as a testing ground to develop AI... View Details

Keywords: AI and Machine Learning; Technology Adoption; Games, Gaming, and Gambling; Technological Innovation; Creativity; Technology Industry; South Korea; China; United States

Web

the Art of American Advertising - Advertising Products

printing,” Nathaniel Fowler’s advertising manual enthused. 7 By the late 1800s, innovations in chromolithography, including the use of automated steam-powered rotary printing presses and curved zinc printing... View Details

01 Dec 2003
News

The Next Big Thing

concerted efforts to establish life-sciences clusters. HBS Dean Kim B. Clark opened the summit and introduced Harvard University President Lawrence H. Summers, who declared that the University must do its part to ensure that View Details

Keywords: life sciences; Scientific Research and Development Services

July 2011 (Revised September 2011)
Case

Game Time Decision for AppDirect

By: Andrei Hagiu, Laura Arjona and Emily Zhang

AppDirect is a start-up that offers small businesses software-as-a-service solutions through a business app marketplace and portal. Daniel Saks, co-founder and co-CEO, is faced with the key question of deciding distribution strategy: should AppDirect find channel... View Details

Keywords: Digital Platforms; Distribution; Applications and Software; Innovation Strategy; Entrepreneurship; Business Growth and Maturation; Competitive Strategy; Information Technology Industry; United States

01 Dec 2018
News

Collaborative Cures

finance. “By increasing the collaborative efforts between Harvard Business School and Harvard’s scientific community, we will empower the next generation of life science entrepreneurs View Details

01 Mar 2018
News

Every Trick in the Book

beloved,” she says. But beloved didn’t pay the bills, and by 2015, after decades of pressure from big chains and the internet, the small, independent store was on the verge of closing. That’s when Brody, a... View Details

Keywords: April White

February 2014
Case

BGI: Data-driven Research

By: Willy Shih and Sen Chai

BGI has the largest installed gene-sequencing capacity in the world, and to Zhang Gengyun, general manager of the Life Sciences Division, this represented an opportunity to apply his training as a plant breeder and his early career work as a biochemist to improving... View Details

24 Sep 2020
News

The Race for a Vaccine

technology offered two advantages. First, the company had been focused on creating not a single drug, but a platform for analyzing proteins and producing synthetic mRNA. That same process could be used to... View Details

Keywords: April White; COVID-19; Scientific Research and Development Services

February 2023 (Revised February 2025)
Case

Doing Business in Boston, Massachusetts

By: Laura Alfaro, Leonard A. Schlesinger and Zeke Gillman

This case examines the challenges and opportunities of doing business in Boston, Massachusetts while giving a broad history of the city and surrounding area. View Details

Keywords: Business History; Business and Government Relations; Technological Innovation; Economic Growth; Technology Industry; Technology Industry; Technology Industry; Boston; Massachusetts