Publications

05 Apr 2024
Blog Post

How I Spent my 2+2 Deferral: Zoe Bhargava

especially as I had recently pivoted my career plan from finance to tech after two summers interning at technology companies. After interning at Twitter my sophomore summer, I spent the following two years involving myself in the... View Details

Career Coach

Ben Schlatka

Ben (HBS '05) has deep experience in technology driven organizations - including fund raising and venture formation, product marketing, product management, business development and managing technical professionals in large public and... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Entrepreneurship; Entrepreneurship; Entrepreneurship; Entrepreneurship; Entrepreneurship; Entrepreneurship; Entrepreneurship

Forthcoming
Article

You've Got Mail! The Late 19th-Century U.S. Postal Service Expansion, Firm Creation, and Firm Performance

By: Astrid Marinoni and Maria P. Roche

This paper examines the impact of the expansion of the US Postal Service in the late 19th century on firm creation and performance. Utilizing newly digitized archival data on historic business establishments, post office locations, and road networks in California,... View Details

Keywords: Institutional Innovation; Knowledge Exchange; US Postal Service; Firm Performance; Infrastructure; Expansion; Government Administration; Communication; Business History; Entrepreneurship; Public Administration Industry; California

Find at Harvard

Rem Koning is the Mary V. and Mark A. Stevens Associate Professor at Harvard Business School. He researches and teaches entrepreneurship, exploring the biases and frictions that shape how founders and markets learn. His current research explores... View Details

Keywords: high technology; high technology; high technology

Ryann Noe

Ryann Noe is a doctoral candidate in the Organizational Behavior program jointly offered by Harvard Business School and the Department of Sociology at Harvard University.

Her research examines how industries and technologies emerge and evolve, with a focus... View Details

April 2022
Article

The Past Is Prologue? Venture-Capital Syndicates' Collaborative Experience and Start-Up Exits

By: Dan Wang, Emily Cox Pahnke and Rory M. McDonald

Past research has produced contradictory insights into how prior collaboration between organizations—their relational embeddedness—impacts collective collaborative performance. We theorize that the effect of relational embeddedness on collaborative success is... View Details

Keywords: Inter-organizational Networks; Collaboration; Entrepreneurship; Networks; Organizations; Performance; Venture Capital

Find at Harvard

Read Now

Myra Hart's research focus is high potential entrepreneurship. She has taught MBA and executive programs, co-chaired the entrepreneurship unit, and led several HBS initiatives. As a founding memberView Details

Keywords: consumer products; e-commerce industry; education industry; real estate; retailing

May 2002 (Revised May 2003)
Case

Performance Indicator

Performance Indicator is a start-up that holds patents on the use of color-change technology to indicate when golf balls have been damaged by exposure to water. Because golfers put two to five used golf balls into play for every one new ball they buy, the used golf... View Details

Keywords: Information Technology; Patents; Entrepreneurship; Sports; Sports Industry; Entertainment and Recreation Industry

August 2007 (Revised June 2020)
Case

Trouble with a Bubble

By: Tom Nicholas

Examines technology, firm performance, and the stock market during the 1929 Great Crash and the Great Depression of the 1930s. The 1920s was an extraordinary period of technological progress marked by a strong run-up in stock market prices. Firms invested heavily in... View Details

Keywords: Bubble; Stock Market; Great Depression; Irving Fisher; Information Technology; Organizational Change and Adaptation; History; Financial Markets; Performance; Labor and Management Relations; Equity; Financial Crisis; Innovation and Invention; United States

December 2006 (Revised March 2010)
Case

Bill Gates and Steve Jobs

By: Anthony Mayo and Mark Benson

Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, founders of Microsoft and Apple respectively, have revolutionized the relationship between the individual and computer technology. Once the exclusive domain of academia and research facilities, computers can now be found in every area of... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Business History; Technological Innovation; Leadership; Risk and Uncertainty; Technology Industry

14 Mar 2023
Cold Call Podcast

Can AI and Machine Learning Help Park Rangers Prevent Poaching?

Keywords: Re: Brian L. Trelstad; Computer; Information Technology; Technology

October 2011 (Revised June 2014)
Case

inge watertechnologies, GmbH

By: Ramana Nanda, Carin-Isabel Knoop and Markus Mittermaier

Using the financing history and exit choices of a German clean-tech startup as a lens, this case explores the reasons why venture-backed entrepreneurship is much lower in Germany than the US, despite a robust SME sector and large-corporate innovation in Germany. It... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurial Finance; Finance; Venture Capital; Negotiation; Entrepreneurship; Technology Industry; Germany

January 2021
Case

Bespoken Spirits: Disrupting Distilling

By: Benjamin C. Esty and Daniel Fisher

On October 7, 2020, Bespoken Spirits publicly announced it had received $2.6 million of seed funding for its “sustainable maturation process,” a process that could produce award-winning whiskeys in just days rather than years using a novel technology and data science. ... View Details

Keywords: Business Ventures; Business Strategy; Competitive Advantage; Disruption; Entrepreneurship; Environmental Sustainability; Cash Flow; Disruptive Innovation; Innovation Strategy; Brands and Branding; Business Model; Consumer Products Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; Service Industry; United States; California

November 2023 (Revised April 2024)
Case

Khanmigo: Revolutionizing Learning with GenAI

By: William A. Sahlman, Allison M. Ciechanover and Emily Grandjean

Already a leader in the edtech space since its 2008 launch, Khan Academy was now one of the first edtech organizations to embrace generative artificial intelligence ("genAI"). In March 2023, Khan Academy began beta testing Khanmigo, a genAI “guide” and tutor built with... View Details

Keywords: Technology Adoption; Leading Change; Entrepreneurship; Risk and Uncertainty; Education; AI and Machine Learning; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Technology Industry; Technology Industry; United States; San Francisco