Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(431)
- Faculty Publications (43)
- March 2012 (Revised December 2012)
- Case
Foro Energy (A)
By: Joseph B. Lassiter III, William A. Sahlman and James McQuade
Foro Energy developed proprietary and patent-pending fiber-laser technologies that could disrupt existing processes and services for the exploration and production of oil and natural gas. These breakthrough laser technologies were protected by a strong intellectual... View Details
- October 2011 (Revised November 2011)
- Case
Verengo Solar Plus!
By: William A. Sahlman, Joseph B. Lassiter III and Liz Kind
In the three years since Bishop and Button purchased Verengo in a leveraged buyout (LBO), the company had gone through dramatic changes. Initially a residential windows and insulation firm, after the economic recession of 2008 the company switched gears and began... View Details
- September 2011 (Revised March 2014)
- Case
Airbnb
By: Joseph B. Lassiter III and Evan W. Richardson
Brian Chesky, Joe Gebbia, and Nathan Blecharczyk, the three founders of Airbnb, an online private accommodation rental market, stared at each other across the kitchen table in their San Francisco apartment. It was March of 2009. A single sheet of paper sat on the table... View Details
- September 2011 (Revised July 2012)
- Case
Khosla Ventures: Biofuels Gain Liquidity
By: Joseph B. Lassiter III, William A. Sahlman, Alison Berkley Wagonfeld and Evan Richardson
Samir Kaul, a Partner at Khosla Ventures, looked out his office window. It was late June, 2011, and like almost every day in Menlo Park, the sun was shining. Kaul was reflecting on what had been a very positive 10 months in the venture capital business. Over that span,... View Details
- March 2011 (Revised April 2018)
- Case
1366 Technologies: Scaling the Venture
By: Joseph B. Lassiter III, Ramana Nanda, David Kiron and Evan Richardson
For some time, 1366's co-founders, Frank van Mierlo and Ely Sachs, had faced a choice, which was now made all the more stark: 1366 could expand to produce silicon wafers itself, raising the required capital from "friendly" investors and building shipment volume slowly,... View Details
- August 2009 (Revised August 2010)
- Case
Calera Corporation
By: Joseph B. Lassiter III, Thomas J. Steenburgh and Lauren Barley
Brent Constantz, founder, CEO, and president of Calera Corporation, felt a surge of optimism as he gazed at the recently commissioned prototype flue gas processing line at Calera's R&D facility in Moss Landing, California. It was late May 2009, and Calera was an... View Details
- September 2008 (Revised July 2012)
- Case
Khosla Ventures: Biofuels Strategy
By: Joseph B. Lassiter III, William A. Sahlman and Alison Berkley Wagonfeld
By 2008, a number of the firm's early cleantech investments were showing promise, and the companies were starting to need significantly more money to create the massive scale required in the energy sector. As Khosla thought about the hundreds of millions of dollars... View Details
Keywords: Entrepreneurial Marketing; Entrepreneurial Finance; New Product Development; Partnerships; Entrepreneurial Management; Venture Capital; Strategy; Partners and Partnerships; Renewable Energy; Entrepreneurship; Investment Funds; Environmental Sustainability; Product Development; Biotechnology Industry; Financial Services Industry
- July 2008 (Revised January 2010)
- Case
Affinity Labs, Inc.
By: Joseph B. Lassiter III and Elizabeth Kind
In November 2006, Chris Michel left Military.com, which he founded in 1999, to start Affinity Labs, a global network of online communities. That month, Michel raised a Series A round of venture funding and established a partnership with Monster, which he had sold... View Details
- March 2008 (Revised September 2008)
- Case
FREEJ
By: Joseph B. Lassiter III and Firas Alkhatib
Mohammed Harib placed his phone on the desk in front of him. As he sat back in his chair and looked out the window, he began to take stock of how his life had taken such a dramatic path over the last few years. Life was good for the founder and CEO of Lammtara... View Details
- January 2008
- Supplement
Joe Bachelder: Reflections
By: Brian Hall and James K. Sebenius
After Charles Suarez's failed compensation negotiations with Victor, Suarez's attorney, Joe Batchelder, joined class discussions of the case in a course taught by Professor Brian Hall. Professor James Sebenius also interviewed Joe Bachelder at length on this case and... View Details
- May 2006 (Revised July 2007)
- Case
Tropos Networks
By: Joseph B. Lassiter III and Elizabeth Kind
As Ron Sege, president and CEO of Tropos Networks, walked through the halls of the firm's offices, he realized that the space they had moved into only about a year ago was already becoming too small. The company, based in Sunnyvale, California, was founded in late 2000... View Details
- March 2006 (Revised February 2007)
- Case
Massive Incorporated (A)
By: Joseph B. Lassiter III, Clark Gilbert and Victoria Winston
How do you go to market with a brand new product in a new industry? How does a business develop an opportunity and then adapt its strategy to ensure success? Who are the early adopters and how does a business work with them? Katherine Hays, chief operating office at... View Details
- January 2006 (Revised April 2007)
- Case
General Electric Healthcare, 2006
By: Tarun Khanna and Elizabeth Raabe
In January 2006, Joe Hogan, head of General Electric (GE) Healthcare Technologies, prepared to step into William Castell's shoes as CEO of GE Healthcare, the world's leading manufacturer of diagnostic imaging equipment. In 2004, former CEO Jeff Immelt acquired Amersham... View Details
Keywords: Corporate Entrepreneurship; Cost vs Benefits; Growth and Development Strategy; Mergers and Acquisitions; Machinery and Machining; Global Range; Multinational Firms and Management; Product Design; Technological Innovation; Expansion; Value Creation; Business Subsidiaries; Health Industry; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry
- June 2004 (Revised May 2006)
- Case
Millennial Net
By: Joseph B. Lassiter III and Johanna Regine Naunton Blaxall
Millennial Net created self-organizing, ultra-low-power, wireless sensor networks, a space that was getting a lot of attention in 2004. The company was founded in 2000 and in early 2004 was looking for a second round of funding. The area had attracted a number of new... View Details
- April 2004 (Revised July 2007)
- Case
OfficeTiger
By: Joseph B. Lassiter III and Johanna Regine Naunton Blaxall
OfficeTiger was founded in late 1999 with an innovative approach to global outsourcing. The company's employees, located primarily in India, provided services for corporations, investment banks, and professional services firms throughout the United States, Europe, and... View Details
- March 2004 (Revised April 2004)
- Background Note
Seeing What's on Red Auerbach's Mind
Analysis of an interview with Red Auerbach, HBR No. 87201. Alan M. Webber, who conducted the interview, probed for the lessons that Auerbach has learned from a long and productive career coaching and managing the Boston Celtics, a professional basketball team in the... View Details
- June 2003 (Revised October 2004)
- Case
StorageNetworks: Restarting a Public Company (A)
By: Joseph B. Lassiter III and Todd H Thedinga
Peter Bell, founder and CEO of StorageNetworks, faces the problem of "restarting" a public company by changing its business model from being a storage-services provider to being a storage software developer. The task seems challenging, but surely doable, with $200... View Details
- October 2000 (Revised April 2001)
- Case
Cost of Capital at Ameritrade
By: Mark L. Mitchell and Erik Stafford
Ameritrade Holding Corp. is planning large marketing and technology investments to improve the company's competitive position in deep-discount brokerage by taking advantage of emerging economies of scale. In order to evaluate whether the strategy would generate... View Details
- October 1999 (Revised February 2000)
- Case
Steinway & Sons: Buying a Legend (A)
It is 1995 and Steinway & Sons has just been purchased by two young entrepreneurs. For 140 years, Steinway has held the reputation for making the finest quality grand pianos in the world. The past 25 years have proven to be a challenge, however. First, the company has... View Details
- August 1998
- Case
Electronic Commerce at Air Products
By: F. Warren McFarlan and Melissa Dailey
In 1998,chief information officers (CIOs) in the highly competitive international gases and chemicals business faced the reality that electronic commerce capability was a strategic necessity. The results of annual surveys of technology officers in the chemical industry... View Details