Publications

January 2010 (Revised April 2010)
Case

Gobi Partners and DMG

By: G. Felda Hardymon, Josh Lerner and Ann Leamon

Thomas G. Tsao, founding general partner of Gobi Partners, an early stage venture capital firm in China, must decide how to manage his firm's largest investment after the departure of the CEO. Tom has temporarily stepped in as CEO, but finding a replacement with the... View Details

Keywords: Restructuring; Competency and Skills; Decision Choices and Conditions; Venture Capital; Investment; Business or Company Management; Management Succession; Emerging Markets; Problems and Challenges; Business and Stakeholder Relations; China

2019
Working Paper

Who Drives Digital Innovation? Evidence from the U.S. Medical Device Industry

By: Cirrus Foroughi and Ariel Dora Stern

Does the large-scale technological change that is characteristic of an industry-wide digital transformation entrench industry leaders or enable the rise of new entrants? We offer a novel approach to this question by studying the medical device industry, a unique... View Details

Keywords: Innovation; Medical Devices; Digitization; Medical Technology; Technological Innovation; Applications and Software; Market Entry and Exit; Industry Growth; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry; United States

Read Now

July 2003 (Revised September 2003)
Case

Refinancing of Shanghai General Motors (B), The

By: Mihir A. Desai and Mark Veblen

This case provides the outcome to "The Refinancing of Shanghai General Motors (A)" in which the CFO of General Motors' joint venture in Shanghai, Shanghai General Motors (SGM), wants to refinance almost $900 million of project finance it raised to begin operations. The... View Details

Keywords: Business Subsidiaries; Multinational Firms and Management; Joint Ventures; Financing and Loans; Auto Industry; Shanghai

26 Jul 2011
First Look

First Look: July 26

traditional PR work. The (B) case focuses on the choices the firm needs to make about roll-out, including how to measure aspects of consultants' performance, what performance management systems and processes need to support the View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

April 2024 (Revised August 2024)
Case

The Engine

By: Joshua Lev Krieger, Jim Matheson, Fiona Murray and Nicholas Christman

The Engine, a venture capital firm founded by MIT to fill a gap in the technology funding landscape by commercializing breakthrough science and technology. Led by managing partner and CEO Katie Rae, the Engine's unique approach involved an unusually longer fund life,... View Details

Keywords: Growth and Development Strategy; Mission and Purpose; Venture Capital; Business Startups; Entrepreneurial Finance; Financial Services Industry

26 Mar 2020
Blog Post

The Road Untraveled: VC Perspectives on COVID-19

Brian Hollins (MBA 2021) spent six years at Goldman Sachs prior to HBS focused on venture capital and growth equity investing for the firm. He will be joining Lightspeed View Details

02 May 2005
Research & Ideas

Four VCs on Evaluating Opportunities

What makes for the ideal entrepreneurial opportunity? To learn about the frameworks firms use when evaluating potential venture opportunities, Mike Roberts, executive director of the Arthur Rock Center for... View Details

Keywords: by Lauren Barley

03 Aug 2010
First Look

First Look: August 3

Wasserman, Furqan Nazeeri, and Kyle AndersonHarvard Business School Note 810-119 This note offers a new approach to venture capital term-sheet negotiations, with actionable steps based on insights from... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

July 2009 (Revised August 2011)
Case

What Happened at Citigroup? (A)

By: Clayton S. Rose and Aldo Sesia

What went wrong at Citigroup? In 1998, the Travelers Group and Citicorp merged to create Citigroup Inc., considered the first true global "financial supermarket" and a business model to be envied, feared, and emulated. By year-end 2006 the firm had a market... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Business Model; Decision Choices and Conditions; Globalized Firms and Management; Leadership; Risk Management; Failure; Financial Services Industry

March 2005
Case

Vignette: Waiting for a CEO

By: G. Felda Hardymon and Ann Leamon

A venture capitalist must decide how to respond to an e-mail from his long-time troubleshooter now installed as interim CEO at a struggling contract manufacturing exchange for the custom car business. The investors have been seeking a full-time CEO but have made little... View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital; Business or Company Management; Investment; Business Ventures; Corporate Governance; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Financial Strategy

30 Jan 2023
HBS Seminar

Martine Haas, Wharton

June 2005 (Revised May 2006)
Case

Vidient (A)

Vidient, a young company, is in the process of being spun out of a much larger, established Japanese business. Vidient is in the business of analyzing the feeds from security cameras and catches security breaches automatically, without human assistance. The parent... View Details

Keywords: Technological Innovation; Business Growth and Maturation; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Financing and Loans; Business Startups; Service Industry; Japan

Find at Harvard

14 Sep 2010
First Look

First Look: September 14, 2010

http://www.people.hbs.edu/ffoley/IPRImit.pdf Venture Capital Investment in the Clean Energy Sector Authors:Shikhar Ghosh and Ramana Nanda Publication:In America's Energy Innovation Problem Abstract We... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

January 2009 (Revised July 2010)
Case

iZumi

By: Robert F. Higgins, Jacob Ian Broder-Fingert, Eliot Sherman and Sidhartha Palani

Presents the issues faced while building an innovative company in an emerging space with new intellectual property from the perspective of a venture capitalist. Beth Seidenberg, a partner at the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB), had helped... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Venture Capital; Globalized Markets and Industries; Innovation and Management; Intellectual Property; Rights; Genetics; Financial Services Industry; Health Industry

March 1968 (Revised July 2010)
Case

Basic Industries

By: Joseph L. Bower and John W. Rosenblum

Policy problems, mainly organizational issues, face a young middle manager in the context of capital budgeting in a highly technological conglomerate firm with high market uncertainty. View Details

Keywords: Business Conglomerates; Capital Budgeting; Policy; Managerial Roles; Risk and Uncertainty

April 2018 (Revised May 2018)
Case

Goldman Sachs: Making an Imprint in Impact Investing

By: Shawn Cole, Vikram S. Gandhi, Caitlin Reimers Brumme and Lynn Schenk

Goldman Sachs acquired Imprint Capital Advisors, a small firm that specialized in advising clients on environmental/social/governance (ESG) and impact investments. The founders sold Imprint with the belief that joining a global financial firm would help to scale impact... View Details

Keywords: Impact Investing; ESG; Investment; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Environmental Sustainability; Growth and Development Strategy; Acquisition; Integration

August 2021
Supplement

Andreessen Horowitz’s Cultural Leadership Fund (B): Kevin Hart and Clubhouse

By: Anita Elberse, Briana Richardson and Cydni Williams

In May 2020, Andreessen Horowitz secures an agreement with Clubhouse, one of Silicon Valley’s hottest startups, to lead its ‘Series A’ funding round. One of the factors that insiders saw as pivotal in the race to be Clubhouse’s VC firm of choice was Andreessen... View Details

Keywords: Entertainment; Talent Management; General Management; Inclusion; Talent and Talent Management; Diversity; Venture Capital; Entrepreneurship; Networks; Nonprofit Organizations

01 Sep 2015
First Look

First Look -- September 1, 2015

across firms. Using information disclosed in proxy statements of publicly traded companies, I predict and find that firms connected through board interlocks or common compensation consultants display a... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

July–August 2018
Article

The Other Diversity Dividend

By: Paul Gompers and Silpa Kovvali

Researchers have struggled to establish a causal relationship between diversity and financial performance—especially at large companies, where decision rights and incentives can be murky, and the effects of any given choice can be tough to pin down. So the authors... View Details

Keywords: Diversity; Decision Making; Finance; Performance Improvement; Venture Capital