Publications

Teaching Interest

Scaling Technology Ventures

By: Jeffrey F. Rayport

This course is designed for students who plan to launch or join a hypergrowth technology venture, or who plan to invest in growth-stage tech companies. The course addresses key challenges founders and their teams face after achieving product-market fit – and how... View Details

News

IBM at 100: How to Outlast Depression, War, and Competition

05 Nov 2019
News

Best Business Books 2019: Talent & leadership

30 May 2018
News

First “HBS Hacks” Event in San Francisco

August 9, 2022
Article

Preparing Sales for a Changing Economy: Part 1

By: Frank V. Cespedes

Companies spend more per capita on sales training than any other function, but the return on investment is disappointing. One recent estimate indicates “that 85-90% of sales training fails to translate into a lasting improvement in productivity.” A major reason is... View Details

Keywords: Return On Investment; Sales; Training

Read Now

18 Oct 2018
News

What Will Trump Do Next With Chinese Student Visas?

Making the Right Technical Hire

For many CEOs, particularly those running startups, hiring the right people is the single biggest determinant of whether a new business survives. And so it makes sense that the chief executive should be View Details

18–19 Feb 2022
Virtual Programming

49th H. Naylor Fitzhugh Conference - RISE UP: BOLSTERING MOMENTUM AROUND BLACK EXCELLENCE

How do we keep the momentum? 2020 proved to be challenging for the Black community in myriad ways, from COVIDs disproportionate impact on Black and Brown communities to the racial reckoning brought on by the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and countless... View Details

August 2015
Case

Yesware (A)

By: Shikhar Ghosh, Christopher Payton and Ali Huberlie

Matthew Bellows founded Yesware, a Boston-based tech startup, to solve a problem that he'd encountered as a sales manager: sales people hate entering data, rarely do it accurately, and almost always input data that can't be synthesized in a way that is useful for the... View Details

Keywords: Firing; Culture Change; Startup; Technology; Hiring; Entrepreneurship; Negotiation; Sales; Human Resources; Technology Industry; Boston

November 2000 (Revised January 2003)
Case

Yahoo!'s Stock-Based Compensation

By: Paul M. Healy and Jacob Cohen

Amy Maislos, an investor in Internet and technology companies, was excited to read that Yahoo! had reported a positive net income for 1998 operations. During the late 1990s, stock prices of Internet companies had risen rapidly even though most companies were reporting... View Details

Keywords: Stock Options; Internet and the Web; Financial Statements; Corporate Disclosure; Business Earnings; Earnings Management; Information Technology Industry

Find at Harvard

11 May 2021
News

Law Firms Are Building A.I. Expertise as Regulation Looms

22 Feb 2016
News

Every Company Needs a Growth Manager

The CTO to VP Engineering Fork

There comes a time in every scaling tech start-up’s life when an engineering team begins to show signs of needing help. The symptoms can include lost velocity in releasing new products/features, attrition or morale issues, fragile code or lack of innovation. I... View Details

August 2009 (Revised August 2011)
Case

Nanosolar, Inc.

Nanosolar is a start-up company in the clean tech sector. It expects to be one of the first manufacturers to produce thin-film solar panels using copper indium gallium (di)selenide (CIGS) technology. Although this technology is less efficient in producing electricity... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Renewable Energy; Marketing Strategy; Market Entry and Exit; Energy Industry; Green Technology Industry; Europe; United States

December 2019 (Revised March 2020)
Case

Impossible Foods

By: Jose B. Alvarez and Natalie Kindred

Impossible Foods founder and CEO Pat Brown started the company out of concern over livestock production’s impact on climate change. Impossible’s mission is to end consumption of animals by 2035, and its strategy is to develop and market plant-based foods so similar to... View Details