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- June 2018
- Case
Candor at Clever
By: Ethan Bernstein and Om Lala
Clever, a high-growth EdTech company based in San Francisco, had grown quickly in market share and headcount. As with many high-growth companies, however, early employees (many of whom had never managed people before) had been given the opportunity to manage teams, and... View Details
Keywords: Performance Feedback; Talent Development And Retention; Talent Management; Feedback; Difficult Conversations; Radical Candor; Scaling Start-ups; Scaling And Growth; Developing Effective Managers; Effective Managers; First-time Managers; Kim Scott; Clever; Bay Area; Silicon Valley; Interpersonal Communication; Talent and Talent Management; Human Resources; Leadership Development; Management Practices and Processes; Management Skills; Management Style; Organizations; Organizational Culture; Performance Evaluation; Conflict and Resolution; Technology Industry; Education Industry; San Francisco; United States
- Summer 2018
- Book Review
Leslie Berlin, Troublemakers: Silicon Valley's Coming of Age
Leslie Berlin's book Troublemakers, is an engaging and insightful people-first exploration of the roots of Silicon Valley, from the late 1960s to the early 1980s. Berlin portrays seven individuals who played important roles at critical junctures in the... View Details
- April 2018
- Case
Cisco Systems and OpenDNS: Strategic Integration
By: Andy Wu, George Gonzalez and David Wang
With more than 72,000 employees and revenues approaching the $50B mark, Cisco Systems is one of the largest information technology and networking firms globally. As the company grew and expanded into different lines of businesses, Cisco consistently looked outwards for... View Details
- 2016
- Chapter
The Origins of High-Tech Venture Investing in America
By: Tom Nicholas
The United States has developed an unparalleled environment for the provision of high-tech investment finance. Today it is reflected in the strength of agglomeration economies in Silicon Valley, but historically its origins lay in the East Coast. Notably, immediate... View Details
- November 2016 (Revised May 2017)
- Case
Hyperloop One
This case explores the attempt of Shervin Pishevar, a prominent Silicon Valley investor, to shepherd hyperloop, a futuristic pod-in-tube transportation technology, from concept to transformative reality via Hyperloop One and Sherpa Capital, both companies he... View Details
- November 2016
- Case
Anthony Starks at InSiL Therapeutics (A)
By: Gary Pisano and Vicki Sato
When Bruce Wayne hired Anthony Starks, he thought he had hit a home run by getting the most brilliant and passionate scientist-leader in the field to be his CSO. But a few months in, Wayne and Starks begin to clash over crucial forward-looking decisions about the... View Details
- September 2016 (Revised January 2020)
- Case
Pebble: Wearables Pioneer
By: David Yoffie and Allison Ciechanover
In the summer of 2016, wearables “wunderkind” and Pebble founder and CEO, Eric Migicovsky, was pleased with the young startup’s success in the five years since its founding. The Silicon Valley–based company had recently shipped its two millionth smartwatch; held the... View Details
- September 2016 (Revised March 2020)
- Teaching Note
Fasten: Challenging Uber and Lyft with a New Business Model
By: Feng Zhu
Fasten, a new ridesharing start-up in Boston, entered the scene in September 2015 hoping its unique vision of transparency for both driver and passenger and strategy to keep riders' fares low and charge drivers a flat $0.99 fee per ride, as opposed to the 20%–30%... View Details
- May 2016 (Revised March 2020)
- Case
Fasten: Challenging Uber and Lyft with a New Business Model
By: Feng Zhu and Angela Acocella
Fasten, a new ridesharing start-up in Boston, entered the scene in September 2015 hoping its unique vision of transparency for both driver and passenger and strategy to keep riders' fares low and charge drivers a flat $0.99 fee per ride as opposed to the 20-30%... View Details
- April 2016 (Revised March 2019)
- Case
Moleskine (A)
By: Ryan Raffaelli, Raffaella Sadun and Kathy Qu
Describes the founding and growth challenges facing Moleskine, an Italian-based consumer products company known for its oilcloth-covered notebooks once used by Ernest Hemingway and Vincent van Gogh. CEO Arrigo Berni and co-founder Maria Sebregondi aim to transform the... View Details
Keywords: Creative Industries; Brand Building; Digital Innovation; Digital Services And Strategy; Process Improvement; Culture; Identity Construction; Innovation; Growth and Development Strategy; Leadership; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Innovation Strategy; Consumer Products Industry
- January 2016
- Case
Open Innovation at Fujitsu (A)
By: Amy C. Edmondson and Jean-François Harvey
This case study examines the open innovation journey at Fujitsu, a global information and communication technology company. The case ends with the location decision between Tokyo, Japan, downtown San Francisco or Sunnyvale, California, regarding establishing a small... View Details
Keywords: Open Innovation; Collaboration; Culture Change; Leadership; Japan; United States; Inter-organizational Relationships; Teaming; Maker Movement; Nascent Industries; Change Management; Leading Change; Organizational Culture; Emerging Markets; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Information Technology Industry; Technology Industry; Sunnyvale; Tokyo; San Francisco
- October 2015
- Article
Agglomerative Forces and Cluster Shapes
By: William R. Kerr and Scott Duke Kominers
We model spatial clusters of similar firms. Our model highlights how agglomerative forces lead to localized, individual connections among firms, while interaction costs generate a defined distance over which attraction forces operate. Overlapping firm interactions... View Details
- September–October 2015
- Article
Crash and Burn: Why Silicon Valley's Notion That Failure Leads to Success Won't Work for the Rest of the World
By: Debora L. Spar
In the frenzied hills of Silicon Valley, going bust is common. Research attests that close to half of start-ups supported by venture capital chew through most or all of their backers' money and that the majority never achieve their projected returns on investment. But... View Details
- June 2015
- Case
Silicon Fen
By: Tom Nicholas, David Chambers and Matthew G. Preble
- January 2015 (Revised March 2015)
- Case
San Francisco, 2015 #tech #inequality
By: Clayton Rose, Allison Ciechanover and Kunal Modi
In December 2013 a group of angry protesters blocked one of the commuter buses provided by the large Silicon Valley firms (known as "Google buses") which was stopped in San Francisco on its way to the company's headquarters 40 miles south. The protests were a tangible... View Details
- October 2014 (Revised May 2015)
- Case
HandsOn Bay Area: Scaling Up Community Service
By: James Heskett
HandsOn Bay Area, an organization devoted to the performance of (and development of leaders for) community service, is undergoing a significant (and internally controversial) shift in its business model from "retail" projects involving individual volunteers to... View Details
- June 2014
- Teaching Note
Andreessen Horowitz
By: Thomas Eisenmann
Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), a venture capital firm launched in 2009, has quickly broken into the VC industry's top ranks, in terms of its ability to invest in Silicon Valley's most promising startups. The case recounts the firm's history; describes its co-founders'... View Details
- April 2014
- Case
Don Valentine and Sequoia Capital
By: Felda Hardymon, Tom Nicholas and Liz Kind
Don Valentine participated in the beginnings of two significant milestones: the birth of the silicon chip and the development of the venture capital industry. From humble beginnings, Valentine became a legendary salesman at Fairchild Semiconductor and National... View Details
- March 2014
- Case
MediaTek: From Feature Phones to Smartphones
By: Willy Shih
MediaTek was the third largest fabless semiconductor company in the world, and was the second largest supplier of the silicon microchips that powered mobile phones. Yet as the company's chairman reflected on his R&D strategy, he wondered why it hadn't moved faster on... View Details
- February 2014 (Revised August 2016)
- Case
Strava
By: Joseph B. Lassiter III, William A. Sahlman and Sid Misra
Strava is a new fast-growing social network for the avid cyclist and runner. The Strava case traces the entrepreneurial journey of two serial entrepreneurs who have been co-founders in a prior venture, and who have co-founded Strava 3 years ago. The protagonists must... View Details
Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Cycling; Biking; Running; Sports; Technology; Mobile App; Mobile; GPS; Motivation; Behavioral Science; Founders; Term Sheet; Investment; Terms; Silicon Valley; Lifestyle; Strava; Financing; Fundraising; Angel; Valuation; Growth; Forecast; Business Startups; Business Plan; Trends; Forecasting and Prediction; Decision Choices and Conditions; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Institutional Investing; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Innovation Leadership; Innovation Strategy; Innovation and Management; Technological Innovation; Management Succession; Growth Management; Growth and Development Strategy; Market Timing; Bicycle Industry; Consumer Products Industry; Technology Industry; Sports Industry; Web Services Industry; California; New England