Software Industry - Publications - Faculty & Research

James I. Cash

Professor Cash received a Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematics from Texas Christian University; a Master of Science in Computer Science from Purdue University's Graduate School of Mathematical Sciences; and a Doctor of Philosophy in Management Information... View Details

Keywords: accounting industry; accounting industry; accounting industry; accounting industry; accounting industry; accounting industry; accounting industry

August 2015 (Revised June 2021)
Case

Amazon.com, 2021

By: John R. Wells, Benjamin Weinstock, Gabriel Ellsworth and Galen Danskin

In February 2021, Amazon announced 2020 operating profits of $22,899 million, up from $2,233 million in 2015, on sales of $386 billion, up from $107 billion five years earlier (see Exhibit 1). The shareholders expressed their satisfaction (see Exhibit 2), but not all... View Details

Keywords: Strategic Analysis; Retail; E-commerce; Amazon; Internet; Amazon.com; AmazonFresh; Jeff Bezos; Cloud Computing; Marketplaces; Streaming; E-reader Market; Digital Media; Mobile App; Online Retail; Shipping; Database; Tablet; Kindle; Kindle Fire; Smartphone; Delivery; Digital Platforms; Competition; Internet and the Web; Corporate Strategy; Digital Marketing; Business Growth and Maturation; Business Model; Business Organization; For-Profit Firms; Film Entertainment; Games, Gaming, and Gambling; Music Entertainment; Television Entertainment; Profit; Revenue; Global Strategy; Multinational Firms and Management; Taxation; Business History; Human Resources; Resignation and Termination; Books; Human Capital; Working Conditions; Business or Company Management; Goals and Objectives; Growth and Development Strategy; Growth Management; Management Practices and Processes; Industry Growth; Industry Structures; Media; Distribution; Distribution Channels; Order Taking and Fulfillment; Infrastructure; Logistics; Product Development; Supply Chain; Supply Chain Management; Organizational Culture; Public Ownership; Work-Life Balance; Problems and Challenges; Labor and Management Relations; Strategy; Adaptation; Business Strategy; Competitive Strategy; Diversification; Expansion; Integration; Horizontal Integration; Vertical Integration; Information Infrastructure; Information Technology; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Price; Applications and Software; Marketing; Marketing Strategy; Working Capital; Customer Focus and Relationships; Customer Value and Value Chain; Retail Industry; Retail Industry; Retail Industry; Retail Industry; Retail Industry; Retail Industry; Retail Industry; Retail Industry; Retail Industry; Retail Industry; Retail Industry; Retail Industry; Retail Industry; Retail Industry; United States; Washington (state, US); Seattle

Citation

Educators

Purchase

08 Sep 2022
Book

Gen Xers and Millennials, It’s Time To Lead. Are You Ready?

online-security software firm OneTrust into an industry leader, so he changed how he lives. Now, he meditates daily and practices self-forgiveness. He says living a more grounded, balanced, and integrated... View Details

Keywords: by Lane Lambert

16 Jun 2009
First Look

First Look: June 16

research. We test this assertion by analyzing studies of negotiation published in top peer-reviewed management, psychology, sociology, and industrial relations journals from 1990 to 2005. Our findings reveal a continuum of open-systems to... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

05 Dec 2022
Research & Ideas

5 Companies Where Employees Move Up the Ladder Fast

percent of its jobs, like software development, for example, widening possibilities for advancement. The company has also developed apprenticeship programs, allowing employees to earn while they learn. Southwest Airlines. In its 51-year... View Details

Keywords: by Pamela Reynolds

16 Apr 2001
Research & Ideas

Strategy and the Internet

If average profitability is under pressure in many industries influenced by the Internet, it becomes all the more important for individual companies to set themselves apart from the pack—to be more profitable than the average performer.... View Details

Keywords: by Michael E. Porter

17 Dec 2013
First Look

First Look: December 17

activity. Moreover, CDVC is likely to be in earlier-stage investments and in industries outside the venture capital mainstream that have lower probabilities of successful exit. Even after we control for this unattractive transaction mix,... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

30 Nov 2021
In Practice

What's the Role of Business in Confronting Climate Change?

The 26th annual United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties, also known as COP26, ended with a hard-fought pact that called on businesses and governments to meet their climate change goals faster. The event followed an August report by the Intergovernmental... View Details

Keywords: by Lynn Schenk and Dina Gerdeman

May 2025
Case

Windsurf and the AI Code Assistant Market

By: Suraj Srinivasan, Sudhanshu Nath Mishra and Radhika Kak

In April 2025, the founding team of Windsurf, an AI start-up specializing in code generation gathered in Mountain View, California, to assess its remarkable year of growth. The company had scaled from a niche GitHub Copilot alternative to a breakout player with over... View Details

Keywords: AI and Machine Learning; Venture Capital; Innovation Leadership; Technological Innovation; Technology Industry; United States

Citation

Educators

02 Nov 2023
News

Seeding Startups

Shirish Nadkarni (MBA 1987) was the director of product planning for Microsoft’s MSN when he decided he was ready to become an entrepreneur. He had recently led the growing internet portal’s 1997 acquisition of Hotmail, the first free, web-based email solution, and the... View Details

Keywords: April White

12 Mar 2006
Research & Ideas

New Research Explores Multi-Sided Markets

Internet has spawned many two-sided platforms, and all the software platforms that run our computers, PDAs, and mobile phones have only emerged recently. Q: You note in your research that in many multi-sided markets, one side of the... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Technology

Web

Faculty & Researchers - Managing the Future of Work

Chatterji, Josh Lerner and Scott Stern. Wordle , Harvard Business School case, 2022. With Christina Wallace, Ebehi Iyoha, Gabriella Elanbeck and Morgane Herculano. The Supply Chain Economy: New Policies to Drive Innovation and Jobs , Economia View Details

09 Jan 2020
Book

Rethinking Business Strategy in the Age of AI

more akin to an Apple, a Tesla, or a Nest, or a GoPro—where it’s a consumer product that has the foundation of sexy hardware technology and sexy software technology,” he is quoted in a book published today, Competing in the Age of AI:... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

Web

Advisory Board - Entrepreneurship

involved or started a number of entrepreneurial ventures. While working three days a week at AOL, he bootstrapped Compare.com , which enabled customers to compare prices on everything from PCs to mortgages. Later, He worked for Open Market, an e-commerce View Details

16 Oct 2012
First Look

First Look: October 16

relationship is important, given that product architecture has been shown to be an important predictor of product performance, product variety, process flexibility, and even the path of industry evolution. We explore this relationship in... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

26 Aug 2020
Blog Post

Two sides, same coin: How I left the Bay Area as an operator and returned as an investor

prior experience) to make full use of the resources at HBS, such as the Rock Venture Partners Program and the Rock Accelerator, to explore and develop their interest in venture capital and entrepreneurship, as she would love to see more diverse voices in the View Details

19 Sep 2023
Blog Post

2023 Summer Internships in Business & Environment

joining HBS. Audrey Atencio (MBA 2024, Section G), Summer Internship: Summer Associate, Piva Capital Piva is a San Francisco-based venture capital firm ($500mm AUM) investing in visionary entrepreneurs who are solving the world's critical problems in the View Details

TeachingInterests

MBA Elective Curriculum-- Competing Through Business Models

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell

The words “business model” are inescapable in our daily fare of business news. These two ubiquitous words seemed to effortlessly rise up to prominence during the dot-com boom of the late 1990s. When businesspeople, journalists, academics, and other... View Details

20 Aug 2013
First Look

First Look: August 20

green building, including evolving boundaries of professional jurisdictions; changing industry strategies and structures, including the roles of ownership, supply firms, and market niches; new operational, organizational, and cultural... View Details

Keywords: Anna Secino

31 May 2011
First Look

First Look: May 31

Abstract Theories of the firm have been dominated by a legacy of ideas from early industrialization that pose zero-sum opposition between capital and labor (or capital and nearly everything else), differentiating the economy from society... View Details