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- January 2013
- Case
Arthur Rock
By: Felda Hardymon, Tom Nicholas and Liz Kind
Arthur Rock was known as one of the country's first venture capitalists and was instrumental in launching major Silicon Valley firms, such as Fairchild Semiconductor, Intel Corporation, Apple Computer, Inc., Scientific Data Systems and Teledyne Incorporated. He was the... View Details
- August 2012 (Revised October 2015)
- Case
LinkedIn Corporation, 2012
By: David Yoffie and Liz Kind
Since its inception in 2003, LinkedIn had become a leading Silicon Valley institution with a brand name that was recognizable throughout the U.S. and in many countries overseas. As of March 2012, LinkedIn was the world's largest professional network on the Internet... View Details
- October 2011 (Revised August 2017)
- Case
PunchTab, Inc.
By: Ramana Nanda, William R. Kerr and Lauren Barley
PunchTab was a Silicon Valley startup, founded in 2011, that was developing an Internet-based turnkey customer loyalty program for website owners, mobile applications developers, and brands. Founder/CEO Ranjith Kumaran must make strategic decisions about how to fund... 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
- February 2011
- Case
Chegg: Textbook Rental Takes Flight
By: Thomas R. Eisenmann, William A. Sahlman and Evan W. Richardson
In late 2010, Silicon Valley-based Chegg, the leading online college textbook rental company, is scaling rapidly. The case recounts Chegg's history from its origins as a distant competitor to Craigslist in college classified listings through a pivot into textbook... View Details
- January 2011 (Revised October 2014)
- Case
Dropbox: 'It Just Works'
By: Thomas R. Eisenmann, Michael Pao and Lauren Barley
Dropbox is a venture-backed Silicon Valley startup, founded in 2006, that provides online storage and backup services to millions of customers using a "freemium" (free + premium offers) business model. The case recounts Dropbox's history from conception through... View Details
- 2010
- Working Paper
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
- March 2010 (Revised January 2012)
- Case
Microsoft's IP Ventures
By: Josh Lerner and Ann Leamon
Microsoft's IP Ventures program, through which Microsoft spun out promising but unused technologies into new companies, is a new approach to corporate venture capital. The program provides "IP for equity" and has proven very successful in achieving its main... View Details
- October 2009
- Case
Low-k Dielectrics at IBM
By: Willy C. Shih and Giovanni Carraro
Innovations at the frontiers of technology carry enormous risk of making wrong choices. This case examines a decision made by IBM in its semiconductor process technology strategy: a material to use as a dielectric insulator in its leading edge silicon chip technology.... View Details
- October 2009
- Case
Digital Chocolate
By: Linda A. Hill and Alison Berkley Wagonfeld
Trip Hawkins founded Digital Chocolate in Silicon Valley in 2003 to develop outstanding games for mobile devices. By 2008, the company had expanded its operations into four countries, and Digital Chocolate was one of the top developers of soloplayer games for standard... View Details
- July 2008 (Revised April 2009)
- Case
Advanced Micro Devices: Competing in the Shadow of a Giant (A)
By: Willy C. Shih and Andrew A. King
As the only significant competitor to Intel Corporation in PC microprocessors, Advanced Micro Devices faced daunting investment choices. Not only did it have to fund microprocessor design teams, it also had to fund silicon process R&D, and it faced huge capital... View Details
- September 2007 (Revised October 2010)
- Case
DermaCare: Zapping Zits Directly
By: Richard G. Hamermesh and Lauren Barley
DermaCare has developed an innovative new product for the treatment of acne that they hope to sell to consumers via direct-response television. The unconventional nature of the product and its distribution has led the company to seek angel financing. The Silicon Valley... View Details
- August 2007
- Case
Lightspeed Venture Partners -- International Expansion
By: Krishna G. Palepu and Alison Berkley Wagonfeld
Looks at various international expansion models for a venture capital firm based in Silicon Valley. Lightspeed Venture Partners believed that India had tremendous potential for venture capital returns--the question was how best to tap into that potential while also... View Details
- June 2005 (Revised January 2008)
- Case
Good Technology: Empowering Mobility Around the Globe (A)
By: Geoffrey G. Jones and Adam Minnick
Describes the global growth of Good Technology, a Silicon Valley start-up in wireless handheld computing software and service. Reviews the evaluation of wireless standards, the emergence of the world wireless market for voice and data, and the growth of the major firms... View Details
- February 2004
- Case
New HP, The: The Clean Room and Beyond
By: Leslie A. Perlow and Elizabeth Kind
When the $19 billion merger of Silicon Valley legend Hewlett-Packard and Houston-based PC giant Compaq Computer Corp. legally closed on May 3, 2002, both companies had already devoted an immense amount of time preparing for the challenges that lay ahead. Chief among... View Details
- January 2004 (Revised May 2005)
- Case
Gold Hill Venture Lending
By: G. Felda Hardymon, Josh Lerner and Ann Leamon
David Fischer is trying to raise $200 million for a first-time venture debt fund that will be affiliated with Silicon Valley Bank, a major technology lender. Despite his lengthy experience in venture lending, the process is proving difficult. He and his partners are... View Details
- July 2003 (Revised October 2013)
- Case
Model N Inc.
By: Marco Iansiti and Alison Berkley Wagonfeld
The CEO of a Silicon Valley start-up needed to make organizational and product changes to deliver a new software solution to a Fortune 500 customer. He was wondering how he should structure the company to best meet the requirements for this particular customer, while... View Details
- 2001
- Book
Giants of Enterprise: Seven Business Innovators and the Empires They Built
By: R. S. Tedlow
From the table of contents: Andrew Carnegie: From Rags to Richest; George Eastman and the creation of a mass market; Henry Ford: The Profits and the Price of Primitivism; Thomas J. Watson Sr. and American salesmanship; Charles Revson and Revlon: Consumer Packaged Goods... View Details
Keywords: Business History
- 2001
- Book
TechVenture: New Rules on Value and Profit from Silicon Valley
By: Mohanbir S. Sawhney, Ranjay Gulati and Anthony Paoni