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05 Jul 2016
First Look

July 5, 2016

Influencing Human Behavior By: Reddy, Sheila M., Jensen Montambault, Yuta J. Masuda, Ayelet Gneezy, Elizabeth Keenan, William Butler, Jonathan R. Fisher, and Stanley T. Asah Abstract—Behavioral sciences can advance conservation View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

December 2010
Background Note

Risk and Reward in Venture Capital

By: William A. Sahlman

This note describes the payoff structure of investment in individual venture capital–backed companies and in venture capital portfolios. Venture Capital investments are characterized by high failure rate (0ver 50%) and a small number of given successes (greater than... View Details

Keywords: Capital Markets; Venture Capital; Investment Return; Investment Portfolio; Analytics and Data Science; Failure; Performance; Information Technology

May 1983 (Revised December 1987)
Case

Technical Data Corp.

By: William A. Sahlman

Describes a decision confronting the president of a small company about selling some or all of the shares in his company to another firm. Technical Data Corp. provides analytical services to professional bond market traders over a system of computer terminals operated... View Details

Keywords: Stocks; Entrepreneurship; Business Startups; Internet and the Web; Information Infrastructure; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Valuation; Negotiation Tactics; Mergers and Acquisitions; Corporate Strategy; Horizontal Integration; Information Industry; Service Industry

January 1986 (Revised March 1997)
Case

Horizon Group

By: William A. Sahlman

Contains a description of a situation confronting the co-founder of a company planning to produce software for microcomputers. The company has just completed raising money from some wealthy investors by forming an R&D Limited Partnership. Development of the program (an... View Details

Keywords: Business or Company Management; Venture Capital; Partners and Partnerships; Business Plan; Outcome or Result; Research and Development; Financial Strategy; Corporate Finance; Information Technology Industry

24 Nov 2015
Research & Ideas

Developing Your Next CEO for the Family Business

A good book on CEO succession is The CEO Within by my Harvard Business School colleague Joe Bower. Bower studied how companies perform after hiring a new CEO, noting whether the successor had been recruited from inside or outside the... View Details

Keywords: Retail; Auto

01 Jun 2004
News

Working the Street

destined to succeed his father, William R. Timken Jr. (MBA 1962), at the helm of The Timken Company, the Canton, Ohio–based multinational manufacturing firm. Indeed, Kurt worked at Timken for five years before HBS, followed View Details

Keywords: Garry Emmons; tattoo; removal; program; Justice, Public Order, and Safety Activities; Government

15 Aug 2006
First Look

First Look: August 15, 2006

compared to their Mexican counterparts. In Mexico, foreign companies, which had access to financial markets abroad, also had lower average connections with banks. I conclude by arguing that even though the Brazil, Mexico and the United... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

November 2011 (Revised June 2012)
Case

The Big 3 Roar Back

By: William W. George

The "Big 3"—Ford Motor Company, General Motors, and Chrysler—were all headquartered in Detroit, Michigan. Born between 1903 and 1928, they dominated the automobile industry in the U.S. for decades until they became complacent. In the 1970s they started losing share to... View Details

Keywords: Production; Labor Unions; Labor and Management Relations; Industry Clusters; Competitive Strategy; Auto Industry; Manufacturing Industry; Michigan

29 Sep 2009
First Look

First Look: September 29

yields. However, the fraction of seniors is uncorrelated with share repurchases, investment, or profitability, suggesting that geographic variation in dividend payout is not driven by some unmeasured firm characteristic affecting the... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

April 1990 (Revised December 1995)
Case

SouthPark IV

By: William J. Poorvu

A young entrepreneur examines an 80,000 square foot office/warehouse building as a potential acquisition. The building is currently fully leased but all four leases will expire shortly. Due to changing market conditions, the protagonist has to look at current market... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Valuation; Property; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Leasing; Cash Flow; Real Estate Industry

March 2024 (Revised July 2025)
Supplement

Miracle Therapeutics (B)

By: Satish Tadikonda, William Marks and Wendi Yajnik

Supplements the (A) case. Following on the negotiations detailed in the Miracle Therapeutics (A) case, Beth Sharp and Jennifer Brilliant from Miracle Therapeutics face new challenges with their company's funding and intellectual property (IP) after several missteps.... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Financing and Loans; Intellectual Property; Problems and Challenges; Business or Company Management

July 1979 (Revised August 2019)
Background Note

Note on Taxation

By: William J. Poorvu, Arthur I Segel, Glenn S. Miller, Michael D. Kummer, Charles F. Wu, Po Sit and Joseph M. Gerstel

Every real-estate transaction is affected by the tax consequences that result from its form and substance. Structuring a transaction without a thorough understanding of its tax considerations is likely to reduce the transaction's potential value. The failure to utilize... View Details

Keywords: Property; Taxation; Investment

17 Nov 2009
First Look

First Look: Nov. 17

Working PapersUser, and Open Collaborative Innovation: Ascendent Economic Models Authors:Carliss Y. Baldwin and Eric von Hippel Abstract In this paper we assess the economic viability of innovation by producers relative to two... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

17 Apr 2012
First Look

First Look: April 17

we are committed to see such change continue to happen in the finance of today. Download the paper: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1985594 Is India's Manufacturing Sector Moving Away from Cities? Authors:Ejaz Ghani, Arti Grover Goswami, and View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

12 Sep 2017
First Look

First Look at New Research and Ideas, September 12, 2017

others—have become “hub firms” because they control access to billions of mobile customers coveted by all kinds of product and service providers. These hubs drive increasing returns to scale and claim a disproportionate share of the value... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

05 Dec 2017
First Look

First Look at New Research and Ideas, December 5, 2017

link: https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=53561 Innovation, Reallocation and Growth By: Acemoglu, Daron, Ufuk Akcigit, Harun Alp, Nicholas Bloom, and William R. Kerr Abstract—We build a model of... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

03 Mar 2008
First Look

First Look: March 4, 2008

and largely unregulated securities market was William Duer, who ultimately became a major player on the Street. As it turned out, however, Duer's financial dealings proved unsustainable, and his financial collapse helped to bring the... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

2021
Article

Venture Capital Booms and Startup Financing

By: William Janeway, Ramana Nanda and Matthew Rhodes-Kropf

We review the growing literature on the relationship between venture capital booms and startup financing, focusing on three broad areas: First, we discuss the drivers of large inflows into the venture capital asset class, particularly in recent years—which are related... View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital; Business Startups; Innovation and Invention; Policy

March 1998 (Revised December 2005)
Case

Beta Golf

By: William A. Sahlman, Michael J. Roberts and Laurence E. Katz

The Beta Group is a technology incubator in Menlo Park, CA that has successfully built a portfolio of businesses in the medical, consumer products, and industrial technology sectors by systematically matching proprietary technologies to unmet market needs. Beta has... View Details

Keywords: Business Strategy; Investment; Financial Strategy; Information Technology; Commercialization