Publications

February 2022 (Revised November 2022)
Case

Nuritas

By: Mitchell Weiss, Satish Tadikonda, Vincent Dessain and Emer Moloney

Nora Khaldi had built a technology “to unlock the power of nature” in the service of extending human lifespan and improving health, and now in April 2020 was debating telling her Board of Directors she wanted to put on ice some of her discoveries. Nuritas, the company... View Details

Keywords: Cash Burn; Cash Flow Analysis; Pharmaceutical Companies; Founder; Artificial Intelligence; AI; Entrepreneurship; Health Testing and Trials; Health Care and Treatment; Decision Making; Market Entry and Exit; AI and Machine Learning; Pharmaceutical Industry

November 2020
Case

Truebird—An AlleyCorp Venture

By: Shikhar Ghosh and Shweta Bagai

In December 2018, Kevin Ryan and Wendy Tsu faced an important decision – to finalize the CEO candidate for Truebird, an innovative, automated coffee café concept. Like many of AlleyCorp and Ryan’s companies, Truebird started with the observation of an unmet need – an... View Details

Keywords: Startup; Hiring; Staffing; Recruiting; Business Startups; Finance; Leadership; Management Skills; Management Teams; Jobs and Positions; Job Interviews; Human Resources; Recruitment; Selection and Staffing; Technology Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; United States

November 2019
Case

DeepMap: Charting the Road Ahead for Autonomous Vehicles

By: Shane Greenstein and Nicole Tempest Keller

Founded in 2016, DeepMap developed high definition (HD) mapping software and localization services for Level 4+ autonomous vehicles. Traditional navigational maps were accurate to a few meters, which was sufficient for drivers but not for machine-driven vehicles that... View Details

Keywords: Mapping Software; Autonomous Vehicles; Business Startups; Applications and Software; Technological Innovation; Technology Adoption; Service Delivery; Global Range; Resource Allocation; Strategic Planning; Technology Industry; Auto Industry

March 2017
Case

Swagbucks

By: Jeffrey F. Rayport and Matthew G. Preble

In early 2016, Chuck Davis, chairman and CEO of Prodege LLC, parent company of the brand promotion business Swagbucks, and Josef Gorowitz, Prodege’s founder and president, must decide whether to acquire MyPoints, a competitor to Swagbucks, after the company’s... View Details

2016
Article

Organizational Decision-Making and Information: Angel Investments by Venture Capital Partners

By: Andy Wu

We study information aggregation in organizational decision-making for the financing of entrepreneurial ventures. We introduce a formal model of voting where agents face costly tacit information to improve their decision quality. Equilibrium outcomes suggest a... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurial Finance; Angel Investors; Organization Design; Voting; Group Decision-making; Information; Strategy; Organizations; Entrepreneurship; Decision Making; Financing and Loans

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March 2008
Article

Linguistic Network Configurations: Management of Innovation in Design-intensive Firms

By: Claudio Dell'Era, Alessio Marchesi and Roberto Verganti

In today's business and academic arenas, design is more and more viewed as an important strategic resource. In fact, over the last couple of years, we have seen a real explosion in business and research literature that see scholars and companies alike trying to... View Details

Keywords: Networks; Design; Innovation and Management; Product Development

22 Aug 2005
Research & Ideas

Restoring a Global Economy, 1950–1980

in mining and petroleum. During the first global economy, much of the growth had been driven by the exchange of manufactured goods made in the developed world for the resources found elsewhere. The emergent new global economy was driven... View Details

Keywords: by Geoffrey Jones

19 Oct 2022
Op-Ed

Cofounder Courtship: How to Find the Right Mate—for Your Startup

Recently, I was listening to the Huberman Lab podcast where Dr. Andrew Huberman interviewed Dr. David Buss, a founding member in the field of evolutionary psychology and professor of psychology at the University of Texas at Austin, whose... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Austin

21 Mar 2018
Research & Ideas

Why Artificial Intelligence Isn't a Sure Thing to Increase Productivity

(USPTO), which has used innovative practices around employees working remotely. “I found the US patent office fascinating,” Choudhury says. “It is not only a large organization with more than 10,000 people, but also an organization that... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Technology; Information

10 Oct 2023
Research & Ideas

In Empowering Black Voters, Did a Landmark Law Stir White Angst?

mobilization is factored in, this gain is reduced by 90 percent, down to as little as 0.3 percentage points. The researchers also tracked local newspapers and found that the first Black elected official was more likely to be mentioned in... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne

18 Apr 2011
Research & Ideas

It’s Not Nagging: Why Persistent, Redundant Communication Works

asking multiple times gets results. Titled "How Managers Use Multiple Media: Discrepant Events, Power, and Timing in Redundant Communication," Neeley and Northwestern University's Paul M. Leonardi and Elizabeth M. Gerber found... View Details

Keywords: by Kim Girard

12 Aug 2019
Research & Ideas

How Scale Changes a Manager's Responsibilities

employees, founding leaders confront an important reality: It’s time to let go. It’s simply impossible to be plugged into everything. At this stage, you are probably managing managers, and more than ever have to empower your leaders to,... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Austin

30 Jun 2022
HBS Case

Peloton Changed the Exercise Game. Can the Company Push Through the Pain?

going through the roof’ John Foley founded Peloton in 2012 partly to solve a challenge in his own life. He and his wife fed on the energy of high-end boutique fitness classes, but they had demanding jobs and young children, so fitting in... View Details

Keywords: by Lane Lambert; Media & Broadcasting; Health; Bicycle

07 Mar 2007
Research & Ideas

How Do You Value a “Free” Customer?

Businesspeople understand that not all customers are created equal—the 80-20 rule suggests that over time a small percentage of a company's customer base can generate a high percentage of its sales and profit. Models for calculating customer lifetime value are built on... View Details

Keywords: by Sarah Jane Gilbert; Web Services

Research Summary

The Venture Capitalist as Entrepreneur

Noam's dissertation, entitled The Venture Capitalist as Entrepreneur, won Harvards George S. Dively award for dissertation research. In the dissertation, Noam examined the organizational dynamics and characteristics within venture capital firms themselves, viewing... View Details

February 2024 (Revised April 2024)
Case

Uniswap: Fighting a Vampire Attack (A)

By: Shikhar Ghosh, Shweta Bagai and Liang Wu

This is the first of a three-case series that explores the challenges faced by Uniswap, a key player in the decentralized finance (DeFi) sector. Founded by Hayden Adams, the case traces Uniswap's rapid growth from a simple idea inspired by a Reddit post to becoming one... View Details

November 2021 (Revised April 2022)
Case

EbonyLife Media (A)

By: Andy Wu, Feng Zhu, Pippa Tubman Armerding and Wale Lawal

Founded by Mosunmola “Mo” Abudu in 2012 with a mission to bring high-quality African stories to the world, EbonyLife was the company behind many of Nigeria’s biggest films and TV shows. The company began as a television channel on the Africa-wide direct broadcast... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Mission and Purpose; Growth and Development Strategy; Digital Platforms; Consumer Behavior; Media and Broadcasting Industry; Nigeria; Africa