Publications

Nov 14 2014
Testimonial

Expanding Global Perspective & Industry Expertise

Jo Tango

Jo Tango is the MBA Class of 1962 Senior Lecturer of Business Administration. He helps teach "The Entrepreneurial Manager" (TEM), a required course for all 900 first-year students and of which he... View Details

Core Readings in Entrepreneurship Series

Becoming an Entrepreneurial Leader
Recognizing and Shaping Opportunities
Developing Business Plans and Pitching Opportunities
Attracting Talent and Building Ecosystems
Financing Entrepreneurial... View Details

23 Sep 2022
Research & Ideas

8 Strategies to Sustain Business Innovation

environments are ripe with some of these tensions,” says McDonald. “If left unaddressed or mishandled, they will hurt you. The key is to harness them, so they will not be a negative, but a positive.” “McDonald says the book was inspired by the sobering reality that 90... View Details

Keywords: by Lane Lambert

03 Dec 2021
Blog Post

Physicians Off the Beaten Path

With their podcast, Alexey Youssef (MBA 2022) and Shad Faraz (MBA 2022) bust the myth that physicians cannot venture outside the traditional career path. In my first year of university, one of my professors hosted a special session on... View Details

William A. Sahlman

William Sahlman is a Baker Foundation Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School.

Mr. Sahlman received an A.B. degree in Economics from Princeton University (1972), an M.B.A. from Harvard University (1975), and a Ph.D. in Business... View Details

Paul A. Gompers

Paul Gompers, Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School, specializes in research on financial issues related to start-up, high growth, and newly public companies. Professor Gompers has an appointment in both the View Details

Keywords: venture capital industry; venture capital industry; venture capital industry; venture capital industry; venture capital industry; venture capital industry; venture capital industry; venture capital industry

05 Dec 2023
Cold Call Podcast

What Founders Get Wrong about Sales and Marketing

Keywords: Re: Mark N. Roberge

March 2021
Case

Yale Investments Office: November 2020

By: Josh Lerner, Jo Tango and Alys Ferragamo

David Swensen and the Investments Office staff must decide whether to continue to allocate the bulk of the university's endowment to illiquid investments—hedge funds, private equity, venture capital, real estate, natural resources—given the impact of the COVID-19... View Details

Keywords: University Endowment; Asset Allocation; Real Estate; Equities; Fixed Income; COVID-19; Asset Management; Private Equity; Venture Capital; Natural Resources; Resource Allocation; Investment; Investment Portfolio; Health Pandemics; Financial Crisis; Financial Services Industry; Real Estate Industry; Energy Industry; Connecticut

December 2022
Article

Shaping Nascent Industries: Innovation Strategy and Regulatory Uncertainty in Personal Genomics

By: Cheng Gao and Rory McDonald

In nascent industries—whose new technologies are often poorly understood by regulators—contending with regulatory uncertainty can be crucial to organizational survival and growth. Prior research on nonmarket strategy has largely focused on established firms in mature... View Details

Keywords: Technological Change; Innovation; Qualitative Methods; New Categories; Entrepreneurship; Technological Innovation; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Risk and Uncertainty; Strategy

Find at Harvard

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Career Coach

Ben Schlatka

Ben (HBS '05) has deep experience in technology driven organizations - including fund raising and venture formation, product marketing, product management, business development and managing technical professionals in large public and... View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital; Venture Capital; Venture Capital; Venture Capital; Venture Capital; Venture Capital; Venture Capital; Venture Capital

January 1986 (Revised March 1993)
Case

Centex Telemanagement, Inc.

By: William A. Sahlman

Contains a description of the events surrounding the financing of Centex Telemanagement, Inc. by Sierra Ventures, a venture capital fund. The case is written from the perspective of the venture capitalists and is designed to teach students about the process of venture... View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital

January 1994 (Revised April 2011)
Background Note

Note on Private Equity Partnership Agreements

By: Josh Lerner

Venture capital by necessity is a long-run investment. Consequently, since the mid-1960s virtually all venture financing has been raised through private partnerships with a ten-year or longer life span. To govern these investments, complex contracts have sprung up... View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital; Financing and Loans; Investment; Governance; Contracts; Partners and Partnerships

January 2001 (Revised April 2004)
Case

Term Sheet Negotiations for Trendsetter, Inc.

Describes two aspiring entrepreneurs who have just received offering documents for venture funding (known as term sheets) from two venture capital firms. Neither of the entrepreneurs have experience in raising capital and they are wondering how to compare the two... View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital; Entrepreneurship; Decision Making

October 1995
Case

Centex Telemanagement, Inc. (B)

By: William A. Sahlman and Andrew S. Janower

Contains a description of the events surrounding the financing of Centex Telemanagement, Inc. by Sierra Ventures, a venture capital fund. The case is written from the perspective of the venture capitalists and is designed to teach students about the process of venture... View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital; Financing and Loans; Financial Institutions; Business Startups

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

Keywords: Venture Capital; Personal Development and Career; Semiconductor Industry

November 2023
Article

Open Source Software and Global Entrepreneurship

By: Nataliya Langburd Wright, Frank Nagle and Shane Greenstein

This is the first study to consider the relationship between open source software (OSS) and entrepreneurship around the globe. This study measures whether country-level participation on the GitHub OSS platform affects the founding of innovative ventures, and where it... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Applications and Software; Business Ventures; Development Economics; Innovation and Invention; Global Range