Publications

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Article

Invention and Agglomeration in the Bay Area: Not Just ICT

By: Chris Forman, Avi Goldfarb and Shane Greenstein

We document that the Bay Area rose from 4% of all successful US patent applications in 1976 to 16% in 2008. This is partly driven by the increase in the prevalence of information and communication technology; however, even for patents unrelated to information and... View Details

Keywords: Agglomeration; Information Technology; Patents; San Francisco

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June 2018
Case

Candor at Clever

By: Ethan Bernstein and Om Lala

Clever, a high-growth EdTech company based in San Francisco, had grown quickly in market share and headcount. As with many high-growth companies, however, early employees (many of whom had never managed people before) had been given the opportunity to manage teams, and... View Details

October 2015 (Revised January 2017)
Case

UPower Technologies Inc.

By: Joseph B. Lassiter III, William A. Sahlman and Liz Kind

The UPower founders, Jake DeWitte and Caroline Cochran, were recent graduates from MIT's Nuclear Science and Engineering Department. They chose to attend Palo Alto–based Y Combinator's accelerator program to focus on building a "mini" nuclear reactor that would produce... View Details

Keywords: Nuclear; Nuclear Energy; Nuclear Power; Energy Markets; New Nuclear; Entrepreneurial Finance; Entrepreneurial Marketing; Business ＆ Government Relations; Off-grid; Energy; Renewable Energy; Energy Generation; Energy Sources; Entrepreneurship; Marketing; Business and Government Relations; Energy Industry; Utilities Industry; United States

30 Sep 2009
Working Paper Summaries

Breakthrough Inventions and Migrating Clusters of Innovation

Keywords: by William R. Kerr; Technology

January 2013 (Revised March 2022)
Case

The Origins and Development of Silicon Valley

By: Tom Nicholas and James Lee

On October 1, 1891, as Senator Leland Stanford cut the ribbon at the ceremony gifting 8,000-acres of his Palo Alto, California, stock farm to a new, 559-student university bearing his name and seeking to produce "useful" in addition to "cultured" graduates, the... View Details

Keywords: Silicon Valley; History; Entrepreneurship; Technological Innovation; United States

February 2015
Case

Founder Field Day

By: Matthew Rhodes-Kropf, Ramana Nanda and Nathaniel Burbank

Branded as the "Millennial firm for Millennials," Mike Rothenberg founded Rothenberg Ventures (RV) in 2012 while earning his MBA at the Harvard Business School (HBS). Over the following 24 months, Rothenberg raised $20 million and built a venture capital firm that made... View Details

Keywords: Finance; Startups; Seed-investing; Micro-VC; Venture Capital; Business Startups; San Francisco; New York (city, NY)

July 2020 (Revised November 2020)
Case

Gera Developments: Leadership at a Crossroads

By: Christina R. Wing and John Masko

For decades, Gera Developments (Gera) was a boutique family-owned real estate development firm in Pune, India. But since 2000, managing director Rohit Gera had turned the company into a dynamic innovator in housing solutions for urban Indian families. Over the 2010s,... View Details

Keywords: Buildings and Facilities; Business Growth and Maturation; Construction; Geographic Location; Global Strategy; Globalized Firms and Management; Housing; Leadership Style; Management Succession; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Family Ownership; Family and Family Relationships; Urban Development; Customization and Personalization; Real Estate Industry; Maharashtra; India; United States

May 2021
Teaching Plan

Gera Developments: Leadership at a Crossroads

By: Christina R. Wing and John Masko

Teaching Plan for HBS Case No. 621-018. For decades, Gera Developments (Gera) was a boutique family-owned real estate development firm in Pune, India. But since 2000, managing director Rohit Gera had turned the company into a dynamic innovator in housing solutions for... View Details

Keywords: Buildings and Facilities; Business Growth and Maturation; Construction; Geographic Location; Global Strategy; Globalized Firms and Management; Housing; Leadership Style; Management Succession; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Family Ownership; Family and Family Relationships; Urban Development; Customization and Personalization; Real Estate Industry; Maharashtra; India; San Francisco