Publications

June 2025
Case

Accounting for OpenAI at Microsoft

By: Jonas Heese, Joseph Pacelli, Nicole Zelazko and Michael Norris

In early 2025, Microsoft was evaluating the impact of its $14 billion investment in OpenAI. As OpenAI’s computing needs expanded, Microsoft positioned Azure as the exclusive provider for training and inference of their large language models. Despite the scale of the... View Details

Keywords: Accounting; Financial Reporting; Revenue Recognition; Corporate Finance; Capital; Investment; Revenue; AI and Machine Learning; Valuation; Governance; Technology Industry; Financial Services Industry; Web Services Industry; Information Technology Industry; United States

2025
Working Paper

Small Business Innovation Applied to National Needs

By: Kyle Myers, Lauren Lanahan and Evan E. Johnson

Small businesses have long supplied a disproportionate share of major innovations in the United States. We review a centerpiece policy on this topic: the U.S. Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program. We trace its legislative history and summarize program... View Details

Keywords: Small Business; Innovation and Invention; Government Legislation; Entrepreneurial Finance; Business and Government Relations

June 2025
Case

TfL Pension Fund and the 2022 Gilt Market Crisis

By: Emil N. Siriwardane, Vincent Dessain, Emer Moloney and Carlota Moniz

On September 27, 2022, Padmesh Shukla, CIO of the Transport for London (TfL) Pension Fund, was keeping a careful eye on the turmoil in the U.K. sovereign bond (or gilt) market. When the new government announced the largest tax cuts the U.K. had seen in half a century,... View Details

June 2025
Case

Vail Resorts: Responding to Activist Pressure (A)

By: Benjamin C. Esty and Edward A. Meyer

On January 27, 2025, the head of a relatively small hedge fund named Late Apex Partners sent a highly critical letter to the board of directors of Vail Resorts, the world’s largest ski resort operator. In his letter, and the 88-slide presentation that accompanied his... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Finance; Capital Budgeting; Corporate Governance; Competitive Advantage; Competitive Strategy; Leading Change; Valuation; Investment Activism; Climate Change; Management Succession; Financial Management; Risk Management; Business and Shareholder Relations; Sports Industry; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; Travel Industry; United States; Australia; Canada

2025
Working Paper

Race, Rental Yields, and Housing Decay in Manhattan

By: Tom Nicholas and Christophe Spaenjers

We develop a new dataset on real estate transactions in Manhattan (1912–1939), linked to federal Census records (1930 and 1940) and property images used for tax assessment purposes (around 1940 and 1980). We analyze investor returns and incentives to maintain... View Details

Keywords: Housing Markets; Rental Yields; Urban Decay; Manhattan; Race; Equality and Inequality; Investment Return; Motivation and Incentives; Real Estate Industry; New York (city, NY)

May 2025
Case

The Micro-Family Office: Aamir Rehman

By: Lauren Cohen and Sophia Pan

With a successful career and strong academic credentials, Aamir Rehman sought to design a life grounded in autonomy. For him, this meant serving on boards, continuing his professorship, and ensuring a secure and comfortable life for his family. While he didn’t possess... View Details

April 2025
Case

Kleiner Perkins (2019)

By: Jo Tango and Srimayi Mylavarapu

Kleiner Perkins, founded in 1972, quickly rose to prominence as one of Silicon Valley’s leading venture capital firms, earning a reputation for early investments in industry giants like Google, Amazon, and Citrix. However, a bold, strategic pivot to cleantech investing... View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital; Investment Funds; Technological Innovation; Entrepreneurial Finance

2025
Working Paper

Performance Capital Flows in DC Pensions

By: Bryan Gutierrez Cortez, Victoria Ivashina and Juliana Salomao

Are defined contribution (DC) pension funds' capital flows sensitive to performance? We examine pressures from individual account holders who can switch their pension managers. Using novel data on retirement accounts for nearly 10 million individuals, we analyze... View Details

Keywords: Investment Funds; Retirement; Risk and Uncertainty; Financial Management; Investment Portfolio; Financial Services Industry

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April 2025
Article

The Allocation of Socially Responsible Capital

By: Daniel Green and Benjamin N. Roth

Portfolio allocation decisions increasingly incorporate social values. We develop a tractable framework to study how competition between investors to own socially valuable assets affects social welfare. Relative to the most common social-investing strategies, we... View Details

Keywords: Socially Responsible Investing; Investment Portfolio; Welfare; Social Issues; Investment Return

2025
Working Paper

With a Little Help from My Family: Informal Startup Financing

By: Brian K. Baik, Johan Ludvig S. Karlsen and Katja Kisseleva

Using Norwegian administrative data, we identify family equity investments in startups and examine their effects on investor returns and firm behavior. Informal investors earn lower returns than external individuals, and the firms they back are less likely to secure... View Details

Keywords: Early Stage Finance; Informal Investment; Household Finance; Risk Taking; Entrepreneurial Finance; Entrepreneurship; Personal Finance; Family and Family Relationships; Business Startups; Investment; Norway

March 2025
Case

Silicon Valley Bank: Gone in 36 Hours

By: Jung Koo Kang, Krishna G. Palepu, Charles C.Y. Wang and David Lane

This case examines factors contributing to the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) in March 2023, an event as unpredicted as it was quick. SVB funded nearly half of all U.S. venture-backed startups and at the end of 2022 held $173 billion in deposits, largely... View Details

March 2025 (Revised April 2025)
Case

Perplexity: Redefining Search

By: Suraj Srinivasan, Michelle Hu, Sriraghav Srinivasan and Radhika Kak

By early 2025, Perplexity had rapidly evolved from a modest startup into a popular "answer engine" valued at $9 billion. The company had boldly positioned itself as the disruptor to Google aiming to redefine search for the AI age. Through novel AI... View Details

Keywords: AI and Machine Learning; Venture Capital; Innovation Leadership; Technological Innovation; Internet and the Web; Business Startups; Competitive Strategy; Business Model; Technology Industry; United States

March 2025 (Revised March 2025)
Case

Good for the Seller, Good for the Buyer and Good for Society: Sampo-yoshi, Sustainability and Trust at ITOCHU

By: Sandra J. Sucher and Bethelehem Y Araya

In 2024, ITOCHU CEO Masahiro Okafuji was at a crossroads. As the thirteenth CEO since ITOCHU’s founding in 1858, he had fueled the company’s growth since 2011 by bringing ITOCHU’s founding philosophy of Sampo-yoshi (good for the seller, good for the buyer and... View Details

Keywords: Sustainability; Trust; Profit; Growth and Development Strategy; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Mission and Purpose; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Environmental Sustainability; Japan

2025
Working Paper

How to Choose Among Technologies with Learning Curves: Making Better Investment Decisions

By: Christian Kaps and Arielle Anderer

Learning curves, the fact that technologies improve as a function of cumulative experience or investment, are desirable-think inexpensive solar panels or higher performing semiconductors. But, for firms that need to pick one technology among several candidates, such as... View Details

Keywords: Learning Curve; Technology; Innovation; Batteries; Energy Storage; Sequential Decision Making; TELCO; Exploration; Exploitation; Problems and Challenges; Cost vs Benefits; Technology Adoption; Battery Industry

February 2025
Case

RedBird Capital Partners

By: Anita Elberse and David Moreno Vicente

In July 2024, Gerry Cardinale, the founder and managing partner of RedBird Capital Partners (‘RedBird’) has helped orchestrate a high-profile deal in the world of entertainment: one in which Skydance Media (‘Skydance’), a content production studio led by David Ellison... View Details

Keywords: Film; Television; Superstars; General Management; Investing; Mergers and Acquisitions; Private Equity; Asset Management; Entertainment; Media; Sports; Business or Company Management; Investment; Marketing; Strategy; Financial Services Industry; Sports Industry; Entertainment and Recreation Industry

2025
Working Paper

Impact Investing and Worker Outcomes

By: Josh Lerner, Markus Lithell and Gordon M. Phillips

Impact investors claim to distinguish themselves from traditional venture capital and growth equity investors by also pursuing environmental, social, and governance (ESG) objectives. Whether they successfully do so in practice is unclear. We use confidential Census... View Details

Keywords: ESG; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Private Equity; Venture Capital; Wages

January 2025
Case

Arsenal Capital Partners' Refinancing of Pinnacle

By: Victoria Ivashina and Srimayi Mylavarapu

Arsenal Capital Partners’ portfolio company, Pinnacle, a leading producer of high-performance adhesive technologies, has experienced rapid growth under Arsenal’s ownership. Over just two years, Pinnacle's EBITDA increased from $13.5 million to $60 million. By mid-2021,... View Details

Keywords: Business Exit or Shutdown; Decision Choices and Conditions; Private Equity; Financing and Loans; Growth Management

January 2025 (Revised April 2025)
Case

Doing Business in Cairo: Navigating a Path to Economic Resilience

By: A. Zelleke and Ahmed Dahawy

Egypt has long been a pivotal force in the Middle East and North Africa. Located at a crossroads of global trade routes, the country was a strategic partner for numerous regional and global powers. However, a substantial currency devaluation in 2016 brought many... View Details

Keywords: Business; Developing Countries and Economies; Economic Slowdown and Stagnation; Inflation and Deflation; Macroeconomics; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Globalized Economies and Regions; International Relations; Emerging Markets; Risk and Uncertainty; Culture; Economy; Country; Currency; Investment; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Egypt

January 2025
Case

Untapped Global: Financing Africa's Missing Middle

By: Raymond Kluender and Emanuele Colonnelli

In November 2024, Jim Chu, founder and CEO of Untapped Global, faced mounting internal tensions over the company’s strategic direction. Untapped had developed a data-driven revenue-based financing (RBF) model to address the “missing middle” problem—the $5.2 trillion... View Details