Research - Global - Harvard Business School

October 2024
Teaching Material

The Semiconductor Industry

By: Andy Wu, Steve Blank and Matt Higgins

The semiconductor industry powers modern technology, from consumer electronics to data centers. This background note explores the layers of the semiconductor inudstry value chain, including Integrated Device Manufacturers (IDMs), fabless companies, and foundries, while...

October 2024
Case

Nvidia

By: Andy Wu and Matt Higgins

This case study examines Nvidia's strategic pivot from gaming GPUs to becoming a leader in general-purpose computing and AI. It explores how Nvidia leveraged its GPU architecture to dominate the growing fields of data center acceleration and AI training, outpacing...

September 2024
Case

Google Quantum AI

By: David B. Yoffie, Michael A. Cusumano and Matt Higgins

Quantum computing may be the most important nascent computing technology of the 21st century. It has the potential to impact industries ranging from drug discovery to cybersecurity. Google's Quantum AI is one of the leaders in quantum research. This case explores the...

August 2024
Case

Zipline: Expanding the World's Largest Autonomous Drone Delivery Network

By: Tarun Khanna and George Gonzalez

Zipline initially established the world's largest logistics network in Rwanda and Ghana by delivering medical supplies to hospitals via automated drones from a centralized hub. The company is now looking to expand to the U.S. home delivery market and designed a...

20 Aug 2024
Presentation

Angel City Football Club: A New Business Model for Women’s Sports

By: Jeffrey F. Rayport, Brian Kenny and Nicole Tempest Keller

Angel City Football Club (ACFC) was founded in 2020 by venture capitalist Kara Nortman, entrepreneur Julie Uhrman, and actor and activist Natalie Portman. As outsiders to professional sports, the all-female founding team had rewritten the playbook for how to build a...

July 2024
Case

Stellar Development Foundation

By: Shai Benjamin Bernstein, Scott Duke Kominers and George Gonzalez

Blockchain pioneer Stellar Development Foundation oversees one of the earliest and largest crypto networks (Stellar) and the management of its native token XLM. The foundation partnered with cross-border payments provider MoneyGram to help on and off-ramp...

May 2024
Case

LinkedIn Corporation, 2024

By: David B. Yoffie, George Gonzalez and Emily Grandjean

By 2024, the LinkedIn profile was well established as the professional identity of record on the Internet. Following a multi-year effort to expand the platform’s user base, as well as a period of rapid growth during the COVID-19 pandemic, LinkedIn’s membership had...

May 2024
Teaching Material

AI Wars

By: Andy Wu and Matt Higgins

Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 723-434. In 2024, the world was looking to Google to see what the search giant and long-time putative technical leader in artificial intelligence (AI) would do to compete in the massively hyped technology of generative AI popularized over...

May–June 2024
Article
Harvard Business Review

What Makes a Successful Celebrity Brand?

By: Ayelet Israeli, Jill Avery, Leonard A. Schlesinger and Matt Higgins

Celebrities have shifted from endorsing established brands to being influencers for established brands to drawing on their influence to create brands themselves. The authors examine what it takes to make celebrity brands work.

March 2024 (Revised April 2024)
Case

Angel City Football Club: Scoring a New Model

By: Jeffrey F. Rayport, Jennifer Fonstad and Nicole Tempest Keller

In January 2024, Kara Nortman, Julie Uhrman, and Natalie Portman, the founders of Angel City Football Club (ACFC) were developing the club’s first three-year strategic plan. Founded in 2020, ACFC had a star-studded investor group, including Portman and celebrities such...

March 2024 (Revised July 2024)
Case

WeightWatchers: Promoting Weight Health

By: Ranjay Gulati, Cynthia A. Montgomery, Ashley Whillans, Allison Ciechanover and Emily Grandjean

In December 2023, the 60-year-old weight management industry stalwart WeightWatchers announced the launch of WeightWatchers Clinic, which incorporated GLP-1s , a new class of prescription weight-loss medications, into the company’s portfolio of products and mobile app...

March 2024
Case

Lyft 2023: Roads to Growth and Differentiation

By: Ranjay Gulati and Jeffrey Huizinga

Set in San Francisco in winter 2023, this case explores the strategic challenges and initiatives at Lyft under the leadership of its new CEO, David Risher. Confronted with declining market share and financial pressures, Risher spent his first six months at the helm...

March 2024 (Revised September 2024)
Case

Supercell 2.0: Clash of Plans

By: Jeffrey F. Rayport and George Gonzalez

Founded in 2010, Supercell was a Helsinki, Finland-based mobile gaming company that had developed and launched five global hit mobile games: Clash of Clans, Clash Royale, Hay Day, Brawl Stars, and Boom Beach. The company’s early philosophy was that it could produce...

February 2024
Case

FIGS: Scrubbing the Status Quo

By: Jeffrey F. Rayport and Nicole Tempest Keller

In October 2023, FIGS had revolutionized the medical scrubs industry with its fashionable and functional designs, but the venture was at a critical juncture. The digitally native vertical brand (DNVB) had gone public in a successful IPO in 2021 and reached $500 million...

January 2024 (Revised February 2024)
Teaching Material

Computer Science for Strategists

By: Andy Wu and Matt Higgins

Two of the most important computer science principles in the technology industry are abstraction and platformization. Our aim with this note is to explain these concepts in an approachable way that brings managers and computer scientists a little closer together.

December 2023 (Revised November 2024)
Case

Generative AI and the Future of Work

By: Christopher Stanton, Matt Higgins, Shira Aronson and Meg Shriber

Generative AI seemed poised to reshape the world of work, including the higher-wage, white-collar jobs typically pursued by MBA graduates. Informed by the latest research, this case explores generative AI's potential impacts on work, productivity, value creation, and...

December 2023 (Revised February 2024)
Case

21Seeds: Taking Shots at Breakout Growth

By: Elie Ofek, Julian De Freitas, Michael Moynihan and Nicole Tempest Keller

21Seeds, a female-founded flavor-infused tequila startup launched in 2019, had made inroads into the alcoholic beverage industry by focusing on an underserved consumer segment in spirits—women, primarily in their 30s and 40s, many of whom were moms—and by following a...

December 2023 (Revised August 2024)
Teaching Material

Microsoft Azure and the Cloud Wars (B)

By: Andy Wu and Matt Higgins

By 2023, the global market for cloud infrastructure had consolidated into a three-horse race. As of Q4 2022, Amazon, Microsoft, and Google collectively accounted for 66% of the global market. AWS had a market share of 33%, Microsoft Azure had 23%, and Google Cloud had...

November 2023 (Revised April 2024)
Case

Khanmigo: Revolutionizing Learning with GenAI

By: William A. Sahlman, Allison M. Ciechanover and Emily Grandjean

Already a leader in the edtech space since its 2008 launch, Khan Academy was now one of the first edtech organizations to embrace generative artificial intelligence ("genAI"). In March 2023, Khan Academy began beta testing Khanmigo, a genAI “guide” and tutor built with...

October 2023
Teaching Material

Metaverse Wars

By: Andy Wu and Matt Higgins

Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 723-431. Metaverse Wars recaps the development of the metaverse concept and the attendant hype, bringing the narrative up to the summer of 2023 when Meta’s big pivot looked more like a costly misstep than a stroke of strategic genius. In...