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• Exercise | June 2018

  Venture Capital Term Sheets

  Ramana Nanda, William A. Sahlman and Robert White

  Citation:

  Nanda, Ramana, William A. Sahlman, and Robert White. "Venture Capital Term Sheets." Harvard Business School Exercise 818-137, June 2018.  View Details

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• Case | HBS Case Collection | May 2018 (Revised May 2018)

  The Powers That Be (Internet Edition): Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, and Microsoft

  Jeffrey F. Rayport, Julia Kelley and Nathaniel Schwalb

  As of early 2018, five U.S. technology companies—Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, and Microsoft—were among the largest companies in the world. Similarly, three Chinese technology firms—Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent, or BAT—had emerged as global players due in part to the protection of China’s “Great Firewall,” which made it more difficult for foreign companies to compete in Chinese markets. As these companies continued to scale by branching into new businesses, such as voice AI and self-driving vehicles, they also faced new and challenging questions about user privacy. The European Union had recently passed the General Data Protection Regulation, a comprehensive set of consumer data protection laws that would require technology companies to make significant changes to their operating model. Meanwhile, social media giant Facebook was facing allegations that Cambridge Analytica, a political data firm, had accessed information on tens of millions of Facebook users without their consent, prompting calls for big technology firms to be more strictly regulated. How would the five U.S. companies and BAT respond to these concerns? And, looking forward, in what ways would these big companies compete with one another, and which would come out ahead?

  Keywords: Internet; Business Ventures; Customers; Data and Data Sets; Safety; Corporate Strategy; Competitive Strategy; Technology Industry;

  Citation:

  Rayport, Jeffrey F., Julia Kelley, and Nathaniel Schwalb. "The Powers That Be (Internet Edition): Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, and Microsoft." Harvard Business School Case 818-111, May 2018. (Revised May 2018.)  View Details

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• Case | HBS Case Collection | March 2018 (Revised April 2018)

  Nectar (A)

  Jeffrey F. Rayport and Thomas O. Jones

  In late 2017, Nectar was a rapidly emerging player in the “bed-in-a-box” online market for direct-to-consumer foam memory mattresses. Barely a year old, it had achieved a revenue run rate of $85M and looked ahead to another year of blistering growth. The founding team of three had chosen to operate as a triumvirate, without a CEO, and each of the founders had already realized impressive business success as operating executives and investors. As they evaluated their year-end results, they were considering a range of growth scenarios for 2018 and 2019. At the same time, they were wrestling with key decisions regarding product line diversification to target additional customer segments and a potential refactoring of production operations. The founders also speculated on the land grab opportunity, both U.S. and international, which amped up urgency to decide how to manage growth.

  Keywords: Growth and Development Strategy; Product; Diversification; Decision Making; Growth Management;

  Citation:

  Rayport, Jeffrey F., and Thomas O. Jones. "Nectar (A)." Harvard Business School Case 818-112, March 2018. (Revised April 2018.)  View Details

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