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• Case | HBS Case Collection | February 2020

  Intellectual Ventures 2020

  David B. Yoffie and Daniel Fisher

  After raising $6 billion and buying 60,000 patents, Intellectual Venture was confronted with a changing legal environment. A number of important legal decision, including the Supreme Court's so-called "Alice" decision, IV had to shift strategy. IV sold off a substantial portion of its IP portfolio, and refocused its efforts on trying to innovate, using its acquired technologies.

  Keywords: intellectual property; strategy; Intellectual Property; United States;

  Citation:

  Yoffie, David B., and Daniel Fisher. "Intellectual Ventures 2020." Harvard Business School Case 720-438, February 2020.  View Details

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• Case | HBS Case Collection | October 2019 (Revised January 2020)

  Fixing Facebook: Fake News, Privacy, and Platform Governance

  David Yoffie and Daniel Fisher

  Mark Zuckerberg founded Facebook based on the idea that connecting people was a fundamentally good thing—and a way to turn a handsome profit. But from the beginning, Facebook received criticism both for how it handled user privacy and how it curated user-generated content. These two issues coalesced in the aftermath of the 2016 United States presidential election, after Facebook’s role in the spread of political misinformation and the leak of Facebook user data to political consulting firms began to receive significant media coverage. In 2019, Facebook announced it was shifting to a “digital living room” model that would focus more on private, encrypted conversations and less on sharing viral content. Several important questions remained. Would the digital living room ease users’ privacy concerns? Would Facebook still be able to effectively curate content? Would its advertising model still work? Or were financial success and good governance mutually exclusive? This case explores the parameters of governing an internet-based platform.

  Keywords: platform; governance; privacy; Internet; Corporate Governance; Ethics; Business and Government Relations; Strategy; Web Services Industry;

  Citation:

  Yoffie, David, and Daniel Fisher. "Fixing Facebook: Fake News, Privacy, and Platform Governance." Harvard Business School Case 720-400, October 2019. (Revised January 2020.)  View Details

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• Supplement | HBS Case Collection | January 2020

  MoviePass: The 'Get Big Fast' Strategy

  Benjamin C. Esty, Daniel Fisher, Benjamin C. Esty and Daniel Fisher

  In August 2017, MoviePass dramatically lowered its subscription price from $50 per month to just $10 for up to one movie per day. The idea was to rapidly scale the business to the point where they could generate incremental revenue streams form related businesses (e.g., a share of ticket and concession revenues from theaters, advertising revenue from movie studios; and revenue from ride-sharing companies). Within two days, Moviepass had gotten 150k new subscribers; within six months, they had more than 2 million. But as of February 2018, the company faced three challenges: theaters were resisting the concept, investors were shorting the stock in record numbers, and competitors were beginning to appear. Could CEO Lowe convince investors that they did, indeed, have a viable business model and could monetize their growing subscriber base? At the same time, Lowe had to decide whether to raise subscription prices to cover the growing losses or keep prices low to attract subscribers as quickly as possible.

  Keywords: Market entry; growth strategy; profit vs. growth; subscription business; cash burn; Data Analytics; get-big-fast; buyer power; strategy implementation; movie industry; Racing; Business Strategy; Value Creation; Consolidation; Cash Flow; Growth Management; Business Startups; Entrepreneurship; Disruptive Innovation; Mobile Technology; Motion Pictures and Video Industry; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; Advertising Industry; Information Industry; United States;

  Citation:

  Esty, Benjamin C., and Daniel Fisher. "MoviePass: The 'Get Big Fast' Strategy." Harvard Business School Spreadsheet Supplement 720-854, January 2020.  View Details

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