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• Case | HBS Case Collection | July 2020 (Revised September 2020)

  MobSquad

  Prithwiraj Choudhury, William R. Kerr and Susie L. Ma

  Irfhan Rawji (MBS 2004) launched MobSquad in October 2018 to help American tech start-ups retain hard-to-find talent, many of whom struggled with U.S. work visa issues, such as software engineers with experience in artificial intelligence, machine learning, or data science. MobSquad also helped companies fill open roles by tapping into its database of pre-vetted foreign tech workers. While there was growing demand for these specialists, the talent supply in the U.S. was relatively constrained and American companies often filled positions with foreign-born workers using a temporary visa called the H-1B. However, U.S. President Donald Trump temporarily suspended immigration in June 2020, including foreign workers on an H-1B visa during the COVID-19 pandemic. Rawji contemplated what kind of impact this would have on MobSquad and the tech industry in Canada. There was already evidence that a growing number of foreign tech workers were choosing Canada over the U.S. due to Trump’s immigration policies. Now Rawji suspected that Trump’s latest move would further accelerate this trend, and he wanted MobSquad to be ready to help companies and workers who had been counting on the H-1B.

  Keywords: work visas; Business Ventures; Business Startups; Labor; Human Capital; Human Resources; Crisis Management; Employment Industry; Canada; United States;

  Citation:

  Choudhury, Prithwiraj, William R. Kerr, and Susie L. Ma. "MobSquad." Harvard Business School Case 821-010, July 2020. (Revised September 2020.)  View Details

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• Working Paper | HBS Working Paper Series | 2020

  The Targeting and Impact of Paycheck Protection Program Loans to Small Businesses

  Alexander Bartik, Zoë B. Cullen, Edward L. Glaeser, Michael Luca, Christopher Stanton and Adi Sunderam

  The Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) aimed to quickly deliver hundreds of billions of dollars of loans to small businesses, with the loans administered via private banks. In this paper, we use firm-level data to document the demand and supply of PPP funds. Using an instrumental variables approach, we find that PPP loans led to a 14 to 30 percentage point increase in a business’s expected survival, and a positive but imprecise effect on employment. Moreover, the effects on survival were heterogeneous and highlight an important tradeoff faced by policymakers: while administering the loans via private banks allowed for rapid delivery of funds, it also limited the government’s ability to target the funding—instead allowing pre-existing connections between businesses and banks to determine which firms would benefit from the program.

  Keywords: Paycheck Protection Program; targeting; Impact; Entrepreneurship; Health Pandemics; Small Business; Financing and Loans; Outcome or Result; United States;

  Citation:

  Bartik, Alexander, Zoë B. Cullen, Edward L. Glaeser, Michael Luca, Christopher Stanton, and Adi Sunderam. "The Targeting and Impact of Paycheck Protection Program Loans to Small Businesses." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 21-021, August 2020.  View Details

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• Case | HBS Case Collection | August 2020

  Zoom Video Communications: Eric Yuan's Leadership During COVID-19

  Scott Duke Kominers, Christopher Stanton, Andy Wu and George Gonzalez

  In the first half of 2020, worldwide lockdowns caused by the COVID-19 pandemic brought explosive growth to the Zoom Video Communications platform, as people replaced in-person work and social events with videoconferencing. Months into the pandemic, CEO Eric Yuan reflects on his company's newly central role in society, and considers how to leverage the platform's broad adoption into sustainable future growth. The case also discusses Zoom’s internal culture—which prioritized employee and customer happiness—as well as how both the company and its customers faced the transition to remote work.

  Keywords: Transformation; Communication Technology; Customer Value and Value Chain; Values and Beliefs; Technological Innovation; Leadership; Crisis Management; Organizational Culture; Working Conditions; Strategy; Information Technology; Software; Technology Adoption; Health Pandemics; Technology Industry; United States; California;

  Citation:

  Kominers, Scott Duke, Christopher Stanton, Andy Wu, and George Gonzalez. "Zoom Video Communications: Eric Yuan's Leadership During COVID-19." Harvard Business School Case 821-014, August 2020.  View Details

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