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Aticus Peterson

Aticus Peterson

Doctoral Student

Doctoral Student

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Aticus Peterson (apeterson@hbs.edu) is a PhD candidate in the Strategy Unit at Harvard Business School. His research focuses on how entrepreneurs and investors can establish and maintain a learning-based competitive advantage, with an emphasis on the barriers to effective learning. His job market paper explores how much firms should invest in developing a product before trying to sell it to learn from customers.

His job market paper won the 2024 Best Paper Award at the Wharton Innovation Doctoral Symposium. The first chapter of his dissertation, now published in the Strategic Management Journal, won the 2021 PhD Paper Prize from the Strategic Management Society Annual Conference and was nominated for the Best Research Methods Paper Award. He is also the recipient of a Harvard University Certificate of Distinction in Teaching for receiving the highest possible teaching reviews.

Prior to pursuing his PhD, Aticus worked as a venture capital investor at Rose Park Advisors, a specialized investment firm that applies the research of co-founder Clayton Christensen, where he led the firm's diligence for investments in SaaS companies. He also worked with energy and non-profit clients at the Boston Consulting Group. He graduated from Harvard College in 2016 with an A.B. cum laude in Applied Mathematics.

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Aticus Peterson
Contact Information
Publications Teaching Awards & Honors

Journal Articles
Journal Articles

  • Karp, Rebecca, and Aticus Peterson. "Find the Right Pace for Your AI Rollout." Harvard Business Review Digital Articles (August 25, 2022). View Details
  • Peterson, Aticus, and Andy Wu. "Entrepreneurial Learning and Strategic Foresight." Art. 1. Strategic Management Journal 42, no. 13 (December 2021): 2357–2388. (Lead article.) View Details

Working Papers
Working Papers

  • Peterson, Aticus, and Andy Wu. "Entrepreneurial Learning and Strategic Foresight." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 21-123, January 2021. (Revised May 2021.) View Details

Cases and Teaching Materials
Cases and Teaching Materials

  • Wu, Andy, Maliha Malek Quadir, and Aticus Peterson. "Tonik." Harvard Business School Case 725-404, October 2024. View Details
  • Wu, Andy, and Aticus Peterson. "Intellectual Property Strategy." Harvard Business School Module Note 721-436, February 2021. View Details

Other Publications and Materials
Other Publications and Materials

  • Wu, Andy, Aticus Peterson, and Amy Meeker. "More-Experienced Entrepreneurs Have Bigger Deadline Problems." Harvard Business Review 100, no. 2 (March–April 2022): 28–29. (IdeaWatch.) View Details
All Publications

Aticus Peterson (apeterson@hbs.edu) is a PhD candidate in the Strategy Unit at Harvard Business School. His research focuses on how entrepreneurs and investors can establish and maintain a learning-based competitive advantage, with an emphasis on the barriers to effective learning. His job market paper explores how much firms should invest in developing a product before trying to sell it to learn from customers.

His job market paper won the 2024 Best Paper Award at the Wharton Innovation Doctoral Symposium. The first chapter of his dissertation, now published in the Strategic Management Journal, won the 2021 PhD Paper Prize from the Strategic Management Society Annual Conference and was nominated for the Best Research Methods Paper Award. He is also the recipient of a Harvard University Certificate of Distinction in Teaching for receiving the highest possible teaching reviews.

Prior to pursuing his PhD, Aticus worked as a venture capital investor at Rose Park Advisors, a specialized investment firm that applies the research of co-founder Clayton Christensen, where he led the firm's diligence for investments in SaaS companies. He also worked with energy and non-profit clients at the Boston Consulting Group. He graduated from Harvard College in 2016 with an A.B. cum laude in Applied Mathematics.

Journal Articles
  • Karp, Rebecca, and Aticus Peterson. "Find the Right Pace for Your AI Rollout." Harvard Business Review Digital Articles (August 25, 2022). View Details
  • Peterson, Aticus, and Andy Wu. "Entrepreneurial Learning and Strategic Foresight." Art. 1. Strategic Management Journal 42, no. 13 (December 2021): 2357–2388. (Lead article.) View Details
Working Papers
  • Peterson, Aticus, and Andy Wu. "Entrepreneurial Learning and Strategic Foresight." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 21-123, January 2021. (Revised May 2021.) View Details
Cases and Teaching Materials
  • Wu, Andy, Maliha Malek Quadir, and Aticus Peterson. "Tonik." Harvard Business School Case 725-404, October 2024. View Details
  • Wu, Andy, and Aticus Peterson. "Intellectual Property Strategy." Harvard Business School Module Note 721-436, February 2021. View Details
Other Publications and Materials
  • Wu, Andy, Aticus Peterson, and Amy Meeker. "More-Experienced Entrepreneurs Have Bigger Deadline Problems." Harvard Business Review 100, no. 2 (March–April 2022): 28–29. (IdeaWatch.) View Details
Teaching
Economics of Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital

Designed for Harvard College sophomores.

Course Description: Why do so many individuals choose to pursue entrepreneurship despite substantial risks? How do these entrepreneurs raise money to finance their ventures? And what is the impact of entrepreneurship on the broader economy? Entrepreneurship as a field of study is often traced back to Schumpeter’s work on innovation and his theory of “creative destruction.” However, this field remained fairly inactive until recently, with an explosion of interest over the past decade. This tutorial will provide an overview of this growing academic literature on entrepreneurship and will help students learn to identify areas to contribute to this active field. First, we will tackle broad questions on the entrepreneurial phenomenon as a whole, including the role of information and contracting problems, the supply of entrepreneurs, the expected returns to entrepreneurship, and the impact of geography. We will then turn to the individual journey of the entrepreneur, studying the extant literature on opportunity recognition, resource mobilization, scaling and growth, and acquisitions and IPOs. We will primarily study these topics through an economic lens, however, given the multi-disciplinary nature of entrepreneurship research, we will also explore some work drawing on other disciplines such as sociology and psychology with the goal of contrasting perspectives and highlighting some opportunities for interdisciplinary research.

Awards & Honors
Winner of the 2024 Best Paper Award at the Wharton Innovation Doctoral Symposium.
Awarded the 2021 PhD Paper Prize from the Strategic Management Society Annual Conference with Andy Wu for “Entrepreneurial Learning and Strategic Foresight” (Strategic Management Journal, 2021).
Nominated for the 2021 Strategic Management Society Best Research Methods Paper Award.
Awarded a 2016 Harvard University Certificate of Distinction in Teaching from the Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning at Harvard University.
Additional Information
  • Current CV
Social Media
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter
Area of Study
  • Strategy
Areas of Interest
  • entrepreneurial finance
  • entrepreneurship
  • strategy
  • technology strategy
  • venture capital
  • Additional Topics
  • entrepreneurial finance
  • technological innovation
  • Geographies
  • China
Additional Information
Current CV

Social Media

LinkedIn
Twitter

Area of Study

Strategy

Areas of Interest

entrepreneurial finance
entrepreneurship
strategy
technology strategy
venture capital
 More

Additional Topics

entrepreneurial finance
technological innovation

Geographies

China
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