Harvard Business School

10/19/2026

For most white-collar workers, much of the workday is spent hoovering up information: skimming Slack messages, scanning emails, and generating AI summaries in a futile attempt to stay on top of it all. Meanwhile, the pressure to use AI tools is increasing the pace of work and the size of our workloads.

At HBS, Professor Sandra Sucher challenges future business leaders to slow down—and read up. In her class on moral leadership, students grapple with literature without the aid of AI tools, reading and analyzing novels, poems, and plays. Initially developed four decades ago, the elective skips the case studies and research papers typically found on an MBA class syllabus and instead relies on works from Sophocles, Kazuo Ishiguro, and William Carlos Williams.

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10/18/2026

Entrepreneurship through acquisition doesn't always begin with a formal search.

In this episode of Think Big Buy Small, HBS Professors Richard Ruback and Royce Yudkoff talk with Aaron Wyatt, an entrepreneur who built his business organically after leaving a sales job to become an independent manufacturer's representative. Aaron shares how he grew his business by deepening relationships with customers and family-owned manufacturers, while deliberately adding complementary product lines. He also reflects on the risks of leaving W2 employment and why, for him, those risks felt manageable when viewed as simply taking the next step. Aaron has since taken another step in his journey, purchasing a garage door service company with a longtime friend.

He discusses what attracted them to the business, how they approached the transition with employees, the small operational changes that helped improve performance, and why they chose a buy-and-hold strategy rather than pursuing a quick exit.

Entrepreneurship through acquisition doesn't always begin with a formal search. In this episode, Rick and Royce talk with Aaron Wyatt, an entrepreneur who built his business organically after leaving a sales job to become an independent manufacturer's representative. Aaron shares how he grew his bus...

10/17/2026

As midterms rapidly approach, faculty across the University continue to grapple with how to assess students amid widespread use of AI and concerns of grade inflation.

Those were among the topics discussed at the Harvard Initiative for Learning and Teaching’s 15th annual conference, “The Weight of the Degree: Rigor, Responsibility, and the Modern Campus.”

To kick off the day, a panel discussion focused on “recentering academic rigor in service of society” in a new technological era brought together scholars from the Business School (HBS), John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), and Graduate School of Design (GSD).

HBS Professor Amy Edmondson said a good illustration of how things are changing is the time-honored case method, which calls for students to analyze real-life business problems and propose solutions.

“The case method, which we have loved for 100 years, is suffering from the fact that our students are just putting the cases through ChatGPT and getting CliffsNotes and coming in with accurate but superficial and unhelpful knowledge and then we have a lower-quality conversation, which doesn’t have any of the dynamism of old,” she said.

Read more: https://hbs.me/2vbdv8h6

10/16/2026

While AI threatens to transform every aspect of business, workers and employers alike have paid particular interest to its effect on entry-level employees as the market for junior workers remains weak.

HBS Professor Joseph Fuller has studied the promise and perils of AI for the youngest workers closely, while working directly with large companies on designing better recruiting, onboarding, and training programs for entry-level employees.

Read more:

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10/15/2026

For the last 35 years, Pete Wendell (MBA 1976) has been teaching a course in Stanford’s MBA program that routinely has budding founders and venture capitalists clamoring for a seat. The second-year elective course, Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital, is nearly always oversubscribed, and for good reason.

As the founder of Sierra Ventures, an early-stage, tech VC firm with over $2 billion in investments now raising its 14th consecutive fund, Wendell is a seasoned expert with a finger on the pulse of Silicon Valley. At the same time, he’s designed his ever-changing course to mirror his own HBS experience, complete with A-list guest speakers, original cases, and other HBS-sourced teaching material.

“HBS has always put a premium on providing students an excellent classroom experience,” says Wendell.

Combining bold ideas, powerful pedagogy, and collaborative cohort-based learning to deliver unparalleled management education and foster lifelong learning networks.

10/15/2026

🎮 Founded in 2010, Supercell was a 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 hits by designing the company with a structure and culture that would prove compelling to the industry’s top talent. Developers worked in small, autonomous groups called cells with little oversight. The formula was a success. Supercell had nearly $2 billion in annual revenues, and Clash of Clans alone had generated gross revenues of over $10 billion since inception. However, the company had not released a hit game in five years.

In 2023, CEO Ilkka Paananen and the company’s leadership team decided to restructure the company into two divisions—New Games and Live Games. The New Game cells would retain the small team structures, which were largely flat and non-hierarchical, but the Live Game cells would add more traditional structure and hierarchy to exploit franchise hits. Now, Paananen wondered if Supercell could continue to attract top talent despite its shift to more traditional ways of managing the business.

In the latest episode of Cold Call, Senior Lecturer Jeffrey Rayport and host Brian Kenny discuss the case, “Supercell 2.0: Clash of Plans,” and the question at its crux: What would it take to restore the company’s winning streak?

🎮 Tune in: https://hbs.me/munp3hkf

10/14/2026

While large US companies get most of the attention, a growing number of small businesses are quietly finding ways to implement AI and change how they work.

In some cases, the applications they are using are built using open-source tools. In others, they are available commercially. HBS Associate Professor Andy Wu explains why small business owners are well positioned to take advantage of AI, how they can use it to build competitive advantage, and why the number who do so is likely to increase, including those far from the tech sector.

A pizza chain in DC. A book shop in Houston. AI tools are appearing at many small companies—not just tech firms.

10/13/2026

For many children, financial education starts with counting coins and solving word problems. But learning how to make decisions about money is another matter.

Sonia Nagala Chang (MBA 2012) saw that gap firsthand when her own children started asking questions about money. It inspired her to create Mini Maker Academy, a hands-on program where students run simulated storefronts, set prices, manage inventory, invest profits, and navigate the trade-offs of running a business.

Now serving classrooms across the San Francisco Bay Area, Mini Maker is helping young learners practice financial decision-making early.

Read how Chang is bringing financial literacy and entrepreneurship to life: https://hbs.me/2p8zd5hz

10/12/2026

HBS PhD: Voices in Research spotlights the mentor-mentee relationships that drive innovation and shape future leaders.

Meet Professor Ryan L. Raffaelli and PhD student Ryann Noe from the joint HBS/Harvard Griffin GSAS program in Organizational Behavior, who study how organizations respond to big, and sometimes controversial, technological change.

Learn more about this and other doctoral programs at HBS: https://bit.ly/4j021eU

10/11/2026

Michael Horowitz is a former searcher who acquired, scaled, and ultimately sold a portfolio of Wingstop franchise restaurants before becoming an investor in the ETA ecosystem.

In this episode of Think Big Buy Small, he shares his unconventional journey to business ownership and offers an insider's perspective on what makes franchising a compelling but often misunderstood path for acquisition entrepreneurs. Together, they discuss the advantages of established brands, proven operating systems, benchmarking, and more predictable cash flows, as well as the tradeoffs associated with royalties, choosing the right franchisor, and managing multi-unit businesses.

They also explore why franchise opportunities are often overlooked by searchers, how franchise portfolios are valued, why geographic density matters, and what role acquisitions and new unit development play in creating value over time.

Michael Horowitz is a former searcher who acquired, scaled, and ultimately sold a portfolio of Wingstop franchise restaurants before becoming an investor in the ETA ecosystem. In this episode, he shares his unconventional journey to business ownership and offers an insider's perspective on what make...