harvard

Stanford and Harvard teach businesses how to squash open source

Having given in to gravity, America's elite graduate schools are taking on open source.

In recent research published in Production and Operations Management, Deishin Lee (Harvard Business School) and Haim Mendelson (Stanford Graduate School of Business) teach would-be business executives how to "Divide and Conquer: Competing with Free Technology Under Network Effects."

The professors argue that:

(T)he ideal scenario for the commercial vendor is to bring its product to market first, to judiciously improve its product features, to keep its product "closed" so the open-source product cannot tap into the network already built by … Read more

Lessons from a Harvard MBA grad who said no to Google

I am philosophical today. Would you take a slow walk with me and listen to a story that may not have an ending?

I was in my favorite sushi restaurant the other night when Dan, a man in a Tommy Bahama shirt, leaned over to me and, through thickly alcoholic breath, said: "There are more banks going down. Mark my words."

Normally, a Tommy Bahama shirt signifies "my brain is dead and my eyes have turned to disco balls." However, Dan is, I know, a retired accountant. The very finest, wiliest, (relatively) honest kind.

With his … Read more

ConnectU-Facebook fight one stroke closer to finish line

As twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss power toward Wednesday's semifinal in the rowing events of the Olympics in Beijing, their longstanding court case against Facebook is winding down.

A San Jose, Calif., judge ruled late last week that ConnectU, the start-up that the brothers founded with Harvard classmate Divya Narendra, must transfer its stock to Facebook as part of the settlement acquisition by Tuesday, despite the claims on behalf of ConnectU that Facebook failed to disclose its true valuation when negotiating the terms of the settlement. The start-up's founders alleged fraud on Facebook's part, and claimed that … Read more

Report: blockbusters rule, long tail overrated

A fascinating article in the current issue of the Harvard Business Review calls into question some of the now-accepted wisdom about the long tail.

A quick refresher: the long tail theory, popularized by Wired editor Chris Anderson, says that as digital distribution drives distribution costs to zero, businesses will be able to profit by stocking enormous numbers of obscure titles. These titles, which may only sell one or two copies a year, are the tail of the traditional demand curve--the "long tail."

The HBR study, by Anita Elberse, analyzes data from online music and video stores and suggests … Read more

ConnectU founders score spots on U.S. Olympic rowing team

Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss might not have gotten their way with Mark Zuckerberg, but they've got a different prize in mind now: Olympic glory.

The identical twins, who founded one-time Facebook rival ConnectU with their Harvard classmate Divya Narendra, have earned spots on the U.S. Olympic rowing team that will compete later this summer in Beijing. The team's roster was announced Friday and is currently pending approval by the United States Olympic Committee.

Recently, the Winklevoss twins have been in the news because of their long-running lawsuit against Facebook founder Zuckerberg, whom they had once hired as … Read more

Court enforces Facebook-ConnectU settlement

A U.S. District Court judge has decided to enforce the settlement that Facebook and would-be rival ConnectU signed in February, rejecting the ConnectU founders' claims of fraud.

The legal battle between the two social-networking sites has gone on since 2004, when ConnectU founders Cameron Winklevoss, Tyler Winklevoss, and Divya Narendra initially sued Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and several other early employees for allegedly stealing ConnectU's code and business plan while they were all students at Harvard. Facebook countersued in 2005, claiming that ConnectU had hacked into its user database to mine e-mail addresses.

Both parties must still show … Read more

ConnectU: We're not through with Zuckerberg

Scandal fans, rejoice--the crimson-hued nastiness between ConnectU and Facebook ain't over yet!

Court documents filed on Wednesday reveal that the founders of ConnectU, who claim that Facebook czar Mark Zuckerberg pilfered their business plan and code, are touting new "smoking-gun" evidence against the 24-year-old billionaire.

Facebook settled ConnectU v. Facebook in April, but ConnectU founders Cameron Winklevoss, Tyler Winklevoss, and Divya Narendra say a search for related documents has produced some results.

Forensic expert Jeff Parmet was commissioned by ConnectU to trawl through Facebook hard drives after a court order opened them up for discovery in … Read more

Zuckerberg: Facebook founder, Harvard dropout...and koala-eating jet-setter?

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, the youngest person ever to score a spot on Forbes magazine's annual list of billionaires, is known as a quiet, businesslike fellow.

Self-confident, definitely. Arrogant, possibly. It'd still be a stretch to imagine him partying on yachts, scheming his way into secret societies, and creating popular Web projects so that he could hook up with more girls. But according to a tipster to media gossip blog Gawker, that's what's detailed in Face Off, a forthcoming book that purports to be written by Bringing Down The House author Ben Mezrich.

"They dined … Read more

Deconstructing Wikipedia at the Berkman Center

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--Harvard Law and Berkman Center scholar Yochai Benkler and Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales deconstructed Wikipedia and discussed peer production models at an event here Thursday.

Benkler, who is the Jack N. and Lillian R. Berkman Professor of Entrepreneurial Studies at the Harvard Law School and co-director of the Berkman Center, were participating in a program marking the Berkman Center's 10th anniversary at the Harvard Law School (see my earlier coverage of the conference). Wales is a Berkman Fellow and hopes to find ways for groups to come to better decisions in his research.

During his remarks, … Read more