Ariel Fristoe co-founded the Out of Hand Theater ensemble (OOH) in Atlanta in 2001. OOH began as a traditional theater nonprofit, which Ariel and her colleagues ran on a shoestring budget. But over the years, the group transformed: First, around 2010, OOH pivoted to science outreach. Then, around 2018, OOH shifted its focus to racial and economic justice, and staged a series of shows in Atlanta community members' private homes.

Jessica Johnson-Cope, CEO of Johnson Security Bureau (JSB), pondered options for scaling the firm. JSB was the oldest Black-owned security firm in New York, and among the oldest Black-owned security firms in the United States. It provided mostly unarmed security guards to locations such as banks, public works, hospitals, and others. Johnson-Cope could deepen her business in New York; engage in partnerships or joint ventures with other security firms outside of New York; develop a new line of business in cybersecurity; or some combination. If she joined forces with other firms, Johnson-Cope would have to consider whether to prioritize retaining JSB's status as a woman-owned, minority-owned firm, a crucial aspect of JSB's competitive strategy.

In September 2021, Apple decided to delay updates to iOS and iPadOS that included features to fight child sexual abuse. While many-including prominent privacy and security experts-praised Apple, others were opposed. They saw Apple introducing features that risked undermining the privacy of all Apple users-privacy that Apple had strongly championed. Shortly thereafter, prompted by security concerns related to the war in Ukraine and the spread of online child sexual abuse and pornography, legislation was proposed in the United Kingdom to give the government the right to demand the removal of encryption. In response, some tech companies with encrypted messaging apps contemplated pulling out of the U.K. Should Apple CEO Tim Cook do the same, reintroduce the updates to iOS and iPadOS, or something else?

In 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic swept across the globe, Apple and Google partnered to develop a contact tracing application that would collect information about users infected with the disease and notify those who they had been in contact with. While Apple/Google's app would keep information about infection and contact private, some governments wanted more access. Apple and Google refused to provide this information, sparking a debate over what responsibilities the companies had in the realms of personal privacy and public health. This incident marked a seeming increase in privacy protections among technology companies, with Apple increasing user privacy options with its iOS 14 update and Zoom offering free end-to-end encryption. Did this indicate a permanent shift in the tension between privacy and safety?

In 2021, the HBS Impact Investment Fund student team had found a promising impact investment in the co-operative trouser manufacturer, Southwick Social Ventures. Their 100% immigrant workforce sought to pave the road to transforming Lawrence, Massachusetts, a city that was once a manufacturing hub that had recently seen less economic investment than other U.S. cities. The student team was then charged with recommending a set of terms to their investment committee. They needed to determine how exactly to strike the right balance between providing an acceptable return to the fund while providing founder-friendly terms to Southwick Social Ventures.

In 2015, Apple CEO Tim Cook debuted the iPhone 6S with enhanced security measures that enflamed a debate on privacy and public safety around the world. The iPhone 6S, amid a heightened concern for privacy following the 2013 revelation of clandestine U.S. surveillance programs, employed a default encryption system that prevented both Apple and government authorities from accessing data stored on the device. Law enforcement officials warned that the encryption hindered investigations for criminal cases and international terrorism and called on Apple to build a backdoor, a way to bypass the encryption. But Cook maintained that any backdoor would compromise customers' privacy and security. In 2016, a federal judge ordered Apple to provide technical assistance to unlock the iPhone used by one of the two mass shooters who killed 14 people in San Bernardino, California. Apple refused to comply with the order and asked the government to withdraw its demand. This refusal highlighted Apple's stated policy of supporting consumer privacy. Meanwhile, in China, Apple removed various VPN apps from Apple's Chinese App Store. This action elicited strong negative responses from civil rights activists and members of the U.S. government. In 2019, Apple again faced criticism for removing the HKmap.live app from the App Store, which had been used by protestors in Hong Kong. As these situations unfolded, Cook considered his responsibilities to global governments as well as to Apple's customers, employees, and shareholders.

The COVID-19 pandemic brought enormous disruption to the movie industry, closing theaters indefinitely by mid-March 2020, halting television and film production, and throwing theatrical release schedules into disarray. Shell had assumed the CEO position at NBCUniversal just months before the beginning of the pandemic and now had several important decisions to make. One immediate decision he faced was how to handle the release of Trolls: World Tour, the highly anticipated sequel to a successful animated film, which had been scheduled to premiere in theaters nationwide in early April. Jeff's decision regarding the Trolls distribution strategy would not only impact the sequel's performance but would also likely have a far-reaching impact on the entire film industry, which had seen studios and theaters battle over the length of the theatrical window for decades. With the pandemic weakening the theater industry's bargaining power, had the opportunity finally arrived for film studios to significantly shorten, or even eradicate, the theatrical window?

Jeffrey Deitch is an influential gallery owner and art entrepreneur. An HBS alumnus generally credited with developing the field of bank art advisory and financing services, Deitch has had a storied career in both the commercial and non-profit art world. Wrestling with industry consolidation and rapidly changing consumer tastes, Deitch must decide on his next entrepreneurial venture in the arts.

The case examines an industry in decline as the emergence of new technologies is changing consumer behaviors and threatening to make the business obsolete. In 2018, the Hollywood film industry is facing tough headwinds. Fewer and fewer Americans are going to movie theaters, opting instead to watch movies on demand in the comfort of their own homes or on portable devices. Adam Aron, the head of the world's largest movie theater chain, AMC Entertainment, is employing an aggressive strategy to bolster the moviegoing experience by adding new amenities including plush reclining seats, reserved seating, and upscale food and beverage options. He is also placing a special emphasis on expansion overseas where the market is growing. Will his actions allow the company to successfully compete in a mature industry under assault by new digital competitors? With the growing popularity of entertainment subscription services like Netflix and Spotify, should AMC adopt a similar business model?

The (B) case describes how AMC reacted to the threat from the subscription service MoviePass and provides AMC's second quarter fiscal year 2018 results.

Economist and entrepreneur Magnus Resch was on a mission to make the art market more transparent. To that end, in 2014, he began building the Magnus app, which catalogued the price and transaction history of millions of works of art. Users could download the app, take a photo of any flat artwork, and the app would display that piece's price along with other pertinent information. Resch believed that such radical transparency would grow the small, rather insular, network of serious art collectors. By May 2018, the app had garnered strong user engagement, with over 10,000 new downloads per month. But Resch was not yet generating revenue from the Magnus app, which was free for users to download. The case explores Resch's options for monetizing the app, as well as the benefits and drawbacks of each option.

In May 2017, Hulu CEO Mike Hopkins announced the launch of Hulu Live TV, a new offering that would "change the way people experience TV." The new service would allow consumers to bypass traditional cable and satellite delivery and use the Internet to access live streams of more than 40 popular broadcast and cable networks along with Hulu's existing suite of on-demand programming. Priced at $39.99 per month, Hulu Live TV offered consumers a tremendous savings over traditional cable program packages and allowed subscribers to watch programs on Internet-connected televisions and a wide range of mobile devices. Hopkins also announced that the company would make a major push into the production of exclusive, original programming, one of the industry's most competitive areas. Hulu's new initiatives occurred during a major transformation in the TV industry as the Internet had revolutionized every aspect of the business. Industry observers wondered if Hulu could successfully compete against the entrenched cable, satellite, and telephone companies (known as Multichannel Video Programming Distributors, or MVPDs). Was $39.99 per month a sustainable price point for Hulu's new virtual MVPD (vMVPD)? How big a war chest would the company need to succeed in the original programming arena where competitors annually spent billions of dollars? Could Hulu navigate potential conflicts with the individual business plans of its owners: Comcast, 21st Century Fox, Disney, and Warner Bros., some of the most powerful companies in the entertainment business?

In August 2017, Cesar Conde, chairman of NBCUniversal International Group and NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises, considered how the Miami-based Spanish-language TV network Telemundo could succeed in a rapidly shifting media landscape. Over the past few years, Telemundo had prioritized high production value original programming and made significant gains on its Spanish-language rival Univision as well as the four biggest U.S. broadcasters. By 2017, Internet-distributed programming was competing for viewer attention, and Conde wondered how Telemundo could successfully maintain and attract viewers lured to new platforms. Despite the rapid growth in the size and buying power of the Hispanic market, many advertisers considered Spanish-language TV a niche marketing venue. How could Conde convince more advertisers that Telemundo was an effective way to reach this increasingly influential market?

Franklin Leonard founded The Black List in 2005 as an innovative approach to identifying potential hit movie scripts via crowdsourcing. As the annual Black List proved to hold the scripts of some of Hollywood's most successful films, from "Slumdog Millionaire" to "Spotlight," it became widely respected and highly anticipated throughout the industry. In 2012, Leonard uses the momentum to bring The Black List online as a database where unproduced screenplays can be reviewed and discovered by industry experts. Now in 2016, Leonard is considering other avenues for supporting great screenwriters, including launching a film fund to finance low-budget productions. He reflects on the movie-making business and on the numerous barriers to entry he may face in entering the competitive motion picture industry.

Wang Jianlin, founder and Chairman of the Dalian Wanda Group (Wanda) kept close tabs on one of his flagship projects going up on the shores of the Yellow Sea. There construction was underway on Wanda Studios Qingdao, the largest film and production facility in the world. The studio was a key initiative of Wang, a central player in the country's rapidly growing movie business. Wanda was already the largest theatrical exhibitor in the world, but the studio represented an enormous bet on a less familiar part of the value network of the film industry. Its vertically-integrated approach was also quite different from the Hollywood of today, which has evolved to a much more specialized division of labor.

In January 2015, superstar television creator Shonda Rhimes, whose production company ShondaLand dominates American television's most competitive and lucrative night with three shows in primetime on network ABC's Thursday night, is plotting the future. One challenge she faces is to, as she put it, "solve the problem of writing and producing serialized dramas for broadcast network television." What changes could she propose to ABC to make the creative process more manageable? A second challenge is to figure out how to further expand ShondaLand. How could Rhimes best build her portfolio and further cement ShondaLand's place in television history?

In March 2015, the U.S. television industry received a major wake-up call. HBO, a premium cable channel with over 30 million subscribers, had announced it would begin offering a standalone streaming service. This new service would allow customers to bypass the cable companies and get direct access to HBO's programming online. The announcement was followed closely by Brian Roberts, chief executive of the Comcast Corporation. Comcast was America's largest cable and internet service provider, having built a profitable business bundling television content and delivering it via cable networks to more than 20 million households. Broadcast and cable television was a $173 billion industry in the U.S., but the rise of on-demand and streaming services meant viewers had more options than ever before. What did developments such as HBO's new service mean for the future of Comcast, and for the industry overall?

This history of the U.S. tobacco controversy is a reading for a class on "The Insider," a film about whistleblowing in the U.S. tobacco industry, taught in the course, The Moral Leader.