This case introduces students to Sandy Kurtzig, the founder and CEO of the ASK software company, and the first woman to take a Silicon Valley tech company public. It gives a brief background of the protagonist and then presents students with 4 different dilemmas from Kurtzig's experiences as an entrepreneur and investor.
After selling SeaMicro, Inc. to AMD, in 2012, Andrew Feldman started a process he called "lightly sifting", trying to stay updated on the ideas and businesses being built in Silicon Valley. Eventually, he started spending more and more time with four of his former colleagues from SeaMicro: Gary Lauterbach, Michael James, J.P. Fricker, and Sean Lie. The casual conversations quickly evolved to regular ideation sessions in which the group discussed and tried to find an idea that would allow them to "do something big." In March 2016, after a few months of ideation, the team stumbled on an idea that was as exciting as it was risky: a computer chip that would be 60 times bigger than the biggest chip ever made, specialized in machine learning. "It is the most audacious hardware product that most people have ever seen," Feldman explained at the time. Now, it was time to decide: Should they pursue the business concept?
The Katerra case takes a deep dive into the opportunities to leverage disruptive technology in the global construction industry. The case analyzes the history of Katerra, a technology-driven offsite construction company and walks through each of the company's major strengths and opportunities.
In the #MeToo era, allegations of sexual assault and sexual misconduct pose difficult issues for employers, particularly when allegations surface about incidents that occurred prior to an employee's term at the company. This case, fictionalized but based on real events, centers on the challenge that the founder of a biotech company faces when he receives an email alleging that a new employee (male) raped an acquaintance prior to joining his firm. This case brings up questions of how to deal with the person lodging the allegation, the employee concerned, other employees who become aware of the allegation, police, human resources and legal players.
Supplement to case SM299A. In the #MeToo era, allegations of sexual assault and sexual misconduct pose difficult issues for employers, particularly when allegations surface about incidents that occurred prior to an employee's term at the company. This case, fictionalized but based on real events, centers on the challenge that the founder of a biotech company faces when he receives an email alleging that a new employee (male) raped an acquaintance prior to joining his firm. This case brings up questions of how to deal with the person lodging the allegation, the employee concerned, other employees who become aware of the allegation, police, human resources and legal players.
Supplement to case SM299A. In the #MeToo era, allegations of sexual assault and sexual misconduct pose difficult issues for employers, particularly when allegations surface about incidents that occurred prior to an employee's term at the company. This case, fictionalized but based on real events, centers on the challenge that the founder of a biotech company faces when he receives an email alleging that a new employee (male) raped an acquaintance prior to joining his firm. This case brings up questions of how to deal with the person lodging the allegation, the employee concerned, other employees who become aware of the allegation, police, human resources and legal players.
Supplement to case SM299A. In the #MeToo era, allegations of sexual assault and sexual misconduct pose difficult issues for employers, particularly when allegations surface about incidents that occurred prior to an employee's term at the company. This case, fictionalized but based on real events, centers on the challenge that the founder of a biotech company faces when he receives an email alleging that a new employee (male) raped an acquaintance prior to joining his firm. This case brings up questions of how to deal with the person lodging the allegation, the employee concerned, other employees who become aware of the allegation, police, human resources and legal players.
Clover Network's founders didn't see the curveball coming at the end of 2012. The two-year-old start-up had just nine employees. It had dumped its first business idea, pivoted from its second, and was working hard on a new product: a tablet-based cash register with built-in credit card processing. Large credit card payment processing companies had started noticing Clover and one had just agreed to pre-order $2 million of Clover hardware. It was Clover's first such deal. But around Thanksgiving, Clover learned that First Data-the card processing industry's 800-pound gorilla-also was interested in Clover's technology. If it could bring First Data on as a customer, Clover would have a pipeline to a huge number of retailers. In early December, one of Clover's founders received a 2½-page letter from First Data. He had expected a proposal to buy and distribute Clover equipment, maybe with a small equity investment. Instead, First Data said it wanted to acquire "no less than 75 percent" of Clover, and close the deal by December 31. Was it time to sell Clover? The case highlights how a start-up decides to respond to an unexpected buyout offer and how it proposes to structure the deal.
Clover Network's founders didn't see the curveball coming at the end of 2012. The two-year-old start-up had just nine employees. It had dumped its first business idea, pivoted from its second, and was working hard on a new product: a tablet-based cash register with built-in credit card processing. Large credit card payment processing companies had started noticing Clover and one had just agreed to pre-order $2 million of Clover hardware. It was Clover's first such deal. But around Thanksgiving, Clover learned that First Data-the card processing industry's 800-pound gorilla-also was interested in Clover's technology. If it could bring First Data on as a customer, Clover would have a pipeline to a huge number of retailers. In early December, one of Clover's founders received a 2½-page letter from First Data. He had expected a proposal to buy and distribute Clover equipment, maybe with a small equity investment. Instead, First Data said it wanted to acquire "no less than 75 percent" of Clover, and close the deal by December 31. Was it time to sell Clover? The case highlights how a start-up decides to respond to an unexpected buyout offer and how it proposes to structure the deal.
This case explores the rise and fall of Nebula Inc., a company that industry experts had originally predicted would become the market leader in the hybrid cloud computing market. In its early days, Nebula seemed like a guaranteed success-the founding team included Chris Kemp, who helped start OpenStack (an open source cloud computing project) during his time at NASA. Top-tier angel and VC investors, including Ted Schlein (Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers), Andy Bechtolsheim, and Ram Shriram, backed the company from its onset, and the private cloud computing space appeared to be a hot early-stage market. Nebula launched the first version of its product in the spring of 2013 to great fanfare. Pent-up excitement about the underlying technology contributed to approximately $1 million in first quarter revenue. Management was thrilled and thought they were the ones who had finally cracked the hybrid cloud market. However, sales soon began to slow, and many chose to go with competing and older solutions they understood. Through the eyes of Chris Kemp and Gordon Stitt, this case examines how such a hot company, led by founders with impressive backgrounds and supported by some of the most noteworthy investors in Silicon Valley, got lost on its path to success.
Blue River Technology begins with background on company co-founder Jorge Heraud and the founding story of the enterprise. Blue River was created by Heraud and co-founder Lee Redden, who were both graduate students at Stanford University when they began exploring commercial opportunities for autonomous vehicles employing computer vision technology. The co-founders decided to focus on agricultural applications, with lettuce thinning as an initial target service and larger global row crops as an aspirational goal. The case challenges students to first think through the possible business models that Blue River (BR) could use to serve its target marketplace(s). Then the case walks students through BR's early discussions with Khosla Ventures (KV), a Silicon Valley venture capital firm. KV has a divergent view on how BR should grow and tackle marketplace opportunities, and at the end of the case, Heraud and Redden face a series of decisions as to how they should engage KV and make optimal financing decisions for the business.
This case, GSB No. E-459, explores the SeaMicro CEO's decision of whether or not to sell the company in early 2012. SeaMicro, a developer of low-power servers, has risen quickly as an innovative and significant force in a server market dominated by giants, including HP and Dell. In the fall of 2011, the company is approached by AMD, the industry's second largest microprocessor manufacturer behind Intel. AMD has faced challenging times in the recent past and is looking to acquire SeaMicro as a way to reinvent itself and establish a leadership position in the rapidly growing cloud computing space. Andrew Feldman, SeaMicro's CEO, must consider the implications of his decision to sell in the context of a variety of factors including his fiduciary duty to his investors and employees, other strategic opportunities with the likes of Dell, Samsung and ARM, and his own future.
John Beck, CEO of LightSpeed Computers, is seeking $10 million in venture capital financing to get his company off the ground after its initial seed funding. In Parts A through C, John faces a number of challenging scenarios, starting with the request from a prestigious Silicon Valley VC to hold off on closing a deal for four weeks to give him time to conduct due diligence. John later receives term sheets from other, smaller VCs and must decide whether to move forward or stand by his original commitment. Later, he must choose between two attractive but economically different deals.
John Beck, CEO of LightSpeed Computers, is seeking $10 million in venture capital financing to get his company off the ground after its initial seed funding. In Parts A through C, John faces a number of challenging scenarios, starting with the request from a prestigious Silicon Valley VC to hold off on closing a deal for four weeks to give him time to conduct due diligence. John later receives term sheets from other, smaller VCs and must decide whether to move forward or stand by his original commitment. Later, he must choose between two attractive but economically different deals.
John Beck, CEO of LightSpeed Computers, is seeking $10 million in venture capital financing to get his company off the ground after its initial seed funding. In Parts A through C, John faces a number of challenging scenarios, starting with the request from a prestigious Silicon Valley VC to hold off on closing a deal for four weeks to give him time to conduct due diligence. John later receives term sheets from other, smaller VCs and must decide whether to move forward or stand by his original commitment. Later, he must choose between two attractive but economically different deals.