Category: Commentary

Emily Horton (MBA ’23) leads with vulnerability. In this powerful essay, she shares a recent personal experience and draws out an important lesson for fellow HBS students.  Stories are messy. They are complicated. Everyone has one shaped by a series of inflection points, and each point comes with its own conflict. We make some choices… Continue reading Motorcycles and Nuns: Why Calls to Happiness Fail When Vocation is at Stake

Roger Shamel (MBA ’74) calls for Harvard leadership to take action on Climate Change Is the climate crisis real? Is it really that serious? Are urgent actions needed? What’s Harvard’s role?  Sadly, many members of the 400,000-strong Harvard community still don’t know the answers to these existential questions. More importantly, many don’t know that humankind… Continue reading Harvard Climate Leadership Still Lagging

20 years later, an MBA Class of 2000 graduate and former Harbus Opinion Page Editor finds more to say. Just over 20 years ago, during my two years at HBS, I was the Opinion Page Editor of the Harbus. Your current Editor-in-Chief, Upoma Dutta, during what I assume is a particularly busy school time that… Continue reading Wending My Way to Some Wisdom

Justin Crist Lee (MBA ’21) expands the scope of an education in business. We are told we live in unprecedented times. Today in our nation, we face an impending economic crisis, paired with ongoing concerns surrounding the future of our democracy. While each of these alone would seem a daunting challenge to tackle, these twin… Continue reading We Ought to Read the Classics

Aruna Ramkrishnan and Amrit Jalan (MBA ’22) reflect on the parallels between thermodynamic transformations and tough real-world Energy/Sustainability problems. Years ago, as budding chemical engineers, we learned about the concept of “transition energy.” It explains how changes in complex systems do not occur spontaneously even though the benefits may be obvious. Rather, these systems often… Continue reading The Energy Transition: A Slightly Nerdy Take on a Global Issue

In his column for the Harbus, Professor Trevor Fetter shares his thoughts on the issues facing HBS students. My intention in this column is to come up with something new and fresh every time, and I will try to deliver on that…going forward. Last month I wrote about the importance of observing examples of leadership… Continue reading Prepare for Your Turn in the Hot Seat; It May Come Sooner than You Think

Adam Palay (MBA ’21) raises questions about our collective responsibilities during a pandemic. Not long before school started, at my desk in my home office, I took a deep breath and clicked a button. I had just opted out of coming in-person to the hybrid courses I would take this term. It might seem like… Continue reading Personal and Public Risk in a Pandemic

Joe Bao (MBA ’20) writes on how western businesses became caught in the latest political crossfire in Hong Kong and how being an authentic leader might end up costing you your whole business. For many years, Milton Friedman’s “shareholder value” theory, that the first social responsibility of a company is to maximize shareholder profits, has… Continue reading Dancing with the Dragon: Lessons for Businesses Operating Far from Home

John Geagea (MBA ’21) takes a look at Lebanon’s past, present, and path forward. It is difficult to put into words how it feels to be Lebanese today. My head keeps coming back to this startling reality: somehow Covid-19 might have become the third most pressing issue that the country now faces. On August 4,… Continue reading Finding Hope in Lebanon

To celebrate the Mental Health Awareness Month, Ariam Tesfai (MBA ’20) reflects on the value of prompting vulnerability with tact. Oprah-style “aha” moments have colored my time at HBS. More recently, I have been working to collect and dissect my first- and second-year revelations. Some insights are clearer than others. One, however, is of crystal… Continue reading Vexing Requests for Vulnerability

Theodore Seem (MBA ’20) introduces the idea behind Outsiders Fund, an early-stage venture capital firm focused on identifying opportunities where technology will disrupt traditional, incumbent industries. The world of start-ups is complex. It is hard to organize and harder to analyze. But one simple way to look at the world is to sort companies into… Continue reading Focusing on Disruptive Innovation

Our generation will be called to lead a great American renewal. On January 26, 1986, addressing the United States in the wake of the deaths of seven astronauts aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger, President Ronald Reagan reminded the country, “The future doesn’t belong to the fainthearted; it belongs to the brave.” Today, as we face… Continue reading Leadership for a Changed World

In uncertain times, make deliberate choices, control what you can, and enjoy the moment. The changes, at HBS, the local community, and the world more broadly, in response to the pandemic are unnerving. It is a time of increased, and still increasing, uncertainty. Everyone is making unexpected new choices while reassessing decisions that we thought… Continue reading Lessons in Uncertainty

Taxes are valuable for shareholders’ and lenders’ pockets. Neglecting the importance of the public role in a company’s balance sheet is not a political ideology, it is an intellectual flaw. To those who need to keep revising for the final exams, here is what tax shield, a major FIN2 concept, actually is. A company is… Continue reading Tax Shield Is Capitalist Brainwashing

As you think about your next new year’s resolution, consider this small change, yet big statement, that can drive an incredible effect on our planet. “Did you ever stop to notice All the blood we’ve shed before Did you ever stop to notice This crying Earth, these weeping shores” — Michael Jackson, “Earth Song”  … Continue reading Have Mercy on the Babies