Founded in 2010, Worldreader was an international nonprofit organization that promoted reading to children around the world. For many years, Worldreader distributed e-readers to under-resourced communities and funded its operations primarily through philanthropic donations. In 2019, Worldreader launched the BookSmart mobile reading application, and soon thereafter came the idea of a new, self-perpetuating funding structure: the "flywheel." .....more

More and more companies are relying on pricing algorithms to maximize profits. The use of artificial intelligence and machine learning enables real-time price adjustments based on supply and demand, competitors'' activities, delivery schedules, and so forth. But constant price shifts have a downside: They may trigger unfavorable perceptions of a firm''s offerings and its brand. It''s vital, therefore, to understand and manage .....more

Although power is essential to taking charge and driving change, it makes leaders vulnerable to two traps that can not only erode their own effectiveness but also undermine their team''s. Hubris--the excessive pride and self-confidence that can come with power--causes people to greatly overestimate their own abilities, while self-focus makes them less attentive to subordinates, diminishing their ability to lead successfully. The authors offer .....more

The renowned tennis player reflects on founding the Women''s Tennis Association Tour, being outed as gay, her work to make tennis diverse, and more.

First Place Winner; DEI Global Case Writing Competition. With Johnnie Cochran Jr. and John Wooten, civil rights attorney Cyrus Mehri formed the Fritz Pollard Alliance to advocate for National Football League coaches of color. Their efforts resulted in the NFL adopting the Rooney Rule prior to the 2003 NFL season in order to increase representation of coaches of color in the head coaching ranks. Subsequently, Mehri lobbied the NFL to improve the rule .....more

In 2020, just after closing a $34 million Series B financing round, Dave Salvant and Songe LaRon consider how to adjust their business, Squire Technologies, to the new realities posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Their barbershop technology, including tools to run a shop and a mobile app for customers was growing swiftly, but with nearly all barbershops shut down to prevent the spread of the disease and no revenue coming in, should they cut back, or .....more

Set in September 2020, the case talks about marketing an accessible (affordable) luxury watch brand, ''August Berg'', by a luxury-product distribution company, Norbreeze, based in Singapore. The company''s founder, Anders Peter Juel Sauerberg, was sceptical about the launch of a new collection of the watch brand, as it had seen limited sales in one year since its inception. Sauerberg had set up a kiosk store of the brand in .....more

Special purpose acquisition companies, or SPACs, have been around in various forms for decades, but during the past two years they''ve taken off in the United States. In 2019, 59 were created, with $13 billion invested; in 2020, 247 were created, with $80 billion invested; and in the first quarter of 2021 alone, 295 were created, with $96 billion invested. In 2020, SPACs accounted for more than 50% of new publicly listed U.S. companies. SPACs .....more

Chicanery is common in the start-up world: With so much at stake, founders are apt to exaggerate, obfuscate, and otherwise stretch the truth when courting investors and other important stakeholders. Such deception locks up resources by prolonging the life of doomed ventures and makes it hard for VCs and employees to know where best to invest their money or labor. It also exacts a personal toll on founders themselves. The authors take a multidisciplinary .....more

The former Xerox CEO Ursula Burns, whose life journey began in a Manhattan tenement, is an outspoken champion of inclusive capitalism and racial equity--themes that animate her just-published memoir, "Where You Are Is Not Who You Are." In this conversation with HBR''s editor in chief, she talks about good leadership in a multistakeholder world, income inequality, battling an activist investor, how being both Black and female affected .....more