Marcus by Goldman Sachs marked a dramatic shift for the 150-year-old financial institution, which historically had served only businesses and the wealthiest people. The fintech startup operated within Goldman Sachs, offering unsecured personal loans for the mass market, high-yield deposits, and a credit card in partnership with Apple. Harvard Business School associate professor Rory McDonald discusses the challenges of launching and operating a startup within an established company in his case, “Marcus by Goldman Sachs.”

Georgia State University was facing a growing “summer melt” problem, where nearly 20 percent of incoming students never actually enrolled. The university used a data-based approach to retain students of all racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic backgrounds and help them graduate. Harvard Business School professor Mike Toffel and senior fellow Robin Mendelson discuss what the university learned about improving student success, while scaling its efforts to help other universities, in their case, “Student Success at Georgia State University.”

After decades of brain drain in rural America, Tulsa Remote is working to attract a diverse group of remote workers to live in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The program offers a $10,000 grant to remote workers and entrepreneurs living outside Oklahoma, who relocate to the state’s second largest city for one year – with the goal that they stay longer and truly engage in the community. Harvard Business School professor Prithwiraj “Raj” Choudhury discusses how the Tulsa Remote model provides workers the flexibility to move out of congested cities and explores the challenges in scaling this model throughout rural America and beyond, in his case, “Tulsa Remote: Moving Talent to Middle America.”

Harvard Business School professor Bill George discusses the role of cost cutting, regulatory pressure, and CEO succession in the two tragic plane crashes of the Boeing 737 Max. He examines the cultural shifts at Boeing, the role of the FAA, and the importance of leadership during a crisis.

Rubicon began with a bold idea: create a cloud-based, full-service waste management platform providing efficient service anywhere in the U.S. Their mobile app did for waste management what Uber had done for taxi service. Five years after the case’s publication, Harvard Business School associate professor Shai Bernstein and Rubicon founder and CEO Nate Morris discuss how the software startup leveraged technology to disrupt the waste industry and other enduring lessons of professor Bill Sahlman’s case about Rubicon.

Guild Education is an education marketplace that connects employers and universities to provide employees with “education as a benefit.” The Denver-based company is transforming traditional tuition-assistance programs by facilitating direct payment by the employer to the academic institution and by supporting students with coaching and advising. Now CEO and co-founder Rachel Carlson must decide how to manage the company’s future growth. Should she focus on expanding Guild’s core education marketplace, or extend the business model to include the career placement market? Harvard Business School professor Bill Sahlman discusses this unique start-up and Carlson’s plans for its growth in his case, “Guild Education: Unlocking Opportunity for America’s Workforce.“

In 2000, Rohit Gera turned his family’s boutique real estate development firm in Pune, India, into a dynamic innovator in housing solutions for urban Indian families. Today Gera Developments stands at a crossroads, with Gera planning the end of his managerial career. How should the family think about scaling the business? And, should the company seek a successor to lead those efforts from inside or outside the family? Senior Lecturer Christina Wing and case protagonist Rohit Gera discuss the family business and the crucial decisions it faces in the case, “Gera Developments: Leadership at a Crossroads.”

Survivors of the 1921 Tulsa Massacre and their descendants believe historic social injustices should be addressed through reparations. Harvard Business School professor Mihir Desai discusses the arguments for and against reparations in response to the Tulsa Massacre and, more broadly, to the effects of slavery and racist government policies in the U.S. in his case, “The Tulsa Massacre and the Call for Reparations.”

The late 20th century saw dramatic growth in incarceration rates in the United States. Of the more than 2.3 million people in U.S. prisons, jails, and detention centers in 2020, 60 percent were Black or Latinx. Harvard Business School assistant professor Reshmaan Hussam probes the assumptions underlying the current prison system, with its huge racial disparities, and considers what could be done to address the crisis of the American criminal justice system in her case, “Race and Mass Incarceration in the United States.”

As the first Black female factory manager to lead a John Deere plant, Rosalind Fox must figure out how to build relationships with her staff, who are mostly white men. Harvard Business School senior lecturer Tony Mayo discusses the pressure on Fox to assimilate into the dominant culture, her decision to lean into her authentic self, and the deep connection between employee engagement and authenticity in his case, “Rosalind Fox at John Deere.”