Jess Williams’ (MBA ‘26) journey from South Dakota to HBS. As all of us learned during START week, students at HBS come from an almost unbelievable variety of backgrounds. My own section included classmates from 25 countries who collectively spoke 33 languages, and hallmark events like Flag Day reinforce the truly global nature of this place. This isn’t by accident. The admissions process intentionally solves for this, prioritizing unique experiences, geographic diversity, an

Dawn arrives for a new, yet old, American populism. America’s newest tribunes make for an unlikely pair. One of them built a career on the story of his origins. From Appalachia, he scaled the ladder that America keeps insisting still exists. Up, up he climbed, past the Marines, Ohio State, Yale Law, a bestselling memoir, and the Senate. The improbable final rung delivered him into the White House. Along the way, he accumulated patrons — professors, politicos, billionaires, a

How CPG brands launch, test, and learn in real time. In a pivotal case that could reshape the nation’s electoral landscape, the Supreme Court is set to decide whether Louisiana’s newly drawn congressional map — crafted to amplify voting power — crosses a constitutional line by prioritizing race over neutral redistricting principles. The paradox at the heart of this legal showdown — ensuring fair representation while avoiding racial gerrymandering — has the nation holding its

How CPG brands launch, test, and learn in real time. Every December, grocery aisles and online carts transform into test markets disguised as celebrations. Shelves fill with limited-edition packaging, seasonal flavors, and giftable product bundles all designed not only to capture holiday excitement but to generate priceless data. For consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies, the holidays are no longer just the biggest sales moment of the year; they are a strategic laboratory f

Opportunity begins when children have agency abundance. This year, the Cato Institute and YouGov found that   62%  of Americans under 30 view socialism favorably. Less than a decade ago, that figure was nearly 20 percentage points lower at 43% . The median age of a first-time homebuyer today is 40 years old . A current total of $1.8 trillion in student debt has expanded balance sheets more than opportunity. “Affordability,” the political buzzword of 2025, is emblematic of our

Many of you have likely come across David Epstein’s Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World . Epstein argues that, in an era that rewards adaptability, breadth of thought, and cross-domain synthesis, generalists often find creative solutions that specialists might overlook. But in a world increasingly shaped by AI, where specialized models outperform humans in narrow domains, and expertise can be outsourced to algorithms, what happens to the generalist edge? Thi

Jake Goodman (MBA ‘26) shares his musings as the leaves turn. Oh boy, by golly, deck the halls, it’s time to pontificate. I’m ready to make the argument that you don’t need to have passion for your career path. First, I will chart the history of career passion as a modern bourgeois phenomenon driven by the entanglement of the means of production with a consumerism that is obsessed with seeing the worker in the things consumed. Second, I will write a series of paragraphs that

As HBS students, we know how to dress for interviews and parties. But in the halls of Shad, our fashion instincts are tested. How do you project effortless cool and  Fortune 500 CEO potential with workout clothes? For context, I was diagnosed as fashionably challenged at age 10 (please clap) after wearing Velcro sneakers with flashing lights to the rec-center dance. Since then, I’ve sought to better understand my disability by observing the fashionably gifted. After years of

It’s not you. It’s all of us. Member 1 : Hey. Member 2 : Hi. Member 3 : Hello. Member 4 : I’m sorry for being late. I overslept. Should we start with FIN 1 today? Member 5 : Sorry I was also late. I was pitching my AI startup to a VC in London, and the call went over because we were riffing on API infrastructure. Member 6 : Me, too. Not the call part, but the remorse part. I was thinking hard about the best way to put this. Here goes. I can’t come to these anymore. Member 3 :

In the age of AI, the world belongs to the builders. In 2011, Marc Andreessen wrote that “software is eating the world.” 14 years later, that line feels less like a prediction and more like a prologue, the opening chapter of a story that was only beginning to unfold. Software never finished eating the world. AI simply arrived with two forks and a much bigger appetite. We are now in the early innings of a technological revolution: an era where agents write code, AI absorbs ent

After a long night of too many drinks of Founders Mindset and Essays  by Paul Graham, I woke up with the following question: for what are early-stage VC firms really looking? LinkedIn is overflowing with posts insisting that you must have everything figured out before you build anything: a clearly defined problem, a big enough market, the perfect team, a plan to scale fast, metrics proving your solution works, a moat to defend it, a sustainable business model, an efficient di

A Christian response to wealth fixation. Harvard Business School has a money problem. Unlike the 99.99999% of humans throughout history, HBS grads will have far more money than they need for daily survival over the course of their careers. This change in circumstances, though far better in many respects, also means we are susceptible to an unhealthy fascination with riches. Before I lose any more readers, I want to assuage your fears: this is not an article critiquing wealth

What do we say about our pop-culture stereotype as heartless mercenaries, and also to the mirror? While prowling through Spangler after hours late one evening a few weeks ago, I saw a poster for an SAS-organized talk that made me pause: “Building and Maintaining Relationships at HBS,” a panel by EC students sharing insights on how to make “authentic and meaningful friendships” at HBS. The dystopic idea that a group of late twenty-somethings needed to be taught how to make fri

If you told me five years ago that I’d end up pursuing an MBA, I would have laughed. Then cried. Then cried again at the realization that there would be accounting exams. My parents, on the other hand, probably saw this coming from a mile away. Both MBA grads themselves (yes, Columbia and  Booth, so I never really had a chance), they were playing the long game. I was the only one who didn’t know I had been cast as the protagonist of a 24-year prequel titled Business School: I