Vignettes for the Fall

Jake Goodman (MBA ‘26) shares his musings as the leaves turn.

The Madness Going on At Berry Line

I am writing this letter to the Harvard Business School community to express my outrage over an issue of massive proportion affecting the broader Harvard, and dare I say Cambridge, community. When I moved within a few blocks of Berryline, I was overjoyed to have accessible, high-quality frozen yogurt from a local business within walking distance. On move-in day on September 1st, a rightfully infamous day of irate U-Haul commotion, I sought to punctuate my move to Cambridge with a delightful visit to Berryline. Needless to say, I was stunned by the massive line that had congregated down Arrow Street. A snake’s tail of students extended out of the all-too-small entryway to Berryline, moving at an merciless throughput time of one to three students every few minutes. 

After 20 minutes of waiting in line with little progress made, I abandoned my quest for froyo, opting to get my treat “another night.” Little did I know that I would be continuously stymied by a line of nearly identical length at any hour past 6 p.m. Is the froyo boom back? Do I have to relegate my visits to odd hours of the day in which froyo seems utterly unreasonable to get? I face these challenges, and I know I do not face them alone. I am concerned. I am upset. I am writing a letter to an esteemed newspaper to bring attention to the matter. Please, my fellow Crimsons: do not turn the procurement of, need I say again, accessible, high-quality frozen yogurt into our community’s Crimson-ite. Stagger your cravings for yogurt in its frozen form. We shall all be better off.

The Business of Eyeballs

Prior to business school, I had frequently heard of advertising being deduced to a singular bodily organ: the eyeball. “We don’t have enough eyeballs to justify these CACs.” “Need more eyeballs.” “Eyeballs, not clicks.” Does RC Marketing teach us enough about these magic organs? The logic of ads is that there isn’t even a human being behind the perception; there is the eyeball, and the soul stops there.

In this essay, I will conjecture that modern corporate strategy is pivoting towards the disintermediation of the eyeball from the rest of the face and body to the extent that eyeballs are floating machines that gobble visual stimuli, namely ads. I, as the essayist, am but one of a legion of floating eyeballs creating customer acquisition costs wherever I shall roam.

Yeah, I’m An EC

I get to elect my curriculum and you don’t! I can add, I can drop, I can jointly drop and add. There’s things I can do that you’ve never dreamed of. I can complete a project independently on my lonesome in lands where participation means nothing to me. I can be an organism that lives outside of my measly section. I can co-mingle among other non-sectionists. Yeah, I’m an EC.

Oh yeah, I can give advice, uh-huh. I can tell you what’s not worth it. You want to plan a conference? Oh, you silly little innocent sheep. You want to go on that trek? I know the ways and secrets of the shadow traveler, the one whose mysterious cloak drags across continents. I know the events that surrender the sweet nectar of free dinner. I know how to reserve a Shad locker so that my precious gym shoes remain locked away in the mighty ventricles of the locker room. I’ve sprinted on weekends and SIPped in January. What about Boston winter? I’ve got that under my belt. I can comment on snow and debate geographies. I can tell my non-U.S. sectionmates all about that Fahrenheit thing and who knows, maybe even defend it. I can say that I thought about a ski trip but never pulled the trigger. Oh yeah, that’s right, uh-huh. I’m an EC.

Heard of the cranberries? I know cycle time. Yeah, I can count. I can go into any restaurant and diagnose if its operating model aligns with its business objectives. I go into Spangler with an intuitive spidey sense of what combination of cold and hot bar items will result in an approximate $13 of total enterprise value of my lunch. I know the ways of the Oasis and Froyo Friday specials at The Grille. I can barely even eat lunch because my schedule is so back-to-back, oof. I carry my name tag with me; my name can’t be left behind. I bring my legacy and my participation points to every class. I’m mobile, and I sit with my sectionmates even though the section experience is behind me. The section experience is for babies, and my diaper is gone. Yeah, umph, I’m an EC, check, check, umph.

Yeah, I’ll be ready to graduate come May. And, oh yeah, I’ve got my life figured out to a big ole T. You wouldn’t know it, but every little detail is planned. I’ve planned every meal for the next 365 days after graduation, and my calendar is packed with very obvious and clear-to-me career-related events. Indecision? ECs don’t know what that is. Yeah, guess I’m still an EC, can’t shake that.

A New Year

L’Shana Tova to all the Jews at HBS and beyond. Wishing a happy new year and a great semester to all those who celebrate.

Jake Goodman (MBA ’26) is originally from Davie, Florida. He graduated from Brown University with an honors degree in English and Economics in 2019. Prior to HBS, Jake worked in corporate development, strategic finance, and retail strategy and operations at Gopuff, a rapid convenience app, in Miami, and for Barclays in New York City. He is an avid banjo and guitar player and misses the Florida sun dearly.