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Few come to HBS with the intention of pursuing a career in cannabis. But that won’t be true for long. Recent changes in the regulatory landscape have opened tremendous new market opportunities. Today 10 states and the District of Columbia have legalized recreational adult-use cannabis, and a total of 33 states have legalized medical use. The majority of the American population lives in a state where cannabis is legal in some form. The States Act currently being contemplated has the potential to encourage even further state-level legalization. A wave of new cultivators, manufacturers, distributors, and retailers have emerged to capitalize upon this opportunity. This still nascent industry has already minted a new class of billionaires, with several companies listed on Canadian stock exchanges already enjoying multi-billion-dollar market caps.

For Dan Reid (Old Section A), living in California, a state where medical cannabis use has been legal for the last 20 years, prior to HBS meant being exposed to cannabis on a near-daily basis. Whether he was enjoying a sunset in San Francisco’s Dolores Park or a pseudo-hike in LA’s Runyon Canyon, the unmistakable smell of cannabis permeated the air. Still, that doesn’t mean it’s a viable career path. Or so he thought. The lightbulb went off for Dan during RC year after he had the same conversation with many classmates: being at HBS provides the opportunity to do anything, to reinvent yourself regardless of your previous skillset, so what will be the next major high-growth industry of our time? How can we “ride a wave” or “time a 10-year secular growth cycle,” depending on your affinity for finance jargon?

On the last day of Mark Roberge’s TEM class, his parting advice implored students to consider entering industries expected to grow significantly over their careers. The experience could be life-changing. Mark mentioned AI and robotics as possible choices. Dan’s mind went in a different direction, but the lesson was well received. Dan decided to pursue an internship in cannabis with the goal of working in the industry full time.

Few industries exhibit the level of growth at a scale that cannabis will undergo over the next few years. Markets with sustained, multi-year compound annual growth rates of 25% to 35% even after they reach and exceed the $8 billion to $10 billion range are hard to find across any period of time. It’s a comparable set populated with the likes of cable TV and broadband internet.

Despite the attractive market dynamics, HBS had yet to develop the infrastructure to nurture an interest in the industry. There was only one internship posting on CPD. No conferences to meet relevant executives. No forum to network with other interested students.

Jack Ambridge (Old Section F), Drew Johnson (Old Section F), and Dan started the Business of Cannabis Club and serve as co-presidents to address exactly this need. Joined by founding members Sasha Slayton (New Section A) and Anthony Tayoun (Old Section F), the Club aims to provide interested students with all the same opportunities enjoyed by HBS students pursuing careers in other industries. Many other top-tier universities have already embraced this trend. Wharton, Stanford, and Yale already had cannabis clubs. Why not us?

To that end, we’ve put together a compelling speaker series for the rest of the semester. Our goal is to bring a combination of investors, operators, legal experts, and regulators to campus. We’re also in early discussions with a Massachusetts-based operator about a potential tour of the facility. That we have had engagement from some of the biggest names in the industry is a testament to the power of the HBS brand.

The Club had its first speakers visit in February. Emily and Morgan Paxhia, sibling co-founders of Poseidon Asset Management, gave a presentation and networked with students afterward. Poseidon was one of the first (if not the first) pioneers in cannabis venture capital and remains one of the preeminent investors in the space. In addition to a great presentation and a generous donation of her time, Emily also brought representatives from portfolio companies interested in hiring HBS students. Other portfolio companies have since reached out to us with a list of job openings. One of the Club’s goals is to act as a liaison between companies looking to hire MBAs and students keen to enter the space, and we couldn’t be happier with this early traction.

Cannabis has been a wildly popular product for thousands of years, and the end of prohibition in the United States will only act as gasoline on the fire. Big Tobacco (Altria) and Big Alcohol (Constellation Brands) have made multi-billion-dollar investments in cannabis because they know it’s mainstreaming and normalization is here to stay. And they are right to fear for their core businesses. Alcohol has maintained its dominance in the economy because of its status as one of the few legal drugs. Cannabis provides a calorie-free, hangover-free alternative that’s less addictive than coffee or sugar. Unlike alcohol, users can’t overdose. And cannabis usage isn’t strongly linked to violence, domestic abuse, or depression, as alcohol is.

Whether you approve or not, cannabis will grow into one of the biggest consumer products of your lifetime. Analyst forecasts for eventual steady-state market sizes are egregiously wide, ranging from $125 billion to $300 billion. For students interested in learning more, we want to serve as a resource. For those looking to join the party, we hope we can help you get there.

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Dan Reid (MBA ’19) split his childhood between London, Germany, and Atlanta before attending Georgetown University. Dan lived in California for six years prior to HBS, where he worked in investment banking, in venture capital, and at Netflix. Dan enjoys travel, camping, Phish concerts, and Bernese Mountain Dogs.

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On February 23, over 1,000 attendees gathered on campus for the 28th annual Dynamic Women in Business Conference, hosted by the Women’s Student Association. This year’s theme, “Our Mosaic: Stronger as We,” aimed to celebrate disparate stories and backgrounds and explore ways in which business leaders can actively and intentionally leverage diversity to drive success. The conference featured four keynote presentations and 20 panels, focused on themes as varied as “Work/Life Balance,” “Impacting Investing,” “Diversity in the Great Outdoors,” and “Design: Creativity, Impact, Production.”

“I’ve come to a number of the WSA conferences and this year I felt like the topics of the panels were more diverse,” remarked attendee Moha Shah, who manages innovation initiatives at Liberty Mutual. The conference’s 120 speakers shared personal and professional anecdotes, inciting discussions that feel more critical than ever.

Despite being the most diverse class in history, only 21% of the current U.S. Congress are female, and only 11% are women of color. In 2017, an ABC News-Washington Post poll found that more than half of American women have experienced “unwanted and inappropriate sexual advances.” At its current rate, the gender pay gap will take over 200 years to close. In so many arenas, progress has stalled, leaving significant gains on the table; research repeatedly shows that diverse teams outperform homogeneous ones. But far too often, hiring and promotion are exercises in pattern-matching. When marginalized populations are denied opportunities to demonstrate success, subsequent candidates face a systematic disadvantage.

Some speakers offered practical advice. On the Emerging Tech panel, Dara Treseder, CMO of Carbon, and Andrea Coravos, CEO of Elektra Labs, reflected on hiring practices. “If you have an open role, keep the list of requirements short,” remarked Coravos (MBA ’17). Too often, added Treseder, “women will apply if they check nine-and-a-half boxes. Men will apply if they check five.” A small consideration of language can translate to a big impact on hiring.

Across sessions, several speakers emphasized the importance of conviction and fearlessness in pursuit of growth and opportunity. In evaluating personal and professional choices, “the difference for me is when I make a decision out of confidence versus a decision out of fear,” stated Coravos. Keynote speaker Shan-Lyn Ma, CEO of Zola, reflected on the trepidation she felt in evolving from a product leader to a general manager in earlier jobs. During the transition she sought guidance from mentors. “The best advice I got,” she said, “is this: ‘[Mess] it up. Get over it. Whatever you don’t know how to do, find someone who does, and ask them.’” The simplicity of the message inspired boldness in her ensuing career decisions.

Other panelists highlighted the significance of paying it forward. “These days, I don’t go to meetings without bringing someone who wasn’t invited,” said Natalie Neilson Edwards, Global Director of Inclusion and Diversity at the Estée Lauder Companies, during the Beauty in Diversity panel. Invoking congresswoman Shirley Chisholm’s remark, “if they don’t give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair,” Edwards continued: “reach behind you and invite people in,” but never neglect to “pound on the door with a folding chair.”

Coordinating an event of this scale is no small feat, but the conference organizers embodied the ethos espoused by the day overall: that a team is best-positioned to deliver exceptional results when complementary strengths converge. “Much like running a company or launching a startup, it 100% depends on the team. As much as this was a challenging role, I loved my team so much that I’d absolutely do it again. By the end, we could read each other’s minds,” remarked Sarah Scalia, conference chair and member of the class of 2019.

The WSA concluded the weekend with the announcement of next year’s co-presidents, Sophia Clementi and Catie O’Sullivan, class of 2020.

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Emily Batt (MBA ’20) is a joint MS/MBA student with the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. She was previously a design engineer and product manager in hardware and software technology companies. She was trained as a physicist, loves the arts, and always has too many tabs open.

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In class last week, a wrap-up slide mentioned “socialism” as a rising world trend, and when the professor offhandedly said “though I’m sure there are none in this classroom,” all eyes turned toward my co-founder and me. A chance political discussion during our section’s Fall retreat led to the formation of the Socialist Society, an aspiring student club at HBS. Reactions to our group have ranged from a surprising show of support from allies and skeptics alike to a good-natured barrage of jokes at our expense. The majority use the misconception that socialists believe everything should be free as their punchline. But the most common reaction has been curious students asking “What is Socialism?”

While the word is often used as an insult in the United States, it is actually the name of ruling parties in dozens of countries—countries far removed from the scary thoughts about Soviet times. Modern socialism is not about destroying capitalism; it is all about correcting its inefficiencies, and fighting poverty and inequality. Developed countries now produce more wealth than at any time in human history, yet many cannot afford healthcare, education, or safety. Socialism is about an extended vision of human rights that captures not only private property, but the right to not fear for the future, to not have outcomes determined by the social statuses of one’s parents, and to live in decent conditions. Socialism seeks to build a sustainable and peaceful society that benefits everyone: a society that is not able to take care of its people cannot last. To many socialists in the United States this means bringing this country closer to the European welfare model. To some socialists in Europe it may mean bringing their nations further along, whether through universal basic income, an expansion of the welfare state to marginalized refugee communities, or countless other proposals.

We started the Socialist Society with the belief that the HBS community could benefit from grappling with many of the ideas central to the socialist movement. Each of our meetings has been attended by a mix of students across a range of beliefs, from adherents to critics of the socialist model. What we aim to do is to build a space where students can discuss and question the underlying premise of the system we came to HBS to study. Where we can develop new beliefs about society through debate. The Socialist Society does not aim to be activist or to promote a vision of the world. The club seeks to ask questions rather than provide any single answer and to promote the notion that most socialist ideas are on a spectrum not far from nor incompatible with modern-day capitalism.

Take, for example, the question of whether or not the state should be responsible for providing quality healthcare to all citizens regardless of one’s ability to pay. Even in our current “free-market, capitalist” system any citizen who walks off the street into an emergency room with life threatening conditions will be provided a trained and licensed physician paid for by the state. The question at hand is whether or not this obligation of care should be extended to citizens before their life is in danger. Another question is whether providing universal comprehensive coverage could actually be more affordable to the state than the current model. Citizens in the United States spend approximately twice on a per-person basis compared to peer countries in the European Union.

Not all socialist ideas require an expansion of the state or even the tax base to be realized. They simply require a re-examination of our moral priorities as a species. The United States spends more on national defense than China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, India, Japan, the United Kingdom, and France combined—more than half of all discretionary funding, and that figure does not include war appropriations. This money, appropriately reconsidered, could achieve much of what socialists in the United States are championing without taking a single private jet out of the hands of the billionaire class.

For anyone who is interested in making a positive difference in the world and thinking about the future of healthcare, education, democracy, and public policy further regardless of political orientation, it would be great if you would join us next Tuesday, March 12, at 8:00 PM in the Morris Hall common room and share some good times together around a glass of “socialist wine” and “capitalist food”—for free, of course!

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Ryan Lynch (MBA ’20) is originally from Massachusetts and graduated from New York University in 2013. Prior to HBS he worked as a Logistics Officer in the United States Army in Tennessee.

Benjamin Dupays (MBA ’20) grew up in France and holds a degree from Sciences Po Paris. Prior to HBS, he started Centimeo, a social venture focused on recycling useless pennies in the economy through chewing-gum vending machines.

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HBS Show’s Executive Producer Brooke Biederman (MBA ’19) talks with Executive Director Savannah Greene (MBA ’19) about her directing style, insider details from the rehearsal rooms, and the storied show’s first performance in the new Klarman Hall.

“HBS Show is one of our most important traditions. It gives us a chance to laugh at ourselves, and reminds us that even though we may not come from similar backgrounds, we now have a shared set of experiences that connect us,” Greene says. She is talking about No Clue: The Case You Can’t Prepare For, which she directs at the new Klarman Hall next week.

No Clue pokes fun at various aspects of the business school experience. Nothing is spared, certainly not the famously opaque admissions process, nor the typically type-A student body, nor the plethora of apps each hyper-connected section uses to keep in touch. “How else would I keep up with the section Snapchat, Slack, Facebook, GroupMe, iMessage Chat, WhatsApp, and MySpace?” a character offers in defense of her owning a backup phone.

On why she became a director:

SG: “When I was 11, my mom brought me to see Kelsey Grammer in Macbeth on Broadway. At the end right before Macbeth kills himself, the entire audience was silent and I yelled out, ‘Don’t do it!’ Even at 11, theater had the power to move me.

My high school had no student-run productions, so I petitioned the drama department to let me direct a show. I remember standing backstage during the performance, watching the show unfold, and thinking how wild and invigorating it was to see a vision that had existed in my head come to life. From then on, I directed whenever I could, both in college and when I had the opportunity after graduation.”

On her directing style:

SG: “I like to be prepared, but also open to change. I meet with Associate Director Jade Enns (MBA ’20) and Associate Director Farrah Bui (MBA ’20) before every week’s rehearsals to go over blocking page-by-page … where everyone stands, and where they move to and from during the scenes. Then in rehearsal we adjust in real time. My favorite part of rehearsal is when I can put my script down to watch and take notes. When possible, I like my notes to be in the form of questions to the actors. ‘What was your reaction to that? How are you feeling about this person at this moment?’

I trust the actors—they are dedicated and have great instincts. They ask questions that I haven’t considered, and often make suggestions about their characters that had not occurred to me.

I’m also grateful to be surrounded by a brilliant creative team: the associate directors; our head writer, Ann Hewitt; our music director, John Swisher; and our head choreographer, Sarina Huang. This show is truly a collaboration that draws on the talents of each person involved. It’s an ongoing reminder to assemble the best possible team and let everyone build off of one another.

On what it means to direct the inaugural show in Klarman Hall:

SG: “It’s important to me that we put on a production that sets a high standard for what the show in Klarman can be in the years to come. And it’s an exciting creative challenge, because it’s not built to be a traditional theater and no one has really tested its capabilities. There’s no precedent, and I’m fortunate to have a phenomenal team working with me to figure out how we make the most of it.”

On her hopes for this year’s show:

SG: “I want you to laugh a lot, to be blown away by the talent at this school, and to leave feeling closer to the HBS community. I hope the show allows us to reflect on this collective experience and reminds us that we shouldn’t take it all too seriously.”

No Clue: The Case You Can’t Prepare For runs April 8–10 at 7:30 p.m. each night in Klarman Hall. Greene directs 20 actors from the first and second years of the MBA program. A writing team of 10 students, led by Head Writer Ann Hewitt (MBA ’19), penned the original story and wrote the lyrics to No Clue’s soundtrack of dubbed musical hits. Music Director John Swisher (MBA ’19) oversees 15 musicians, and Head Choreographer Sarina Huang (MBA ’19) oversees 21 dancers who bring the musical to life. “One of the most energizing things about working on a completely original piece of material is that we’re building something from scratch,” says Greene. “It’s a refreshingly blank canvas.” Don’t miss how they’ve painted it next week.

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Clik here to view.Brooke Biederman (MBA ’19) graduated with honors in 2014 from Princeton University, where she majored in English literature. Prior to HBS, Brooke worked in the film & television industry.

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This month, Anthony Tayoun (MBA ’19) introduces us to Alfred, a robotic sous-chef.

1. What is the problem that you are trying to solve?
   • We are solving the labor crisis that’s currently faced by the food industry. Today, 75% of restaurants are understaffed, and turnover is 146% for certain positions. The food industry’s labor gap was traditionally filled through teenage workers; however, for the last two decades, teenagers have left the economy. With the rise of gig-economy jobs such as with Uber and Lyft, the restaurant labor pool continues to shrink. The result: 59% of restaurateurs rate staff hiring and retention as their top challenge.
2. What is your solution?
   • Our solution is using automation to fill this labor gap. We built Alfred, a robotic arm that can use utensils to assemble food. The robotic arm is made entirely of off-the-shelf hardware, and we built the software that lets the arm use spoons, ladles, tongs, and dishers to make salads, bowls, and ice cream. Alfred is a plug-and-play solution that can operate in existing restaurants such as Chipotle or Sweetgreen, change utensils on the fly, and deliver faster, cleaner, and more consistent service.
3. What was the inspiration behind your company/idea?Image may be NSFW.
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   • Robot arms seemed like the perfectly suited tool to replicate the repetitive but somewhat flexible motion needed today to assemble a variety of meals such as salads, bowls, and many more fast foods. These are also tasks that most people dislike performing, resulting in the massive labor gap existing today. Moreover, people shifted their eating behavior, resulting in more than 50% of meals being prepared outside of the home, drastically increasing demand. After several discussions with both restaurant owners and patrons, we cemented our realization that an automation solution is desperately needed to sustain the rapid growth that the food industry is facing.
4. Who is the team behind your startup?
   • The team behind this company has graduates from Harvard, Stanford, MIT, and other top schools in the region. Our team’s experience includes years of engineering experience at The Draper Laboratory and management consulting at BCG, along with a team of advisors having robotics experts and successful leaders from the food industry.
5. How did you get started?
   • The idea behind the software came out of a breakthrough research effort by a team of collaborators from Draper Laboratory, MIT, and Harvard. After interviewing several stakeholders from the food industry, we thought that automation seems like the needed solution to address the industry’s top issues. Our first experiment was scooping ice cream, and then assembling a salad. Now we want to take Alfred out of the lab and into a real store.
6. What’s next?
   • We have a pilot install over the summer at a customer’s location in New York City, assembling salads for patrons. After this pilot is concluded, we will start rolling out the product in additional stores. We will also release a product capable of scooping ice cream. In parallel, we will be working on teaching Alfred additional skills, such as slicing, dicing, or even operating the fryer or grill.

For a video of Alfred in action, visit dexai.com/media.

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Anthony Tayoun (MBA ’19) is the co-founder of Dexai Robotics, a startup that automates activities in commercial kitchens using flexible robot arms. Prior to Dexai, Anthony worked as a consultant with the Boston Consulting Group, focusing on growth strategies. Anthony is an MBA candidate at Harvard Business School and holds a B.E. in Mechanical Engineering and a B.S. in Mathematics from the American University of Beirut. Outside of work, Anthony enjoys chasing soccer balls and exploring sunken sea treasures.

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Now in its eighth year, the Harvard Real Estate Weekend is the University’s flagship real estate event jointly presented by the Real Estate Clubs of Harvard Business School and the Graduate School of Design. This year, we were honored and pleased to host a sold-out conference on March 9 and 10, which was attended by over 500 alumni, professionals, and students. The two-day Weekend featured a multitude of events, competitions, and panel discussions, covering topics on investment, development, design, policy, and technology in the real estate industry.

Insights from Discussions: Keynotes

The Weekend was anchored by a series of three keynotes on real estate development, investment, design, and policies.

We were honored to welcome Alicia Glen, the former Deputy Mayor of New York for the past five years, as the opening keynote speaker in conversation with Professor Jerold Kayden. Glen shared her experience working with the city, her most proud projects, and her outlook on the city’s growth.

As a former Goldman Sachs executive, Glen is well versed in the private sector, especially the real estate industry. Apart from her most well-known deal (Amazon’s HQ2), she also talked about her work in undertaking the most comprehensive affordable housing program in the nation’s history, launching the citywide ferry service, and making strategic investments in advanced manufacturing, the life sciences, and the tech ecosystem.

Glen insisted that cities have to be more inclusive to succeed, which requires all stakeholders to commit to preserving affordability and diversity. She urged investors and developers to focus on longer-term value creation, actively engage with communities, and use good design to deliberately fit into the fabric of a neighborhood. Learning from past success, Glen believes the city has to become denser and leverage municipal tools and public assets more effectively.

As the closing keynotes at the Design School, SOM Partner Mustafa K. Abadan and Brookfield Design SVP John Durshinger focused on the power and value of design behind large-scale mixed-use developments such as the newly opened Hudson Yards and Manhattan West. The Manhattan West project is located strategically west of Penn Station and east of the Hudson Yards and built over the active mainline train tracks connecting New York with the rest of the East Coast, overcoming a very complex logistical situation. Citing a number of internationally acclaimed projects, they concluded that the key to enhance living quality and minimize financial risks in an increasingly dense urban environment is to leverage the density through mixed-use architecture that is highly integrated into the infrastructure.

The second day of the conference at Klarman Hall featured four more panels and the keynote delivered by JDS Development’s leadership (Michael Stern, CEO; Marci Clark, Director; and Simon Koster, Principal). The team shared their stories, challenges, and insights behind the creation of numerous innovative adaptive reuse and large-scale new construction projects in New York City and Miami, including the Walker Tower, 111 West 57th Street, the American Copper Buildings, and Monad Terrace. The JDS team shared its philosophy of pushing the boundaries of design and construction to deliver the most dynamic projects to the market. They also discussed the importance of team-building and collaboration, as well as leveraging multi-disciplinary talent to realize seemingly impossible tasks.

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In between keynotes, the Weekend hosted seven panels joined by over 35 speakers to discuss the hottest topics in the industry today.

Day one focused on the increasingly active disruptive forces and entrepreneurs that are shaping the industry of tomorrow.

The speakers on the tech panel discussed how the applications of evolving technology such as AI and big data have changed how the industry has traditionally approached and solved problems.

First, access to huge transactional data has enabled companies to better analyze the market, more effectively matching demand with supply and disrupting the traditional home-selling models.

In addition, the discussion addressed the undersupply of affordable homes and how Fintech is making credit and illiquid capital more accessible for those who had little to no prior access. The influx of startups and innovative approaches in prop tech presents new solutions to challenges that the industry has been facing for decades.

The sharing economy panel discussion demonstrated the enormous potential of how innovative co-living projects are transforming and improving the urban living experience for users of all ages, as the co-everything model continues to redefine traditional ownership models. As cities face increasingly dense populations, the sharing model enables property owners to make more efficient use of underutilized fixed assets and provides users with more flexibility and accessibility to high-quality amenities than would otherwise be available to them.

Day two focused on emerging trends in real estate investment and development in response to larger political and social shifts in metropolitan areas around the world.

The Megaproject Panel featured a number of global projects that strategically integrate mixed uses through leveraging their extraordinary scale. The panelists shared their insights on the challenges and opportunities from creating synergy and building new communities in the long term.

The Hospitality panelists discussed the industry’s increasing interactions with millennial tourists and new marketing strategies on experiential hospitality. The panel featured new types of accommodation that focus more on curating personalized and local experience through integrating cities’ tourism sectors.

Responding to the latest buzzword in the industry, the Opportunity Zones panelists offered insights on recently implemented tax benefits from both policymaker and investor perspectives, advising developers on best practices that help tap into the potential.

Development Workshop

This year, the Development Workshop partnered with HYM Investments to come up with creative development proposals for their Suffolk Downs project, a 161-acre development site adjacent to Logan Airport which was seen as the ideal candidate in Boston for Amazon’s HQ2. Eleven interdisciplinary teams led by professional coaches and made up of students and young professionals from backgrounds such as design, development, and finance worked together throughout Saturday to come up with project proposals that were presented to a jury panel comprising industry executives and senior faculty members. Through an intensive day including a site visit and workshop sessions, as well as final presentations, the participants learned to address the complex site through financial, design, and policy perspectives and eventually synthesizing these into a cohesive vision and plan.

Real Estate Venture Competition

Now in its fifth year, the Harvard Real Estate Venture Competition is a showcase for entrepreneurial students and recent graduates with the potential to impact the real estate industry through innovative business strategy and creative execution. The competition welcomed 10 finalists to Harvard for a pitch competition on Saturday, March 9. The start-ups were focused on various aspects of the PropTech ecosystem, including data analytics, co-working, wellness, property management, and finance.

This year’s winner was Victor Hunt, CEO of Astorian, a provider of solutions for property managers to automate procurement for building repairs and improvements. Astorian took home a $33,000 cash prize, which was generously sponsored by The Baupost Group and Lisciotti Development Corp.

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Clik here to view.NYC Satellite Panel

Prior to the events on the Harvard campus, the Weekend also organized a New York satellite panel on PropTech to kick off the conference, together with our co-hosts Harvard in Tech, MetaProp, Harvard Alumni Real Estate Board, and Amazon AWS. Together with over 200 attendees, founders and experts from Nestio, REX Real Estate, MetaProp, Compound Asset Management, and Corigin Ventures met at the AWS Loft in NYC and discussed how the application of AI, automation, big data, and other emerging technologies can offer boundless opportunities and benefits for entrepreneurs looking to tap into the market. The panel also discussed predictive analytics, real estate cryptocurrencies, and other nuances in funding for PropTech startups.

What’s next? Integrating diversity on all fronts

This year, we were extremely excited to feature such a diverse range of the most relevant topics in the industry today, bringing in new voices from the tech, design, and public sectors. We will continue these cross-sector conversations and build bridges amongst stakeholders, exploring new ways of problem-solving and value creation through collaboration and partnerships. We were also proud to address the diversity issue that is often hotly debated in the real estate industry by bringing in speakers representing all genders and demographics. We are committed to building the real estate community at Harvard into an ever more inclusive community, as we believe in the power of diversity and learning from different perspectives.

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Ina Li (HKS/GSD ’20) is currently pursuing a public policy and urban planning joint degree with a concentration in real estate, infrastructure, and urban development. Originally from Beijing, China, she studied and worked in New York City for six years before Harvard. Her past work experience includes real estate development, urban planning and design, and land use. She is particularly interested in large scale public-private-partnership urban development projects.

Taito Ohe (MBA ’20) is an architect and hotel developer with experience in Japan, the United States, Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore, and China. His completed projects range from condominiums to offices to retail stores, integrating luxury design with functional needs. He managed a premier boutique hotel development in New York City, bringing his expertise to repurpose underutilized assets. By weaving together expertise in disparate fields, he aims to strengthen the rejuvenating impact he brings to the urban built environment.

George Zhang (GSD ’21) is currently a Master of Architecture candidate at the Graduate School of Design (GSD) with a strong focus on real estate development, finance, and economics. Professionally trained as an architect and designer, George is interested in and inspired by the intersection between design, business, and the urban environment. He has professional experience across various design and investment firms, covering a wide range of projects and contexts across the United States, Europe, and Asia.

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Sumit Malik, Editor-in-Chief

The Harbus Foundation has announced a total of $60,000 in grant awards to Boston-based nonprofit organizations Empower Schools, Generations Incorporated, and GroundTruth. The recipients took home $20,000 each in the categories of Education, Literacy, and Journalism, respectively, following the Harbus Foundation’s annual gala.

The K-12 education efforts of Empower Schools, the Education grant recipient, have pushed the bounds of possibility for broad-based district reform. Through partnerships with state education agencies, principals, and teachers, the organization facilitates the creation of networks of schools in Empowerment Zones, which operate with a high-autonomy, high-accountability framework. The consequence is greater efficiency, improved adaptability, and an increased ability to attract talented educators, providing a way forward for stagnant or underperforming schools.

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Empower Schools, education grant recipient. From left to right: Cara McKenna, Alyssa Schechter, Kate McLaughlin (HBS ’19), Maura Lynch (HBS ’19), Francie Alexandre (HBS ’19)

Generations Incorporated, the Literacy grant awardee, adopts an innovative approach to efficiently addressing the literacy crisis in Boston Public Schools, where two-thirds of students currently fail to read at or above their grade level at the end of grade three. By training older adult volunteers as reading tutors and connecting them with young children in under-resourced communities, Generations Incorporated simultaneously provides much-needed guidance to struggling students and fulfilling, engaging service opportunities to the elderly. This model has enabled the organization to amplify its community impact, with a corps of over 260 older adult volunteers, who devote as many as 15 hours per week throughout a full school year, managed by a lean staff of only 15 people.

GroundTruth, the grant recipient in the Journalism category, supports opportunities for emerging, young journalists to report on issues of global importance. The organization places special emphasis on enterprise journalism based on content creation through firsthand reporting “from the ground,” as well as engagement with social justice topics, including political reform in developing countries, efforts to combat climate change, opportunities and challenges in global health, and basic human rights. Through team-driven, multimedia reporting and partnerships with blue-chip news media, GroundTruth enables emerging journalists to generate and distribute differentiated content while building cross-cultural understanding necessary for objective, influential reporting.

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GroundTruth, journalism grant recipient. From left to right: Justin Blumenthal (HBS ’19), Rachel Rohr, Josefin Muehlbauer (HBS ’18), Anne O’Brien, Samir Junnarkar (HBS ’19)

Since its founding in 1997 by the Harbus News Corporation, The Harbus Foundation has allocated over $1 million to high-impact nonprofits that support the community in which Harvard Business School operates. The Harbus News Corporation, which is celebrating its 81st anniversary this year, has turned to the foundation to effectively allocate funds accumulated through the newspaper’s operations, including advertising revenues from The Harbus and sales proceeds from the MBA Admissions & Interview Guide and the MBA Essay Guide.

The Harbus Foundation is entirely run by HBS students, whose roles are divided into grantmaking and endowment management. The grantmaking function includes dedicated teams for Education, Literacy, and Journalism that each screen for standout organizations, invite a select group of semifinalists to submit grant applications, interview and conduct due diligence on finalists, and ultimately make a recommendation on grant recipients. Grantmaking criteria include sustainable and measurable contribution to the community, impact on the Greater Boston area, and opportunity for a Harbus Foundation grant to meaningfully facilitate the organization’s mission. The Harbus Foundation’s investment team manages the organization’s endowment, which currently stands at $1.4 million.

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Sumit Malik (MBA ’19) is an investor, writer, and entrepreneur. Professionally, his background is in venture capital and private equity at Warburg Pincus, strategy as a board member of Santander Asset Management Chile, and investment banking at Goldman Sachs. Personally, he writes for academic and popular publications and performs music and poi (light- or fire-spinning). He previously received an A.B., summa cum laude, from Harvard College and an S.M. from the Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. Follow him on Twitter @sumitxmalik.

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Steve Smith, Contributor

The jokes flew fast in a sold-out Spangler auditorium on Wednesday, April 11, during the 3rd annual HBS Comedy Night. Preceded by a generous Student Association-sponsored happy hour in the Spangler Grille, the show featured a dozen aspiring comedians drawn from the HBS student body, including the show’s organizer, Old Section G’s Jess Zhao.

“All of the performers brought such different styles and were hilarious in unique – and often unexpected – ways,” Zhao noted. “It’s great that there’s a place for students to try stand-up, typically for the first time, and that it’s so well received by their peers and classmates.”

The audience remained buoyant throughout the 90-minute show, hosted by New Section D’s Dilan Gomih, and was not disappointed as comics recounted their recruiting travails, lamented interactions with strangers, and dove into life at HBS. New Section E’s Ninad Kulkarni drew laughs as he shared his difficulty discussing sex with his imperious mother, and New Section F president Spencer Fertig brought the house down with his tales of awful aviation consumer experiences. Even the author managed to get few lines in, dropping jokes about his commuter student life that he could then shamelessly quote in his show review.

“My wife and I live an hour away, because when I got in here we decided we prefer grocery shopping in New Hampshire,” he said. “Live Free or Die, motherf****r.”

Audience reactions were positive as well.

“The whole show made me forget that I was watching my classmates – it felt like a professional club!” remarked New Section A’s Smitha Ganeshan. “I was entertained for the entire show.”

The show also had a social payoff, raising over $5,400 for Boston-based charity Cradles to Crayons. Leveraging his FIN-trained forecasting skills, the author is confident the show will make a return – and bring another night of hearty laughter to HBS.

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Steve Smith (MBA ‘19) has been The Harbus’ Satire Editor since December 2017, and began practicing the art of comedy over seventeen weeks ago. He’s the author of multiple unpublished poems about millennial sadness, and aspires to one day make people laugh in exchange for food and shelter.

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Dennis Chua, Contributor

The Tech Club welcomes all ECs back to campus and is excited to have the new RCs join the HBS family!

Who We Are

Community: We are a group that shares the collective belief that technology can improve the way we do things. Over the years, we have fostered a tight-knit community of students and alumni who are interested or involved in technology, be it product managers, engineers, investors, or even career-switchers. Many of our members consider the club to be their “second home” during the school year, and we pride ourselves on the deep friendships and leadership opportunities that we help create.

Curiosity: We aim to educate our members on the cutting edge of technology and innovation across all industries. We help our members discover new roles, companies and innovators within the US and internationally.

Connection: The club’s extensive network provides unparalleled opportunities for our members to connect with start-ups, big tech, venture capital, and academia to support their personal and professional pursuits.

Let’s Get Tech-y

The Tech Club organizes a solid line-up of professional and social events throughout the school year, including exclusive treks (sold out every year) during the winter. Below, we highlight a couple of the more exciting events happening this fall and through the winter.

Tech Conference: The 24th annual Tech Conference will be taking place on Sunday, October 28, 2018. This is one of the largest conferences hosted at HBS – last year, we hosted almost 1,200 attendees. Our theme this year is “Tech: An Inflection Point,” within which we will have candid discussions around how technology is changing people’s lives for better or worse. We are expecting a variety of industry keynotes, demos that include leading augmented reality (AR) technology, and over 16 panels ranging from venture capital visionaries, to AI trendsetters, to diversity and emerging markets champions.

WesTrek: WesTrek is the largest and most prestigious professional trek at HBS, and it has been an annual tradition at the school for over two decades. Over the course of three days, students will meet dozens of HBS alumni and get the rare opportunity to have intimate meetings with executives (e.g. CEOs, CFOs) at companies across San Francisco and Silicon Valley. Last year, around 150 HBS students and over 50 companies participated in WesTrek. The trek offered an opportunity to meet with big tech names such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Uber; venture capital firms such as Bain Capital, Bessemer, and Greylock; and exciting startups like Allbirds, Thumbtack, and Patreon.

NYTrek: NYTrek is traditionally a one-day trip where around 90 students get the opportunity to meet with a handful of companies in an intimate setting, followed by an evening of networking. NYTrek is more heavily geared towards startups, and more often than not, participants find themselves meeting with the founder, CEO, or COO.

BerlinTrek: In an effort to better connect HBS with the entrepreneurship, tech and venture capital community in Europe, BerlinTrek will bring students on an exclusive trip to meet with a variety of cutting-edge start-ups and venture capital firms in Berlin.

Aside from our conference and treks, we also host regular career and knowledge-building sessions, speaker panels, alumni networking events, and a variety of community-oriented social activities. We offer great recommendations for the more popular and helpful classes to take in the EC year to build certain skill sets for our members’ desired career paths. Finally, the Tech Club is a conduit for companies to share job and internship opportunities and host events to meet students face-to-face – in fact, a lot of our members have historically secured their internships or jobs either directly or indirectly through the club and our activities!

Want to Talk Tech?

We would love to chat with you about technology and the Tech Club. Our co-presidents, Dennis Chua and Danni Pi, are also available at your convenience.

The Tech Club sends our best wishes for the 2018-2019 school year!

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Clik here to view.Dennis Chua (HBS’ 19) is an investor and technology enthusiast. He is the co-president of both the Investment Club and Tech Club, and co-chaired the Investment Conference and WesTrek. Prior to HBS, Dennis did investing at D.E. Shaw, and investment banking at Goldman Sachs. He spent this summer at Tiger Management and Triarii Capital. Dennis received a B.Sc., summa cum laude, Tau Beta Pi, in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering from Cornell University. In his free time, he enjoys thrillers and road trips.

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Dennis Chua, Contributor

The Investment Club is glad to have the ECs back on campus and extends a warm welcome to the new RCs.

Who We Are
The Investment Club is a career and social club, with a mission to improve members’ understanding of investment management; to help members develop practical investment skills; to create superior career access in the industry; and to create a community of HBS students who share an interest in and passion for investing.
The club is also proud of our extensive alumni network, with fund managers, analysts, and partners from every flavor of investment management including hedge funds, mutual funds, activist funds, asset management firms, family offices, and many more.

“FIN3” Syllabus
FIN1 and FIN2 are staple finance classes at HBS, but being a part of the Investment Club (“FIN3”) will help you translate some of the theory in the classroom to practical investing in the real world. The Investment Club organizes regular events throughout the school year aimed at education, career, and community-building. Below are some of the more exciting events in our Fall and early Spring line-up.

Alpha Fund: The Alpha Fund is a carve-out of Harvard’s endowment and is actively managed by members of the Investment Club leadership. The fund meets every other week and is a platform for club members to present and defend a stock pitch to the Investment Committee. These regular meetings facilitate idea generation, help students perfect their pitches, and build a tight community of students who are excited about personal investing.

Investment Conference: One of the club’s marquee events is the annual HBS Investment Conference. Last year, over 400 students and professional investors from across the U.S. packed Spangler Auditorium, with an additional waitlist of over 450 people. The audience was excited to hear from legendary value investors such as Seth Klarman and Li Lu, renowned activists such as Cliff Robbins, and quantitative investing prodigy Peter Brown (who also convinced IBM to build DeepBlue). The 2019 Conference is expected to set a new record in speakers and attendance. There will also be a stock pitch contest added to the program – for the bold and aspiring investors among us, this will be a great opportunity to share investment ideas with a panel of professional judges and take home valuable advice and prizes.

Investment Treks: The club will be organizing treks to visit renowned investors in Boston, New York City, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and potentially Chicago, London, and Omaha. Some examples of funds that we visited last year include ValueAct, Farallon, Maverick, Elliott Management, D.E. Shaw, Himalaya Capital, Fidelity, and many more. The treks offer an exclusive and intimate setting to get to know these successful investors, discuss their investment philosophies, and hopefully gain some sage wisdom.

Women in Investing: One of the major goals of the Investment Club is to improve female representation in the investment management industry. We aim to support women by organizing several dedicated professional and social events such as “Pitch Practice Wine & Cheese,” fireside chats with female investment professionals, small-group dinners, and so on.

Aside from our conference and treks, the club will host several programs throughout the year to educate members on the industry, assist with recruiting efforts, and foster a sense of community. On the educational front, we plan to arrange an EC/RC mentorship program, stock pitch 101 session, and resume review and mock interviews. In addition, the Club regularly invites leading investors and thought leaders for exclusive speaker/panel events – we are already expecting Seth Klarman (Baupost Group), David Abrams (Abrams Capital), and many more this year. We also plan to facilitate our members’ participation in more stock pitch competitions, including the upcoming Darden and Booth competitions.
Finally, the Investment Club is the first touchpoint for funds to share job and internship opportunities and host intimate networking events. Many of our members have historically been introduced to their internships or jobs either directly or indirectly through the club and our activities.

Buying Your First Stock?
We look forward to seeing our members at the upcoming Investment Club General Assembly on October 3. In the meantime, if you have questions about investing, our co-presidents, Dennis Chua and Delaney Martin, are always available at your convenience.
The Investment Club wishes our members and the rest of the student body all the best for the 2018-2019 school year!

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Clik here to view.Dennis Chua (HBS’ 19) is an investor and technology enthusiast. He is the co-president of both the Investment Club and Tech Club, and co-chaired the Investment Conference and WesTrek. Prior to HBS, Dennis did investing at D.E. Shaw, and investment banking at Goldman Sachs. He spent this summer at Tiger Management and Triarii Capital. Dennis received a B.Sc., summa cum laude, Tau Beta Pi, in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering from Cornell University. In his free time, he enjoys thrillers and road trips.

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Begum Agca Okutgen, Contributor

The Retail and Luxury Goods Club successfully hosted their famous Annual Charity Fashion Show on October 25^th at Boston’s Park Plaza Hotel.  In the 2018 edition of the longstanding HBS tradition, the Fashion Show featured 35 RC and EC models, showcasing styles from top designers to raise money for the Greater Boston Food Bank. This year’s designer line up included Diane von Furstenberg, Cynthia Rowley, Lilly Pulitzer, Hugo Boss, Reformation, Rent the Runway, Ted Baker, Halston Heritage, Ministry of Supply and Kenny Flowers.  With 400 attendees and these top-notch designers, the Fashion Show this year raised over $4,000 for the charity.

Guests started to arrive early and formed a line at the entrance before doors were open. The 200 gift bags didn’t last long shortly afterwards. Starting from the moment when the lead organizers Begum Agca Okutgen (MBA ’19), Brooklyn Coats and Sheetal Bajaj welcomed guests, the energy in Park Plaza’s Grand Ballroom was about to go very high.

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Fashion Show organizers Begum Agca Okutgen, Brooklyn Coats and Sheetal Bajaj

After their energizing kick off, the lights dimmed and the hour long show started when Josephine Van Leeuwen (MBA ‘19) and Sud Murugesu (MBA ‘19), in their Ted Baker outfits, stepped on the runway in flashing lights and accompanied by pump up songs. After Josephine and Sud, one after the other, all HBS models, who were dressed to impress, began to shine their way through the runway. Their dance moves, graceful walks and amazing looks were more than enough to mesmerize the cheering fans and loving section mates.

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As the runway was on fire with the models and the cheering crowd, in the back of the Grand Ballroom guests enjoyed various food and drink options and the chance to participate in a raffle featuring donations from brands including Rag & Bone, Moleskine, Pure Barre, Roscomar and Aesop.

The show’s closing heated up when the Kenny Flowers male swimwear line was introduced.  James Lim (MBA ‘20) led off the swimwear section in style. Other models kept up the cool as they strolled down the runway accompanied by giant floaties. After Vai Schierholtz (MBA ‘19)’s epic finale, RLGC co-presidents Melissa Zoerb & Sergio Velasquez-Terjesen closed off the show and the runway turned into one big dance party!

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The party continued at Icon, co-hosted by RLGC and the Euro Club. Kudos to RC Section G for winning the VIP section at the after party by selling the most tickets and having the most fun!

Let’s end hunger together!

Over the last 3 years, RLGC has donated over $20,000 to the Greater Boston Food Bank, the largest hunger-relief nonprofit organization in the Northeast.  According to the organization, every $1 donated provides three meals for local families in need, with roughly $0.92 per dollar going directly to feeding families.  In 2016, GBFB raised $15.5 million and distributed 48.1 million meals (82% of which met the highest nutrition standards). The organization serves 140,000 residents of Eastern Massachusetts each month.  With Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays coming up, it is a great time to give back and make a donation to this important cause. For more information, please visit: www.gbfb.org.

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Begum Agca Okutgen (MBA’19) is a second year MBA and a board member at RLGC and Euro Club. Begum was a management consultant at Bain & Company in London before HBS. She is passionate about social impact and is currently working on her own sustainable fashion brand.

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Carol Lin, Contributor

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Dan Moskowitz, Contributor

The Tech Club at Harvard Business School’s annual Tech Conference took place on Sunday, October 28 on the HBS campus. This event (the first of its kind in the beautiful Klarman building) brought together hundreds of the country’s brightest technologists – from executives at big tech companies, to investors at the leading venture capital firms, to startups tackling the biggest challenges, to students hungry for knowledge and new connections.

Our conference theme was “Inflection Point.” We challenged our speakers to talk about the “hard topics” that are relevant to us as future technology leaders, and we challenged the audience to approach these topics with open minds and to continue these dialogues long after the conference had ended.

Highlights included:

Keynotes: Making better decisions, tackling workplace biases, and being radically transparent (in the most productive way)

Our first keynote speaker was Andy Ellis, the Chief Security Officer at Akamai in Boston. With a self-proclaimed mission to “make the internet suck less,” Andy spends his time thinking about cybersecurity, safety, and compliance. He took the stage to deliver his thoughts on why so many people make bad decisions and how we can avoid falling into the same traps.

Our second keynote, Kim Scott, was the renowned author of Radical Candor: Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity. She was virtually beamed into Klarman Hall (the first such attempt in the new building – many thanks to the amazing HBS ops team) and moderated by HBS professor Ethan Bernstein.

For people looking to be a better boss but on the fence about the concept of “radical transparency,” Kim delivered a different way to frame the idea with practical tips for using the framework to fight organizational biases. A highlight was the open Q&A session. Props to our audience and to one attendee who displayed his own sense of radical candor with the question, “Is a hot dog a sandwich?” – to which Kim, without hesitation, responded, “No.”

The third keynote was Latoya Peterson, the owner of Racialicious.com and the former Deputy Editor of Digital Innovation for ESPN’s The Undefeated. Latoya sits at the intersection of emerging technology, race, and culture and is particularly qualified to talk to those topics. She observed the day’s events and prepared her thoughts for what we can do to foster a better ecosystem for all and to combat the insidious biases that present themselves in data and AI.

Our final keynote was a fireside chat between David Fialkow, co-founder and Managing Director of General Catalyst, and Brian Halligan, co-founder and CEO of Hubspot. This dynamic pair had great chemistry and energy and drew a particularly large crowd. The highlight of their far-reaching conversation may have been David passing around his Oscar, an award he won for the documentary Icarus in 2018. It’s heavy, and it’s real metal, folks.

Panels, Demos, and More

Besides the keynotes, this year’s Tech Conference also featured a whopping 21 fireside chats and panels with over 70 speakers from industry, including Ripple, Coinbase, Lightspeed Venture Partners, ElementAI, Boom, Facebook, Venrock, and more. In addition, we had live demos set up in Spangler Meredith Room. Highlights included:

• Unity Technologies projected a beta build of their new product that will allow AR developers to use the Unity Studio to place AR objects with real-world contexts
• Bumble was on-site to give attendees’ Bumble Bizz profiles much-needed makeovers
• General Assembly gave advice to startups and students thinking about starting a company

A Retrospective – and Looking Ahead

When 6:30pm rolled around on Sunday, October 28, and the HBS cleanup crew began pulling the drinks from the open bar, we were left with two things. One, pounds and pounds of leftover fancy cheese (note to next year’s conference team: bring Tupperware). Two, a feeling of satisfaction that we had thrown another successful Tech Conference. We hope the attendees learned something substantial and will continue to draw on the new connections and friends they made at the conference this year.

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Gabriel Ellsworth, Deputy Editor-in-Chief

On November 27, the HBS Cabaret brought entertainment to two sold-out audiences, one at 7 p.m. and another at 10:30 p.m., at the American Repertory Theater’s Oberon in Harvard Square. The theme was “Portrait Project” (following on last year’s “Truths Untold”), and as promised in the theme, an array of student performers painted vivid pictures of triumphs and struggles at HBS and in our careers to come.

After the ensemble welcomed the audience to the show, Shannon Wood (MBA ’19) kicked off the solo acts by singing about RC year, sharing lessons for the Class of 2020. The most important? “When Dean Nohria tells you he loves you, you’ve got to believe him.”

Following that uplifting note, Brandon Levin (MBA ’20) portrayed the joy of falling for one’s sectionmate—and the associated peril of humiliation. And thus began the catalogue of extremely divergent experiences that can coexist in the wild and precious lives of HBS students.

The other singers in the Cabaret, all of whom had solos, were Vaibhav Agarwala, Sara Appleton, Amanda Coleman, Camila Diehl, Ariel Finegold, Nicholas Fleming, Dom Furlong, Ellen Thuy Le, Michal Leszczynski, Viet Nguyen, Sarah Peck, Juan Quiroga Ponce, and your reporter. Also performing were Dilan Gomih, who served as master of ceremonies, and Spencer Fertig, who shared his stand-up comedy talents. A team of dancers from Beyond Dance accentuated the pathos of the songs with their choreography.

This year’s Cabaret was directed by Caroline Hunting. Meghan Mahajan was the executive producer. Music was directed by John Swisher, who also played keyboard alongside Steve Smith (bass) and Dan Frascella (drums).Image may be NSFW.
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“What I really love about the Cabaret is that it’s such a nice outlet for people to explore their creative side, especially in an environment like HBS where there is, of course, focus on academia and job searching,” said Swisher. “In that context, it’s nice to have this community where you can be creative and celebrate other people’s talents with the rest of the class and your peers.”

On today’s HBS campus, where an entire generation lasts only two years, students might assume that the Cabaret is a long-standing tradition. In fact, though, this year’s Cabaret was only the third.

To understand the history of the Cabaret, the Harbus spoke with Ophelia Chua (MBA ’17) and Raphael Roesler (MBA ’18). Both alumni now work in the theatre business.

The idea for the Cabaret began during the rehearsal process for the HBS Show in the spring of 2016. At that time, the Show was the only annual event in which students could showcase their talents in musical theatre. Chua and Roesler, along with Emily Song (MBA ’17) and Adam Gold (MBA ’17), began brainstorming ways to expand performing opportunities for talent within the student body. The next semester, the team of four turned their vision into reality.

The students behind the first Cabaret, which was performed in November 2016 with the theme “My Secret Identity,” had clear and compelling goals: to build a professional, accessible, and sustainable show with high production value, to create an emotional connection with the audience and a differentiated theatrical experience, and to provide a platform for performers and talents to shine through a hybrid of curated and scripted cohesive storytelling.

But they faced some steep challenges. At that time, the Cabaret was “basically a very quick-and-dirty startup,” Chua said. The creative theme, content, and structure all had to be decided from scratch, as did financing, logistics, and venue relationships. Marketing was difficult because many MBAs did not know what the “product” (a cabaret) actually was. Moreover, the team had to debate where to present the show and how to price tickets. Would students in the HBS bubble really venture off campus to experience a brand-new theatrical concept? And would they spend enough to recover the out-of-pocket investments that the team had made in upfront expenses?

It turned out that the answer to both questions was “yes.” (Regarding the latter, drink revenue from the cash bar at the Oberon did not hurt. “Since we chose to set prices low in order to underline the notion that the event is affordable and intended for the entire community, bar revenue was critical to ensuring that the Cabaret would be sustainable over the longer term,” Roesler explained.)

Though the Cabaret has matured as a concept, two things remain the same. One is that underneath the humor are serious themes—for example, the tradeoffs that many face between building wealth and pursuing a path about which they are passionate, or between slaving away in hopes of a promotion and keeping their soul. As students navigate these challenges, Chua said, “the Cabaret is there to say that you are not alone.” Her hope was that adding the Cabaret in the fall semester would stimulate conversations about these topics earlier in the school year.

The other constant in the three years of Cabaret to date is that the performances are consistently at capacity. Chua suggested that next autumn, the group offer more showtimes on an additional night. She was not in favor of moving to a larger venue, as the Oberon has an intimacy that she described as “magic.”

There should be no such capacity issues in April 2019, when the HBS Show will for the first time ever be performed in Klarman Hall. (To learn more about the newest building on campus, see “Klarman Hall Opens After Years of Planning,” November 2018.) Many of the performers from last month’s Cabaret will be involved in the Show—that is, if they can recover from their late nights at the Oberon in time.

Reflecting on the launch of the Cabaret led Roesler to share some advice for current students. “We highly encourage members of the community to create something new when they find a gap in the market that overlaps with their personal or professional interests! Ophelia (with our support) created Cabaret, and it was one of the most meaningful components of our HBS experience. In my EC year, working with producers and directors Kelly O’Grady and Amira Polack and stage manager Geoffrey Cheung cemented life-long friendships that I treasure greatly. I’m sure that there are many untapped conferences, events, and clubs that would flourish and contribute strongly to the HBS experience of many, and I hope that students will take the critical leap of transforming their ideas into reality.”

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Clik here to view.Gabriel Ellsworth (MBA ’20) came to HBS from HBS, where he worked for five years as a research associate, most recently as a casewriter with a faculty member in the Strategy Unit. He read English literature as an undergraduate at Yale.

Last month, 140 fellow HBS students attended WesTrek during the winter break. WesTrek is an HBS tradition with over 20 years in the books, attracting 300+ eager Tech Club members to enter the lottery to receive a coveted spot.

While soaking up the balmy 60 degree temperatures, this year’s cohort of Trekkies got to select from around 60 different Bay Area tech companies to visit over three days. Companies ranged from small startups still based out of living rooms, to venture capital funds, to household names like Google, Facebook, Uber, AirBnb, and Tesla.

WesTrek is organized by the HBS Tech Club, with support from the Bay Area Alumni Club, the HBS Admissions Office, and the VC/PE Club.

In addition to company visits, one of the highlights of the experience was the chance to connect socially with the HBS community on the West Coast. The trek featured dozens of alumni coffee chats as well as two happy hours, where Bay Area alumni, Bay Area admitted students, and Trekkies all mingled. (Feast on our mighty coast-to-coast experience, future HBSers!)

The planning team is incredibly grateful to the HBS alumni who hosted dozens of students for tours, panels, Q&A sessions, and coffee chats. We hope they enjoyed meeting current MBAs and took the opportunity to yell out “I’m from Section C!” and not get weird stares from their non-HBS colleagues.

Thank you to all students who attended and the companies who hosted us!

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Jill Langlas, Contributor

With at least one semester under our belts, most of us have dealt with the dreaded cold call. There was probably no one more prepared for their first cold call than improv enthusiast Adam Croft (RC Section F).

Adam moved to HBS from Los Angeles, where he worked for Dollar Shave Club, a direct-to-consumer brand that delivers razors and personal grooming products by mail. It was in L.A. that Adam signed up for his first improv class over six years ago. He quickly fell in love with his new hobby, saying, “Improv has an amazing way of grounding you and making you present in the moment and just letting go. You get out of your head and just are free—free to play, free to listen to other people, free to work with the team.” Within a couple years, he was performing monthly shows with friends to sold-out crowds of over 100 people (although he tried to convince me it was crowds of 15,000 to 20,000 people).

In Boston and missing his L.A. improv shows and community, Adam reached out on the HBS Facebook page to see if there were any improv enthusiasts in the class. After receiving interest from classmates who wanted to learn improv, Adam hosted an improv seminar class last semester. It was at this class that Adam and Jad Esber (RC Section I) saw the potential to start an official HBS club.

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Clik here to view.Although Jad had little improv experience prior to HBS, he had planned to take improvclasses in the Boston community. But, he preferred the opportunity to learn improv through his HBS community, so the duo decided to try to make an official improv club. They pitched the idea to the HBS administration the one way they knew how … with a mock improv class. The administration loved the idea, and the HBS Improv Club became official last November.

One of the first club members was Feifei Li (RC Section E). She attended her first improv show during the HBS Boston 101 activities. When she learned that her pal, Adam, had started the improv club, she decided to give it a try.

In just a couple meet-ups, Feifei feels she has already gained so much from the experience. She says she’s learned: “Don’t be afraid of embarrassing yourself. Put yourself out there. Have the courage and confidence. Be unapologetic.”

Her three goals with her HBS improv experience are to have fun, to learn something new, and to learn the best way to organize thoughts in a quick time frame (a skill she finds useful for case discussions).

Jad agrees improv has helped with HBS case classes. He says, “Improv allows me to get better at spontaneously saying and doing things, which is great with cold calls. It’s not an alternative to reading cases, but improv definitely helped me get better at jumping in after a cold call and spontaneously sharing my perspective.” He says, “It’s also just really fun and a great way to do something different here at HBS.”

If you are interested in joining the HBS improv club, reach out to co-presidents Adam Croft and Jad Esber.

While being on stage is not for everyone, it is still fun to enjoy the art of improv by attending a show in the local Boston community. Recommended shows are:

• ImprovBoston (Central Square, Cambridge)
• Improv Asylum (North End, Boston)
• Sh!t-faced Shakespeare (shows at The Rockwell, Davis Square, Cambridge)

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Clik here to view.Jill Langlas (MBA ’20) is originally from Wheaton, IL, and studied engineering at the University of Kansas. Prior to HBS, she worked in petrochemical manufacturing. She enjoys fitness, Crossfit, podcasts, and perfecting the panini.

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Dan Reid, Contributor

Few come to HBS with the intention of pursuing a career in cannabis. But that won’t be true for long. Recent changes in the regulatory landscape have opened tremendous new market opportunities. Today 10 states and the District of Columbia have legalized recreational adult-use cannabis, and a total of 33 states have legalized medical use. The majority of the American population lives in a state where cannabis is legal in some form. The States Act currently being contemplated has the potential to encourage even further state-level legalization. A wave of new cultivators, manufacturers, distributors, and retailers have emerged to capitalize upon this opportunity. This still nascent industry has already minted a new class of billionaires, with several companies listed on Canadian stock exchanges already enjoying multi-billion-dollar market caps.

For Dan Reid (Old Section A), living in California, a state where medical cannabis use has been legal for the last 20 years, prior to HBS meant being exposed to cannabis on a near-daily basis. Whether he was enjoying a sunset in San Francisco’s Dolores Park or a pseudo-hike in LA’s Runyon Canyon, the unmistakable smell of cannabis permeated the air. Still, that doesn’t mean it’s a viable career path. Or so he thought. The lightbulb went off for Dan during RC year after he had the same conversation with many classmates: being at HBS provides the opportunity to do anything, to reinvent yourself regardless of your previous skillset, so what will be the next major high-growth industry of our time? How can we “ride a wave” or “time a 10-year secular growth cycle,” depending on your affinity for finance jargon?

On the last day of Mark Roberge’s TEM class, his parting advice implored students to consider entering industries expected to grow significantly over their careers. The experience could be life-changing. Mark mentioned AI and robotics as possible choices. Dan’s mind went in a different direction, but the lesson was well received. Dan decided to pursue an internship in cannabis with the goal of working in the industry full time.

Few industries exhibit the level of growth at a scale that cannabis will undergo over the next few years. Markets with sustained, multi-year compound annual growth rates of 25% to 35% even after they reach and exceed the $8 billion to $10 billion range are hard to find across any period of time. It’s a comparable set populated with the likes of cable TV and broadband internet.

Despite the attractive market dynamics, HBS had yet to develop the infrastructure to nurture an interest in the industry. There was only one internship posting on CPD. No conferences to meet relevant executives. No forum to network with other interested students.

Jack Ambridge (Old Section F), Drew Johnson (Old Section F), and Dan started the Business of Cannabis Club and serve as co-presidents to address exactly this need. Joined by founding members Sasha Slayton (New Section A) and Anthony Tayoun (Old Section F), the Club aims to provide interested students with all the same opportunities enjoyed by HBS students pursuing careers in other industries. Many other top-tier universities have already embraced this trend. Wharton, Stanford, and Yale already had cannabis clubs. Why not us?

To that end, we’ve put together a compelling speaker series for the rest of the semester. Our goal is to bring a combination of investors, operators, legal experts, and regulators to campus. We’re also in early discussions with a Massachusetts-based operator about a potential tour of the facility. That we have had engagement from some of the biggest names in the industry is a testament to the power of the HBS brand.

The Club had its first speakers visit in February. Emily and Morgan Paxhia, sibling co-founders of Poseidon Asset Management, gave a presentation and networked with students afterward. Poseidon was one of the first (if not the first) pioneers in cannabis venture capital and remains one of the preeminent investors in the space. In addition to a great presentation and a generous donation of her time, Emily also brought representatives from portfolio companies interested in hiring HBS students. Other portfolio companies have since reached out to us with a list of job openings. One of the Club’s goals is to act as a liaison between companies looking to hire MBAs and students keen to enter the space, and we couldn’t be happier with this early traction.

Cannabis has been a wildly popular product for thousands of years, and the end of prohibition in the United States will only act as gasoline on the fire. Big Tobacco (Altria) and Big Alcohol (Constellation Brands) have made multi-billion-dollar investments in cannabis because they know it’s mainstreaming and normalization is here to stay. And they are right to fear for their core businesses. Alcohol has maintained its dominance in the economy because of its status as one of the few legal drugs. Cannabis provides a calorie-free, hangover-free alternative that’s less addictive than coffee or sugar. Unlike alcohol, users can’t overdose. And cannabis usage isn’t strongly linked to violence, domestic abuse, or depression, as alcohol is.

Whether you approve or not, cannabis will grow into one of the biggest consumer products of your lifetime. Analyst forecasts for eventual steady-state market sizes are egregiously wide, ranging from $125 billion to $300 billion. For students interested in learning more, we want to serve as a resource. For those looking to join the party, we hope we can help you get there.

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Dan Reid (MBA ’19) split his childhood between London, Germany, and Atlanta before attending Georgetown University. Dan lived in California for six years prior to HBS, where he worked in investment banking, in venture capital, and at Netflix. Dan enjoys travel, camping, Phish concerts, and Bernese Mountain Dogs.

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Emily Batt, Contributor

On February 23, over 1,000 attendees gathered on campus for the 28th annual Dynamic Women in Business Conference, hosted by the Women’s Student Association. This year’s theme, “Our Mosaic: Stronger as We,” aimed to celebrate disparate stories and backgrounds and explore ways in which business leaders can actively and intentionally leverage diversity to drive success. The conference featured four keynote presentations and 20 panels, focused on themes as varied as “Work/Life Balance,” “Impacting Investing,” “Diversity in the Great Outdoors,” and “Design: Creativity, Impact, Production.”

“I’ve come to a number of the WSA conferences and this year I felt like the topics of the panels were more diverse,” remarked attendee Moha Shah, who manages innovation initiatives at Liberty Mutual. The conference’s 120 speakers shared personal and professional anecdotes, inciting discussions that feel more critical than ever.

Despite being the most diverse class in history, only 21% of the current U.S. Congress are female, and only 11% are women of color. In 2017, an ABC News-Washington Post poll found that more than half of American women have experienced “unwanted and inappropriate sexual advances.” At its current rate, the gender pay gap will take over 200 years to close. In so many arenas, progress has stalled, leaving significant gains on the table; research repeatedly shows that diverse teams outperform homogeneous ones. But far too often, hiring and promotion are exercises in pattern-matching. When marginalized populations are denied opportunities to demonstrate success, subsequent candidates face a systematic disadvantage.

Some speakers offered practical advice. On the Emerging Tech panel, Dara Treseder, CMO of Carbon, and Andrea Coravos, CEO of Elektra Labs, reflected on hiring practices. “If you have an open role, keep the list of requirements short,” remarked Coravos (MBA ’17). Too often, added Treseder, “women will apply if they check nine-and-a-half boxes. Men will apply if they check five.” A small consideration of language can translate to a big impact on hiring.

Across sessions, several speakers emphasized the importance of conviction and fearlessness in pursuit of growth and opportunity. In evaluating personal and professional choices, “the difference for me is when I make a decision out of confidence versus a decision out of fear,” stated Coravos. Keynote speaker Shan-Lyn Ma, CEO of Zola, reflected on the trepidation she felt in evolving from a product leader to a general manager in earlier jobs. During the transition she sought guidance from mentors. “The best advice I got,” she said, “is this: ‘[Mess] it up. Get over it. Whatever you don’t know how to do, find someone who does, and ask them.’” The simplicity of the message inspired boldness in her ensuing career decisions.

Other panelists highlighted the significance of paying it forward. “These days, I don’t go to meetings without bringing someone who wasn’t invited,” said Natalie Neilson Edwards, Global Director of Inclusion and Diversity at the Estée Lauder Companies, during the Beauty in Diversity panel. Invoking congresswoman Shirley Chisholm’s remark, “if they don’t give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair,” Edwards continued: “reach behind you and invite people in,” but never neglect to “pound on the door with a folding chair.”

Coordinating an event of this scale is no small feat, but the conference organizers embodied the ethos espoused by the day overall: that a team is best-positioned to deliver exceptional results when complementary strengths converge. “Much like running a company or launching a startup, it 100% depends on the team. As much as this was a challenging role, I loved my team so much that I’d absolutely do it again. By the end, we could read each other’s minds,” remarked Sarah Scalia, conference chair and member of the class of 2019.

The WSA concluded the weekend with the announcement of next year’s co-presidents, Sophia Clementi and Catie O’Sullivan, class of 2020.

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Emily Batt (MBA ’20) is a joint MS/MBA student with the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. She was previously a design engineer and product manager in hardware and software technology companies. She was trained as a physicist, loves the arts, and always has too many tabs open.

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Ryan Lynch, Contributor

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Benjamin Dupays, Contributor

In class last week, a wrap-up slide mentioned “socialism” as a rising world trend, and when the professor offhandedly said “though I’m sure there are none in this classroom,” all eyes turned toward my co-founder and me. A chance political discussion during our section’s Fall retreat led to the formation of the Socialist Society, an aspiring student club at HBS. Reactions to our group have ranged from a surprising show of support from allies and skeptics alike to a good-natured barrage of jokes at our expense. The majority use the misconception that socialists believe everything should be free as their punchline. But the most common reaction has been curious students asking “What is Socialism?”

While the word is often used as an insult in the United States, it is actually the name of ruling parties in dozens of countries—countries far removed from the scary thoughts about Soviet times. Modern socialism is not about destroying capitalism; it is all about correcting its inefficiencies, and fighting poverty and inequality. Developed countries now produce more wealth than at any time in human history, yet many cannot afford healthcare, education, or safety. Socialism is about an extended vision of human rights that captures not only private property, but the right to not fear for the future, to not have outcomes determined by the social statuses of one’s parents, and to live in decent conditions. Socialism seeks to build a sustainable and peaceful society that benefits everyone: a society that is not able to take care of its people cannot last. To many socialists in the United States this means bringing this country closer to the European welfare model. To some socialists in Europe it may mean bringing their nations further along, whether through universal basic income, an expansion of the welfare state to marginalized refugee communities, or countless other proposals.

We started the Socialist Society with the belief that the HBS community could benefit from grappling with many of the ideas central to the socialist movement. Each of our meetings has been attended by a mix of students across a range of beliefs, from adherents to critics of the socialist model. What we aim to do is to build a space where students can discuss and question the underlying premise of the system we came to HBS to study. Where we can develop new beliefs about society through debate. The Socialist Society does not aim to be activist or to promote a vision of the world. The club seeks to ask questions rather than provide any single answer and to promote the notion that most socialist ideas are on a spectrum not far from nor incompatible with modern-day capitalism.

Take, for example, the question of whether or not the state should be responsible for providing quality healthcare to all citizens regardless of one’s ability to pay. Even in our current “free-market, capitalist” system any citizen who walks off the street into an emergency room with life threatening conditions will be provided a trained and licensed physician paid for by the state. The question at hand is whether or not this obligation of care should be extended to citizens before their life is in danger. Another question is whether providing universal comprehensive coverage could actually be more affordable to the state than the current model. Citizens in the United States spend approximately twice on a per-person basis compared to peer countries in the European Union.

Not all socialist ideas require an expansion of the state or even the tax base to be realized. They simply require a re-examination of our moral priorities as a species. The United States spends more on national defense than China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, India, Japan, the United Kingdom, and France combined—more than half of all discretionary funding, and that figure does not include war appropriations. This money, appropriately reconsidered, could achieve much of what socialists in the United States are championing without taking a single private jet out of the hands of the billionaire class.

For anyone who is interested in making a positive difference in the world and thinking about the future of healthcare, education, democracy, and public policy further regardless of political orientation, it would be great if you would join us next Tuesday, March 12, at 8:00 PM in the Morris Hall common room and share some good times together around a glass of “socialist wine” and “capitalist food”—for free, of course!

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Ryan Lynch (MBA ’20) is originally from Massachusetts and graduated from New York University in 2013. Prior to HBS he worked as a Logistics Officer in the United States Army in Tennessee.

Benjamin Dupays (MBA ’20) grew up in France and holds a degree from Sciences Po Paris. Prior to HBS, he started Centimeo, a social venture focused on recycling useless pennies in the economy through chewing-gum vending machines.

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Brooke Biederman, Contributor

HBS Show’s Executive Producer Brooke Biederman (MBA ’19) talks with Executive Director Savannah Greene (MBA ’19) about her directing style, insider details from the rehearsal rooms, and the storied show’s first performance in the new Klarman Hall.

“HBS Show is one of our most important traditions. It gives us a chance to laugh at ourselves, and reminds us that even though we may not come from similar backgrounds, we now have a shared set of experiences that connect us,” Greene says. She is talking about No Clue: The Case You Can’t Prepare For, which she directs at the new Klarman Hall next week.

No Clue pokes fun at various aspects of the business school experience. Nothing is spared, certainly not the famously opaque admissions process, nor the typically type-A student body, nor the plethora of apps each hyper-connected section uses to keep in touch. “How else would I keep up with the section Snapchat, Slack, Facebook, GroupMe, iMessage Chat, WhatsApp, and MySpace?” a character offers in defense of her owning a backup phone.

On why she became a director:

SG: “When I was 11, my mom brought me to see Kelsey Grammer in Macbeth on Broadway. At the end right before Macbeth kills himself, the entire audience was silent and I yelled out, ‘Don’t do it!’ Even at 11, theater had the power to move me.

My high school had no student-run productions, so I petitioned the drama department to let me direct a show. I remember standing backstage during the performance, watching the show unfold, and thinking how wild and invigorating it was to see a vision that had existed in my head come to life. From then on, I directed whenever I could, both in college and when I had the opportunity after graduation.”

On her directing style:

SG: “I like to be prepared, but also open to change. I meet with Associate Director Jade Enns (MBA ’20) and Associate Director Farrah Bui (MBA ’20) before every week’s rehearsals to go over blocking page-by-page … where everyone stands, and where they move to and from during the scenes. Then in rehearsal we adjust in real time. My favorite part of rehearsal is when I can put my script down to watch and take notes. When possible, I like my notes to be in the form of questions to the actors. ‘What was your reaction to that? How are you feeling about this person at this moment?’

I trust the actors—they are dedicated and have great instincts. They ask questions that I haven’t considered, and often make suggestions about their characters that had not occurred to me.

I’m also grateful to be surrounded by a brilliant creative team: the associate directors; our head writer, Ann Hewitt; our music director, John Swisher; and our head choreographer, Sarina Huang. This show is truly a collaboration that draws on the talents of each person involved. It’s an ongoing reminder to assemble the best possible team and let everyone build off of one another.

On what it means to direct the inaugural show in Klarman Hall:

SG: “It’s important to me that we put on a production that sets a high standard for what the show in Klarman can be in the years to come. And it’s an exciting creative challenge, because it’s not built to be a traditional theater and no one has really tested its capabilities. There’s no precedent, and I’m fortunate to have a phenomenal team working with me to figure out how we make the most of it.”

On her hopes for this year’s show:

SG: “I want you to laugh a lot, to be blown away by the talent at this school, and to leave feeling closer to the HBS community. I hope the show allows us to reflect on this collective experience and reminds us that we shouldn’t take it all too seriously.”

No Clue: The Case You Can’t Prepare For runs April 8–10 at 7:30 p.m. each night in Klarman Hall. Greene directs 20 actors from the first and second years of the MBA program. A writing team of 10 students, led by Head Writer Ann Hewitt (MBA ’19), penned the original story and wrote the lyrics to No Clue’s soundtrack of dubbed musical hits. Music Director John Swisher (MBA ’19) oversees 15 musicians, and Head Choreographer Sarina Huang (MBA ’19) oversees 21 dancers who bring the musical to life. “One of the most energizing things about working on a completely original piece of material is that we’re building something from scratch,” says Greene. “It’s a refreshingly blank canvas.” Don’t miss how they’ve painted it next week.

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Clik here to view.Brooke Biederman (MBA ’19) graduated with honors in 2014 from Princeton University, where she majored in English literature. Prior to HBS, Brooke worked in the film & television industry.

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Anthony Tayoun, Contributor

This month, Anthony Tayoun (MBA ’19) introduces us to Alfred, a robotic sous-chef.

1. What is the problem that you are trying to solve?
   • We are solving the labor crisis that’s currently faced by the food industry. Today, 75% of restaurants are understaffed, and turnover is 146% for certain positions. The food industry’s labor gap was traditionally filled through teenage workers; however, for the last two decades, teenagers have left the economy. With the rise of gig-economy jobs such as with Uber and Lyft, the restaurant labor pool continues to shrink. The result: 59% of restaurateurs rate staff hiring and retention as their top challenge.
2. What is your solution?
   • Our solution is using automation to fill this labor gap. We built Alfred, a robotic arm that can use utensils to assemble food. The robotic arm is made entirely of off-the-shelf hardware, and we built the software that lets the arm use spoons, ladles, tongs, and dishers to make salads, bowls, and ice cream. Alfred is a plug-and-play solution that can operate in existing restaurants such as Chipotle or Sweetgreen, change utensils on the fly, and deliver faster, cleaner, and more consistent service.
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   • Robot arms seemed like the perfectly suited tool to replicate the repetitive but somewhat flexible motion needed today to assemble a variety of meals such as salads, bowls, and many more fast foods. These are also tasks that most people dislike performing, resulting in the massive labor gap existing today. Moreover, people shifted their eating behavior, resulting in more than 50% of meals being prepared outside of the home, drastically increasing demand. After several discussions with both restaurant owners and patrons, we cemented our realization that an automation solution is desperately needed to sustain the rapid growth that the food industry is facing.
4. Who is the team behind your startup?
   • The team behind this company has graduates from Harvard, Stanford, MIT, and other top schools in the region. Our team’s experience includes years of engineering experience at The Draper Laboratory and management consulting at BCG, along with a team of advisors having robotics experts and successful leaders from the food industry.
5. How did you get started?
   • The idea behind the software came out of a breakthrough research effort by a team of collaborators from Draper Laboratory, MIT, and Harvard. After interviewing several stakeholders from the food industry, we thought that automation seems like the needed solution to address the industry’s top issues. Our first experiment was scooping ice cream, and then assembling a salad. Now we want to take Alfred out of the lab and into a real store.
6. What’s next?
   • We have a pilot install over the summer at a customer’s location in New York City, assembling salads for patrons. After this pilot is concluded, we will start rolling out the product in additional stores. We will also release a product capable of scooping ice cream. In parallel, we will be working on teaching Alfred additional skills, such as slicing, dicing, or even operating the fryer or grill.

For a video of Alfred in action, visit dexai.com/media.

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Anthony Tayoun (MBA ’19) is the co-founder of Dexai Robotics, a startup that automates activities in commercial kitchens using flexible robot arms. Prior to Dexai, Anthony worked as a consultant with the Boston Consulting Group, focusing on growth strategies. Anthony is an MBA candidate at Harvard Business School and holds a B.E. in Mechanical Engineering and a B.S. in Mathematics from the American University of Beirut. Outside of work, Anthony enjoys chasing soccer balls and exploring sunken sea treasures.