Case Archive

A synthesis of all the known public sources on how the Pritzker family made their wealth. The Pritzkers own the Hyatt Hotel chain and Marmon, an industrials conglomerate. This is a story of incredible capital allocation.

Four Seasons is known today as the most consistent scaled luxury hotel brand. But how did it shift from hotel owner to asset-light manager, and how did it scale?

How the BlackBerry phone was killed by the iPhone ... a not-so-straightforward story of technological disruption.

How a so-called technological disruptor, Netflix, was nearly killed by the incumbent, Blockbuster, before it made a grievous error.

It’s difficult to imagine today, but databases were once a hot technology, in a crowded field. This is the story of how Oracle won the database wars of the 70s.

Ford was the only American automaker who didn’t need a bailout in the Great Recession. How did they adapt to an unprecedented financial calamity?

Amazon is known as one of the few dotcom darlings that survived the dotcom bust. This is how they did it.

McKinsey founded his eponymous firm, but died before it scaled globally. This is the story of how McKinsey’s protege Marvin Bower built McKinsey into the firm we know today.

How an accounting professor started a firm that changed the world.

How Yvon Chouinard — a ‘reluctant businessman’ built Patagonia to show the world that it was possible to make money and do good for the environment.

This is the story of how the creation of the Swatch Group, and its namesake plastic watch, led to the turnaround of the entire Swiss watch industry.

What happens when business expansion, done for entirely rational reasons, ends up tanking your company because of a once-in-a-generation disaster that nobody could have foreseen?

Ample Hills Creamery exploded on the back of influential fans. And then it died. Here's why this is a textbook example of bad business expansion.

How Leonard Lauder steered the brand through a disruptive shift unlike any other.

How Mark Roberge went from engineering to sales and built a high performance sales organisation from scratch.

What it looks like when you apply statistical process control the a fourth grade science class.

Apart from being a successful turnaround CEO, there is one other thing about Jim Kilts that is highly unusual: his ability to create a deep bench of executive leaders in every company he helmed. This is how he did it.

How Snowflake’s Chief Revenue Officer Chris Degnan helped Snowflake find product market fit.

What Dhirubhai Ambani’s fight against Nusli Wadia shows us about doing business in rising India.

How Kwek Leng Beng picked the way he played the hotel game, built specifically around the way he was trained ... and won.