HBS Tech Conference (Formally named "Cyberposium") is the largest MBA technology and media conference in the world. Held at

Harvard Business School Harvard Business School (HBS) is the graduate business school of Harvard University, a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. It is consistently ranked among the top business schools in the world and offers a large full-time MBA p ...

since 1992, the conference draws some 1,300 attendees from the tech industry as well as from the VC and startup communities. Held on the campus of HBS, the Tech Conference is the primary campus event of Harvard Business School's Tech Club. The 2017 conference was held on Saturday, September 16, 2017, on the school's campus in

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

History

{, border="1" , - !Year !Theme !Keynote Speaker(s) , - , 1992/1993 , Harvard/MIT Communications 2000 Symposium at the Harvard Business School: The Dawn of a $3.5 Trillion Communications Mega-Industry - Information Access, Processing and Distribution in a Digital World ,

John Sculley John Sculley III (born April 6, 1939) is an American businessman, entrepreneur and investor in high-tech startups. Sculley was vice-president (1970–1977) and president of PepsiCo (1977–1983), until he became chief executive officer (CEO) ...

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Apple Computer Apple Inc. is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, United States. Apple is the largest technology company by revenue (totaling in 2021) and, as of June 2022, is the world's biggest company b ...

) , - , 1995/6 , Interactive Media, Internet, and Communications , , - , 1996/7 , Digital Field of Dreams ,

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Halsey Minor Halsey McLean Minor Sr. is an American businessman who is known for founding CNET in 1993, the first comprehensive consumer-facing technology content publisher. He is also the founder or co-founder of the technology companies such as the virtual ...

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CNET ''CNET'' (short for "Computer Network") is an American media website that publishes reviews, news, articles, blogs, podcasts, and videos on technology and consumer electronics globally. ''CNET'' originally produced content for radio and televi ...

) , - , 1997/8 , The Net Effect ,

Jerry Yang Jerry Chih-Yuan Yang (born November 6, 1968) is a Taiwanese-American billionaire computer programmer, internet entrepreneur, and venture capitalist. He is the co-founder and former CEO of Yahoo! Inc. As of February 2022, Yang has a net worth ...

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Yahoo! Yahoo! (, styled yahoo''!'' in its logo) is an American web services provider. It is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California and operated by the namesake company Yahoo Inc., which is 90% owned by investment funds managed by Apollo Global Man ...

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Eric Hippeau Eric Hippeau is a partner at Lerer Hippeau Ventures in New York City. Early life and education Hippeau graduated from the Lycee Francais de Londres and attended the Sorbonne University in Paris. Career Hippeau joined Ziff-Davis in 1989 as pub ...

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Ziff Davis Ziff Davis, Inc. is an American digital media and internet company. First founded in 1927 by William Bernard Ziff Sr. and Bernard George Davis, the company primarily owns technology-oriented media websites, online shopping-related services, an ...

) , - , 1998/9 , Net-working ,

Carly Fiorina Cara Carleton "Carly" Fiorina ('' née'' Sneed; born September 6, 1954) is an American businesswoman and politician, known primarily for her tenure as CEO of Hewlett-Packard (HP). As chief executive officer of HP from 1999 to 2005, Fiorina wa ...

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Lucent Lucent Technologies, Inc. was an American Multinational corporation, multinational telecommunications equipment company headquartered in Murray Hill, New Jersey, Murray Hill, New Jersey. It was established on September 30, 1996, through the dives ...

)

Guy Kawasaki Guy Kawasaki (born August 30, 1954) is an American marketing specialist, author, and Silicon Valley venture capitalist. He was one of the Apple employees originally responsible for marketing their Macintosh computer line in 1984. He popularized ...

( garage.com) Bob Lessin (

WIT Capital Wit is a form of intelligent humour, the ability to say or write things that are clever and usually funny. Someone witty is a person who is skilled at making clever and funny remarks. Forms of wit include the quip, repartee, and wisecrack. Form ...

) , - , 1999/2000 , Leading the Digital Millennium ,

Jeff Bezos Jeffrey Preston Bezos ( ;; and Robinson (2010), p. 7. ''né'' Jorgensen; born January 12, 1964) is an American entrepreneur, media proprietor, investor, and commercial astronaut. He is the founder, executive chairman, and former preside ...

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Amazon.com Amazon.com, Inc. ( ) is an American multinational technology company focusing on e-commerce, cloud computing, online advertising, digital streaming, and artificial intelligence. It has been referred to as "one of the most influential economi ...

) Dave Wetherell (

CMGI Steel Connect, Inc. is an American company that provides supply chain management services to software companies. During the dot-com bubble, the company, which was then known as CMGI, Inc., had a market capitalization of $41 billion and owned the n ...

) , - , 2000/1 , David, Goliath, and Disruption ,

Tim Koogle Timothy Andrew Koogle (born July 5, 1951) is an American executive who served as the first CEO and President of web company Yahoo! between 1995 and 2001. He served as the company's chairman from 1999 to 2003. He was named to the Top 25 Executives ...

(

) Hank Barry (

Napster Napster was a peer-to-peer file sharing application. It originally launched on June 1, 1999, with an emphasis on digital audio file distribution. Audio songs shared on the service were typically encoded in the MP3 format. It was founded by Shawn ...

)

Jim Barksdale James Love Barksdale (born January 24, 1943) is an American executive who served as the president and CEO of Netscape from January 1995 until the company merged with AOL in March 1999. Early life James Barksdale was born in Jackson, Mississipp ...

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Netscape Netscape Communications Corporation (originally Mosaic Communications Corporation) was an American independent computer services company with headquarters in Mountain View, California and then Dulles, Virginia. Its Netscape web browser was onc ...

) , - , 2001/2 , High-tech Balancing Act ,

Thomas Siebel Thomas M. Siebel (; born November 20, 1952) is an American billionaire businessman, technologist, and author. He was the founder of enterprise software company Siebel Systems and is the founder, chairman, and CEO of C3.ai, an artificial intellig ...

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Siebel Systems Siebel Systems, Inc. () was a software company principally engaged in the design, development, marketing, and support of customer relationship management (CRM) applications—notably Siebel CRM. The company was founded by Thomas Siebel and Pat ...

)

Dean Kamen Dean Lawrence Kamen (born April 5, 1951) is an American engineer, inventor, and businessman. He is known for his invention of the Segway and iBOT, as well as founding the non-profit organization FIRST with Woodie Flowers. Kamen holds over 1,000 ...

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Segway The Segway is a two-wheeled, self-balancing personal transporter invented by Dean Kamen and brought to market in 2001 as the Segway HT, subsequently as the Segway PT, and manufactured by Segway Inc. ''HT'' is an initialism for "human transp ...

) , - , 2002/3 , Finding Hope in the Tech Rubble ,

Russell Simmons Russell Wendell Simmons (born October 4, 1957) is an American entrepreneur, writer and record executive. He co-founded the hip-hop label Def Jam Recordings, and created the clothing fashion lines Phat Farm, Argyleculture, and Tantris. Simmons' ...

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Def Jam Def Jam Recordings (also simply known as Def Jam) is an American multinational record label owned by Universal Music Group. It is based in Manhattan, New York City, specializing predominantly in hip hop, contemporary R&B, soul and pop. The ...

)

Eric Janszen The given name Eric, Erich, Erikk, Erik, Erick, or Eirik is derived from the Old Norse name ''Eiríkr'' (or ''Eríkr'' in Old East Norse due to monophthongization). The first element, ''ei-'' may be derived from the older Proto-Norse ''* ain ...

( BlueSocket) , - , 2003/4 , Harnessing Technology's Promise ,

Tony Scott Anthony David Leighton Scott (21 June 1944 – 19 August 2012) was an English film director and producer. He was known for directing highly successful action and thriller films such as ''Top Gun'' (1986), ''Beverly Hills Cop II'' (1987), ''Day ...

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General Motors The General Motors Company (GM) is an American Multinational corporation, multinational Automotive industry, automotive manufacturing company headquartered in Detroit, Michigan, United States. It is the largest automaker in the United States and ...

) Eric B. Kim (

Samsung The Samsung Group (or simply Samsung) ( ko, 삼성 ) is a South Korean multinational manufacturing conglomerate headquartered in Samsung Town, Seoul, South Korea. It comprises numerous affiliated businesses, most of them united under the ...

)

Linda Sanford Linda S. Sanford (born 1953) is an American technology executive. She worked at IBM prior to her retirement on December 31, 2014, where she was the senior vice president of Enterprise Transformation. Her previous positions at IBM included senior ...

( IBM) , - , 2004/5 , Realizing the Value of Convergence ,

F. Thomson Leighton Frank Thomson "Tom" Leighton (born 1956) is the CEO of Akamai Technologies, the company he co-founded with the late Daniel Lewin in 1998.Erik Nygren, Ramesh Sitaraman, and Jennifer Sun. As one of the world's preeminent authorities on algorithms ...

( Akamai)

Fred Weber Charles Frederick Weber III is a former vocalist for the new wave band Devo in its earliest incarnation.The Devo Book
...

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AMD Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) is an American multinational semiconductor company based in Santa Clara, California, that develops computer processors and related technologies for business and consumer markets. While it initially manufactur ...

) , - , 2005/6 , Techknowledge for Tomorrow ,

Jim Balsillie James Laurence Balsillie (born February 3, 1961) is a Canadian businessman and philanthropist. He is the former Chair and co-CEO of the Canadian technology company Research In Motion (Blackberry), which at its prime made over $20B in sales annua ...

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Research In Motion BlackBerry Limited is a Canadian software company specializing in cybersecurity. Founded in 1984, it was originally known as Research In Motion (RIM). As RIM, it developed the BlackBerry brand of interactive pagers, smartphones, and tablets ...

)

Geoffrey Moore Geoffrey Moore (born 1946) is an American organizational theorist, management consultant and author, known for his work '' Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling High-Tech Products to Mainstream Customers''.

(Author)

Elon Musk Elon Reeve Musk ( ; born June 28, 1971) is a business magnate and investor. He is the founder, CEO and chief engineer of SpaceX; angel investor, CEO and product architect of Tesla, Inc.; owner and CEO of Twitter, Inc.; founder of The Bori ...

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SpaceX Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) is an American spacecraft manufacturer, launcher, and a satellite communications corporation headquartered in Hawthorne, California. It was founded in 2002 by Elon Musk with the stated goal of ...

) , - , 2006/7 , Need Directions? Mapping Future Technology ,

Marissa Mayer Marissa Ann Mayer (; born May 30, 1975) is an American businesswoman and investor. She is an information technology executive, and co-founder of Sunshine Contacts. Mayer formerly served as the president and chief executive officer of Yahoo!, a p ...

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Google Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics. ...

)

Ed Colligan Edward "Ed" Colligan (born March 4, 1961) is a former president and CEO of Palm, Inc. which was acquired by Hewlett-Packard in 2010. Colligan now is a small business investor, serves on a number of boards, and advises start-up companies. Colligan ...

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Palm Palm most commonly refers to: * Palm of the hand, the central region of the front of the hand * Palm plants, of family Arecaceae **List of Arecaceae genera * Several other plants known as "palm" Palm or Palms may also refer to: Music * Palm (ba ...

) Steve Papa (

Endeca Endeca was a software company headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that sold eCommerce search, customer experience management, enterprise search and business intelligence applications. Endeca was founded in 1999 as Optigrab and was a privat ...

) , - , 2007/8 , Innovation without Borders ,

Ray Kurzweil Raymond Kurzweil ( ; born February 12, 1948) is an American computer scientist, author, inventor, and futurist. He is involved in fields such as optical character recognition (OCR), text-to-speech synthesis, speech recognition technology, and e ...

Philip Rosedale Philip Rosedale (born September 29, 1968) is an American entrepreneur who founded Linden Lab, which develops and hosts the virtual world ''Second Life''. Biography Early life Rosedale was born in San Diego, California, in 1968. He took an inter ...

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Linden Lab Linden Research, Inc., doing business as Linden Lab, is an American technology company that is best known as the creator of ''Second Life''. The company's head office is in San Francisco, with additional offices in Boston, Seattle, Virginia an ...

)

Walt Mossberg Walter S. Mossberg (born March 27, 1947) is an American technology journalist and moderator. From 1991 through 2013, he was the principal technology columnist for ''The Wall Street Journal''. He also co-founded '' AllThingsD'', ''Recode'' a ...

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The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...

'') , - , 2008/9 , Emerging and Converging ,

Craig Newmark Craig Alexander Newmark (born December 6, 1952) is an American internet entrepreneur and philanthropist best known as the founder of the classifieds website Craigslist. Prior to founding Craigslist, he worked as a computer programmer for companie ...

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Craigslist Craigslist (stylized as craigslist) is an American classified advertisements website with sections devoted to jobs, housing, for sale, items wanted, services, community service, Gig worker, gigs, résumés, and discussion forums. Craig Newmark ...

) Mark Jannot (''

Popular Science ''Popular Science'' (also known as ''PopSci'') is an American digital magazine carrying popular science content, which refers to articles for the general reader on science and technology subjects. ''Popular Science'' has won over 58 awards, incl ...

'') , - , 2010/11 , Battle of the Platforms , Joe Kennedy (

Pandora In Greek mythology, Pandora (Greek: , derived from , ''pān'', i.e. "all" and , ''dōron'', i.e. "gift", thus "the all-endowed", "all-gifted" or "all-giving") was the first human woman created by Hephaestus on the instructions of Zeus. As Hes ...

) Peter Chou (

HTC HTC Corporation ( zh, t=宏達國際電子股份有限公司, s=宏达国际电子股份有限公司, p=Hóngdá Guójì Diànzǐ Gǔfèn Yǒuxiàn Gōngsī, first=t) or High Tech Computer Corporation, (literally ''Hongda International Electron ...

) , - , 2011/12 , Sky's the Limit? ,

Brad Smith Brad or Bradley Smith may refer to: Sportspeople * Bradley Smith (cricketer) (born 1969), English former cricketer * Brad Smith (footballer, born 1948), Australian rules footballer and premiership coach of East Fremantle * Brad Smith (ice hockey) ...

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Intuit Intuit Inc. is an American business software company that specializes in financial software. The company is headquartered in Mountain View, California, and the CEO is Sasan Goodarzi. Intuit's products include the tax preparation application Tu ...

) Jack Trenton (

Sony , commonly stylized as SONY, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. As a major technology company, it operates as one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer and professional ...

) Katie Mitic (

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin M ...

) , - , 2012/13 , The Battle for Access ,

Drew Houston Andrew W. Houston (; born March 4, 1983) is an American Internet entrepreneur, and the co-founder and CEO of Dropbox, an online backup and storage service. According to ''Forbes'', his net worth is about $2.2 billion. Houston held 24.4 percent v ...

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Dropbox Dropbox is a file hosting service operated by the American company Dropbox, Inc., headquartered in San Francisco, California, U.S. that offers cloud storage, file synchronization, personal cloud, and Client (computing), client software. Dropb ...

) Lee Hower (

LinkedIn LinkedIn () is an American business and employment-oriented online service that operates via websites and mobile apps. Launched on May 5, 2003, the platform is primarily used for professional networking and career development, and allows job se ...

)

Alexa Hirschfeld Alexa Hirschfeld is an entrepreneur Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value. With this definition, entrepreneurship is viewed as change, generally entailing risk beyond what is normally encountered in starting a busi ...

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Paperless Post Paperless Post is a software company based in New York City that enables creating, sending, and managing online invitations and events. Product Paperless Post invitations and cards are designed both in-house and by exclusive design partners such a ...

) , - , 2013/14 , Techonomy 2.0 ,

Travis Kalanick Travis Cordell Kalanick (; born August 6, 1976) is an American businessman best known as the co-founder and former chief executive officer (CEO) of Uber. Previously he worked for Scour, a peer-to-peer file sharing application company, and was th ...

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Uber Uber Technologies, Inc. (Uber), based in San Francisco, provides mobility as a service, ride-hailing (allowing users to book a car and driver to transport them in a way similar to a taxi), food delivery (Uber Eats and Postmates), package ...

)

Rich Miner Rich Miner (born 1964) is an investment partner on the GV team. Miner joined the GV team in March, 2009 and is based out of Cambridge, MA. Before joining GV, Miner was a co-founder of Android, Inc., origin of the Android mobile operating sys ...

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Google Ventures GV is a venture capital investment arm of Alphabet Inc., founded by Bill Maris, that provides Seed investment, seed, Venture capital financing, venture, and Growth investing, growth stage funding to technology companies. Founded as Google Venture ...

) Bill Clerico (

WePay WePay is an online payment service provider based in the United States. It provides an integrated and customizable payment solution, through its APIs, to platform businesses such as crowdfunding sites, marketplaces and small business software co ...

) , - , 2014/15 , Future Within Focus ,

Sam Altman Samuel H. Altman ( ; born April 22, 1985) is an American entrepreneur, investor, programmer, and blogger. He is the CEO of OpenAI and the former president of Y Combinator. Early life and education Altman grew up in St. Louis, Missouri; his mothe ...

( YCombinator)

Matt Wallach Timothy Charles Wallach (born September 14, 1957) is an American former professional baseball player and coach. He played seventeen seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a third baseman, most notably for the Montreal Expos from to . A five- ...

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Veeva Systems Veeva Systems Inc. is an American cloud-computing company focused on pharmaceutical and life sciences industry applications. Headquartered in Pleasanton, California, it was founded in 2007 by Peter Gassner and Matt Wallach. It works with software ...

) Jennifer Fleiss (

Rent the Runway Rent the Runway is an e-commerce platform that allows users to rent, subscribe, or buy designer apparel and accessories. It was founded by Jennifer Hyman and Jennifer Fleiss, who launched the company in November 2009. History In 2007, Hyman ...

)

Zach Nelson Zach Nelson served as president and chief executive officer of NetSuite, Inc. prior to its acquisition by Oracle Corp. Early life and education Nelson was born in Omaha, Nebraska in 1961, and was one of 10 children. He holds B.S. and M.A. degr ...

and Evan Goldberg ( NetSuite)

Chris Hulls Chris Hulls is an American entrepreneur and business executive, best known for being the founder of the family networking app Life360. Life and education Hulls lives in Point Reyes, California. Hulls attended Tomales High School where he gradu ...

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Life360 Life360 Inc. is a San Francisco, California–based American information technology company that provides location-based services, including sharing and notifications, to consumers globally. Its main service is called Life360, a family social n ...

) , - , 2015/2016 , , , - , 2016/2017 , Hello World ,

Brendan Iribe Brendan Trexler Iribe (; born August 12, 1979) is an American game programmer, entrepreneur and the original CEO and co-founder of Oculus VR, Inc. and Scaleform. He is the managing partner at BIG Ventures, an early-stage venture fund. Early lif ...

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Oculus VR Reality Labs is a business of Meta Platforms (formerly Facebook Inc.) that produces virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) hardware and software, including virtual reality headsets such as Quest, and online platforms such as Horizon W ...

)

Max Levchin Maksymilian Rafailovych "Max" Levchin ( uk, Максиміліан Рафаїлович Левчин; born July 11, 1975) is a Ukrainian-American software engineer and businessman. In 1998, he co-founded the company that eventually became PayP ...

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PayPal PayPal Holdings, Inc. is an American multinational financial technology company operating an online payments system in the majority of countries that support online money transfers, and serves as an electronic alternative to traditional paper ...

) Apoorva Mehta (

Instacart Instacart is an American company that operates a grocery delivery and pick-up service in the United States and Canada. The company offers its services via a website and mobile app. The service allows customers to order groceries from participatin ...

) , - , 2017/2018 , The Future We're Building , Bozoma Saint John (Uber) Deep Nishar (SoftBank) Carolyn Everson (Facebook)

External links

Tech Conference HBS Website

Tech Club at Harvard Business School
Harvard University Technology conferences