“HBS is intense.”
Those three words sparked a recent lunchtime conversation with some section-mates, the observation casually dropped in between bites of food. Several heads nodded in agreement. I sat with it for a moment, letting my mind wander through the past few months of cases, cold calls, and coffee chats. The rhythm of our days here — the constant flow of ideas, seamless context-switching between fiduciary duties and Keynesian economics, perpetual juggle of club events and industry conferences — has all become somehow normal.
“I don’t think it’s that intense,” I said.
Four pairs of eyes turned to stare at me as if I’d just proposed we skip the next day’s cases to go skydiving. I watched their bewildered expressions and followed up with, “I guess it depends on what you mean by intense.”
My section-mate smiled, leaning back slightly. “You know, I’ve heard from so many people whose friends have come to visit. They sit in on a class and afterward say they’re mentally exhausted just from watching — all the rapid fire questions, the debates, the constant back-and-forth. But exhausted in a good way, I think.”
A thoughtful silence settled over our table. “Maybe we don’t think it’s intense anymore because we’re so deep in it,” another section-mate offered. “If you’d shown me a recording of an HBS class a year ago, I probably would’ve thought it was insane, too.”
The exchange made me pause and consider how quickly we normalize our surroundings. Like fish unaware of the water they swim in, we become blind to the extraordinary nature of our daily experiences. As I review the stories filling this edition of The Harbus, the notion of shifting viewpoints surfaces as a central thread, reminding me that sometimes it takes an outside perspective to reveal what we’ve stopped seeing.
Take our exploration of leadership and ethics, for instance. Several pieces challenge us to examine how our understanding of “good leadership” evolves with time and context. When we zoom out, patterns emerge in how organizations navigate ethical crossroads, how leaders learn from missteps, and how our own ideas on responsibility adjust as we move between roles — from student to leader, from analyst to decision-maker. These articles invite us to question our assumptions about corporate stewardship and governance, demonstrating how successful organizations adapt their practices while staying loyal to their core principles.
This spirit of reexamination extends to our coverage of industries in transformation. From technology reshaping emerging markets to shifting dynamics in venture capital, we explore how stepping back from the day-to-day noise reveals deeper currents of change. These pieces suggest that sometimes the most profound industry reforms aren’t apparent when we’re caught up in quarterly earnings or market fluctuations; they only become clear when we consider the broader arc of progress. Whether examining how traditional companies engineer emotional connections or tracking the world’s response to climate change, these articles highlight how diverse perspectives can disrupt classic frameworks for the better.
Finally, this issue features stories that capture individual journeys of evolution and remind us how personal growth often requires us to examine our experiences from unfamiliar vantage points. These pieces showcase members of our community who have challenged their own assumptions, broken away from conventional paths, and reimagined what impact really means. They remind us that beneath the metrics of success and achievement lies a more fundamental quest to understand our purpose, investigate what truly matters, and find authentic ways of moving through the world. In this endless pursuit of collective wisdom, we might find that our greatest insights arise not from certainty, but from the courage to question.
The Harbus strives to create these moments of cognitive dissonance. While classroom visitors help us recognize the remarkable within our storied routines, these pages interrogate established paradigms of business strategy and organizational behavior. Today’s global landscape demands executives who can discern underlying patterns while navigating immediate challenges. In a world where technological advancement often outpaces human comprehension, where market dynamics shift before theories can explain them, the most effective solutions come from leaders who can synthesize ancient dogma with modern imperatives — balancing data with intuition, profit with purpose, and speed with deliberation.
That lunchtime conversation has lingered with me, a reminder that our most valuable insights often materialize when we dare to question what we’ve accepted as ordinary. Perhaps the true benchmark for prosperity isn’t how well we acclimate to intensity, but how willing we remain to abandon our conformed states. In these moments of self-examination, we might find not just clarity about our present circumstances, but also foresight about how to shape what lies ahead.
Michelle Yu (MBA ‘26) is passionate about all things media, with experience in business news, documentary film, broadcast journalism, and television. She graduated from Columbia University with a degree in Film and Media Studies and worked for CNBC, NBC News, and CNN prior to HBS, along with projects for HBO, Showtime, Oxygen, and Spectrum.
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