Jake Goodman (MBA ’26) shares thoroughly unelaborate musings from the Grille.
Ah, 2025. As the descent into the end of this quarter century approaches, I stand, or rather sit, poised in a calm crimson booth in Harvard Business School’s Grille, musing on the year ahead, a pepperoni polka-dotted pizza beside me. As I stare into the viscous oil lazily glazed upon my slice, I am reminded of the oh so obvious parallel to the future – viscous enough to be murky but translucent enough to peer through it.
At this venerated institution, I have learned in case discussions the value of being outspoken; as my section says: “Strong beliefs, loosely held.” Why not take a lofty swing into the outfields of the heady prediction markets, a calcified Kalshi in the Harbus? Well, here it goes: Jake’s takes on the year ahead complete with the disclaimer of no guarantee of future accuracy.
No prediction piece is complete without its share of levity, so I will warn that the following predictions lose their sense of seriousness as the article unfolds.
Artificial Intelligence
1. AI will mostly benefit productivity gains while failing to capitalize on large shifts in consumer attention. I believe AI will have strong impacts on automating certain processes, especially in the context of legacy industries (manufacturing, retail, even dentistry), but it is hard to imagine a compelling case that social media, shopping, or entertainment will see transformative shifts due to AI at least in the next year. I do not particularly enjoy the concept of using chatbots to find the ultimate sweater grab, or listening to the exact AI-generated song I want based on how I am feeling that day. I do not believe consumers are yearning for these micro-personalizations or search-based discoveries. Outside of the main chat engines like OpenAI and Perplexity, consumers will be willing to try B2C AI applications, but retention will remain depressed. In opposition, agentic solutions for highly manual tasks show the most promise with higher retention out of the gates. B2B AI will reign over B2C AI. Welcome to the age of shortcuts.
2. AI will, for the most part, not impact our day-to-day lives. To the extent software feels like a revolution, hardware has a more transformative impact on the operational humdrum of one’s life. AI will be contained to desk work, and the desk work transformation will be amazing! But to the extent technology once transformed the lived reality of our lives (e.g., cars, microwaves, mobile phones), AI will not change much on that front until several years from now. AI will perhaps accelerate the partition of software and hardware more dramatically than ever before.
Food
1. The “luxification” of grocery will grow as high income consumers expect an Erewhon-esque grocery store across most major US metros. The model has been highly successful, and despite the failure of Foxtrot, the potential to centralize higher end groceries in up and coming retail models will offer a larger challenge to traditional bodegas and corporate convenience. Luxury is spreading to all domains of physical goods. Across categories – olive oil, tinned fish, spices, mac and cheese, etcetera – the demand for status-signaling CPG in the US will continue its rise.
2. Never before has the push back against processed foods reached such a height as the proposed appointment of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The mainstreaming of skepticism towards the industrialization of groceries will force CPG companies to go on offense. While CPG startups have been effective in carving out competitive spheres in their categories by offering gut-friendly or high-protein alternatives, big CPG conglomerates will use their incumbent heft to proactively cater to the shift in public perception led by RFK. Many successful startups today might soon find it much harder to compete.
HBS
1. HBS should massively benefit from continued investments in AI. Potential applicants interested in entrepreneurship will have a vast array of non-technical prototyping tools that will continue to develop at a rapid pace, lowering the barriers to entrepreneurship while intensifying the selectiveness of true breakthrough businesses. The allure of iLab jam sessions resulting in a marketable prototype will renew VC interest in HBS and shatter the classic business school dilemma of a bunch of non-technical MBAs wanting to create technical products. If I could buy stock in the prestige of the HBS degree (well, scratch that, I guess I basically am), I would expect a higher return than alumni who graduated a few years ago expected during their time here.
2. HBS students will see growing interest in ETA as more MBAs consider ETA as a natural hedge against the accelerationism of software. Legacy businesses that produce recurring cash flow offer greater certainty in a world where the replicability of software startups and the barriers to entry feel lower than ever before. ETA will become an ever more attractive fortress of protection for entrepreneurial students looking for high ROI on the HBS degree.
Humor, or Seriousness
1. The real miscellaneous pile of what will be hot this year: spear pickles, the Grille’s Friday ice cream special, hand warmers, water bottles with pleasant spouts, baby corn as a versatile side dish, the invention of other baby vegetables, cool grape flavors besides cotton candy, Bingo as a sport, South Florida as the epicenter of politics in the United States, McDonald’s, inflation as a not-so transitory specter of politics, crypto (but not in HBS curriculum), the slow march of worldwide Fahrenheit adoption, working on a laptop without monitors, funky lamps.
2. Felipe’s will get acquired by a search fund backed by Jim Sharpe and begin franchising across BU, Northeastern, and BC campuses. They will also start expanding the free toppings to include even wackier options like parmesan cheese, olives, and pickles.
3. The Van Leeuwen in Harvard Square will underperform vs. forecast; J.P. Licks reigns supreme as the favored ice cream of the square alongside generously warm feelings for its yogurty cousin Berryline.
4. Roasted acorn squash will grow to become the most popular add-on to a well-balanced lunch at the Spangler hot bar. Acorn squash is apparently a winter squash, a fitting reminder of the solemn joys of the upcoming semester.
5. I (and everyone else) will find some type of summer opportunity that matches my career goals and interests. Okay, this last one is just me manifesting.
Jake Goodman (MBA ’26) is originally from Davie, Florida. He graduated from Brown University with an honors degree in English and Economics in 2019. Prior to HBS, Jake worked in corporate development, strategic finance, and retail strategy and operations at Gopuff, a rapid convenience app, in Miami, and for Barclays in New York City. He is an avid banjo and guitar player and misses the Florida sun dearly.