SI 2026 Entrepreneurship
Organized by Yael Hochberg, Josh Lerner, and David T. Robinson
July 20, 2026
Royal Sonesta Hotel, 40 Edwin H. Land Blvd., Cambridge, MA and zoom.us
Format: 20 minutes for the author, 15 minutes for the discussant, 10 minutes for general discussion and questions from the audience.

Monday, July 20

8:30 am

Coffee and Pastries

9:00 am

Introductions

9:05 am

Why Don’t Old Firms Do New Things?

Nicolas Crouzet, Northwestern University
Zhiguo He, Stanford University and NBER
Victor Lyonnet, University of Michigan
Yueran Ma, The University of Chicago and NBER

Discussant:
Scott Stern, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and NBER

9:45 am

The Nature of Firm Financing and Growth

Martin Aragoneses, INSEAD
Christopher Hansman, Emory University
David Licher, Imperial College London
Ramana Nanda, Imperial College London

Discussant:
TBA

10:25 am

Break

10:40 am

Venture Capital Cycles and the Startup Labor Market

Jessica Bai, Georgetown University

Discussant:
John R. Grigsby, Princeton University and NBER

11:20 am

Cash or Stock? Agency Frictions in Venture Capital Distributions

Minmo Gahng, Cornell University

Discussant:
Paul Gompers, Harvard University and NBER

12:00 pm

Lunch

1:00 pm

Does Teaching Entrepreneurship Produce Entrepreneurs?

Elif Nisa Guler, Indiana University Bloomington

Discussant:
Paul Gertler, University of California, Berkeley and NBER

1:40 pm

Prompted to Start: How Generative AI is Transforming Entrepreneurship

Jan Bena, University of British Columbia
Bo Bian, University of British Columbia
Mariassunta Giannetti, Stockholm School of Economics

Discussant:
Ajay K. Agrawal, University of Toronto and NBER

2:20 pm

Break

2:40 pm

Marginal Ideas

John J. Horton, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and NBER
Amir Sariri, Purdue University

Discussant:
TBA

3:20 pm

The Impact of Patient Capital

Yingxiang Li, City University of Hong Kong
Tong Liu, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Ting Xu, University of Toronto and NBER

Discussant:
Victoria Ivashina, Harvard University and NBER

4:00 pm

Adjourn