Rem Koning plans AI classroom examples

Rem Koning’s May 19 X post was short, but it pointed to a larger shift in how entrepreneurship is being taught. Koning, a Harvard Business School professor, wrote that AI is changing “the production function for startups,” adding that the change will affect “organization, strategy, and who works in these firms.” He said he planned to bring examples such as Gamma and Lovable into the classroom and asked people to send related pieces and teaching materials. Harvard Business School identifies Koning as the Mary V. and Mark A. Stevens Associate Professor of Business Administration and says his current research examines how AI is transforming entrepreneurship, from microenterprises in Jakarta to startups in San Francisco. The school also says he teaches a second-year elective, Strategy for Entrepreneurs, built around case discussion and hands-on exercises. (hbs.edu) ### Why would Gamma and Lovable be useful teaching examples? Gamma is already part of Koning’s published teaching work. Harvard Business School says Koning co-authored a case, “Gamma: Slides in the Blink of AI,” released in December 2025 and revised in February 2026. The case describes Gamma as an AI-powered presentation startup that reached $50 million in annual recurring revenue with 30 employees while building engineering, design, marketing and customer support around AI tools. (hbs.edu) Lovable is an AI app-building platform that says users can create apps, websites and digital products by chatting with AI. Its documentation describes the company as a full-stack AI development platform for building and deploying web applications in natural language, and its founders page pitches the product as an “AI cofounder” for startup builders. ### What does Koning mean by AI changing the “production function” for startups? (hbs.edu) A March 2026 working paper co-authored by Hyunjin Kim, Dahyeon Kim and Koning gives the clearest published version of that argument. The paper studied 515 high-growth startups and said firms that received information about how peers reorganized production around AI found more use cases, completed 12% more tasks, were 18% more likely to acquire paying customers and generated 1.9 times higher revenue. (lovable.dev) The same paper said treated firms’ demand for external capital fell by 39.5% relative to a control group, while labor demand remained unchanged. The authors wrote that the evidence suggests the bottleneck is not only access to AI tools, but discovering where and how to deploy them inside the firm. ### Why does that spill into organization and strategy? Gamma’s case offers one answer. (hbs.edu) Harvard Business School says the company built “every part of the company” around AI tools and remained lean while serving millions of users, but it also faced pressure from incumbents such as Microsoft and Google and from newer AI startups. That framing ties operating design directly to competitive strategy, not just software adoption. Lovable offers a different classroom angle. Its materials emphasize that founders can move from idea to production-ready app in days without a technical cofounder, a claim that goes directly to questions about team composition, hiring and the boundary between product, engineering and design work. ### What is Koning asking for now? Koning’s May 19 post invited people to send “related pieces/materials” for classroom use. (hbs.edu) That suggests he is still assembling examples rather than announcing a finished syllabus. Harvard Business School already hosts at least one AI-startup case under his name, and his March 2026 working paper provides a research frame for the same topic. Those are the clearest places to watch for the next step in how he turns the Gamma and Lovable examples into teaching material. (lovable.dev) (hbs.edu) (x.com)