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Tegan Passalacqua, a Californian winemaker who specializes in making 'old vine' wine, is the head winemaker at Turley Wine Cellars, a leading Zinfandel producer. In his spare time, however, he makes premium wines under the Sandlands label using Turley's facilities and 'forgotten' grape varieties such as Carignane, Mataro, and Chenin Blanc. The objective of the case is to understand what makes the industry so challenging, why Passalacqua has succeeded to date, and whether his success will persist into the future. 

As the COVID pandemic spread in early 2020, global travel ground to a halt. For Airbnb, the San Francisco-based platform for renting accommodations, the impact was both swift and severe as revenues plummeted more than 70% over the prior year. In the highly uncertain environment that existed in April 2020, CEO Brian Chesky and his team had to make many critical decisions with little precedent and limited information to guide them. As one of the first Silicon Valley 'unicorns' to adopt a stakeholder business model, the world would be watching to see what they did, how they did it, and why.

This case is set in August 1999, just after Iridium, a global communications firm, declared bankruptcy. It describes Iridium's creation, development, commercial launch and financial performance. Using analyst forecasts, students can value the firm prior to its bankruptcy and will see how difficult it is to value technology start-ups given the uncertainty in demand.