Entrepreneurs or Extortionists?

Secretly or openly, many Harvard students harbor aspirations to be the next Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg. This behavior manifests itself in the skyrocketing number of student organizations and enterprises. There are clubs devoted to starting other clubs and businesses devoted to founding other businesses. Overall, despite the shrinking student funding resources and questions about genuine motives, this entrepreneurial bent is beneficial to the Harvard community. Students are better able to pursue their interests because of increasingly specialized organizations that bring in speakers and provide opportunities that would otherwise be absent. The entrepreneurs themselves also acquire valuable skills in the process—such as budgeting, networking, and managing—that will serve them well in the future.

However, recent behavior this year has raised doubt about the “entrepreneurial” spirit of Harvard students. After Harvard-Yale tickets were sold out, it became apparent that there was a large gap between supply and demand. Students—such as seniors who did not want to miss their last Game—scrambled for tickets, pleading over e-mail lists for those with extra. Within minutes, some students offered up their tickets for free, at face value, or a little above. However, these benevolent e-mails were immediately followed by those from “entrepreneurial” students, who offered their tickets at a few hundred percent above face value. In some cases they even set up bidding wars, either officially on eBay or through the abbreviation OBO—“Or Better Offer.” These students are not entrepreneurs; they are extortionists.

To be clear, I am not bitter about paying $80 for a ticket I could have obtained for free. Fortunately, I collected my tickets early and escaped the extortion. A further point of clarification: I took Ec 10. I know about the value of price discrimination and increasing the overall utility by allowing market forces to settle on efficient prices. I respect—and am an advocate of—the capitalistic system. However, it is not acceptable for Harvard students to take advantage of their peers, especially for entry into an event that is devoted to fostering a sense of Harvard community. While we rejoiced when Harvard won the Game, our fellow ticket “brokers” tarnished our community well before kickoff.

However, this was not an isolated incident. We witnessed the recidivism of these student “entrepreneurs” in the days leading up to the joint formal of Mather, Winthrop and Currier Houses. Tickets were $15 each and sold out earlier than expected. Again, within a few minutes of the desperate e-mails on the house lists, some students began selling their tickets for as high as $75 or 500 percent of face value. The absurd prices prompted others to make their own mythical sales: “Selling formal ticket—first -born child/OBO.” Jokes aside, this behavior should not be tolerated for three reasons: It takes unfair advantage of our peers, particularly those on significant financial aid; it blemishes our sense of community; and it encourages the perpetrating students to continue their behavior.

Ticket scalping within the Harvard community is unfair to our peers. Granted, students could have collected their tickets earlier. But the penalty for procrastination should not be hyper-inflated prices. It is no secret that a large portion of the student body is able and willing to pay ludicrous prices to attend events like the Game, formals, and Commencement, but what of the students on significant financial aid? Though they would gain equal amount of pleasure from attending the Game, they face tradeoffs. When it comes to choosing between a football game and next semester’s textbooks, there is no contest. Therefore, these peers of ours have to be extra vigilant about collecting their tickets in time since they do not have their parents’ bank account to fall back on.

Moreover, most of us take pride in the Harvard community. Events such as the Game and house formals are meant to augment our community spirit—indeed, these are the few times we exit our self-obsessed lives to fight against a common enemy (Yale) or enjoy one another’s company. Relationships between those who rip off and those who get ripped off, as well as all of the witnesses, are certainly strained. The exchange can be compared to the sketchy guy on the dance floor who is taking advantage of an inebriated peer, except the victim knows he or she has been ripped off. The mere knowledge that such predators live among us is shameful. Also, for a community that strongly believes in social justice, it is surprising that there have not been more objections to the extortion within our houses.

Finally, by tolerating price gouging, we encourage the perpetrating students to continue doing it. In the short term, savvy students will begin buying extra tickets to popular events that are guaranteed to sell out in the hopes of making a tidy profit every time a formal takes place. This is the most innocuous result, however. If these students, who almost certainly take pride in their financial acumen, have any political or business aspirations, they will eventually plague the broader community with their gouging methods. Given our current economic crisis and the recent impeachment of Illinois governor Rod R. Blagojevich (Senate seat: $500,000/OBO), there has been renewed discussion about ethical practices of our business and political leaders. Perhaps these leaders developed their avarice-driven ways in college, under the guise of entrepreneurship.

Though Harvard and our community should promote entrepreneurship, it is important to make a distinction between free enterprise and gouging. Students who attempt to rip off fellow students should be chastised, rather than encouraged by successfully completing transactions.


Shiv M. Gaglani ’10 is a biomedical engineering concentrator in Mather House.